— LIBRARY OF THE U N IVLR.SITY or ILLI NOIS 973.3 B75f -*~ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/fourteenthcommonOObrew THE FOURTEENTH COMMONWEALTHS THE FOURTEENTH COMMONWEALTHS Vermont and the States That Failed by WILLIAM BREWSTER PHILADELPHIA GEORGE S. MacMANUS COMPANY i960 Copyright 1960 by WILLIAM BREWSTER All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without permission. printed by Theo. Gaus' Sons, Inc., Brooklyn, n. y., u.s.a. 1 "£15 4 PREFACE Some years ago, the author delivered an address on the lost states, before the University Club of Wilkes-Barre, which elicited considerable interest in the subject and that has induced me to write this book. The subject has been variously, incompletely, and inaccu- rately treated in newspapers and magazines from time to time. Local histories have creditably presented the facts and a com- prehensive history of one of the states that failed has been published. Inasmuch, as there were four movements, for the establishment of states and their admission as the fourteenth member of the Confederated United States, prompted by the same motives and pursued at about the same time, it seemed desirable to group the four projects together in one concise work. The leaders of each proposed state expected it to be the Fourteenth Commonwealth. Vermont succeeded and the reader will be able to perceive why it did. Vermont and the states that failed are not to be regarded merely as detached and dramatic episodes of our national life, but should be considered as integral and important contributions to the development of American character and to the evolution of the Federal Government of the United States. In compiling this volume, the writer has relied on all avail- able original sources of information. The more or less illegal nature of the movements required secrecy, and little of the proceedings was committed to permanent written records. There- fore, resort has been compelled to the nearest contemporary - historical accounts. With these brief words of explanation, this work with its omissions and imperfections is respectfully submitted to the patient reader. William Brewster _£ Kingston, Pa. Oct. 1959 CONTENTS Preface v Introduction xi Section I VERMONT CHAPTER PAGE I The New Hampshire Grants i II The Bennington Mob 9 III Onion River Land Jobbing 20 IV Wits and Not Whips 25 V British Intrigues 41 VI Vermont a State 56 Section II WESTMORELAND I The Connecticut Claim 63 II Settlement and Yankee Pennamite Wars 69 III The Decree of Trenton 76 IV Patterson and Armstrong 91 V John Franklin 102 VI Timothy Pickering 118 VII Conclusion 137 Section III FRANKLIN CHAPTER PAGE I The Southern Frontier 147 II Watauga 157 III Cession of Territory by North Carolina 170 IV The August Convention 175 V The First Constitutional Convention 181 VI New State Government Established 186 VII The Failing Fortune of Franklin 197 VIII The Future of John Sevier 208 Section IV TRANSYLVANIA I The Transylvania Company 221 II The Pathfinder 228 III BOONESBOROUGH 236 IV A State That Failed 246 List of Documents, Records fmd Books 256 Index 259 THE FOURTEENTH COMMONWEALTHS INTRODUCTION WHY? Why the title of this book? Because each of the new state schemes treated of herein, it was expected and hoped would become the fourteenth member of the Confederated United States. However, only one of the four succeeded, Vermont which became the fourteenth commonwealth of the Federal Union, not under the Articles of Confederation, but after the adoption of the Constitution and under the present government of the United States. The four had a somewhat similar inception and development; and all the powers, if any, exercised, were derived from what may be termed the authority of squatter sovereignty. This dis- tinguishes them from the colonies which by the Declaration of Independence were merged into the original thirteen United States, because these colonies derived their powers from the king of England either by royal orders, royal charters or royal proprietary grants. The Declaration of Independence sundered this royal authority, and most of the states assumed succession of this sovereignty by the means of conventions of the people.' The only tie binding Vermont to the Confederated United States was the claim of New York to the jurisdiction of its territory, and having successfully resisted that claim, the citi- zens of Vermont considered themselves politically adrift in the seething sea of the Revolution. They were a people of and by themselves, and impelled by the peril of their situation, they adopted their own Declaration of Independence and instituted a representative organization which for years maintained itself as the de facto government of an independent republic. By their great achievement at Ticonderoga, they thought they merited recognition of their independence, and time and again supplicated Congress to admit Vermont as the Fourteenth