ORATION PROF. BRAINEBD KELLOGG; AND POEDI mi J. C... R.» Do7%7R7R9@ DELIVERED AT THE ‘BIIi§£IT‘A1%i*&*‘ “ elchratinn, . ‘a: £35 . . A W cm _,,:,V ‘ .~ «. F I V‘! um ‘ ( ,}‘~b ,"1‘*l4\»'H }, H \ v'‘‘ 4‘ ’.'A ‘zu ‘ ' 13, ,33’,)"’ r"~\_‘D:I§' ‘ ' . 5 ’*’:«:1,‘.!1iv,-,';s"*A" ‘. '?‘~§ H . ~ ‘r 1| «lg: n W as. ' .‘ _ pr, 1%; 6:3 VERMONT: a’H::r:I:.'Y 4th, 1866.. A MIDDLEBURY : Sin-., ..1.;;y,,z. _<9..~' _4 s.“ 7‘ ‘ ‘. n ‘ REGISTER BOOK AND JOB PRINTING ESTABLISIIMENT." M1866; IN:17Ro:DU0To:1:—2.Y. :In “the early summer of 1866, the Middlebury Historical Society resolved. that the fi.PSl3 ~clearirng, made one hundred years ago within the limits of the town, should be commemorated, and the Fourth of July was named as a fit day for the occasion. Commit- tees were appointed on conference with the citizens of the town, the machinery of celebration fashioned and set in motion. Prof. B. ,KEI,LOGG, of at-he.Co1lege, was invited,as Orator, and Mrs. J. C. R. D0nn,.of Rutland, as Poet. The spot chosen for celebration was the Seeley Farm, where the first Pioneer made :,—the first clearing, and spentithe most of his life. On the day chosen——-—a day without a cloud, a day ushered in as is only that one of the three hundred and sixty-five-—~ some. two or three thousand people congregated in the edge of the grove south of Jonathan «See1ey’s house. In the absence of the Chairman chosen for the occasion, the Hon. Samuel Swift-—-—Presi« ' a dent’ of the Middlebury Historical Society, detained at home by p the infirmities of his years-.».-:——the Hon. John W. Stewart called the assembly to order. Rev. Cepbas H. Kent read from the Family Bible of the original Pioneer and offered , prayer. The Orator was then introduced, who pronounced an oration upon the Pioneer, John Chipman, and Mrs. Dom"s poem, was read by the 4 ‘flhairman. The Toast-Master, Philip Bettell, Esq., read the sen“-_ étirnents, which were responded to by Henry Clark, Esq., of ‘ Poultney, and Geo. F. Houghton, Esq., of St. Albans. Interesting; “letters were read froin Hon. Samuel Swift, Rev. Pliny H. ‘White, fresident efthe Vermont Historical S<_3c_iety, Hen. A. H. Holley of Ponnecticuts ‘§".%11e=n9..f3§”“‘3d°“= I?9n- E~=tCeShmen= M-‘D-» 0? ‘_’OrWeI1,fl and eevexel Lgtherfn Jg3‘e&;'1"s was in attendance and Ldiscoursed Lh,in1}A‘s_iVc threggh the day; t and E. P. Phillips, of ' C. ._St. Albans, gendered Eve L’Amerz'ca, with en geoompaniment on the piane by Mr. H. Higley, ‘Jef Qastlextgn. Occasion Wee Eone A of peculiar ;'_nte_re§t Ito thosewho are interested in the early hiS-A". tory of the _town, and these who watch the dantnipgs of civilization Am ' 4 at -"«.-‘N; - ‘ .- -2- A ' .x'W»e‘ -. -; ; He, ‘.3’ u-'- .,>~:;,._,, W ,; _ ; :. &9V€1'.YV‘~Th¢?'€’- ORATION Egiflltttlf Qientxzmtial Qieltliraiilln, jggorr, BRA.iNER:D KEnLoc.3rGr. JULY 4th, 1866. AL‘- V‘?‘’ In wonderfully elaborated discourse of Isocrates, his Pan- éegyricus, wherein he jsindicates for Athens as againstiSparta, the ,_l13g9meny-fin Mr. Grote’s phrase-=--the primacy, the headshipand {jthoe ,consequentlea_dership of the mutually jealous and warring; I 'jStates;of Ggjeeee 2 in order that, banding them into a eonfederacy With; ‘Athens as chief, theymight make head against the hostilely impende-, ‘_f_inglPersian on the Continent,thei Orator makes this---to us-—-singu-e.« jglara claim for hi_s:City,thather people Were autocht/zenes, children of‘ ,;theisei1,iiborn.toft it,’ born out of it as their Mother, and had main- ;tained the purity of such an origin unmixed by immigration, unal-" lloyedby {contact with other races and other men. A » In the eyes andon the tongue of Isocrates, Athensiwas no colony ‘_;thate,-shad ;swa1‘med outafrom the overstocked hive of Egypt on the ;;So1ith,aioriaigi_1y istate of Asia on the East,»bringingi along withiher ;w§aQ;‘edi fire, 4 ijgom the maternal altar, the mysteries and rites and ’;D3itilg|gV‘Qf. homer religion, the mother ilanguage, the; traditions, histories gnemoriesit that linked hereto other days and another‘ ,<,,;311,'II1_<’i«‘-it yYasAher own beginning, and began on that arenownedw Acrepolistandmthe. adjoining.Hisl1ii of Mars; she didn’ t isprinigoutl» of a #g,'apSL1,lQ‘-Of, se5edS.thajt:l§adkdropped into her soil from a treethatihad ti «ripened ‘intoperfectionielsewhere, Shut .nnllerived, lioldingmo com- munity of lineage with foreign nations, unrelated by birth even with a neighboring states that spoke the same Greek, she forswore all ances- try but the soil, owned no mother but the Rock on which she was built, L ‘Thucydides, pi-iwzceps /l.'2:.S’Z07"iCZM27/, asserts the same for