Frank Thornton Honored for Service to Charlotte
by Nancy Wood,
February 24, 2011, page 1.....

The Selectboard invited the town to a reception to honor Frank Thornton on Wednesday, February 23, at the Senior Center. Thornton stepped down from the Selectboard during 2010 after many years of dedicated service.

A crowd of well-wishers filled the great room of the Senior Center. Selectboard member Ed Stone greeted Frank and his wife, Mary, and expressed the town's appreciation for his years of service. Mary Lighthall added a few words about his contributions to the Charlotte Historic Society, and Shirley Bean thanked him for helping with the charter for the Senior Center. Frank was presented with a special recognition award, and Mary with flowers for her contributions as well. Frank and Mary shared memories of their experiences over the last 40 + years in Charlotte.

Jenny Steele Cole, who will also be retiring from the Selectboard this month after serving nine years, created the unique recognition award that was given to Frank. It captures the essence of his contributions to Charlotte. Framed in natural wood by her brother, Richard Steele, it includes a pencil drawing by Jenny of the Charlotte Memorial Museum, which was built in 1850 as the Town Hall.

The inscription in the bottom panel reads, “Presented to Frank Thornton, Community Servant and Town Historian, from a grateful town, February 2011, Charlotte, Vermont.” The middle panel is a quote from William Wallace Higbee: “The places where our forefathers lived, the houses they erected, the roads they built, the fields they tilled, are dear to us, and our interest increases as the passing years removed them further from us. The future is a book unread, and only the hand of Time can cut its leaves for the perusal of men. The past is ours for pleasure or pain, and happy is he who recalls it with more joy than sorrow.”

The Higbee quote is from “Looking Backward on a Quiet Rural People and their Surroundings,” originally published in the newspaper the Vergennes Vermonter on December 18, 1896. It was republished in 1991 on page 11 of Around the Mountains, the compilation of Higbee’s essays edited by the Charlotte Historical Society. This much-loved book is celebrating its 20th anniversary next week. Thornton, then president of the society, worked on the initial committee and helped secure financing for the book.

Frank has shared his curiosity and joy in the places, houses, roads and fields of Charlotte in many ways. He has led walks through the villages, identifying the older homes and telling stories about the original settlers. He researched the origin of town roads back to when the town was chartered in the late 1700s, and created a book recording his findings that is lodged in the town vault. Through the years he authored many “Looking Back” articles that appeared in The Charlotte News about the history of Charlotte and Vermont. Several are archived on this website. Three of the most recent are pasted below.

A very big Thank You, Frank, for all you’ve contributed to Charlotte.

Here are three Looking Back articles by Frank Thornton:

Shifty Brides
Looking Back, by Frank Thornton
March 11, 2010, page 10

Introduction: Frank Thornton’s “Looking Back” essay about women’s property rights is very fitting this month, as March is National Women’s History Month. In the United States women have gained many rights over the last two centuries, the precious legacy of activist women and men who believed that the words “all men are created equal” were inclusive of all people. The Charlotte Library has placed on display an interesting selection of books about women’s history.

Shifty Brides

In Vermont before the mid-1800’s, an unmarried woman still living at home with her father generally could not legally control her property, no matter how she obtained it. Her father, during his lifetime, absolutely controlled her property until such time as she married. When married, she and her property fell under the control of her husband. Under common law, a man and wife were but one legal person. The woman’s very being and existence became suspended during the marriage, and she was treated as becoming incorporated in her husband.

When a married man died, his estate included not only the property he had before the marriage, or what he and his wife jointly obtained during the marriage, but also included any property she brought with her when she entered into the marriage. If his estate were solvent, once his creditors were satisfied, the probate court would grant the remainder of the estate to the widow and close the estate. However, if the value of his estate was insufficient to discharge all the debts that the decedent had incurred during his lifetime, his debtors could and usually would refuse to allow the estate to be closed. As long as it remained open they could be reimbursed from any future property that might fall into the hands of the widow.

