Westminster massacre

Last updated

The Westminster massacre was an incident that occurred on March 13, 1775, in the town of Westminster, Vermont, then part of the New Hampshire Grants, whose control was disputed between its residents and the Province of New York. [1] It resulted in the killings of two men, William French and Daniel Houghton, by a sheriff’s posse, after a crowd occupied the Westminster Courthouse to protest the evictions of several poor farmers from their homes by officials and Judges from New York. The Westminster Massacre is regarded as an important event in the history of Vermont and one of the key events that helped spark the American Revolution. [2]

Contents

Background

Tensions in the New Hampshire Grants had existed since the 1760s between the majority of its residents, lower class farmers from New Hampshire, and "Yorkers", a wealthy minority of landowners from England and New York. The New Hampshire Grants were claimed by both the Province of New Hampshire and New York. Surveyors employed by the Yorkers were often attacked and beaten by angry farmers, who formed the radical Green Mountain Boys, an Anti-Yorker militia led by Ethan Allen and Remember Baker. The Green Mountain Boys began destroying the homes of Yorkers who settled in the New Hampshire Grants. Many of these Yorkers had taken the land from impoverished farmers. Yorkers were almost always Loyalists, while farmers sided with the colonialists. In response to the attacks on Yorkers, officials from New York began arresting and evicting poor settlers across the New Hampshire Grants.

Incident

On March 13, 1775, a group of “riotous and disorderly persons... [numbering] between eighty and ninety” assembled outside of the Westminster Courthouse to protest the arrival of a judge from New York, along with several settlers from New York. In an effort to prevent “the session of the county court scheduled for the following day.” Many members of the “riotous and disordley” crowd were “pro-Independence Whigs.” The number of people occupying the courthouse soon numbered in the hundreds, and many were armed with clubs and firearms. The “rioters” were ordered to leave the courthouse by Sheriff William Patterson. When the rioters refused to disperse and end their “riotous assembly”, Patterson rode to the town of Brattleboro, a loyalist stronghold, and recruited “25 residents for the purpose of ‘keeping the peace’”.

By 9:00 pm, when Patterson returned to Westminster with a posse of “60 to 70 armed men”, the rioters were in control of both the courthouse and local jail. Once again, Patterson ordered the rioters to disperse, and once again the rioters refused, after which the Sheriff commanded his men to fire into the courthouse to frighten the rioters. The rioters returned fire, “slightly wounding” a magistrate who had accompanied the sheriff’s posse. Patterson’s men proceeded to storm the courthouse, armed with swords and guns. Once they broke down the courthouse door Patterson’s posse began shooting into the crowd, killing William French in the moments after they entered. French was shot five times, and died immediately. One eyewitness described the chaos that ensued:

"They rushed in with their guns, swords, and clubs, and did most cruelly maim several more, and took some that were not wounded, and those that were, and crowded them all into close prison together, and then told them they should be in hell before the next night, and that they did wish that there were forty more in the same case with that dying man [William French]. When they put him [French] into prison, they took and dragged him as one would a dog, and would mock him as he lay gasping, and make sport for themselves.”

The opposing sides fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, in which many of the rioters were injured. The rioters poured out of the courthouse as Patterson's men continued to shoot. One of the rioters, Daniel Houghton, was shot and beaten so brutally that he died from his wounds nine days later.

Aftermath

After the massacre, seven of the rioters were caught by Sheriff Patterson's posse and thrown into the local jail. News of the massacre spread quickly throughout New England and New York, partly because many of the rioters rode to neighboring towns and told locals of how the sheriff's posse had killed William French.

The following day an angry mob of "upwards of 500" that included local farmers and teens as well as militias from the towns of Guildford, Westminster, and the counties of Windham, Bennington, and Albany, and even as far away as the colony of New Hampshire descended upon Westminster. The mob surrounded the courthouse and "took [with them] the judges, the sheriffs, the clerk" and local loyalists, who were paraded through town to the town jail. The mob broke into the town jail, freeing all the prisoners, including the seven rioters who had been arrested, and proceeded to lock up the officials and loyalists they had dragged through Westminster. The mob then searched the area for more loyalist leaders, who they captured and imprisoned in Northampton, MA. The mob continued south to Brattleboro, where they broke into the homes of prominent loyalists, including Samuel Gale and Benjamin Butterfield, who, along with several other Brattleboro loyalists, were brought to Northampton and imprisoned alongside loyalists the mob had already captured. The mob, which still numbered in the four hundreds, chased loyalist attorney Samuel Knight out of Brattleboro. Militias set up roadblocks in the countryside surrounding Westminster, who held people they believed to be loyalists or Yorker officials at gunpoint, then handed them over to search parties who brought the "Yorkers" to Northampton. A few days later, the mob created a committee who "charged" five of the prisoners with the murder of William French.

The following year, Vermonters met at the Westminster courthouse and declared Vermont Republic an independent nation.

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

Green Mountain Boys

The Green Mountain Boys were a militia organization first established in 1770 in the territory between the British provinces of New York and New Hampshire, known as the New Hampshire Grants and later in 1777 as the Vermont Republic. Headed by Ethan Allen and members of his extended family, it was instrumental in resisting New York's attempts to control the territory, over which it had won de jure control in a territorial dispute with New Hampshire.

A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is used in Canada, China, Romania, Taiwan, Hungary and the United States. County towns have a similar function in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, as well as historically in Jamaica.

Windham County, Vermont U.S. county in Vermont

Windham County is a county located in the U.S. state of Vermont. As of the 2010 census, the population was 44,513. The shire town is Newfane, and the largest municipality is the town of Brattleboro.