this Queen City of Attica and therein differs her from and makesrher - excel, the rest of Greece. '. The musical Herodotus puts in a like plea for Arcadia, which, walled in by mountain ranges, in the very;heart of the Peloponnesus kept at bay enemies and colonists alike. , This same idea of an earth-born commencement ‘took chap in the Cadmean myth. Killing a serpent that guarded the fountain of Mars in Beotia, Cadmus sowed its teeth and immediately there sprang up out of the earth a race of armed men who slew each other; only five survived, and these with Cadmus founded and built the aspiring city of Thebes. ; " Transplanted across the Adriatic, this same belief crops out ‘in ‘Latin history, and imythclogry. , Indigenw Latinri the Latins called themselves, and Virgil,in the 12th Book of his }Eneid makes Jupiter command Juno never to change this veins nomcn, this ancient name. Aboriginm is its synonym by which the primitive people, that blending with the Siculi subsequently became the Latin nation, was called. And gradually as Latin civilization emerged from the total eclipse its rayless mythology cast over it, into the penumbra ‘of its partially luminous philosophy and men ceased to believe in suchan origin for themselves they yet ascribed it to the Titans, the Giants, their '1 'errz'genae,_ and to some of their very Gods. t s Without doubt, my Friends, just as all nations have somehow re}- ceived and embalmed the old Testament tradition of a Great Flood that once drowned the earth and of a single family that floated in safety out a of it preserving the race in little, so this belief of i Athens and Thebes and the Latins in a beginning for ‘ themselves that rooted in the earth,is but the Bible account of the starting of humanity ' in the creation of Adam out of the dust of the earth, caught up away back, from the faint lispingspf Rumor, appropriated, ylocalizedl and 1. transmitted as averitable account of their ownseparate commence-4' merits. To the birth and the growth of such an idea and such 31.: claimthat old. isolation of nations, that exclusion of one from the confines of the other through lack of intercommunication in trade- and travel, and their pride in such exclusiveness, largely contribut- ed, When all beside the J eW~'were,to the J eW,hate_d Gentiles-—--when.» ' first to the Egyptian and then to the Greek and thento the Roman‘ all the rest of the world were uncouth Barbarians, receiving from» them this their imitative name from the unintelligibility of their jargon--barbar, banbar te cultivated ears—-i-no wonder they re- jected the truth, not even yet fully accepted,-. of a common origin of~ the races, of a settlement of the world through migration and col--~ onization. what terrible work with this of an independent beginning for their cities and nations and a beginning, too, thatstarted out of the sail, would one of our modern Historical-Societies have made, especially What terrible work with some of ~ their other cherished beliefs,’- if blessed with such a fellow of a Secretary» as honors ours here in Middlebury, notesatisfied at all with mere“ surface indications,”- bnriingedogwn, rightdowm-' through. the mould of family or national. tradition, through the subsoil of ignorance, through the rocket prejudice, and “striking ilei’ when he reaches the truth, be it in pedigree, or name, orrany other point in the history. How merci- lessly that German Iconoclast» N iebuhr laid about him when he broke into the fold of Roman History! What legions of myths and fables and fabled heroes fell before him !—--Romulus and Remus W and thatacelebrated four—-footed lupine nurse of theirsand a Whole minefull of demi-godsevwith. the long...tale of their recorded exploits, at asingle, pop, exploded into thin air. Heaven sent down upon. our planet, and into our. times, more of these ruthless truthtellers. Whenthey turn} over the great flat stones that conceal errors and it lies and superstitions, with here and there a stray truth intermin- gled, there’sa,.frightful~ squirming and writhing and scampering» among the dark, foul inl1abitants.beneath, that can’t bear the light, and in the coming , autumn What a wealth of productive harvest. grows there. A ' i i is My Fiiiendis, we names to-day to cofiimeniorate ‘an event that?’ ivouldhave shocked those old Atheniansflioasting an independent‘ commencement for theircity. We ‘come togethei‘ to recognize the truth—-«and glory in” it, too, so far“ as it concerns ourselves and our township---that.the human race is“ a great spreading Banyan tree’. a God planted the original seed and grew the first trunk; Every branch of it that shiit up in vigci’, with unerririg‘ instinct bent itself to earth again, took“ root, became itself a trunk, threw out branches Which,in turn,soug[ht the ea-rthand became stenis for other branclres, in endless succession shoots becoming stalks l stalks sending out?’ shoots,till the inhabited World shaded‘: One of the most’ note-5.