William French lived on Old Ferry Road. He was born in 1753 and died in 1775, 8 days shy of his 22nd birthday. His early death arrived in a hail of gunfire at the Westminster courthouse. His body was struck by five bullets fired by his neighbors. How does a community get to the point where neighbor will shoot neighbor?
The early days of Brattleborough were contentious. Some settlers were loyal to New York, some to New Hampshire, some liked British rule, and some despised it. In those first years, those loyal to New York and the King of England controlled town government.
Land speculation was a driving influence along the Connecticut River. In 1764 the King’s Council gave control of all land west of the Connecticut River to the colony of New York. Under Massachusetts and New Hampshire oversight, settlers had been in the area since the 1720’s but now, forty years later, Great Britain declared the land should be governed by New York.
Here’s where things got complicated. Samuel Wells, John Arms and eighteen others purchased land rights to Brattleborough from the Governor of New York. Wells then bought those rights from sixteen of the other grantees. None of the sixteen actually lived in town, they were all land speculators. Samuel Wells gave Nicholas Stuyvesant, the Chief Judge of New York, and William and Thomas Smith, also of New York, 5400 acres in the southwest corner of the town. These men planned to sell the New York land rights to those who were already living within the town borders or newly arrived settlers.
Initially, Samuel Wells and John Arms were appointed judges in the New York court system. Within a couple of years Wells was given a larger county judgeship and Arms was made Cumberland County sheriff.
Samuel Wells, John Arms, Nathan and Wilder Willard were then the four town residents who controlled all of the New York land titles. Wells owned the lion’s share. Residents had to decide whether to purchase a New York title for their land from Wells, Arms, the Willards, or the New Yorkers, or continue with questionable New Hampshire claims. Town government was organized under New York jurisdiction and Brattleborough became a part of New York’s Cumberland County.
Meanwhile, William French’s father, Nathaniel, was one of the early settlers of Brattleborough. According to Mary Cabot’s Annals of Brattleboro, in 1769 the French’s were one of the last families to live in Fort Dummer. They soon left the fort and built a home in the most northeastern corner of town. At this time the population of the community was about 400 people in the entire township.
In 1774 economic conflict between the British colonies of North America and the government of Great Britain was intensifying. In December, 1773, the Boston Tea Party had been a protest against British tax collection in the colonies. The British government responded with the Coercive Acts, a series of laws to punish Massachusetts and intimidate the other colonies.
The Coercive Acts lived up to their name, although many in the colonies referred to them as intolerable. The Boston port was locked down by the British military. Ship trade was halted, unemployment rose and some in the Boston area began to starve. The representative colonial government of Massachusetts was replaced by an all-powerful pro-British Governor. More British troops were transported into the colonies to enforce British policies.
These economic hardships had ripple effects throughout the New England colonies. In Brattleborough the local government sided with New York and many remained loyal to Great Britain. However, homesteader’s who had borrowed money to begin frontier life along the Connecticut River were struggling as their loans were called in before they could raise money to pay them. The British economic pressures brought to bear in Boston were reaching into the hills of Cumberland County.
According to a Dummerston Historical Society book about the history of their town, the settlers north of Brattleborough were frequently irritated by “The tyrannical attitude of the New York government”. The Dummerston book went on to say that the King’s decision to recognize New York rule in this area “caused monumental problems for those who were striving to conform to New Hampshire Grant obligations and excessive taxes from New York’s tyranny. Many homes were destroyed by New York officials while others were confiscated.” Dummerston grew to oppose New York rule.
In 1774 the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to respond to the Coercive Acts. The colonies pledged to work together. The Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, where they confirmed their loyalty to Great Britain but also argued that the British government should not have the right to tax the colonies. They stated that the colonies would stop importing British goods if the Coercive Acts continued to be applied. They further promised that they would meet again during the following summer to decide whether to stop sending goods to Great Britain as well.
The meeting of the Continental Congress was a big deal. The promise to support one another was a huge step. Previously each colony had individual relationships with the Crown. The colonies agreed that paying taxes without having a say in government was unacceptable. One of the action steps agreed to at the end of the Convention was to send an overview of these Continental Congress agreements to the people in the colonies in hopes of getting some feedback. In 1774 this meant sending letters to the leadership of the different counties in the colonies and having the county leadership share the results with the people in the various towns.
In Cumberland County the local leadership, headed by Samuel Wells, failed to share this anti-British information with the residents. The leadership was heavily connected with the New York government and New York remained one of the most pro-British colonies in America. Eventually, the news of the Continental Congress made its way to Cumberland County and many were unhappy that pro-British leaders had kept the information from the people.
In February, 1775 Nathaniel French, William’s father, traveled to Westminster to represent Brattleboro at a meeting of twenty one Cumberland County towns. French was representing those who were opposed to continued British influence in the county. This group voted to change the pro-British administration of justice in the county court system. The group believed the people of Cumberland County were being exploited by the courts. The courts were unfairly confiscating people’s property and abusing their authority. Young William French, living on the Brattleborough/Dummerston border, found himself siding with the exploited settlers and opposing his neighbors in Brattleborough.
In March, 1775 the New York court in Westminster planned to open. Court cases against landowners in Cumberland County were due to be heard. Those who were in debt were expected to lose their property. The Standing Committee of Correspondence that Nathaniel French belonged to decided they would stop the Westminster courthouse from opening and share their demands that the leadership of the court change.
On March 13, 1775 over 100 men opposed to the opening of the court occupied the Westminster courthouse. News of the plan made its way to Brattleborough and Sheriff William Patterson organized twenty five residents who traveled to Westminster, gathering more men on the way. Their intent was to clear the “rioters” from the courthouse so court could be held the next day. Sheriff Patterson arrived at Westminster with about 70 men. Many were armed. Among the men were some of the most prominent of Brattleboro. Samuel Knight, the only lawyer in town, Samuel Gale, the son-in-law of Samuel Wells, and Benjamin Butterfield, the clerk of the court, where three Brattleborough men who arrived with their weapons.
What you see is often determined by where you stand. Those who believed they were standing on the King’s land thought they were fighting for law and order. Those who believed they were standing for the rights of men to govern themselves thought they were fighting for justice. What the Sheriff’s men saw when they rushed the courthouse was not a group of their neighbors, what they saw was the enemy.
Shots were fired into the courthouse from the Sheriff’s posse. Twenty one year old William French was hit five times by bullets unleashed from the guns of Brattleboro men. History books hide the horror of this story behind labels like Tories and Whigs, New Yorkers and Patriots. A quick read of the Westminster Massacre leaves you thinking the people were probably unknown to one another. In a town of 400 people William French knew full well who killed him. While the Westminster Massacre can be seen as a catalyst for the American Revolution, it can also be seen as a failure of a community to figure out how to look out for one another in challenging times.