HST 184: 30-May-2005
Reading Notes
Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont
pp. 145-276
Years
of Optimism and Anxiety: 1807-1850
The Price of Statehood: Jefferson's
Embargo
Calvinist Congregationalism - the elect, "saints"
Rising after 1780s: Methodists, Universalists, Free-Will Baptists
1783, Vermont version of CT Standing Order: town can tax to erect
meeting house and minister
1807: Tichenor out, Israel Smith, Jefferson's Democratic-Republican
Party in, dump the CT Standing Order
Smith, penal reform: rehabilitation instead of retribution,
incarceration is more enlightened, built prison in Windsor
1791: UVM, non-sectarian
1800: Middlebury's Calvinists protest - start own college
1809: steam service, 24 hours from Whitehall to St. John, Canada
1782-1802: Bellows Falls, CT River, locks, canal
1805: Montpelier chosen permanent capitol chosen, 1st meeting 1808
1803: Bonaparte, US neutral, British step up impressing,
June 1807 USS Chesapeake impressment incident, Jefferson responds with
embargo
Vermonters ignore it to continue trading with Canada, Black Snake
incident, Cyrus Dean hung, outrage against Dem-Repubs, 1808: Smith out,
Tichenor in, but nationally VT still voted for Dem-Repub James Madison.
Vermonters who had previously shipped south to NE/NY now ship to Canada
The War of 1812 in the Champlain
Valley
War: troops move into Burlington, fortifications built, border
inhabitants pull back
Federalists oppose war
Burlington farmers, merchants, millers taverns make a killing supplying
troops
Vergennes: iron works for shot,
cotton, flax, wool, glass, factories and distilleries all flourish
But troops also bring pnuemonia epidemic
1813: Chittenden sends troops home saying don't participate in invasion
of Canada
meanwhile, smuggling is still good (British/Canadian army has to eat
too!)
Captain Zebulon Montgomery Pike is captain of 15th infantry at
Burlington
Spring 1814: Captain Thomas McDonnough building ships in anticipation
of British invasion
9/11/1814: Battle of Plattsburgh
Christmas: Treaty of Ghent (with Jackson's Battle of New Orleans as
added spice)
In the subsequent patriotic fervor, Federalists peaceniks mistrusted
Dem-Repubs in such high repute, party identity recedes: one big happy
family
Calamity, the New Commercialism, and
the Selective Nature of Growth
1815: Britain floods American market with manufactured goods: Vermont
factories can't compete
1816 and froze to death (Mt. Tambora, Indonesia)
1820-1837: steady growth, uneven population growth: some towns lost
lots, more marginal areas gained.
10/8/1823: Champlain Canal (before: 40 ships on Lake, after: 200+
western state goes commercial, eastern state not yet
buy wheat, grow corn and hay to feed livestock: sheep
small farmers can grow corn and still hire themselves out during hay
season
1824: Kentucky Senator Henry Clay: protective tariff for NE wool
(southerners don't like it but what the heck). British can still
undersell U.S.
1828: Tariff of Abominations: doubles import duty on wool, prices climb
(meanwhile, wheat midge makes a sure crop of wheat even more difficult)
land prices rise - need more for grazing - harder for small farmers
So, if it takes so many years to get a farm, and there are no
guarantees, its make more sense to either get into manufactury or leave.
Revivalism and Reform
Second Great Awakening: Methodists - do the method, get to heaven - a
much more democratic religion
Even Congregationalists get on board: 'new measures' revivals - pray
them into revival in 3-4 day sessions
1835: Rev. Jedediah Burchard comes to Burlington, supported by
Middlebury people. UVM resists (Burchard blows it when 2 students are
hired to make transcripts, Burchard tries to buy them off, fails - a
note-taking scandal!!) Burchard discredited, Middlebury loses students,
UVM gains.
1826 American Society for the Promotion of Temperance - Boston
1828 Vermont Temperance Society
run like revivalism: tracts, etc.
At first, against hard liquor. Later, against hard cider: orchards in
jeopardy: uphillers withdraw support
Masonry/anti-masonry - downhill/uphill
Mix it with politics: start own party but soon align with Whigs (made
up of nat'l Republicans, Federalists, and one-cause 'anti' people)
1819-1820: VT responds to Missouri entry as slave state.
1828: William Lloyd Garrison moves to Beenington to eidt Journal of the Times, a campaign
newspaper pro Adams. VT not radical enough - he returns to Boston
VTers lean more toward Liberia approach
1824: Middlebury: Vermont Antislavery Society
1837: Patriotes uprising in
Canada, VT offers moral support,
1838: uprising put down but patriotes have seen/liked Burlington and
start to move in
1837: depression, price of wool drops, banks close, factories close
Anxiety Replaces Optimism
1830s: on the move: some towns are gainers (esp. commercial towns like
Burlington), commercial farm communities are losers
But the gains are often Irish, French-Canadian, etc. Catholic, different
Party/politics picking up: newspapers are highly partisan
Whigs promising to turn depression around, get voted in: they don't do
it. No tariffs, wool bottom drops out (is this all familiar-damn
uphillers voting for Bush...)
Noyes/pre-Oneida
Miller/Millerites
1840s: licensing laws (temperance)
1852: Maine Liquor Law
1827: Board of School Commissioners of Common Schools
plan: standardize textbooks. VTers react - Commission dissolved
1845: Act Relating to Common Schools - follows Horace Mann (Mass.
commissioner of education) idea for standards for teachers (and books,
too). Set up heirarchy of superintendants. Doesn't quite work. Dumped
in 1849.
Actually, an effort to equalize education - rich kids got to private
school
1846: VT Historical Society - mostly antiquarian impulse - save the
Bennington Battle maps, Ethan Allen, etc.