‘ tvorthy facts in liiiinany history is this propagation and extension of t'he*r’ace through successive rriigrations and colonizations, the old life flovving out Vintoitlie new, mothers sending out daughtcrs,__ daughters becorningr mothers’; dispatching their children,in turn,to dihthnt local- ities,‘ carrying on and on even doivn“ to our own time, this endless‘ s'uccess”ion of township and state and national births. From that“ elevated plateau in Central Asia, I’ care not which wayithe childrerri be of Sliein or oflflammay have jburneyed, they liave had: b71it”littleii’ to do in the wvt23i*ld’s civilization, biit the children of our great ances-I for, J apheth, surged WestWard.ii They planted cities and founded" empires as they went, tlreyr poured their teexning life and numbers" ‘intcthem, they swelled lthenrltoii distension, they biirst their con? i ifihes, 1eapé"d the seas andistraits that part Exirope from Asia,‘ set-if tied the isles and shores of the Medi‘te1~raneari§ they swarmed r‘1"orth-"T were and they swarined Westward, separating into tribes and’ nations and races as’ they “went";. who, forgetting their" icornir7non’ 5 . brotherhood, WarrediLatin upon Greek and Gaul and Celt, Gr‘oth"”" ripen Latin; divisions and minute‘ isubdivisionsi‘ of races uiponieach" ethergand yet,rnultiplying in spite of these desolating, annihilating Warsgthey ‘filled up run, all Europe. How eagerly did Holland, and Denmark, and Spain, and Portugal, and France, and Englandf ripen their valves to give vent to their surcharged populationswhen cur Westernrworld dawned upon their vision. Countless colonies” ilnstantly tool: root on the Atlantic coast from Brazil totNewfound-A-‘ land, seaboard states in turn colonizing inland--—-Connecticut and Massachusetts, Vermont----the East, the West---the Eastiaiid West’? 9 together, the Farther West, till the Rocky Mountains are scale California, Washington and Oregon peopled, the circuit of the es" completed, when only the far Pacific separates our remotesi: colonic from§Asia, the cradle, the primal startin-gz. goal of the race. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is our record, and we feel proud _of it, damaging though it be to any claim of fixedness, or to the originof any city or nation other than that of transplantation, coli- onization. , N 0 one of my mammoth audience regrets more sincerely than doesyour Speaker that on this occasion of your Town’ s Centennial Celebration a native Middleburian doesn’t occupy the stand, stand where I occupy. I am tainted, too, with what I fear is in your eyes an additional disqualification, that of not being even a native Vera monter. Though Vermont and Middlebury are mine,and I am theirs, by adoption, yet I don’t find it easy, strange as it may seem to you, Vermonters, to transfer all my afiectiown from my first” love, the Empire State, to my second, the Green Mountain. I have to say thus much, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, in revenge for your inventing and circulating, and believing, too, those poetic myths concerning the desire of N ew York to gobble you up once upon a time when you were only the I-Iampshire Grants, and concerning, , too, that still more mythical “beech sealing” that old Ethan and his Boys "were said to have inflicted upon some. who crossed the Lake to your Western shore with intent to acquire title to your soil by an expartpe livery of seizin. Mystically mythical I call all that sort of talk, of course, for I believe I have never heard or seen much of it, except in the first and most successful work of _ficz‘-ion Vermont ever perpetrated, her Thompson’s “Green Mountain - Boys‘?! - V But, Ladies and Gentlemen, your Speaker made haste long years “ago, to repair Whatever damage his parents unwittingly did _him”in not opening his eyes flX'Sl3 here in Vermont. He Wouldn’t and he didn’t accept any other than a “ copper-bottomed,” “ fire- proof,” “warranted-to-last” Vermont college education," and When, in the fullness of time, he cast about him for one to share his name and his fortune (a Word sadly out of place here, I grant you,) Why, of course, he couldn’t find her‘ anywhere out of Ver- , A 2 l 1t) men-t, out of Middlebury, and so, as my friend, the aforesaid f3ec--- retary of the Historical Society, afirmed in the REGISTER some two months ago, when advertising this very occasion, he became, by marriage, a relative of the original Pioneer, and, quoting. Mr. Beecher, speaking of a sirnilar fact in his own history, allow me to say, “Ihave been glad of it ever since!” Please. pardon thus much of peifsonalityw-I promise not to oifencl again». Holmes says : “ Little of all we value here, Wakes on the morn of its ltuvzdz-ac!