Milestones 2015

Posted by Admin. for Barry Griffith

Hawks Mountain dominates the Vermont towns of Cavendish, Baltimore and Weathersfield. The Black River flows to its north and east down to the Connecticut River. The Crown Point Road also runs to the north and east of Hawks Mountain, roughly paralleling the Black River.

1932 USGS Topographic Map of Hawks Mountain Located in Southern Vermont Between Perkinsville and Cavendish Villages.

Hawks Mountain is named for John Hawks of Deerfield, Massachusetts. In November 1759, during the French and Indian War, Hawks led a party sent out from Crown Point by General Amherst to improve the new Crown Point Road. Provincial troops were paid and discharged when they arrived at Fort No. 4, to return to their homes in “the inhabited country” to the south and east.

Ernest Warren Butterfield (1784-1940) was an educator who researched the early history of Weathersfield. His attached map of Weathersfield shows “Hawkes Encampment” near “the Great Spring,” and “Encampment Brook” flowing down to Perkinsville village. Note that these are on the south side of Hawks Mountain — not to the east or north where the Crown Point Road runs. Why? Because this encampment predates the 1759 road. The features so identified on Butterfield’s map relate to a trip John Hawks made from Massachusetts to Canada and back in 1748! What he was doing on Hawks Mountain that winter is part of an interesting story, which deserves to be told and preserved. We hope today’s outing will help to pass on that story.

Our story takes place during King George’s War between England and France, in the years 1744-1748. That war was waged by extension between the settlers from these countries in North America. By this time, the French were well established along the St. Lawrence River, in places like Quebec City and Montreal, and had extended their control up Lake Champlain with the establishment of Fort St. Frederic at Crown Point in 1734. British and Dutch colonists had established settlements on the Hudson River as far north as Albany. To the east was Deerfield on the Connecticut River, with newer settlements further upriver, the northernmost outpost being at No. 4.

Western Massachusetts was not yet well settled. The so-called Mohawk Trail could serve as a route for the French and their Indian allies to reach and strike settlements in central Massachusetts. To deter such raids, Massachusetts Governor William Shirley determined to establish a Line of Forts along the northern boundary of Massachusetts, as shown on the attached map taken from Michael Coe’s so-named book. Pursuant to that plan, in 1745 Fort Massachusetts was built along the Hoosac River, in what is now North Adams.

John Hawks (1707-1784) is the hero of our story. Hawks was born and raised in Deerfield, Massachusetts. He was the youngest child of Eleazer Hawks (1655-1727) and Judith Smead Hawks (1665-1718). In 1730 John Hawks married Elizabeth Nims (1712-1779). Hawks served as a Sergeant in the Massachusetts militia during King George’s War. Hawks was 39 years old when he was sent to Fort Massachusetts in 1746, leaving his wife and five young children behind. John’s sister Hannah Hawks (1703-1771) had married Samuel Allen (1702-1746) in 1727. The Allens had twelve children. They remained in Deerfield, but are also a part of this story.

On August 3, 1746 an army of 440 French soldiers and 300 Native American allies set out from Montreal. General Francois-Pierre Rigaud de Vaudreuil — the Canadian Governor’s brother — led the French forces. The Canadian invaders attacked Fort Massachusetts on August 19. At the time, Hawks had just 21 men under him — 11 of whom were on the sick list with dysentery. They courageously held the fort that day, but used most of their ammunition in the process. Rather than risk having the Fort overrun and its occupants slaughtered, on August 20 Hawks negotiated favorable terms of surrender with Vaudreuil. For his brave stand, and for saving the lives of those under his command, Hawks became known as the Hero of Fort Massachusetts.

Sketch of Fort Massachusetts from “The Hoosac Valley Legends & History”, Grace Greylock Niles, 1912

Vaudreuil and his main party returned to Canada with Hawks and his fellow captives. A party of sixty Indians continued east, surprising a group of hay-makers near Deerfield on the morning of August 25. Among those killed in the attack were Hawks’ brother Eleazer and his brother-in-law Allen. Hawks’ nine-year-old nephew Samuel Allen was captured and taken to Canada by the raiding party.

Earlier in 1746, a party of about 100 Native Americans loyal to the French had come down the Connecticut River. On April 23, they attacked Keene, killing several inhabitants. Nathan Blake, Keene’s first permanent settler, was captured and likewise taken to Canada.