This meant, for all practical purposes, that as long as an insolvent estate remained open, a widow could not remarry. If she did, her new husband would come into possession of property that was a part of her first husband’s estate, which would make him legally responsible for the debt she would be bringing into the marriage. The property that a new husband received might be as minimal as the dress the widow was wearing when she remarried, for the law considered even the clothes on her back as being rightfully a part of the dead husband’s estate. The new husband became an “Executor De Son Tort,” for he was held to be depriving the estate’s debtors of their right of property belonging to the estate. (Freely translated, the term Executor De Son Tort means an executor by his own wrong.) As an Executor De Son Tort, the new husband became liable for all undischarged debts remaining in the first husband’s estate. Faced with such a potential burden, most men avoided a widow whose deceased husband’s estate was not closed by the probate court.
However, some couples found a way to marry and yet prevent the new husband from suffering the penalties of the law.

In Newfane, in 1788, William Ward died and left a very desirable widow, Hannah. After a respectable mourning period, Major Moses Joy of Putney proposed marriage to Hannah. He soon learned that her late husband William had left considerable debts and his estate was insufficient to satisfy all of them. If Moses married Hannah in the usual manner, he would be saddled with all of William’s outstanding debts. But with further investigation, he found out that if they were married while Hannah possessed nothing related to the marriage, he could not be found to be liable for her deceased husband’s debts.

This was accomplished by Mrs. Ward’s placing herself in a closet, with a tire-woman (lady’s maid) who stripped Mrs. Ward of all her clothing, and left the closet with the clothing Mrs. Ward had removed.

The marriage was reported as follows: “And while in a perfectly nude state, Mrs. Ward thrust her fair, round arm through a diamond-shaped hole in the door of the closet, and the gallant Major clasped the hand of the nude and buxom widow and was married in due form by the jolliest parson in Vermont. At the close of the ceremony, the tire-woman dressed the bride in a complete wardrobe that the major had provided in the closet at the commencement of the ceremony. She came out elegantly dressed in silk, satin and lace, and there was kissing all round.”

In 1817 Asa Averill of Westminster, Vermont, lost his wife Anna Chaffee, with whom he had six children. About the same time, Mrs. Mercy Phippen Lovejoy, the widow of Major Peter Lovejoy, had, at the death of her husband, not only had been left with an insolvent estate on her hands but also with six children. When Asa proposed, Mercy was available and willing, but her late husband had died heavily in debt.

The account of their marriage was reported in the Fairbanks History of Westminster as follows: “The bride concealed herself in some place where there was absolute privacy, stripped herself of everything given her by her late husband and the marriage ceremony was performed with their hands meeting outside the place of concealment. She then clothed herself in attire provided by her new husband, and thus he evaded responsibility for the debts of his predecessor.”

Apparently the marriage was a success for together Asa and Mercy produced two additional children.

In other areas of colonial America, especially, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York, so called “Smock” or “Shift” Marriages served the same purpose of avoiding the debts of the brides’ late husbands. In these cases the bride would meet the husband while wearing only her shift or a smock. Finally, beginning around the1850s, state legislatures began to emancipate women and return to them the control of their property by making them independent of their husbands, making these old evasions of the law no longer necessary.

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Poverty in Charlotte, Part II
by Frank Thornton

The right of towns in to exclude strangers, founded in the common law of England, was firmly established here in Vermont by stature when the General Assembly for Vermont first convened in Windsor on March 12, 1778 and sat for two weeks after which it adjourned. It met again in June 1778 for two weeks and again adjourned. It was again called into session by the governor in October 1778. What these sessions accomplished is unknown since no written record is now known to exist. It is known, however, that the stated the laws of Vermont were to be “as they stand in the Connecticut law book, and in defect of those laws the plain word of God ascertained in the Scriptures, to be the law of the land until the legislature should have time to digest and enact a code.”

Connecticut law at that time, had a law similar to that of New Hampshire which stated:
“Likewise it is further ordered yt if any pson come into my house wthin this province & be there recd. & entertained 3 moths if such pson fall sick or lame he shall be relieved by yt towne where he was soe long entertained but if ye constable of yt towne or any of ye selectmen have given warning to such pson wthin ye space of 3 moths yt ye towne will not admit of him if such pson shall stand in need of reliefe ye towne shall supply his necessity until ye Presidt & Counll can dispose of him as to ym shall seem most just and equall.”

Thus, the right of a town to define and select who was to be an inhabitant therein existed and was recognized law in Vermont as early as 1778.