-tit’ year“ Without both feeling and looking queer.- In fact, there’s nothing; that keeps its youth-m So far as I know-—but a tree and truth.” Yes, there is, Si-r Autocrat, you’ve forgotten one thing in your bill of eXeeptio_ns.- It rejuvenates a spot of Ci-od”s earth to cut to the ground those hoary, 1noss~g1'oWn giants that cover it, and let in upon the soil the sunlight of Heaven. Nature, withholes in all pockets, leaks in her seeds, and the next year close up to the sl1aiggy,l splintery stumps hugs the green grass and hides the rents and the nakedness which the axe had caused. it y ’ Just one hundred years ago this summer, the very spot Where we stand Was cleared bythe sturdy arms of the first Pioneer, John‘ Chipman, then a youth of twentyétwo. -I want to oornnieniorate him and his Work, the first work of the hind done Wltl"li.11' our town, limits, and done, as I said, Where we celebrate today. It isn’t any wonder that Benning Wentworth, Gnvernor of the- Colony ofNeW Hampshire by the grace of God and by theappoint-; merit of His Mzijesty, George III., looked with covetous eyes upon this Green Mountain Ridge and the slopes, that stretchdown from it on either side and are halves of these richest and greenest of valleys: -—-—-Connecticut and Lake Champlain; Nor is it to be wondered at. that in imitation of a Massachusetts and Oonnecticut,he should stretch his western line to the meridian that parts these from New Yorlr, and bound, his Province north by Canada, east by Maine and the ” Atlantic, south by Massachusetts, and west. by Lake Champlain... At any rate he did it-—-—I mean he tried to do it—-the difliculty being, that while “Barlzis was willin,”’ Ethan Allen and his GI'86u- it - Mountain Boys, We1'en’t. But, presuming upon his title, in 1761,. a year after the British. Wrested. Canada from the French, Went» 11 worth granted sixty charters of townships lying on both sides or L.;. A ‘Mountains. Among these was the charter of Middlebury and those of eight other townships in theCeunty of Addison. The charters of Salisbury, Middlebury and New Haven were granted to a party of gentlemen residing largely in Salishuiy, Litchfield -Co. Connecticut. John Evarts, Esq., of that place penetrated to the Great Falls of Otter Creek, situated at Vergennes, and taking said Fails as the north-western corner of New Haven, he surveyed these three townships intending to make theinahout six miles square each, all having the Otter Creel: as their western boundary. So much oil‘ Middlebury as lies West of Otter Creek, was annexedifrorn Cornwall by act of Legislature in 1796. These three towns were named, the southern, Salisbury from the colonizing town, the northern, New Haven from the capital of Connecticut, the one lying between, in the middle, Middlebury. Among the names of the sixty-three grantees of the township of Middlebury, that of John Chiprnan does not occur. Born in 1744, he was at the time of the charter a mere lad, a minor, only seven- teen years of age, his father had died some years before, but I find that our Pioneer is named in a subsequent survey as eoriginal proprietor of the right of one Elisha Painter, whose name is in the a charter list. , One of the provisions of said charter was that five acres for , every fifty granted, should be cultivated Within five years fronti the date of the instrurnent, else the grantee’s or proprietor’s right was null, the land reverting to the donor. A A To secure his and theirs, Clohn (Jhiprnan, with 15 other young men, left S'a'lisbury, Conn., for" Verinont in the spring ofi1766, some months before the expiration of said five y_ears of grace. Their locomotive was a yoke of oxen, their train a two-wheeled cart, their A freight axes, farming utensils and provisions. There wasn’t a house in all these Hampshire Grrants, north of Manchester; the read they hewed out and built as they Went. Pushing up the Battenkill to the head waters of Otter Creelr, they skirted this to‘ the foot of Sutherland Falls, there? liollowing out a tree for a canoe they launched it, loaded it, and "lashing their cart toiits stern, A 