Hawks and the other Fort Massachusetts prisoners arrived in Montreal on September 10, 1746. Five days later they were in Quebec, where they remained for the winter. Survivors were redeemed pursuant to the terms negotiated by Hawks. After the ice was out of the St. Lawrence River, Hawks and others boarded a French ship on July 27, 1747. The Vierge de Grace arrived in Boston on August 16 under a flag of truce. John Hawks was back in Massachusetts. As events unfolded, Hawks’ stay in Massachusetts would be a short one.

On September 27, 1747 a French cadet received a commission to head south from Montreal with 40 Native Americans to raid British settlements. On October 16 Captain Ebenezer Alexander of Northfield espied the French soldier five miles from his town, and shot him in the chest. Alexander’s small party left the area, fearing they would be attacked by the main body of the French forces. The Indians also abandoned their leader, returning to Canada to report his death.

The young cadet did not die. He dressed and bound up his wound as best he could. Four days later he arrived in Northfield, where he surrendered and was well treated. By November, the prisoner had recovered enough to make a trip to Boston to parley with Governor Shirley. The cadet’s name was Pierre Raimbault St. Blein. He was the grandson of the Governor-General of Montreal. St. Blein convinced Shirley to let him return to Canada, where the cadet said he would obtain the consent of the Governor of Canada to the return of two English prisoners in exchange for his own release. Governor Shirley agreed, and specified Nathan Blake and young Samuel Allen as the prisoners to be released in exchange.  Shirley gave John Hawks a commission to travel back to Canada with St. Blein to accomplish the transfer. Matthew Clesson and Samuel Taylor of Deerfield were appointed to accompany Hawks on the journey.

Crossing the Green Mountains on Indian Shoes from “In the Shadow of Cox Mountain”, Grace Anderson, 1993, Adapted from Sketch by Grace Brigham

The party was provisioned, and set out on snowshoes from Deerfield on February 8, 1748. They arrived at No. 4 two days later, where they spent the night there at the fort with the wintering inhabitants. On February 11, 1748 the party crossed the Connecticut River and proceeded as far as Hawks Mountain, where they spent the night at an encampment site which we will speculate about today. Surely, those living at No. 4 would have been familiar with this territory. What part did they play? George Sheldon (1818-1916) wrote in his 1895 History of Deerfield:

According to tradition, a party from No. 4 escorted them on this day’s march, one of whom was a young [18 years old] man named John Stark, later the hero of Bennington, but then unknown to fame. This tradition is not verified by any recorded facts. On the contrary, Mr. Doolittle in his journal says that when “the French prisoner” was at No. 4, some of the garrison told him that “they would gladly accompany him part of the way, but they had neither Indian Shoes or Snow Shoes.”

The party crossed the Green Mountains, proceeded to Lake Champlain, and continued north to Montreal, arriving there on February 27, 1748. St. Blein’s family greeted him and the party warmly. Hawks sought out his nephew Samuel Allen, now 11 years old. Epaphras Hoyt (1765-1850) recounts the following in his 1824 Antiquarian Researches:

At Montreal, Rambout was delivered to the French commander, and search made for the young Allen, who was at length found among the Indians; and unaccountable as it may appear, though he had resided with them but about eighteen months, he had acquired a strong attachment to their mode of life, and discovered great aversion to returning home; and even attempted to avoid his deliverers. When brought into the presence of Col. Hawks, he with reluctance acknowledged that he recognized him, though he was his uncle, and had been well known to him at Deerfield — nor would he converse in English. Various means were used to dissuade him from his strange predilection, but all without effect, and his obstinacy was conquered only by threats and force. Nor did his Indian attachments cease in his old age, and he often declared that the Indian mode of life was the most happy.

Hawks’ next task was to secure the release of Nathan Blake. We will talk about Blake’s time in Canada. Hawks found Blake in a jail in Quebec, and secured his release. It was time to return to Deerfield.

Hawks, Clesson, Taylor, Blake and Allen left Montreal for home on April 13, 1748. Ensign Obadiah Sartwell, who had been captured at No. 4, also returned with them. St. Blein and a guard of French soldiers accompanied Hawks’ party to ensure its safe passage, as far as the ridge of the Green Mountains — likely to what later became known as the Halfway Encampment on the Crown Point Road. St. Blein and Hawks parted ways on April 26, 1748. Hawks’ party proceeded to and down the Connecticut River, arriving back in Deerfield on April 30. Hawks made the following entry in his journal regarding his young nephew Samuel Allen: “We delivered our little traveler to his mother & had the pleasure of seeing a poor, disconsolate mother made joyful beyond expression by the reception of her son from a miserable captivity.”

