vacancy BENJAMIN CARPENTER of Guilford was appointed by the Convention at Windsor, Dec. 24, 1777, of which appointment Col. CARPENTER was notified by a letter from the Council, by JONAS FAY, dated 10 January, 1778.1

New York authorities, conveying land under a New York title, and with endeavoring to seduce and inveigle the people to be subject to the laws and government of the colony of New York. Spencer was found guilty on all these charges, his house was declared to be a nuisance which must be burnt, and he was required to promise that he would no longer act as a New York magistrate. Spencer objected that the destruction of his house and property would be cruelty to his wife and children, whereupon the court, upon Warner's suggestion, decided that the house should be spared, but the roof taken off, to be replaced again when Spencer would accept it under a New Hampshire title. To this he agreed, when the roof was taken off "with great shouting and much noise and tumult," and Spencer was discharged, promising not to act under New York. Other Yorkers in Clarendon were visited in like manner, with salutary effect, and then Ethan Allen adroitly and justly pledged the Green Mountain Boys to protect those Yorkers, who would quiet their titles by covering the New York grants with New Hampshire grants, from any exactions which might be attempted upon them on these forced purchases, -offering them the land "at a reasonable rate, as new lands were valued at the time you [they] purchased them" originally. By this process Spencer was reconciled to the new state, so that he accepted the position of delegate in the Convention at Windsor, June 4, 1777, pledging himself to stand by the new state and “to resist by arms the fleets and armies of Great Britain." It is probable that he was a delegate in the July Convention also, as he was appointed a member of the Council of Safety. However, when Burgoyne's army advanced into the country, heralded by vaunting proclamations, Spencer sought personal safety with the enemy at Ticonderoga, and, it is said, died at that post a few weeks afterward.—Early History, pp. 169, 170, 172–177, 258.

In his address to the Legislature, printed in 1808, (and quoted in the appendix to D. P. THOMPSON'S Address, 1850,) IRA ALLEN said:

Abel [Benjamin] Spencer of Clarendon, who had been a stickler for New York, had been suddenly converted to an advocate for a new State, and so ingratiated himself as a good whig, that he was elected a member of the Council of Safety. Mr. Allen declared he would not take a seat in the Council if Spencer did; and that he should not be surprised if Spencer should go to Burgoyne's camp, which he did, and died with the British soon after.

There were two Spencers known to Allen, and both went to the enemy -Abel for a short time. He was tried, convicted, and fined. Afterward he became a very prominent man, much in public service. Allen's memory was in fault.

1 See letter of that date, post.

There is still to be added, on the authority of IRA ALLEN, member and first secretary of the Council, the name of Capt. HEMAN ALLEN, who, about that period, resided at Bennington, Arlington, or Sunderland, at his convenience, though his intended home probably was Colchester. He died May 18, 1778.1

Still another name is to be added on the authority of Hon. MYRON CLARK of Manchester, to wit: that of Maj. JEREMIAH CLARK of Shaftsbury. MYRON CLARK was a grandson, and lived in the Major's family from the age of ten years till he was sixteen. He has recorded the tradition of the family in full faith of its accuracy, as none will doubt who know the character of the man.

2

The number of members of the Council thus ascertained,-on authority which can hardly be contradicted, even if in some points it is not entirely satisfactory, is eleven. The twelfth member is most probably to be ascertained from the list suggested by the Rev. Mr. WHITE, as follows:

There is good reason to believe that Samuel Robinson, Matthew Lyon, Thomas Rowley, Gideon Olin and Benjamin Carpenter were also members. 3

Col. CARPENTER is of course to be omitted from this list, as his name has already been included vice SPENCER. If the remaining names in this list are added to the eleven already ascertained, then the total number of the Council would be fifteen, which is three too many, The result is that only one name is wanted, either that of Samuel Robinson, or Matthew Lyon, or Thomas Rowley, or Gideon Olin. To make this selection a consideration of the position of each of these gentlemen at the time is indispensable.

SAMUEL ROBINSON, of Bennington, was in full vigor of manhood in August, 1777, 39 years of age; but he was full of work also which demanded all his strength-his duties then being those of a captain of militia engaged in active field service, and overseer of tories and prisoners, of which he had many on his hands as the fruits of the victory of Bennington. A large portion of the orders of the Council are addressed to him, touching these last offices. It is not very probable, certainly, that the duties of a member of the Council were superadded.