3W3»? tlleyi Went paddling and floating down a stream which 12 never before had been, which never since has been, ploughed by :-such an amphibious craft. Only once, Dr. Merrill says, did the Wheels touch bottom so as to roll on their axle, and yet we call such a stream as that,a Creek and this little babbling tributary down here at our feet,we grandiloquently sty1e,a River. Dumping the indomit- able Chipman at what is now our “ three-mile Bridge,” the otherfif- teen pursued their way-to Vergennes. Chiprnan made his “pitch” on the spot where’ you standand that summer ten acres of stalwart t monarchs of the wood, fell under his blows and those of a colored gentleman whet assisted him and one David Vallance who had pitched his tent over in Addison. That wasn’t an efieminate soul which that boy of twenty-two had in him; it wasn’t a woman’s work that he was doing. There ' Wasn’t a white face within a half, nay, a full, score miles of him, save when his friend Vallance came over to exchange works with him; belted in with woods, endless woods -that crowded down around his narrow ring of a clearing; trusting to his rod and his rifle for provisions, here he struck blow after blow, blow after blow, writing , John Chipman, his><{ mark, all over these acres of his. What a Chip—man he was that summer if never again! How the flying, ’ the leaping, the prowling denizens of the forest around him must have stopped and listened to his ringing, echoing strokes and drawn near and nearer to watch and wonder at this strange intruder who was ruthlessly, cutting through a window to let God’s sunlight in upon their dark habitations! How many a song and twitter and chatter was cut short and the aifrighted hush of silence settled down upon bird and beast within hearing, as gash kissed gash at the cen- tre, and those colossal, century—stricken forms came thundering to the ground! it I tell you, Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the three biggest things Americans have done on this Continentof ours, since 1620, has been this leveling to earth of the forest that stretched from St. Croix away around beyond the Sabine, covering everything, save here the ribbon of aRiver and there the patch of a Lake or a Prairie, from the Great Lakes on the North to the greater Gulf on the South. Men who have prostrated the woods, subdued and made‘;tract- G able the soil on which it stood, have always had easy work when 13 «outside enemies have assailed or foes of the same household have . risen up within. How is it, then, that while bows and arrows, spears and rifles, beetles and spades, ploughs and sickles, are blazoned, some upon many, and some upon more, of the Seals of the thirty-six States of our Union only upon one, and that of a Prairie Staséfithat never used it, is an Axe to be fonnd,.a nobler instrument than them all, I ween, beca.use an earlier and more necessary; of an older history, from time immemorial to the days of gunpowder a weapon of warfare in the Old World and still so with the Indian of the New, swung’ by crusading Knight and invading Cavalier, grandly significant in the sacrificial ceremonies of Jew and Greek and Roman, bound up even with the F asces and borne before the Roman Magistrate as a badge of authority; in our own day dedicat-S ed to a higher use, that of clearing the way for towns and cities and all the blessed institutions attendant of civilized society, anti- dating even’ the Plough which opens the earth for the seed whose harvest is to feed, the hungry swarming millions. The Pioneer swinging his Axe, the emblem and ‘motor of civilization in this Western World, at least, takes rank, in my regard-~—-liow is it in yours ?——withithe Soldier whose musket defends or redeems the country which his forerunner and conipeer has opened up for the hearthstonesjhe protects‘. A11 honormthen, to those brave, hardy, toiling few who threw themselves forward in the van of crowding populations, the skirmish line, the picket guard of lagging civiliza- tion, doing ilusty duty against lusty foes with the American weapon -——the Axe. V ‘ Having made the “sign manual” I have mentioned upon it this grant and thus secured it,John Chipman returned that autumn, to Salisbury, Conn. Some two or three years later he married a Miss Douglass, who died shortly after leaving him a daughter. In 1772 ah6.Il13»I'1‘l6(l. as his second: and last wife, Sarah Washburn, of as good a stock as he--—and§Connecticut could hardly have turned A out better than i.either~———-da‘.ughter of Abisha Washburn, and at her marriage nineteen years of age. , The next spring, the spring of 1773, he, returned to Middle-‘r bury, and pitched uponthis his old lot,whose ten acre clearing was ;'l;~;l .