32 



GAZETTEER OF VERMONT. 



Part III. 



ERIDPORT. 



BRIDPORT. 



necessaries, and were encouraged by the 

 cheapness of the land, it being only about 

 ^20, a right of 360 acres, so that the set- 

 tlement continued slowly to advance till 

 the commencement of the revolution in 

 177.5. And then the hope of its speedy 

 close induced most of the settlers to re- 

 main on their farms, for two or three of 

 the first years, except on occasional a- 

 larms, when they retired into the county 

 of Rutland or Bennington. A few inci- 

 dents may serve to give the reader an idea 

 of these times, and of the state of the 

 families here and in the other towns in 

 this part of the state, during the ^var. 

 These parts were frequently subject to 

 the depredations of the merciless Indians, 

 who, generally, fell upon the settlements 

 before they had any warning of their ap- 

 proach. As they seldom molested wo- 

 men and children, it was customary for 

 tlie men to flee into the woods till the In- 

 dians had performed their work of plun- 

 der. At one time a party of them enter- 

 ed the house of Mr. Stone, giving him 

 but just time to escape, and after strip- 

 ping it of every thing of value to them, 

 the principal Sanhoop put on the finest 

 shirt it afforded, and swaggering away to 

 the liogsty, selected the best hog, and of- 

 ficiated as chief butcher, flourishing his 

 fine bloody sleeves, while his comrades, 

 hooping and dancing, carried it away to 

 their canoes. At another time, a party 

 of Indians, coming up the bank, were dis- 

 covered by Mrs. Stone, in season to throw 

 some things out of a back window into 

 the weeds, put a few in iier bosom, and 

 sit down to her carding. The Indians, 

 after taking what they could find else- 

 w-here, came about Mrs. Stone and the 

 children. One of tliem seeming to sus- 

 pect that she had some valuable articles 

 concealed about her person, attempted to 

 pull them from her bosom, whereupon she 

 Btruk him on the face with the teeth side 

 of her card so violently that he withdrew 

 his hand, while a tall 3'oung savage was 

 flourishing his tomaiiawk over lior head. 

 Upon this an old Indian cried out, " Good 

 squaic, good s/jucnc," and burst into a 

 laugh of derision at his companions for 

 being beaten. At the commencement of 

 the revolution, in ]77."), when Allen and 

 Warner were mustering the militia to 

 surprise the garrison at Ticonderoga, a 

 Mr. Douglass was dispatched to this town 

 to procure aid in men, and boats, to con- 

 vey over the troops, an account of which 

 has been given in part second, page 'Xi. 

 During the war there were two skirmish- 

 es in this town between small scouts, in 

 •whicli three or four men were killed. Af- 

 ter the capture of Burgoyne, and three 



weeks before the British evacuated Ti- 

 conderoga, a party from Otter creek, 

 came out in the night and plundered the 

 house of a tory, by the name of Prindle, 

 who was a neighbor of Mr. Stone. Prin- 

 dle, not owning the house, set it on fire, 

 and, retreating on board a British armed 

 vessel on the lake, implicated Mr. Stone 

 In the robbery and burning. He, antici- 

 pating mischief, kept in the bushes near 

 the bank to observe their movements, 

 where the British discovered him and let 

 off a volley of grape shot, which struck 

 among the trees above him, and also fired 

 upon his house, some of the shot entering 

 the room where the family was. They, 

 then, sent a boat on shore, took Mr. Stone 

 and carried him a prisoner to Ticondero- 

 go where he remained three weeks. Mrs. 

 Stone expecting he would be sent to Que- 

 bec, went to him in a canoe, a distance of 

 12 miles, with no other company than her 

 brother, a 1ad only ten years old, to carry 

 him clothes, leaving her two children, the 

 oldest but four years old, alone at home. 

 She had to tarry all night before she could 

 gain admittance. On her return she found 

 her children safe, the oldest having un- 

 derstood enough of her directions to feed 

 nnd take care of the younger. In 1778, 

 the inhabitants, despairing of immediate 

 peace, and being continually harrassed, 

 mostly abandoned the town. Nathan and 

 Marshal Smith, and John Ward, who was 

 just married, however, staid. On the 4th 

 of November, 1778, they, being together, 

 were taken by a party of British under 

 M<ajor Carleton, who collected 31) prison- 

 ers, men and boys, in this vicinity, to car- 

 ry to Canada. He discharged two of the 

 prisoners, Elijah Grandy and Thomas 

 Shlnkly, with a batteau to carry the wo- 

 men and children to the Americans, while 

 he detained their fathers, husbands and 

 older sons. The parting was a scene 

 which affected a sailor's heart, and caused 

 him to say, "I never saw but one such 

 scene before, and that was when our fleet 

 sailed for America, and some leaped over 

 board to reach their friends on shore, but 

 were pursued and brouglit back." Ward 

 swung Ills hat and cried to his wife and 

 the rest, '■'■ J\"cvcr mind it, we shall soon re- 

 turn." They reached Quebec, Decem- 

 ber 6, and were kept kept in prison 16 

 months and 19 days. In the spring, after 

 two dreary winters, in -which several of 

 the party died, about 40 of the prisoners, 

 among whom were the two Smiths, \Vard 

 and Sturdlfit were removed 30 leagues 

 down the St. Lawrence river and set to 

 work. From this place eight of the pri- 

 soners deserted, among whom were the 

 four just named. Of these Sturdlfit was 