THOMAS ROWLEY, then resident of Danby, died in 1796, at seventyfive years of age, which would make him fifty-six in 1777. He was then chairman of the Committe of Safety of Danby. He was the poet of Vermont in his day, and zealously and effectively used his powers of wit and satire against New York; but it is noticeable that he was clearly identified with only one of the many great revolutionary movements in Vermont previous to 1777. By the Dorset Convention of Jan. 16, 1776, he

'I. Allen's History of Vermont in Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. I, p. 388. Vt. Hist. Mag., vol. 1, p. 236.

2

was appointed, with JONAS FAY and Col. WM. MARSH, to draw a petition to Congress, and he was probably a delegate in that Convention, but from the record of that petition, as it is incorporated in the journal of the Convention of July 24 following, it appears that the petition was "per JONAS FAY, IRA ALLEN, Committee appointed." A biographer of Mr. ROWLEY, in Vt. Hist. Mag., vol. 1, p. 98, claims that he “participated largely in the deliberations of those who declared Vermont a free and independent State, and aided in framing its first Constitution." This implies that he was a member of the Windsor Convention of July, 1777, and yet all the record evidence in his case up to 1777 has just been cited. Conceding that he may have had all the qualifications needed as a member of the Council, which sat at Bennington almost constantly from July 28, 1777, to March 6, 1778, Mr. ROWLEY's residence and duties at Danby, as chairman of its Committee of Safety, militate seriously against the theory that he was a member of the Council.

Maj. GIDEON OLIN was thirty-four years of age in 1777, and he had fine qualities for the office of Councillor, which were afterwards manifested by honorable service for thirty years in various and important offices; and yet the record shows that he had not fairly entered upon his public life until after the Council of Safety had ended its work. He was appointed Major June 6, 1778-three months after the Council had closed; and in 1778 also he entered the General Assembly.2

The last name on the Rev. Mr. WHITE's list, and most probably the right one to be selected, is that of MATTHEW LYON, then of Arlington. In a memoir of THOMAS CHITTENDEN, by Hon. DAVID READ, in Vt. Hist. Mag., vol. 1, p. 911, it is said that LYON was a member of the Council. The editor is inclined to put little stress upon this, however, from a surmise that Mr. READ has taken the partly ascertained and partly suggested list of Mr. WHITE as the roll of the Council. The only difference is, that Stephen Fay is given instead of "Joseph Fay," which was, possibly, a slip of the pen or an error of the press. In any event, the list embraces fourteen, which is too large a number. In the absence

'Ante p. 19. This may mean that they were appointed simply to verify the copy. The editor is of opinion that JONAS FAY and IRA ALLEN were the authors, chiefly, of the petition, and that it was drawn in anticipation of the Convention. FAY was chairman of the committee appointed to draw it, and also one of the agents selected to present it to Congress. IRA ALLEN was not in the habit of waiting for an appointment to act on such occasions. He was "the ready writer" of his day, and a willing

one.

2 Vt. Hist. Mag., vol. 1, p. 234.

Since the above was in type, the editor has received a letter from Mr. READ, dated March 5, 1873, in which he says he does not recollect his authority, though he presumed it to be undoubted. He wrote with the Stevens' papers in his possession, but he suggests that he may have