-agar-in overgrown, bringing along with him Gamaliel Painter——- Judge Painter of later days—--who had married one of his sisters and who became a large property-holder in town and a bounteous donor to the College, after whom one of our College buildings was nanied, and who thirteen years——-one year -longer than any succes- sor-——represented Middlebury in the State Legislature. «A log cabin was built upon the farm of Painter, who had made his “pitch ” over yonder east of the centre road leading to Salisbury, .their families presently came on, and Chipman built his cabin on yonder knoll which seven years before he had cleared; the Smal- leys, Slawsons, Owens, andtflydes moved into‘ town and from that summer, the summer of 1773, l\liddl.ebury dates its settlement. i'F1"om 1766, Middlebury dates the first clearing madevvithin the town limits. It is this we are commemorating to-day. But these vvere those troublous days just prior to the Ameri- can*Revolution. The truecolonial idea had everywhere taken root in men’s minds, viz: that the colony is but a child going out to a new home, receiving help, if need be, for a time, butlwith an un- doubted looking, -even from the beginning, to future separation and independence in the fulness of time. This idea was strengthened by by the tyranny of the British Parliament, by the folly of George III., by the thousand leagues of oeea-n that rolled between mother and child. In 1775, only two years after the return of Chipman and the advent of these families into town, this idea tookfpractical de~ velopment at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, at Boston, in the expedi-‘ tion of Arnold through the wilds of Maine, in the taking of Ticonderoga and in the cooperation of Montgomery, via Lake Champlain, Montreal and St. Lawrence, with Arnold under the _ - frowning walls of Quebec. A A At the first gun of the Revolution, Chipman threw down his axe and shouldered his musket. Leaving his familyhere he, with Seth Warner and Remember Baker, joined Ethan ”Allen~———Ver- mont’s triad of historic names; they had all four been townsmen" together in Salisbury, Conn.-—--and was present as a volunteer vvhen Allen, in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Con— _ gicess, (Powers terrible to the Commandant but havingifllittle terror ‘ 133 to him) seized tlie‘lL‘eys of Ticonderoga. The obstinate retreat” in the spring of 1776, up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and Ticon--A deroga of the Arneriean force under the brilliant but reckless» Arnold after the disaster at Quebec, left the Valley of Champlain exposed_'_to the invasions andi depredatious of the British and allied Indians. This exposure was made more complete and the danger more imminent by the total sweeping of our forces from the Lake" and the recapture of Ticonderoga: itself by Burgoyne, in the sum- rner following———that of 1777. Whether it was this summer or the summer previous I cannot affirm-»=—-Dr. Merril*l» says 1776, but Judge Swift, the painstaking historiographe1* of M-iddlebur , shakes his head inoredulously--—probably it was during both these years that the twenty~one families who had established themselves within the present bounds‘ ofour town, were making their Hegira out of it, t the Indians frequently lurking, in search of booty,‘ at one end of a settler’s farm as its owner was making his escape at the other. Fire a and sword deselated this beautiful, Valley of Otter Creek, but not till every eolonist save Daniel Foot, Benj. Srnalley and the Cele» ebrated Widow Story, hfter'w'ai*ds Mrs. Srnalley, had fled. Almost everytliingithat fire would burn or the hatchet hew,was destroyed. Yonder, in full view, is a barn of Chiprnan’s erecting, that like its owner defied both. Too green for the one,its timbers too tnassi-re for the other, with scars of both upon it to this day to attest its ordeal and its victory, there it stands, the oldest building in town,good till‘: the year of our Lord 2000, at least; I think it must have been in the summer of 1776, that John‘ Chiprnan, getting leave of absenee from his regiment, returned tos- Middlebury, reaching his home by night. Burrowing into yonder? hillside, be buried so much of his furniture was he oouldn’t carry-' away with llllll----1I11.1Cl1 of this built to last, is still in use among his? grandchildren-—-- and transporting the remainder to the bank of‘ Otter Creek, he and a neighbor or two, probably Painter arnongj them, lashed