Lt. James Breakenridge of Bennington, Vermont, 1760
Written and Compiled by Charles Elliott Breckenridge (1851 - 1916) and Roger Carroll Breckenridge
James, the eldest son of the James and Sarah Brakenridge, lived in his native place in Ireland tell he was six years old, when he came with his parents to this country and grew to manhood in the home near Palmer Center, Massachusetts. He moved to Ware, Mass. where several of the older children were born and in 1761, James Breakenridge, Jr. moved his family to Bennington, Vermont.
In the autumn of 1761, with his wife and six children and twenty or thirty families, he went on horse back through the woods to the territory which afterwards became Vermont. They had been preceded a few months before by a company of twenty two persons to blaze the way and make some preparation for the rest of the prospective colony.
This colony started in with brave hearts to make for themselves a home of the heart of the primeval wilderness. They were depending upon their New Hampshire Charter for a title to their lands but on Dec. 28th 1763 Lieutenant Governor Calden of New York issued a proclamation claiming for New York all the territory eastward to the Connecticut River, and annulling all the New Hampshire grants. Two years latter Sir Henry became governor and the colonists hoped that he would favor them. Their hopes for relief, however, were vain and matters began to look quite serious, when the New York claimants sent up their surveyor and demanded possession of the farms which the colonists had worked so hard to clear and improve.
The 12,000 acre tract of the land known as Walloomsac, from the name of the river that flows through it, extended up into Bennington and included the farm of James Brakenridge; but he had been several years on his farm and had made extensive improvements before he heard anything about a counterclaim.
The farms of James Brakenridge and Dr. Josiah Fuller were selected as a test of the validity of the Walloomsac grant, and the New York claimants sent up their surveyors Oct. 19th, 1769. The neighbors clubbed together to help James Brakenridge and Dr. Fuller and the Yorkers returned home crestfallen. The settlers assembled at the Catamount Tavern and voted to stand in defense of their homes.
The settlers had no faith in the justice of the Albany court, but they decided to give it a trial, and James Brakenridge employed Ethan Allen to represent his case in the June session of the 1770. As was to be expected the court decided against them, and several prominent New Yorkers advised Allen to go home to his Vermont friends and induce them to submit quietly to their new landlords, reminding him of the old proverb, "Might makes Right". Allen replied laconically: "The Gods of the valleys are not the Gods of the hills." When asked of his meaning he replied; "come up to Bennington and my meaning will be made clear."
Encouraged by the favorable decision of the court, the efforts at surveying were renewed; but the good care of the Benningtonians, who had agreed to take the farms under their protection frustrated these attempts.
The decisive battle came at last when Sheriff Ten Eyck from Albany called the power of the county to his aid and left home July 28, 1771, with over 300 men, variously armed and representing all classes, including the mayor and several aldermen and lawyers. That night they camped at Sancoik six or seven miles from their destination at the Breakenridge farm. The next morning they took up the line march, other recruits falling in by the way. They found the settlers prepared to give them a warm reception if they came too close to quarters. A good company of well armed men was scattered through the woods behind walls and trees, with only their muskets in sight. In the house were eighteen men, resolute and well armed for defense, with a red flag to hoist up the chimney if they felt in need of aid, the family having gone to the home of a neighbor.
At the Walloomsac bridge, a half mile northwest of the house, the sheriff's party found a company of six or seven armed men who refused to let them pass; but after a few minutes conversation they consented to let a few of the party go on to see Mr. Brakenridge, which they did, but accomplished nothing to their purpose. So the sheriff called on the whole party to go with him to take forcible possession. He seized an ax and started toward the door, but saw so many muskets pointed at him that he concluded "Discretion was the better part of Valor" and beat a hasty retreat.
The sheriff and his party returned to the bridge and he made formal demand of them to accompany him a few miles farther up the river and make an attempt to capture the other farm; but they had seen enough of the fun and many of them were in sympathy with the settlers anyway and would have liked to see them succeed; so, none offering to accompany him, he gave up the attempt in dismay. "Surely the gods of the valley were defeated when they attempted jurisdiction among the hills."
James Brackenridge was a quiet man and never engaged personally in any riotous proceedings, but his decided stand in defense of his home against the "Yorkers" led to his being denounced as a rioter and a reward was offered for his arrest. He was elected lieutenant of the company of Green Mountain Boys in 1764.
Hiland Hall, in his Early History of Vermont gives a full and interesting account of the land title controversy, which was so nearly decided by that bloodless battle on the Brackenridge farm. I quote the closing paragraph of his description of that July day in Bennington in 1771; "Here in fact, on the farm of James Brackenridge was born the future state of Vermont, which, struggling through the perils of infancy, had by the commencement of the general revolution acquired the activity and strength of adventurous youth, had by its close reached the full stature of manhood, and which not long after ward became the acknowledged equal of its associate American republics."
In the autumn of 1772 James Brakenridge and Jehiel Hawley of Arlington were chosen to represent the settlers before the English King George III. They soon accomplished their mission and returned home with a favorable report. A lady of Belchertown, who was a little girl in the time of James Brakenridge's mission to England, remembers seeing, when, on his way to Boston, he stopped over night at her father's tavern. She described him as being of noble presence.
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Lieut. James Brakenridge was of a religious character; he died April 16, 1783, age 62. He and his wife Mary (Moore) Brackenridge are both buried in the historic cemetery at Bennington Center, near the old church which was the pioneer church in Vermont. On his tombstone is the following inscription:
"MEMENTO MORI"
In memory of Lieut. James Breakenridge, who departed this life on the morning of the 16th of April 1783, in the 62nd year of his age.
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A granite monument with a bronze tablet affixed to it marks the site of the old Breakenridge home near Bennington, the birthplace of Vermont.
BIRTHPLACE OF VERMONT
NEAR THIS SITE
STOOD THE HOMESTEAD OF
LIEUT. JAMES BREAKENRIDGE
AFTER YEARS OF PEACEABLE POSSESSION
HIS FARM WAS CLAIMED BY NEW YORK
LAND SPECULATORS -- A SHERIFF AND
OVER THREE HUNDRED MEN CAME FROM
ALBANY TO EVICT HIM FROM HIS HOME
AIDED BY MEN FROM BENNINGTON A
BRAVE DEFENSE WAS MADE WITHOUT
BLOODSHED PROVING TO BE A DECLA-
RATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE
STATE OF VERMONT - JULY 19TH 1771
THE HOME OF FOUR GENERATIONS WAS
DESTROYED BY FIRE IN 1889.
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