Vermont: A Study of Independence. Rowland Evans Robinson
the wilderness bloomed beside doorways, and the fragrance of foreign herbs was mingled with the balsamic odors of the woods. Where only the glare of camp-fires had briefly illumined the bivouac of armed men, the blaze of the hearth was kindled to shine on happy households; where had been heard no sound of human voice but the sentinel's challenge, the stern, sharp call of military command, or the devilish yell of the savage, now arose the voice of the mother crooning to her babe, the prattle of children at play, the gabble of gossiping dames, and the laughter of the gay habitant; while from the protecting fort flaunted the lilies of France, an assurance to these simple people of the permanency of their newly founded homes. Here the Canadians tilled their little fields, and shared of the lake's abundance with the fish-hawks and the otter, hunted the deer and moose, and trapped the fur-bearing animals in the broad forest, and at the bidding of their masters went forth with their painted allies, the Waubanakees, on bloody forays against the English.
When in 1744 war was again declared between England and France, the English frontier settlements soon began to suffer from the advantage their enemies possessed in a stronghold from which they were so easily reached. During the next year they were frequently harassed by small parties, and in August, 1746, Vaudreuil set forth from Fort St. Frederic with an army of seven hundred French and Indians to attack Fort Massachusetts, then the most advanced post in the province, whose name had been given it.[9] There were but thirty-three persons in the garrison, including women and children, but Colonel Hawkes bravely defended the place with his insignificant force for twenty-eight hours, when the supply of ammunition was exhausted and he surrendered, with the stipulation that none of his people should be delivered to the Indians. Yet in spite of this, soon after the capitulation, Vaudreuil gave up one half of them to the savages, who thereupon at once killed a prisoner who was unable to travel.
After the capture of Louisburg by the force of New England troops which he had organized, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts proposed a plan for the conquest of Canada, in which a fleet and army promised by the mother country were to attack Quebec, while the colonial troops were to march against Fort St. Frederic.
While active preparations for this enterprise were being made, the colonies were alarmed by news of the arrival at Nova Scotia of a French fleet and army so formidable as to threaten the conquest of all their seaboard, and all their efforts were turned toward defense. When storm and shipwreck had scattered and destroyed the fleet and frustrated its objects, Shirley proposed a winter campaign in which the New Hampshire troops were to go up the Connecticut and destroy the Waubanakee village of St. Francis, and the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York troops, advancing by the way of Lake George, were to attack Fort St. Frederic; but Connecticut declining to take part in it, the project was abandoned.
The English had continued to extend their settlements upon the Connecticut, and had built several small forts on the west side of the river. These so-called forts were block-houses, built of hewn logs, with a projecting upper story and pierced with loopholes for muskets. Such was Bridgman's fort in what is now Vernon, and which was twice attacked by Indians, and in the second attack was destroyed. Some years afterward, in July, 1755, a party of Indians, who were lurking near the fort, now rebuilt, waylaid three settlers as they were returning from their work, and killed one Caleb Howe. Another was drowned in attempting to cross the river, and one escaped. The Indians gained entrance to the fort, whose only inmates were the wives and children of the three men, by making the customary signal, which they had learned by observation. After plundering the fort, and taking the helpless inmates captive, they proceeded through the wilderness to Crown Point, and from thence to Canada. Their prisoners suffered there a long captivity, but were at length mostly redeemed.[10]
The most northerly settlement now on the river was at Number Four, on the east side of the Connecticut. Three years after its settlement, in 1743, a fort was built under the direction of Colonel Stoddard, the builder of Fort Dummer. It was similar to that fortification in size and construction, but was stockaded only on the north side. It inclosed, as "province houses," the dwellings previously built by five of the settlers, and one built at the same time with the fort. The settlers continued here for three years thereafter, during which they suffered frequent assaults from marauding bands of Indians, in which eight of the soldiers and inhabitants were killed and three taken prisoners. When the Massachusetts troops which for a while had garrisoned the place were withdrawn, the helpless people abandoned their newly made homes, and for months the divested fort remained as silent and desolate as the wintry wastes of forests that surrounded it. In response to representations made to him of the expediency of such a measure, Governor Shirley ordered Captain Phineas Stevens, with thirty men, to march to and occupy the fort at Number Four. Arriving there on the 27th of March, 1747, Captain Stevens found the place in good condition, and was heartily welcomed to it by an old dog and cat which had been left behind in the hurry of the autumnal departure. The garrison had been in possession but a few days when they were attacked by French and Indians commanded by M. Debeline, who opened a musketry fire upon the fort on all sides. Failing to take it in this way, the enemy attempted to burn it by setting fire to the fences and houses near it, by discharging flaming arrows upon the roof, and then by pushing a cart loaded with burning brush[11] against the walls.
Stevens thus describes the ingenious device by which he prevented the firing of the wooden walls by the enemy: "Those who were not employed in firing at the enemy were employed in digging trenches under the bottom of the fort. We dug no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man could go and stand upright on the outside and not endanger himself; so that when these trenches were finished we could wet all the outside of the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We drew some hundreds of barrels of water, and to undergo all this hard service there were but thirty men."[12] All the attempts of the enemy were baffled, fair promises and dire threats alike set at naught by the brave defenders of the fort.
On the third day of the siege Debeline offered to withdraw if Stevens would sell them provisions. Stevens refused, but offered to give them five bushels of corn for every hostage that should be given him to be held till an English captive could be brought from Canada, whereupon, after firing a few more shots, the besiegers withdrew to Fort St. Frederic.[13]
No other expeditions were afterward undertaken by the French while the war lasted, but the Indians in small parties continued to harry the settlements till after its close in 1748. To guard against these incursions, scouting parties, led by brave and experienced partisans, frequently went out from the frontier forts to watch the motions of the enemy, when oftentimes their perilous adventures and heroic deeds were such that the story of them is more like a tale from an old romance than like a page of history. One memorable incident of this service took place on Vermont soil in the summer of the next year after the gallant defense of Number Four, when Captain Humphrey Hobbs, Stevens's second in command at that post, being on a scout toward Fort Shirley in Massachusetts, with forty men, for four hours held at bay and finally beat off an Indian force more than four times outnumbering his own. It was a brush fight, wherein the scouts had no shelter but such forest cover as their assailants also took advantage of. But three of the scouts were killed; the loss of the Indians, though great, was never known, as when one fell his nearest comrade crept to the body and attached a line to it, by which it was withdrawn to cover. During the fight, the scouts frequently beheld the ghastly sight of a dead Indian gliding away and fading from view in the haze of undergrowth, as if drawn thither by some superhuman power.[14]
Until the beginning of another French and English war in 1754, and while the colonies were endeavoring to form a union for their better defense, while elsewhere were occurring such events as Braddock's Defeat and Monckton's and Winslow's Conquest of Acadia, there is little of consequence to record of affairs in this quarter till Colonel William Johnson, with an army of 4,000 or more, began an advance against Fort St. Frederic. The French had occupied Ticonderoga, and begun to fortify