Com- monwealth, but the persistent opposition of New York baffled their desires. Of the three lost states, Franklin and Transyl- xi vania actually sent agents who solicited the recognition and support of the Continental Congress. All of the four were inhabited by people of the same racial strain, thoroughly American and mainly of English and Scotch- Irish ancestry. A few of them were sordid land jobbing specu- lators, but most were courageous men and women who were actuated by the desire for cheap and fertile land and who sought only the betterment of their condition and the establishment of homes in the wild borderland. They were not idealists inspired by any public motives or patriotic impulses, not mere adven- turers who sought the excitement of the frontier, nor refugees fleeing from bigotry and intolerance, but a practical people seeking satisfaction of the natural human desire for material improvement. Mostly young men and women with growing families, they went from the more crowded east either as indi- viduals or organized colonists into the wilderness where they suffered the red-men's atrocities and the white men's oppressions. Some were mere squatters and the others held the lands they occupied by conflicting titles. In fact, their disputed land tenures caused their troubles and their abortive schemes of independ- ence. They received little support and suffered opposition from their parent states, Connecticut, Virginia and North Carolina. Ignored, deserted, opposed and drifting about in a state of nature, they exercised squatter sovereingty and established for brief periods imperfect self governments in three of them. The states that failed were impelled by the same motives and there is striking similarity in their inception, development and failure. Not one of them ever emerged into a state of complete legality. They were embroynic, and the stillborn chil- dren of a most troubled time, when the thirteen states exhausted by the struggles of the Revolution drifted to impotence and confusion. Like all associated states lacking the power of su- preme sovereignty, the Confederation rent assunder by inability to collect its taxes, compose the quarrels of its members and enforce its enactments, was threatened with death and dissolu- tion. Powerless to check the rising spirit of separation which threatened the dismemberment of some of the states, the Amer- ican people embraced a stronger union, and one of the potent arguments in favor of the Federal Constitution was the dis- turbed condition of the state of Franklin and teeming discontent in the Kentucky counties of Virginia. xn Three of the most pleasant spots in North America were occupied by the lost commonwealths, and the great fertility of the soil naturally enhanced the progress, prosperity and prestige of each. There were hardships and dangers, and terrible mas- sacres, but not all the inhabitants were murdered by the Indians and in fact few were slain. There were alarms, flights and aban- donment of the clearings but the settlers soon returned to the lands they occupied and loved. The sturdy men who wielded the axe and followed the plow and the vigorous young women with the many children they clothed and fed were mainly indif- ferent to the contentions that so greatly disturbed the politi- cians, and little cared whether the government was that of Con- necticut, Westmoreland or Pennsylvania, Franklin or North Carolina, Virginia or Transylvania. They fought when fighting was necessary to hold their homes and naturally preferred one leader to the other and this jurisdiction to that, but their main purpose was to hold the lands which they occupied and which they retained with a tenacity that overcame every obstacle. More important to them than all the political bickering and fighting were : the location of a blacksmith shop at the intersecting trails around which grew a village with stores, taverns and pleasant homes; the erection of a mill on a nameless stream which ground their grain; the construction of another on a falling brook which sawed lumber for better homes; the laying out of roads and the building of bridges; and the founding of churches and the establishment of schools. Franklin was the most important of the states that failed and the one attaining the most complete development. It adopted a constitution, elected a governor and assembly, enacted laws, organized courts, collected taxes and for some time exercised the functions of an independent backwoods republic. The envy and strife among its leaders put it to sleep. After a brief inter- lude of North Carolina and territorial government, it sort of translated itself into the state of Tennessee with its only gover- nor as the first chief executive of that commonwealth. Transylvania was a land speculating scheme and began its existence with a gesture of independence. Its backwoods assembly hastily elected and convened held but one brief session.