Brattleboro, Vermont Town in Vermont, United States

Brattleboro, originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about 10 miles (16 km) north of the Massachusetts state line, at the confluence of Vermont's West River and the Connecticut. In 2010, Brattleboro's population was 12,046.

Westminster (village), Vermont Village in Vermont, United States

Westminster is a village in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 276 at the 2000 census. Most of the village is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 as the Westminster Village Historic District.

Westminster (town), Vermont Town in Vermont, United States

Westminster is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,178 at the 2010 census.

Elaine massacre Anti-black violence in Elaine Arkansas in 1919

The Elaine massacre occurred on September 30–October 1, 1919 at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine in rural Phillips County, Arkansas. Some records of the time state that eleven black men and five white men were killed. Estimates of deaths made in the immediate aftermath of the Elaine Massacre by eyewitnesses range from 50 to "more than a hundred". Walter Francis White, an NAACP attorney who visited Elaine shortly after the incident stated "... twenty-five Negroes killed, although some place the Negro fatalities as high as one hundred". More recent estimates of the number of black people killed during this violence are higher than estimates provided by the eyewitnesses, recently ranging into the hundreds. The white mobs were aided by federal troops and terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "the Elaine Massacre was by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States".

New Hampshire Grants Land grants made between 1749 and 1764

The New Hampshire Grants or Benning Wentworth Grants were land grants made between 1749 and 1764 by the colonial governor of the Province of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. The land grants, totaling about 135, were made on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River, territory that was also claimed by the Province of New York. The resulting dispute led to the eventual establishment of the Vermont Republic, which later became the U.S. state of Vermont.

History of Vermont

The geologic history of Vermont begins more than 450 million years ago during the Cambrian and Devonian periods.

Jonathan Hunt (Vermont lieutenant governor)

Jonathan Hunt was an American pioneer, landowner and politician from Vernon, Vermont. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont and was a member of the prominent Hunt family of Vermont.

<i>Posse comitatus</i>

The posse comitatus, in common law, is a group of people mobilized by the conservator of peace – typically a sheriff – to suppress lawlessness or defend the county. The posse comitatus originated in ninth century England simultaneous with the creation of the office of sheriff. Though generally obsolete throughout the world, it remains theoretically, and sometimes practically, part of the United States legal system.

The Mason County War, sometimes called the Hoodoo War in reference to masked members of a vigilance committee, was a period of lawlessness ignited by a "tidal wave of rustling" in Mason County, Texas in 1875 and 1876. The violence entailed a series of mob lynchings and retaliatory murders involving multiple posses and law enforcement factions, including the Texas Rangers. The conflict took the lives of at least 12 men and resulted in a climate of bitter "national prejudice" against local German-American residents in the following years.

Cincinnati riots of 1884

The Cincinnati riots of 1884, also known as the Cincinnati Courthouse riots, were caused by public outrage over the decision of a jury to return a verdict of manslaughter in what was seen as a clear case of murder. A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, attempted to find and lynch the perpetrator. In the violence that followed over the next few days, more than 50 people died and the courthouse was destroyed. It was one of the most destructive riots in American history.

Thomas Chandler Jr. was a Vermont colonial leader who was a founder of Chester, Vermont and served as Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives. In addition, he was Vermont's first Secretary of State.

Bisbee massacre

The Bisbee massacre occurred in Bisbee, Arizona, on December 8, 1883, when six outlaws who were part of the Cochise County Cowboys robbed a general store. Believing the general store's safe contained a mining payroll of $7,000, they timed the robbery incorrectly and were only able to steal between $800 to $3,000, along with a gold watch and jewelry. During the robbery, members of the gang killed four people, including a lawman and a pregnant woman. Six men were convicted of the robbery and murders. John Heath, who was accused of organizing the robbery, was tried separately and sentenced to life in prison. The other five men were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.

In Forsyth County, Georgia, in September 1912 two separate attacks on white women resulted in black men being accused as suspects. One white woman accused two black men of breaking into her home in Big Creek Community and one of raping her. Another teenage woman was fatally beaten and raped in the Oscarville Community. Earnest Knox was linked to the Oscarville murder along with his half brother by a hair comb sold to him at the Oscarville store. When confronted, he confessed to the Sheriff and implicated his half brother and mother’s livein boyfriend. His mother testified against the sons during the jury trial which sentenced both to hanging. 21 days later the sentence was carried out.

Samuel Knight was a legal and political figure in Vermont during its period as an independent republic and the early years of its statehood. Among the offices in which he served were Associate Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, and Chief Justice (1791-1793).

Luke Knowlton American judge

Luke Knowlton was a political leader of colonial Vermont, the Vermont Republic, and the state of Vermont. He served as a Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, a member of the Governor's Council, and a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

Newberry Six lynchings Lynchings in Florida, USA

The Newberry Six lynchings took place in Newberry, Alachua County, Florida, on August 18, 1916.

Lynching of Jordan Jameson African American who was lynched in the U.S.

African-American man, Jordan Jameson was lynched on November 11, 1919, in the town square of Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas. A large white mob seized Jameson after he allegedly shot the local sheriff. They tied him to a stake and burned him alive.

References

  1. "The Massacre at Westminster, Vermont". Vermont Genealogy. Vermont Genealogy. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  2. "OLD BENNINGTON". Revolutionary Say. Retrieved 21 March 2018.

Coordinates: 43°04′21″N72°27′45″W / 43.0724°N 72.4625°W / 43.0724; -72.4625