INTRODUCTION.

FOR a few years the record of the Governor and Council, like that of the Council of Safety, was not made in the form of a regular journal, but embraced only matters the preservation of which was thought to be necessary. In many instances the action of the Council is merely noted, with references to the Assembly journal for further information. Whenever deemed advisable, the editor has, in notes, quoted from the Assembly journal in such cases, or briefly stated the essence of the record; and has also quoted or briefly stated other matters in the Assembly journal touching the Council-otherwise no just conception could be obtained of the work and value of that body.

For a short time the Governor and Council was the Board of War, and afterward that Board was constituted largely of Councillors, and therefore it has been deemed advisable to publish the record of the Board of War in connection with the Council record.

Though the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Council formed a very important branch of the government for more than fifty-seven years, the records of their action have never been printed. The proceedings of that body given in this volume have been copied therefore from the original manuscript records, as the volumes that may succeed it must be.

For the constitution and powers of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Council, see chapter II of the Constitution, (ante, pp. 95-101,) sections I, III, XIV, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, and XXVII. Powers were occasionally given to the Governor and Council by special votes of the General Assembly, certified copies of which were sent to the Council and are entered in its record.

ORGANIZATION, FROM MARCH 12 UNTIL OCTOBER 9, 1778.
THOMAS CHITTENDEN of Williston,' Governor.
JOSEPH MARSH of Hartford, Lieutenant-Governor.'

1 Gov. Chittenden's residence was then in Arlington, but his home was in Williston.

The report of the committee which canvassed the votes was, that no election of lieutenant-governor had been made by the people, when Col. Marsh was elected by the General Assembly. Afterward fifteen votes were brought in for Col. M., which gave him a majority of the votes cast by the people.-Assembly Journal, in Slade's State Papers, p. 257.

COUNCILLORS:

IRA ALLEN of Colchester, 1
JACOB BAYLEY of Newbury,
JOSEPH BOWKER of Rutland,
TIMOTHY BROWNSON of Sunder-
land,

BENJAMIN CARPENTER of Guilford,
JEREMIAH CLARK of Shaftsbury,

BENJAMIN EMMONS of Woodstock,
JONAS FAY of Bennington,
THOMAS MOREDOCK2 of Norwich,
PETER OLCOTT of Norwich,

PAUL SPOONER of Hartland,

MOSES ROBINSON of Bennington.'

THOMAS CHANDLER, jr., of Chester, Secretary.

MATTHEW LYON of Arlington, Deputy Secretary from April 9 to June 4, and from July 17 to Oct. 9.

'Ira Allen's residence was in Sunderland, but his home was in Colchester.

2 Thomas Murdock.

This list is from Slade's State Papers, with the exception that here the name of MOSES ROBINSON is inserted in lieu of JOHN THROOP. This change is not warranted by any preceding printed list—that is, not by Ira Allen's, or Slade's, or Deming's, or the lists copied from either. It is not warranted by the list in the official record, as it stands on the book and yet that MOSES ROBINSON was a member of that Council, and JOHN THROOP was not, are facts abundantly proved by the official record, in spite of the erroneous list which has been interpolated into it in recent times. The introduction to the canvassing committee's report of the first Council is all that was entered on the original minutes, and all that Secretary FAY (JOSEPH) found there when he recorded them in the present official record-book in 1788. He left a blank for the names of the Councillors, and that blank was never filled unti! a comparatively recent date, when it was filled from Slade's list. This is shown by other entries from Slade in the margin, or references to his work, which are in the same handwriting as that of the incorrect list. The entry was made in good faith, but nevertheless it is wrong. The proofs that MOSES ROBINSON was a member of the first Council are: 1st, an official letter of the Council, dated March 14, 1778, addressed to him, notifying him of his election and requiring his attendance; 2d, the fact that he took the oath of office April 24, 1778—seeming not to have attended the March session; and 3d, his name appears on the only three debenture-rolls of that Council that are recorded, being in April and May 1778. This is incontrovertible evidence.

The proof that JOHN THROOP was not a Councillor at that time is less direct but nevertheless quite satisfactory. March 26, 1778, the General Assembly by vote empowered the Council to dispose of tory estates; and under this act and on the same day, the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

For notices of Messrs. Allen, Bayley, Carpenter, Chittenden, Clark, Fay, Lyon, Robinson, and Spooner, see ante, pp. 115–129; and for notice of Mr. Bowker, see note, ante, p. 190.

