121
HISTORY
OF ADDISON COUNTY.
CHAPTER XII.
POPULATION-CHARACTER-ADVANTAGES-DANGERS.
The
population of Addision County does not materially differ from that of the other
Counties in this State, and other New England States. The whole exhibits the influence
of the spirit of emigration and colonization, which has prevailed and increased
since the first settlement of the country. The character of the whole population
of the country has been modified and, in many respects, we think, improved by
this disposition, especially in its spirit of enterprise and individuality. An
individual, who has courage to leave the place of his birth, and remove three
hundred or a thousand miles to the outskirts of civilization to better his condition,
learns that there are other places and people besides those he has left behind,
and perhaps equal or superior to them. His views are enlarged, and his inquiries
are no longer confined to the limited sphere of his early home, and he begins
to think there may be still other regions beyond and elsewhere. If he has energy
to remove once, he has still more to remove again, when profit or pleasure tempt
him. He learns also that there are other countries beyond the oceans, which encircle
him, and he looks to them as fields for indulging his thirst for speculation or
his curiosity. Wherever he locates himself, he finds other men - and other customs
and manners and ideas which are new to him, and which he studies, and thus improves
his own, and shakes off his provincial habits and prejudices.
Added
to this cause, which to some extent is common to all the States, the early settlers
of Vermont experienced a long course of discipline in the hardships and self-denial
and energy required for their hard contested controversy, in defending themselves
and their property against the oppressive claims of exterior powers, and especially
in the contest for their separate independence.
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
Although
we cannot boast of large numbers of learned men, like some other States, more
favorably situated, we do not shrink from a comparison of the mass of our population,
for general intelligence and practical energy, with any other. Not a few intelligent
men, who have long resided in other New England States and elsewhere, have expressed
to the writer of this sketch the conviction, that in no State is the population
of the same classes, and especially the farmers, superior, if equal, to that of
Vermont. No State, we believe, has sent out more efficient, practical and useful
emigrants to people the "new countries." Vermont is an inland State, and agriculture
is the pursuit of the great body of its inhabitants; and she has no foreign commerce
to build up large cities, where great wealth is accumulated, and learned men congregate.
Among
the most important influences, which operate in modifying the character of our
population, are our liberal institutions, placing, as they do, every man in the
dignity and responsibility of a man. And paramount to all others perhaps is that
of town corporations, which are common and almost peculiar to New England. They
are not only pure democracies, but they are schools, in which the principles of
democracy are taught; where all meet on a common platform, with equal rights and
powers, not only as voters, but as candidates for office. So numerous and extensive
are the legislative and administrative powers within their limits, that all have
an opportunity to become acquainted with our laws and institutions, acquire habits
of public business and qualify themselves for higher political trusts.
Our
common schools and seminaries of learning for the instruction of all classes,
and our churches of various denominations, where all may meet for public worship
and for instruction in their religions, social and civil duties, are means of
spreading general intelligence and virtue through the community. Besides these
every family is more or less supplied with books and periodicals, which keep them
informed of the passing events, and remind them of their duties to their country
and the world. The writer of this sketch has been as long and as advantageously
situated as any one to ascertain the ability of all classes of men in this County
to write, and he has no
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
recollection
of more than one or two native Americans, residing in the County, who could
not write his own signature; and these were brought up in regions remote from
schools. The twenty-five native Americans, who are reported in the census of
1850, in this County, as being unable to read or write, were probably similarly
situated in the early settlement of the country.
If
the population of Addison County is distinguished from that of any other County,
it is occasioned by the influence of Middlebury College situated among them. This
influence is not confined exclusively to this County; but no person, who has been
long acquainted with the history of that institution, has failed to observe its
influence upon the intelligence of the community in its neighborhood, and in raising
the standard of education in the subordinate institutions. Few towns, if any,
in the country, have afforded a larger number of young men for a collegiate education,
in proportion to their population, than many of the towns in Addison County.
It
may be mentioned as an evidence of the peaceable and orderly character, as well
as prosperity of the inhabitants, that courts of justice have less business in
this County, in proportion to its population, than in any other County. No person
has ever been convicted of a capital offence in the County. Four have been tried
for murder, one in 1815 and one in 1825; but both were convicted of only manslaughter.
Another was since tried twice, but the jury failed in both cases to agree on a
verdict, and he was discharged; and the other was acquitted on account of insanity.
From
the foregoing sketches, it will be seen, that the County of Addison has sufficient
resources for wealth and material prosperity, and that its citizens have sufficient
intelligence and enterprise, in due time to develope them. It will be seen also,
that they have the means of intellectual, moral and religious improvement. And
we may well congratulate ourselves that we live in an agricultural district, where
there is a general social equality; where there are few so rich as to excite the
envy and ill-will of their neighbors, or to be free from the necessity of some
active occupation, or so poor as to need charity. We have no large cities with
their accumulated masses of wealth, poverty and crime. We have no such wealth
to
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
foster extravagance, luxury and a factitious aristocracy, with its arbitrary
conventional ceremonies, as in large cities sets at naught the equality, simple
manners and sober verities of the country. We are not like them, beset on every
hand by temptations to dissipation and debauchery, and we have no such masses
of corruption to spread a moral pestilence through the atmosphere. We have no
such large collections of the refuse population of Europe-its paupers and criminals-broke
loose from the restraints of government and law at home, that they may riot
here in their imaginary freedom from all restraints; who nightly disturb the
peace of the community with riots and quarrels and murders; and who are ready
at the call of designing politicians, to control our elections. The institution
of the family, so important in the country, for its restraints and the cultivation
of the social affections, is to a great extent obliterated in some of the large
towns. There hundreds of children have no home but in the streets, and no associates
but their fellows in the same condition. The crowded population everywhere,
and the artificial conventionalisms of the more wealthy households forbid the
salutary restraints and separate and undisturbed intercourse of the family circle.
And thus the young grow up with the feeling that they belong rather to the great
public than to the family in which they were born. These evils are not to be
charged to the inhabitants generally of larger towns, but are incident to, and
inseparable from, their position. No more moral, pious and philanthropic men
are anywhere to be found. And yet the evils exist.
We
ought to bear in mind, that there is danger from this source to the whole country,
and that a serious responsibility rests upon the people in the rural and agricultural
districts, like the County of Addison, in relation to them. The influence of large
commercial towns is gradually extending itself over the country for evil, as well
as for good. The evil influence may, and should be counteracted by an influence
from the country. A large proportion of the teachers and influential professional
and business men, and of the annual increase of the population, in the
large towns, are educated in, and are emigrants from the country. There is besides
a constant
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HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY.
intercourse
and mutual influence going on between the city and country. From the distinguished
advantages enjoyed by the rural districts, it is, we think, their province to
save the rest of the country. Our free institutions, as every one understands,
will depend on the intelligence and virtue of the people. It is therefore the
first duty of all patriotic citizens of Addison County, as well for their own
safety as for that of the country, to encourage and support all needed educational
and religious institutions in efficient operation.