In the series of biographical sketches which follow, the plan is unique, and I trust will prove effectual in preserving, not only the history of the events, but of those who participated in them, not alone in the early wars of our common country, but in the peaceful victories and industrial accomplishments of our people, whose lives have played so important a part in the vast history of the American republic. 

      It was in the afternoon of July 12, 1609, that Samuel de Champlain, Lieutenant-Governor of New France, came to make war on the hitherto unconquerable Iroquois, on the western shores of the lake which now bears his name. Champlain was probably the first white man to see the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, although he never set foot upon her soil. This was before Hendrick Hudson sailed up the great river now bearing his name; and eleven years prior to the landing of the Pilgrims. 

      The first record given of white men in Vermont was about 1690, when the French colonies in Canada planned a series of winter raids upon the English, and in February of that year, the raiders followed the bloody trail, along Lake Champlain, raiding Schenectady, New York, killing sixty and taking twenty- seven prisoners. A raid on Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, resulted in thirty killed, and in Dover, New Hampshire, twenty-three were killed. In all of these expeditions the Indians and their French allies passed southward, crossing Vermont through the valleys of the Winooski and White rivers. Returning home with dripping hatchets and the scalps of many a white settler dangling from their savage belts, they truly dyed the soil of Vermont with the blood of their butchered victims. It was by this trail that the descent on Deerfield, Massachusetts, was made in 1704. 

      The first actual settlement in the state dates from 1624, when Massachusetts built Fort Dummer, near what is now Brattleboro. In all of the early wars Vermont bore a conspicuous part. Her streams were the highways of the restless savages; her forests were their hiding places, while the beautiful lake which forms much of her western border, saw more fierce fighting than the St. Lawrence or the Hudson. 

      In 1763 the settlement of the state began in earnest, the great forests were pushed back and a thriving colony took its place, whose valor and patriotism, whose homely virtue and loyalty did much to turn the scale in the struggle for American independence. With true, patriotic fervor they declared: “The land is given us for an inheritance.” This new country received its christening in 1763, from the summit of Mount Pisgah, when the Rev. Samuel PETERS “looked and beheld the grandeur of the promised land,” and declared: “I name thee VERD MOUNT.” 

      In 1763 one hundred and eighty-three towns, all owing allegiance to New Hampshire, had been chartered by Governor Benning WENTWORTH of New Hampshire. These extended across the state and up to within twenty miles of Lake Champlain. In 1764 the king decreed that the western boundary of the Connecticut river should form the eastern boundary of New York province, causing the boundary dispute to break out in earnest and the formation of the Green Mountain Boys, an organization whose fame has come down to us so vividly in history, song, and story. The valiant service of Ethan ALLEN, Remember BAKER, Seth WARNER and their associates are too well known to need any elaboration at this time. 

      It is to trace down through the long line of pioneers, patriots, and soldiers, the lives, works, and accomplishments of the sons of Vermont, that this work was first conceived. 

      A prominent newspaper man to whom the writer confided his plans before the first articles were written, asked these questions: “What do you call SUCCESSFUL VERMONTERS? Who is eligible for representation in your proposed work?” My reply was then and is now: “That great body of Vermonters -- by birth or adoption -- who are men of quality, honor, honesty, integrity, and moral worth; those men who have contributed materially to the development and progress of our state; those men who love our institutions, our traditions, and our people; those men of character, whose influence has been for the upbuilding of our several communities. Finally, all good men, without regard to the amount of their material acquirements. Not that I am opposed to wealth but rather that the acquirement of wealth is not a standard either of true greatness or success. In a word, the great body of plain people, who as Lincoln said: “God must love because he made so many of them.”

      If I shall have added to the material for the future historian; if I shall have preserved the biography and history of any of the families of those gracious, temperate, and valiant old state builders, whose works shall live throughout all time; if I shall win the approval of the people of our beloved state, then, and only then, shall I not have labored in vain. 

      The assembling of the large amount of material here used, the consulting of an almost innumerable number of authorities and records, is a task that one might well wish to avoid. The anxious care and watchfulness one must exercise to eliminate so far as possible errors, is great indeed, and yet I have found this a labor of love. Errors there are, for perfection is stamped upon the works of God alone, progression upon the works of man. In this I have labored towards progression, well knowing that perfection was unattainable. 

      So with these few remarks I consign my labor to an ever kind and charitable public, trusting that it will in a measure prove both useful and helpful to those who love to learn more of men, that they may better know God. 
 

Source:  Successful Vermonters, William H. Jeffrey, E. Burke, Vermont, The Historical Publishing Company, 1904, 

Prepared by Tom Dunn January 2003