together two or three lightdug-outs, andloacling their little all intothem, paddled in the dead of night, to the falls of our Village below. Carrying their boats and the laden around the successive tdeseents, they cautiously, weairisornely worked their 16 way down through the mouth of the River, out into the Lake and then beat up under the protecting guns of old Ticonderoga. Every precaution was taken to guard against surprise from the Indians that filled the woods and haunted the River. The cars were muf- fled, a favorite dog was killed before starting, lest his yelp might betray the expedition, the journey was made by night and made, too, not up the Creek, away from the enemy, but down the Creek, through the enemy. The precious freight of wives and children was aboard, Indian rifles, masked by the darkness of the night and the protecting shadow of the trees that lined the River, might have opened upon them at any moment, but they floated,” thank God, through danger, out of danger~—---the very boldness of the enterprise, an enterprise characteristic of John Ohipman, was its safety. ' I wish I could tell you more than the little I know, than any one now living knows, of this doughty Soldier of the Revolution, during those long years of ordeal——--—times that “tried men’s souls», Strangely oblivious of self, caring only to advance the great cause . that engaged them, seemingly unaware that their work was not for themselves or for an. age, but for all time, moved to heroic deeds by no anticipation of the honor that children and children’s children to latest posterity, would delight to pay them, all those beneath the notice of a Bancroft, a Sparks, or an Irving, have come down to us with but the baldest, meagrest records of their exploits and services preserved by themselves; and the armies of the Revolution didn’t swarm, as did ours of the Rebellion, with greedy correspondents catching at every crumb of achievement, catering to a hungry public outside through the myriadcolumns of a myriad press, inciting to adventure M by the certainty that the next morning’spapers would blazon to the four winds, a full, minute account of it, I What I do know is that Ohipman must havedcne his duty bravely and done it well. Let me read you from Swift’s History of Middlebury, inChipman’ s own words,his brief record. The original manuscript, inthe possession of his daughter,Ii saw nota month‘ ago :-—-- « p A,“ I turned out at the commencement of the war, as a. volunteer with 17. Colonel Ethan Allen, in the spring of 1775, to take Ticonderoga and Crown Point. in May or June I received a second lieutenant’s commission in: Capt. Grant’s company, 001. Seth Warner’s regi- ment‘, went into Canada, and was at the taking of St. Johns and Montreal; was discharged at Montreal, and returned home the first part of Declerhbei‘. In the summer of 1776, I received a first I7t'Gllte11i‘t1i‘t’S coaiirnissioii in‘ Capt. S1'nith’s company, Seth Warner’s regiment, and joined the army at‘Ticonderoga, in March, 1777. I . was in the retreat of the the arrny," and was in the battle of Hubbard»- ton. I was also in the battle of Bennington, so called,~on the '16th of Aug-est of that year‘, and was at Saratoga. at the tarlringlof Bur- goyne” in October. We ufere ordered to Fort Edward and Fort George in 1778’ and 1779} I was promoted to a ca*ptain, and servedlin that capacity until October 1780“; when I was taken prisoner‘ at Fort‘ George. , I remained in tliissituation until the summer, of 1781, when I was ezrchanged and” remained a superna- inerary until the close of the War.” V Entering, yorrsee, as’ a volunteer, he betcanieiflcl Lie‘J.te1'1afit, 1st Iiieutenant, Captain, and in I7 81, was raised ,to the ranls: of Major. He had command of Fort Edward and afterwards of Fort George. Overwhelmed by numbers, l1e,was obliged, after a desper- ate defense, to sur1“r'etncle1* this latter place, as he tells you, in October, 1780. On coming forward be,grimed with dust‘ and powder smoke, to deliver up llimsellf and his forces, a Br'itish oflioer insultinglyasked, I “ And whoare" you 7?” Drawing himself up to his tallest, “ A gentleman, Sir !” was‘l1is quick, stingingreply. If omit, as an“ unnecessary Grecisnn, the strengthening particles he‘ used. His orderly book, lrept while’ in command of these two places: , I liold here in my hand. I could amuse you”by7i reading you some” orders he issued. It was an iron discipline, in‘ those critical tinies when the Lake and woods‘ swarmed with enemies, he foundit neces- sary to maintain, and he maintained.it., Listen to these :——‘ “ No non-comrnissioned ofiicer or soldier is to stroll more than one hundred rods from this garrison "Without leave‘ from his ofiicer.” “ No gun is to be fired on any pretense Whatever except at the . eneiny.” , “ No non-commissioned officer or soldier is to‘ cut or destroy, or make use‘ of any boards in or about the garrison Without leave of the Quartermaster.” , s For kicking the dog of Lieut. Bates, and exonorating himself, 8 18 when rai1ede.t‘eonC{ struck by“ its owner, by eaiyizig that Bzntes had often clone the same by 72.275 dog, one Dr. Prindle was comienihed at court mertial, to receive on his knees 2. severe 1'eprin1'enc1 from the commanding efficer. 