Although Charlotte was chartered on June 24, 1762, the first proprietor’s meeting for the town was not held until 1785 and it was not until 1787 there were sufficient men living in Charlotte to hold its first town meeting. Thus, when the town was organized the laws regarding settlement were long established.
The legislature revised these laws in 1782 and again in 1787; the first complete body of laws enacted in Vermont were finally published in 1787 as the “Statutes of the state of Vermont, passed by the legislature in February and March 1787.” These statutes provided that a person could become an inhabitant of a town by being born in the town or by having an estate valued at 200 pounds or more. They required that any poor inhabitant be first supported by expending their own assets and then by their relations, i.e., parents, children, grandparents or grandchildren. Only when the poor inhabitant’s assets were exhausted or had no chargeable relatives available would assistance be supplied by their town of settlement.

It was further provided that a needy person who was not any inhabitant of the town and who had no relations and no property that can be used to support them could be warned and removed by a constable to their town of settlement which then had to support them. This law further provided that if the town of settlement refused to receive an inhabitant warned from another town, a fine would be imposed on the refusing town and paid to the town which was supporting them. In addition, if any warned and removed person, male or female, later returned, without the permission of the selectmen, to the warning town they could be whipped, ten strokes on the bare back.

The statutes also contained other provisions. One required the selectmen of every town to inspect the affairs of all persons in the town, inhabitants or not, and if they found anyone who was likely to be reduced to want by idleness, mismanagement or bad husbandry, then they were to appoint an overseer to advise and direct the person in the management of their affairs. The person so managed could not enter into any contract without the consent of the overseer.

Another provision provided that if any poor person who, having received help from the town, let their children remain idle then the children could be taken from the parents and bound out by the overseer of the poor as servants or apprentices until such time as the children reached their majority, i.e., the age of 21 if male and 18 if female.
The act also limited the amount that the selectmen could expend on the poor to four pounds per annum, or $14 in today’s currency. A pound at this time contained 20 schillings and each schilling contained 12 pence. In 1797 a pound was worth about $3.50 currently.

In 1801 the acts of 1797 were revised giving settlement to any person who was born in a town or any adult who resided in a town for one year without being warned. For minors not born in the town the year began running only after they arrived at their majority.
As a result of this change in the law, many towns immediately began the practice of warning everybody who moved into the town even though they made no attempt to remove the individuals from the town.

This sometimes led to odd situations. In the town of Grafton, John Barrett was a selectman who signed an order to warn Daniel Joslyn, who ignored the warning. Later the same John Barrett married the daughter of Daniel Joslyn.

On November 4, 1817, the Vermont legislature finally abolished the practice of warning out individuals by order of the selectmen but still permitted warnings to be obtained by application to the courts.

The revised law of 1817 provided that settlement could be obtained by the following conditions:
Owning taxable property in the town of more than $60 for five years in succession.
Election or appointment to public office and service therein for two years.
By town vote.
By residence in the state for a year in an unorganized town which then becomes organized;
By residence in the town for seven years by an adult who had a settlement in another town and had not been on the poor rolls of either town.
A married woman was to have the settlement of her husband.
Legitimate children have the settlement of their parents; however, children did not gain a settlement by birth if their parents did not have legal settlement therein.
Illegitimate children had the settlement of the mother. (Repealed in 1823).

Although over the years there were minor changes in the law of settlement, the law remained substantially the same until 1886 when the law was changed to provide that the town of residence must support a poor person.

For all intents and purposes this change in the law was supposed to eliminate the entire issue of settlement and warnings. However, in 1892, the law was again changed to permit recovery of the costs of maintenance of a pauper who had less than three years of residence from the last town in which he had three years of residence. Thus the law of settlement was revised in part and the question of where a person’s settlement was continued to occupy the Vermont courts through the first half of the 20th century.
In 1906 the law was again changed to permit the removal of a pauper unless he had three years of residence, but force could not be used. If the pauper would not move, the overseer of the poor of the town where he was located could cut of all aid by notifying the town where he last resided for three years that it was responsible for his support. If no assistance was forthcoming from the town so notified, the pauper starved.

In 1917 the law was again changed and said that the town of actual residence must support him and then sue the town where he last resided for three years.

In 1921 the law was again changed to provide that any pauper and family having less than a year’s residence be furnished with every necessity at his own expense except doctor’s attendance.