John Hawks made this trip in 1748, more than twenty years before Town of Weathersfield, Vermont was inhabited. Among the first permanent residents of Weathersfield was the Hilkiah Grout family.  Grout settled along the Black River in 1773 — about a mile east of Hawks Mountain. Hilkiah Grout (1728-1795) had married Submit Hawks (1729-1817), the daughter of Nathaniel Hawks (1699-1754). John Hawks was Submit’s uncle; Samuel Allen was her cousin — snatched away from his family in Deerfield in 1746 when Submit was seventeen years old. Surely, Submit would have remembered his capture, and her uncle triumphantly returning to Deerfield with her young cousin in 1748.

I can picture John Hawks visiting his niece and her family in Weathersfield — perhaps around 1777, when Hawks would have been 70 years old. I can imagine John Hawks taking his relatives to Hawks Mountain, and showing them landmarks from his 1748 trip. They were given then the names we have used today, which have been passed down to present time.

Posted by Admin. for Becky Tucker

On Saturday October 11, 2014 about 20 people met at the 1879 Perkinsville School yard and proceeded up Quarry Road for an investigation of the storied location of Major John Hawks’ (1707 – 1784) spring and encampment there.  Beginning on the property of Cary Levins, they ventured into the woods to view the spring shown on E. W. Butterfield’s map (see A Record of Inhabitants of Weathersfield Vermont 1760 – 1813) as the source of Encampment Brook.  Encampment Brook flows under Route 106 just north of the Quarry Road and Maple Street junction.  This spring is Mr. Levins’ water supply today.

Hikers to Hawk’s Encampment Listen to Leader Barry Griffith’s Briefing on the History of Major John Hawks.

Further walking through small hardwoods toward the south the group found, first, a relatively flat area which could have served as John Hawks’ encampment location.  Secondly, the approximate location called the “machinery” by Mr. Levins due to an old story about logging operations having been carried out there.  Indeed, a buried iron wheel-like item was uncovered nearby with a small tree growing through it.

Further on toward the south, the group travelled up a second stream seen earlier also flowing through Levins’ property.  After crossing a stone wall said to be the border of Baltimore and Weathersfield they found another spring, as well as an interesting “box” made of soapstone slabs once held together with iron bolts located in center of the stream, probably a place to collect water by earlier inhabitants of the area.

Iron Wheel Artifact at the “Machinery” Site.

Soapstone quarries were located in the area as shown on Butterfield’s as well as Beers’ 1869 maps.  Today’s most visible sign of this business is the water-filled quarry  on land formerly of Henry Hicks, adjacent to Quarry Road, with piles of soapstone tailings around it.

Barry Griffith shared his extensive research on Major John Hawks of Deerfield Massachusetts who, in 1759 during the French and Indian War, led a party sent out by General Jeffrey Amherst from Crown Point to improve the new Crown Point Road. Hawks was, however, traveling in the Weathersfield area over a decade earlier in 1748 on business during the 1744 – 1748 King George’s War between England and France.

Old Spring-Box Constructed of Soapstone Slabs Found Near the Baltimore – Weathersfield Town Boundary.

As the story goes, in February 1748 Hawks and his party left Fort No. 4, crossed the Connecticut River and spent the night on the mountain near what Butterfield called the “Great Spring” and the next day probably crossed the mountain at a natural saddle to the south and continued on to Lake Champlain, then Montreal.  He was charged with delivering one Pierre Raimbault St Blein in exchange for several prisoners, including Hawks’ own nephew Samuel Allen, then 11 years old.  Young Samuel was said to have been reluctant to return home, having been living with the Indians for some 18 months.  The Allen boy was child of Major Hawks’ sister Hannah (Hawks) (1703 – 1771) and Samuel Allen of Deerfield MA.

There is a suggestion mentioned in Annie M. Pollard’s History of Baltimore, Vermont (pg. 4), that Black River being “swollen” at that time,  or another, the party chose to go up Encampment Brook and over the mountain rather than continue up the river, and around the mountain.

It seems reasonable to think that John Hawks was here more than one time to merit having the mountain called after him, and Barry Griffith suggests Hawks may have, in later years, visited his niece Submit (Hawks) Grout, daughter of Nathaniel Hawks (1699 – 1754), and husband Hilkiah, early settlers in Weathersfield. Griffith envisions the Major taking his relatives up the mountain and showing them the landmarks from his 1748 trip, and giving them the names Butterfield used in 1940, as we did on October 11th, 2014.