4! ‘ It was an o1c1—fashioneddiscipline, foo. Lieteii to1;his:———-—- “ The Court met, and beinfr swom, p1'ooeede<‘1 to the ’£1‘i‘£L1 of Mathew Bm:_y~toi'1 {hr i*efusiiiii1g to do his ditty. Tile C<;)1.H.‘“'iC- eeiiteiiea-2<;i. him to 1"eC:e!ive »S'i.e'z‘;e; I;ae.é’i.-52.5? on the i;:izi:e«.ii 'h2L«::i;~i, m?.?'Z é"zz2's:iY ma, ::~.‘m':§-. then to he put in iroris a.11d 2-iexit to Aiii;>z:ii‘;:y.” h'We ofh ceiiiiiijr ?.e.tei:x'*, {L G€)1'ltlh11i“:;' l'1£“.£§.1“€31.“’ the 1‘iiiii'ieitmimT;i, have atteiiieéi that ;ggii:oh. <;,~f _g;«:>oci.11ee3,, in the fai-’:1f3i'ijT zimi out of it, ifij’-.:i‘*..*i7, ef course, the use of the zwffih ‘C'?iZ_‘§_‘1§€i.‘+"'£f’11~i*(Z‘1‘n’i1‘., the i:}.f*fii..E, seeing hath be1'harie aziici hi°uie:.3. 3 ti*:ej;" M1’17kiS5S&?ifi it i'z‘1m;»*‘§.; i"<*'ih om? (hay? Witli the chose of the V:'ii; Mi€%jOl‘ C1'1igf>ziiai::i i'em mezgi to ‘uhie his ohi home; F0111‘ of 11:23 fire ehihhcem hy hie eeeo1'ufii‘xi'ife ?."C1'G:1‘i1‘¢3E1.Ciy born. TVFO ?.imf§. ciiecl. 0‘I1'i.;');T, fthe Voiihggems and new the oniy c“: 4*» ' survivoi‘, horn in 1"Z'c:“‘i-e.-, in tzhe iog mihin on the knoll, is here with » us to day. He 'wasp1'ospe1"ed, prosperous, «flied out of his log; cabin, built» brick house over Iiimselfjust :3, few steps east of the white one yon- der, occupied by Mr. Seeiey this house hurnt «;7;own' while Wm. Y. Ripley owner} the jphiee---Iiie rich acres b1”C\11gi)i1 him in abund- am; hzwveets, he iived comfh1*te?.>Iy, eveii h,1xu1"ioue15r for those clays, far and wiéie he was knowne, ii:3e;;~it:1hIe, 7c.oui1*teo1is gentleman, his house hecimie 3. favoriteero.eo1"t ;E:.w i"i‘iez1<:i;-:4 ail. over the State, pzirties from the Vriliage fi*equerit}y visited hi , the i;:ea11ti;‘5u.1 road leading hither on the bank of the 0'tt«31' Cifeeiets, ihi“ prettier formerly than now, I am told, J u.-egg Swift eaye. was 11017Ili11fl.pp1“O}f)1‘i3ufGiy named Love Lame. ThiBS(3 were th ;:;»"ee.1'e ‘%"‘€i1e11 some of you be'Fei°e me knew him and 1'10-W1‘€3€i‘,3..].1 him.‘ No‘ WO1"'LiS of mine, I feel a,esui*ee3, ezm color the pict%u1"e ofhim and his eui':coundh1ge you hehi. in m@I110l"_y'. ‘Thesse We1*e the years, too, “when”: hie wo1'ti1’ivms aeknowleciged, when each ‘modest hoiiors as lie in the gift of neighbors and towns- men, were hestowed LI§)D11vhi.1’l1. He wesi Modeietor at your toWn- meetings, was Selectman for year.:=3 and held other offices of town ‘t1'1]E~’G-.7 o ‘ ‘ ' ‘ J- .. 19 He Wa,s High. Sheriff of the County frozn 1789 to 1861-—~—-days when Shez'i‘fs Wore ewo:;*&s nnfa, for en.ght I ianeow, J"uc§ges, as in England, Wore e'i,ge. , He was :,:.ié!. to the G*0Tv'€51'1101‘ of Ve1"n1on‘i1, -Govemor Chi“- tenden, a. men ‘whoeo hone we one offiezee di€.n’fi xritiete his simplicity of 'tneé:e:?, Whose Wzifca Wes to the lest, ea. 1"onc‘i breeder of poultry‘. This story tolei ofhe1* that Mr-. Chose, ex Lnngziete in the State, eaxlling; one day upon the G’-overnox“, em;7i entering mroxtgh the kitchen was neemeetly AbesoL1gnt by He1° Excellency not to streacl on the goelinge. “G~os1ing_}.;e? G-os1in;gsf” cried the i11d,ig11:,:.nt visitor, “I thought I was in the G‘®VGI?i’1OE1"7;3 house and not in :2. clemned goosepen.” Major .Chipn:r..n.1 was 22 meson, rose to be G;rend Maxeter of’ the State. fllis <:‘unL1ghte1“, Looanie, p1‘e;;;e11tto-«flay, tells me she 1~e_1;~:1e1n‘be1'e 1~ic1in,;g; over quite a. portion co”? the Cozxneetiout Valley with her father vihile :.on11&in£_»; 1c»,aiges aim <3-..is:;:11e1*g;i1"ag his other ofiicial chltiee. e Much, let me be just, .to—€m.y, o€"whet Mejo1*, Col. Chipman {Nd and became I ‘feel esemced was due ‘to l\’ft?1*s. C‘hipn:2a,11--e.nc1 he isn’t the firet man nor the lost; that seen :1 debt to his Wife one of the best of wives nnci Women, fE1it?;1f'n1 to her place and 1*e1e— tion from her znaxwiege in N712 till here: efieeafh in 1810. , Her father, Abishrz. Wnshbn1~n, e, n.etivo of Suiiebnxjz, Conn, aftelwards a resident of l\£i