“Polly Hinman was a different case.” There was no record found as what happened to Polly for the year 1814 - 1815.

However, at the Charlotte Town Meeting of March 28, 1816, the town voted to deliver the same Polly Hinman to the care of John Stone to be kept in victuals, clothing and doctoring for $1.50 per week.

The same meeting auctioned “Old Mrs. Tucker” to be kept by Thomas Keeler for 95¢ per week including victuals, clothing, doctoring and etc.

This procedure apparently continued in Charlotte up to 1849 when Thompson’s point was purchased for use as a poor farm.
Although it does not appear to have been used in Charlotte, Binding Out was permitted as an alternative to either the poor auction or the Poor Farm. Binding Out consisted of causing the bound person to work for a fixed period of time, as a servant field hand or apprentice, for a master selected by the overseer of the poor. It was apparently based on the theory that every person must work his way through life. If, for some reason, a person became dependent on his fellow townspeople then they, through the Overseer of the Poor, had the right to “bind him out.” This not only relieved the public of his care but also, presumably, provided him with the opportunity to learn a trade or other means of self support. At the end of the bound period, the person was assumed to be self-sufficient and able to contribute to society. Although the first Constitution of Vermont adopted in 1777 contained an article that outlawed slavery, the very same article of the Constitution permitted the binding out of an adult. This binding out was to be either by the consent of the adult or by law. The law provided for binding out of an individual for payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like. In 1797 laws were enacted to permit towns to create workhouses for the poor. These same laws gave permission to the overseer of the workhouse to fetter, shackle or whip, not exceeding twenty stripes, any person confined therein who did not perform the labor assigned or who was refractory or disobedient to the lawful commands of the overseer.

It was also permitted that a pauper, spouse and children could be bound out as servants or apprentices. The children could only be bound out until they reached the age of majority. Adults bound out by the Overseer of the Poor apparently could be bound for an indeterminate time, presumably until they either were no longer poor or were at least self supporting. Charlotte does not appear to have used this binding out procedure. Because the Overseer of the Poor was considered a judicial officer, he could not be sued for any actions he took during his term of office.

The conditions to which many of these were subjected to must have been appalling. Often the people in whose charge they were placed treated them worse than animals. In 1869, the following paragraph describes the status of one such child farmed out in 1867. The placement society worker investigated her living conditions and reported:
“In Vermont, on one of the coldest days last winter, a girl fourteen years of age was found piling brush with her master, a mile away from home. She was thinly clad and must have suffered severely. She had been accustomed to outdoor work, had no schooling, no decent clothes, and had not attended church in the two years that she had lived there. These neglects were promptly remedied after my visit, but the girl was dissatisfied, and I removed her to a clergyman s family, where she is now doing well.”

The binding out of children was especially looked upon with favor and could be done either by the parents of the child or by the law. Although I was unable to find any cases on the question, binding out apparently was not considered slavery unless the servitude was to be perpetual. It is assumed that if any pauper found the service unbearable, she was free to leave and starve or freeze to death.

The law also permitted a town to remove a pauper by transporting him to the place where he entered the state. There was a “catch 22” in this statute however, for the statutes still contained a clause from 1919 saying that anyone transporting a pauper to another town with intent to charge the other town with his support was to be fined 500 for the first offence and 1,000 for a subsequent offence.

With the coming of the Federal Relief Acts of 1933 and the Social Security act of 1935, the issue of settlement was somewhat mitigated but was not ended until the 1960s. Then the office of Overseer of the Poor was abolished and the present state welfare system was created. The relief of the poor was taken over by the state.
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Looking Back
by Frank Thornton

Jacob Warrin and Caleb Harden were both residents in Charlotte in the first quarter of the 19th century. But they may never have met because in 1809 Joseph Warrin became the first person to be warned out of Charlotte by the selectmen, and in 1817 Caleb Harden was the last person to be so warned.

In perusing the town records in Charlotte, I came across the following record in Volume 2, Page 63, entitled Poor Warning:
State of Vermont } To either of the Constables of Charlotte
Chittenden SS } in Chittenden County Greetings
You are hereby commanded to warn Betsy Bissel Mrs Eunice Paine a woman at Elan Keelers Thomas Harmon John Hallocks Jeffery Watson Shadrock Starns Bell Latra Hosea Lafrance Charles Speer Jeremiah Utly Simon Shutts Ruth Sweet Olive Worthington now residing in Charlotte to depart from said town hereof fail not but legal returns made according to law.