of all undoubted authority, the probability of LYON having been a member must be deduced from known facts concerning him at the time. He went into Arlington to reside in 1777, with THOMAS CHITTENDEN and JOHN FASSETT, jr., not to become permanent residents, but for the express purpose of overthrowing the power of the Tories in that town. LYON had before lived with CHITTENDEN, and now they took opposite houses and constructed a vault between the two as a prison for Tories. JOHN FASSETT, Jr., was also in the immediate neighborhood, and IRA ALLEN was only three miles off. Capt. HEMAN ALLEN is not named, but he certainly could not be very far from IRA. Here, then, were certainly three members of the Council of Safety: why should not LYON —a recognized associate with all the rest, not many years after becoming the son-in-law of CHITTENDEN,-why should not LYON be the fourth member of the Council located in this most important strategetical point? His character as a bold and energetic man, his intense patriotism, and his talents, were equal to the position. His age was thirty-one, being five years the senior of IRA ALLEN. A fact of some moment is, that shortly after, in 1778, LYON was elected deputy Secretary of the Governor and Council, when seven members of the Council of Safety were in that body. He was deputy Secretary of the Council often, and Secretary of the Board of War. This shows not only that his aptitude for public affairs was recognized, but also that he was entrusted with the secrets of the Council, which was then acting as a Council of Safety and Board of War. Assuming, as it is certainly safe to do, that LYON was qualified for the place, his close relations with Chittenden and the Allens, and the convenience oftentimes of having him a member to make up a quorum, in the frequent absences of IRA and the illness of HEMAN ALLEN, are the strong points in favor of the probability that he, rather than any other man suggested by Mr. WHITE, or any other man who can be sug

taken his list from D. P. THOMPSON's address before the Vt. Historical

Society, Oct. 24, 1850. Mr. R. admits that Stephen was an error for Joseph Fay. Thompson's list agrees with Mr. White's. D. P. Thompson's historical statements are to be taken with great allowances for error. His habit for years was to build superstructures of fiction upon a very narrow basis of fact, having the air but not the accuracy of history. His address was eminently of that character. Messrs. White, Thompson and Read all include LYON in the Council, and yet their lists prove too much, by giving too many members. In Vt. Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. II, pp. 135-7, are the reports of British agents, who speak of LYON as expressing to them the views of the Governor and his Council; and one of them says he [Lyon] was "one of the Council." Lyon was never a member of any "Council," unless it was the Council of Safety, which closed more than two years previous to these reports. He did act at times as Secretary of the Governor and Council. Probably this evidence is valuable only as it shows that Lyon was in the confidence of the

gested, was the twelfth member of the Council of Safety. There was, perhaps, one man in Eastern Vermont who might be as reasonably suggested but for one consideration,-and that was JOSEPH MArsh. The fatal objection is, that he could not attend without abandoning his family and business for months. The great point of danger was in and near Bennington county; there the Council must constantly sit to be effective, and there it actually did sit for nearly eight months, and until within a week of the state organization which superseded it. Another name might have been suggested in western Vermont, that of JOHN FASSETT, Jr.; but with his military duties, and the exactions upon his time and energies as Commissioner of Sequestration, he had full enough to do.

It is remarkable, the editor must confess, if LYON was a member, that the fact should not somewhere appear from his own declarations, or from unquestioned contemporary sources. The truth, however, is, that records and traditions, thus far preserved, both of the Windsor Convention and the Council of Safety, are fragmentary: the records prove nothing as to three of the members. If LYON is to be rejected for want of official evidence, so are HEMAN ALLEN' and JEREMIAH CLARK, at least. The claims of each of these rest either upon assertion simply, or upon known facts which raise a reasonable presumption of membership. The official record of the Council of Safety proves the following eight members only, and that by the offices they held-the office of Secretary not furnishing, in itself alone, absolute proof:

THOMAS CHITTENDEN, President.

JONAS FAY, Vice President.

MOSES ROBINSON, President pro tem.
IRA ALLEN, Secretary.

JOSEPH FAY, Secretary.

PAUL SPOONER, Deputy Secretary.

NATHAN CLARK, Secretary pro tem.

BENJAMIN CARPENTER, [by letter of Council.]

To be supplied by other evidence, there remain four members, to wit: HEMAN ALLEN, JACOB BAYLEY, JEREMIAH CLARK, and MATTHEW LYON. The assertion of IRA ALLEN, that HEMAN ALLEN was a mem

Governor and Council, and thoroughly apprised of its most secret transactions. Gov. HALL concurs fully with the editor of this volume in omitting the names of Samuel Robinson, Thomas Rowley, and Gideon Olin from the roll of the Council of Safety.

1 The official letter of the Council, in which Gen. JACOB BAYLEY and "Squire [Benjamin] SPENCER" are named as members, is a part of the missing record which has been recovered from other sources. It is undoubtedly genuine, but of course is not strictly record evidence. The record does show, however, that Mr. BAYLEY was appointed on a committee by the Council in September, 1778.