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Archiver > VERMONT > 1999-05 > 0926798814


From: "Jackie M. Botala" <>
Subject: [VERMONT-L] more old papers...
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 13:06:54 -0700


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Bounty on Crows

The crow was in disfavor with Royalton farmers then as
now and in APril 1806, the town voted to pay a bounty of
twenty cents on every crow killed in that town from that date
until Aug.1.
The Vermont legislature in 1797 passed an act calling
for a bounty of $20 to be paid for every wolf or panther killed.

(Contributed by Mary Whitney Kidd, from the History of
Royalton)

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Vermont Post Routes

Four years after Vermont declared her independence,
on June 19, 1781, the Governor and Council passed the
following resolution:
"Resolved, that Mr. Samuel Sherman be employed to
ride post from his Exellency's in Arlington to Camp Head
Quarters (at Castleton) once a week three months from the
date hereof, to go up one road by way of Tinmout and return
by way of Pawlet; that for his encouragement he be allowed
fourteen shillings per week out of the State's Treasury, he to
convey all public letters & dispatches free of all other expence."
This was the first post route established in Vermont. The
post rider apparently found it a paying proposition, as in 1783
his pay was reduced to nine shillings a week, and the money
he received from letter postage was to be deducted from that.
In 1784 an act of the Assembly on March 5 provided for
establishing a post office department in the state, with post
riders. The first postmaster general was Anthony Haswell
of Bennington. There were to be five post offices, in Bennington,
Brattleboro, Rutland, Windsor and Newbury.
The post rider from Bennington to Brattleboro was to have
three pence a mile, and the others two pence. The post rider
had exclusive right to their routes, and anyone attempting to
run a rival route would be fined ten pounds--to be paid to any
post master who should successfully convict the person so
attempting. The post riders were to make weekly trips, and
could have all the money they took in from carrying of the
letters and packets of all kinds.

(to be continued....)

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