Charlotte July 13, 1813 signed:
Sheldin Wheeler, Jonathan Breakenridge, Nehemiah Lowrey, Selectmen
Chittenden County SS Charlotte July 14 & 15, 1813
Then by virtue of the within precept I warned each of the persons within named. To wit Betsy Bissel, Mrs Eunice Paine, Thomas Harmon, John Hallocks, Jeffery Watson, Shadrock Stearns, Bell Latray, Hosea Lafrance, Charles Speer, Jeremiah Utly, Simon Shutts, Ruth Sweet, Olive Worthington to depart the Town of Charlotte by leaving at their usual places of abode in Charlotte a true copy of this the original precept with my return thereon endorsed.

Attest Ezra Holt Constable
Received July 19th 1813 and recorded from the original.
Attest Zadock Wheeler Town Clerk

The town records had a number of additional such poor warnings dated from 1809 to 1817, naming more than 135 individuals. Although only about 135 individuals were specifically named in these warnings we know that many more people were also affected because some of the orders included their family and effects.

Who were these people and why were they warned to get out of town?

There are two facts we do definitely know about them. The first is that we know that although they were residing in town they were not “Inhabitants,” which meant that they did not have a legal settlement in the town. The second is that they were people the selectmen either knew, believed or suspected of becoming needy because they were strangers either without a lot of money or were actually poor, sick, aged, infirm, insane or retarded, or neglected children, or merely those whom the selectmen believed might be reduced to want by idleness, mismanagement, or just by being bad farmers. By warning them out of town the selectmen could prevent them from becoming a public charge on the rolls of the town.
However those who were inhabitants or legally settled in town even though poor, old, sick, mentally or physically incapacitated etc., could not be so warned and the town had to provide them with support of a kind.

Thus the first thing we must consider is: Who or what determined when a resident became an inhabitant?

Who is an inhabitant or who is settled?
Today most people would say that an inhabitant of a town is any resident of the town. However, this is not the legal definition. The Supreme Court of These United States has defined an inhabitant as, “One who resides actually and permanently in a given place, and has his domicile there.” Domicile is further defined as being: “That place where a man has his true, fixed, and permanent home and principal establishment, and to which whenever he is absent he has the intention of returning.”

Thus under the present state of the law, the intention of the person, in residence, is the controlling factor.

This was not always the case. Under English common law, every person in the kingdom has a theoretical place of settlement. By place of settlement was meant the place of which they were inhabitants. In most cases one’s settlement was where the person was born or where his forebears were settled or inhabitants. However, this place of settlement could be changed. For example, acceptance by a parish or service in an apprenticeship could change the place of settlement. Also over the years under the “enclosure laws” the Lord of the Manor could and did expel residents from his lands. In the United Kingdom these laws mostly affected the Scots and the Irish. Examples of loss of settlement occurred in Ireland, following the battle of the Boyne, (July 1, 1690) when the followers of James II were dispossessed by the followers of William III, and in Scotland, after the battle of Culloden (April 16, 1746) when the highlanders who supported Charles Stuart were forced off their lands by the English.
In any event it was not the intent of the individual that mattered. Instead it was the acceptance of the individual by those people who were already inhabitants or settled in the town. Thus the inhabitants of the town collectively held the right to accept or admit a newcomer as a fellow inhabitant or grant him settlement. A newcomer to the town might be permitted to reside in the town but would not become an inhabitant or settled therein until accepted or admitted by vote of the town as inhabitant or otherwise granted settlement.

Why was being an inhabitant important?
Being accepted as an inhabitant bestowed both privileges and duties. One of the privileges of an inhabitant was that if he fell on bad times he had a right of assistance from the other inhabitants of the town. Conversely, one of the duties of and an inhabitant was to assist the other inhabitants who fell on bad times. There was, however, no legal duty to assist mere residents or strangers except in very limited circumstances such as aid to a traveler who in passing through town fell ill, was injured or died.

A liability of being an inhabitant was that your property could be seized and sold by a debtor to pay a debt of the town.