Col. JOSEPH MARSH was descended from John Marsh, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1633, and removed with Rev. Thomas

Council constituted themselves arbiters in the premises, and divided the body into two courts, as follows:

Court for Cumberland County.-[Eastern Vermont, at that date.]

Here, then, are the six Councillors residing on the east side of the mountain, and JOHN THROOP of Pomfret is not among them.

Court for Bennington County.

The vote of the Council on the same day was in these words:

Voted that his Excellency the Governor & Council that Live in the County of Bennington be a Court to Confiscate the Estate of those persons that are Enemies, in the Same form as those in the County of Cumberland are.

March 17, 1778, nine days before these courts were created, the whole of western Vermont was named " Bennington County." Above, then, in courts constituted exclusively of the Governor, Lieut.-Governor, and Council, there are the twelve Councillors, and JOHN THROOP is not among them. He was not Councillor until 1779.

The fact that the report of the canvassing committee for the first Councillors was left blank ought to have put investigators on their guard. Had it done so, the conclusive facts here stated, which lie patent on the record, would have excluded error. There doubtless was a reason for leaving the report blank temporarily. The same committee had reported that there had been no election of Deputy-Governor by the people, Joseph Marsh lacking eleven votes. Mr. Marsh was then elected by the General Assembly; but, speedily, fifteen more votes for Mr. Marsh were "brought in" and he was elected by the people. Thus warned, the com

Hooker to Hartford, Conn., in 1635. John Marsh married Anne, daughter of Deputy-Governor John Webster; and after her death he married the widow of Richard Lyman, of Northampton, Mass. Joseph Marsh, who settled in Lebanon, Conn., in 1697, was grandson of John Marsh; and a grandson of Joseph was the father of Vermont's first lieutenant-governor, Col. JOSEPH MARSH of Hartford, Vt. Col. Marsh was born in Lebanon, Conn., Jan. 12, 1726, O. S., and Jan. 10 1750 married Dorothy Mason, who was a descendant from Major John Mason, (afterward Major-General of all the Connecticut forces,) who in 1630 came from England to Dorchester, Mass., being one of the first settlers. Maj. Mason removed to Windsor, Conn., in 1634, became very famous as commander of the English in the Pequot Indian War, (of which he wrote a history,) and was deputy governor from May 1660 to May 1670, when he voluntarily retired and removed to Norwich, Conn., where he died about 1672. The wife of Col. Marsh was a sister of Col. Jeremiah Mason of Lebanon, Conn., who was father of the late very distinguished jurist, Hon. Jeremiah Mason of Boston. The high expectations from such an ancestry have been remarkably fulfilled in lieut.-gov. Marsh and his descendants, among whom are the late Hon. Charles Marsh of Woodstock, the late professor and president James Marsh of the University of Vermont, the mittee may have waited for more votes for Councillors to be "brought in," and so did not complete the report.

The date of the Council's letter to Robinson, notifying him of his election, was March 14, 1778, being the third day of the session, which shows that the completion of the counting of votes for Councillors had been for some reason delayed. It is certain that Mr. Slade was too easily misled. He was Secretary of State and had the records in his possession. If, therefore, he had printed the Council journals for 1778 with the Assembly journals which he did put into the State Papers, he would inevitably have discovered the error that is now, the editor believes, corrected for the first time. Mr. Slade was probably misled by the list in Ira Allen's History.-See Vt. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. 1, p. 392. Allen wrote his history in England, twenty years after the election of 1778, and wrote it, as he declared, from memory. If Mr. Throop had been at first supposed to be elected, though the fact turned out to be otherwise, Allen's memory would have retained the name; and with a good degree of confidence also, as the facts were that Mr. Robinson did not attend the first (March) session, but the subsequent ones, and Allen himself did not attend the April and May sessions, when Robinson did-the debenture-rolls proving both facts. Moreover, Allen's name does not appear in the only other session of that first Council-June, 1778-except as having been designated on two committees for work to be done in the then future. These appointments probably were made in his absence. In any event, the record amply disproves the accuracy of Allen's memory.