Posted by Admin. for Becky Tucker

Weathersfield Hike Area
CPRA Guidebook, Map #2 Excerpt

On September 14, 2013 Barry Griffith and I led a group of twenty or so walkers on a tour of some of Weathersfield’s Crown Point Road markers, including the two known original mile markers for the road built in 1759-60.

We met at Downers, then visited Marker #24 at the location of the former Paine Tavern on Tarbell Hill Road in Cavendish, and ventured into the woods to view what remains of an old bridge abutment on the small stream there, called Crown Point Brook on some maps.

Because of some ongoing landowner discomfort, we did not travel the original route from Paine’s Tavern through the woods to Marker 22.  We missed the story of early Weathersfield settlers Eli and Sarah (Stent) Plant who were married in 1789 in Branford CT.  He was in the Revolution and was in Capt. Barker’s company in 1779, and probably came through here on the Road during the War. Eli and Sarah were in Claremont NH in 1789, and were in Weathersfield by 1793 because he was on the Tax List in town then. The Plants were here at least until 1813, and he was said to have been in Athens VT in 1855. Just after one enters Weathersfield on the old CPR in Cavendish, there is an old foundation off the trail to the left. Plant owned 20 acres in Lot 54 (probably where the cellar hole is located) and about 60 acres in the south of Lot #56 north of the Crown Point Brook.

Returning to Weathersfield via Greenbush Road we stopped to view Marker #23A placed in 2000 at the border between the two towns and commemorating Springfield’s Glenn Wheelock, who, with his family, walked the complete length of the CPR.

Pausing briefly at Marker #23 on busy Route 106 on “dump day,” we parked cars at the Weathersfield Recycling Center and continued on foot to Marker #22.  On Amsden School Road, at the foot of a driveway, this original 11-mile marker was inscribed twice, once in 1759 or 1760, and second, in 1922 after land-owner Mark LaFountain discovered it.  LaFountain, of Springfield, and his parents Albert W. “Snip” and Helen LaFountain owned a “camp” on Potwin’s Hill so-called, off the road.  LaFountain’s story of the discovery of this marker was published in WHS newsletter in July 2010.  Apparently, in 1922, the existence of the Ten-Mile Marker was not known, as he termed it “the only known original Crown Point Road Marker.”

Following the under-construction Route 131 through the village of Amsden, we traveled by Marker #21, a typical granite marker placed in 1915 by the Vermont Society D.A.R.  Due to the temporary gravel surface of 131, traffic on the usually busy quarter-mile of highway to Branch Brook Road was light and safe for walkers.

Along Branch Brook Road are two more “typical” granite markers #20 and #19, then we entered the woods again along the brook-side trail to #18, Weathersfield’s other original marker, at Ten-Mile Camp.

Here too, in Amsden, is the route walked by Susannah Johnson, and family members, captured by the Indians in August 1754 at Number #4 settlement (Charlestown NH) and carried to Canada.  The old Indian Road followed the Branch further and beside Route 106 south of Felchville is a marker commemorating the place where she gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth Captive Johnson on the second day of her journey to Canada. That trail branched off onto what we call Knapp Brook that goes up and over the mountains.

Barb Griffith Making the Branch Brook Crossing

From the Ten-Mile Camp marker, we crossed the Branch Brook, some with bare feet or “Crocs”, some just getting our boots wet, and one brave soul walking across a huge blown-down tree.  Here we paused for lunch.  After a short walk, we arrived at the Plain Cemetery, and beside it, the re-situated Grout or Sherwin Cemetery and Marker VT #17.

Leader Barry Griffith, of Shrewsbury, shared Helen B. Osgood’s story of Hilkiah and Submit (Hawks) Grout, Weathersfielders who are buried in the Grout cemetery and who first settled on the Butterfield – Claghorn farm, now in the North Springfield Flood control dam area.  He pointed out that Col. John Hawks, for whom Hawks Mountain is named, was Submit Grout’s uncle.

Following the hike, we drove through Perkinsville and down Maple Street to view the location of the Grout farm and burial ground area, as well as the now-missing bronze marker for the Butterfield Covered Bridge location close by.

During the September 14th hike there was some interest in Ernest W. Butterfield’s A Record of the Inhabitants of Weathersfield 1760 – 1813, map showing a spring (“The Grout Spring”) and camp location (“Hawkes Encampment”) somewhere near the Baltimore border on Hawks Mountain. A CPRA hike within the area of these landmarks is contemplated for the future.