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From: "Pauline Manosh" <>
Subject: [VT-L] Strafford, Vermont Orange County List of Town Officers Feb. 16, 1768 Hebron, CT;
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2000 16:31:20 -0500


>From Hemenway's Historical Gazetteer
pg. 1067 Vol. 2
(by Hon. Justin S. Morrill) p2
The town was settled just prior to the Revolutionary war, and the first
meeting of the proprietors for choice of town-officers was held where they
had been usually held, at Hebron, CT; Feb. 16, 1768, and adjourned to June
2, 1768, at Strafford. The first selectmen, chosen March, 1778, were William
Brisco, Joshua Tucker and Jonathan Rich; first town-clerk, David
Chamberlin----which office was subsequently held by Samuel Bliss from 1784
to 1811, and by Stephen Morrill from 1812-1848.

Justice of the peace seem, also, to have had a long tenure of
office--Stephen Morrill 38 years, Jed. H. Harris 32 years, Pliny Day 24,
Daniel Cobb 28, Leonard Walker 20, David Morrill 17, Thomas Hazleton 17,
Martin Barrett 16, Samuel Kibling 14, Royal Hatch 12, and Chas. Barrett 26
years.

James Pennock settled in Strafford 1768, and, if not the first settler, he
was the first who broke the soil, and it is so recorded on his tombstone.
Peter Thomas, a Negro, came into town the same year. In the fierce
controversy which the "New Hampshire Grants: had with New York and other
colonies, relative to jurisdiction and titles to land, some of the Pennocks
and Beans expoused the cause of New York, and finally became so much
alienated from their fellow-townsmen in the struggle against British rule,
as to be identified with those who called themselves loyalists, and were
called by others, Tories. During the invasion of Burgoyne in 1777, a few of
these men abandoned their homes, and, it is supposed, joined the enemy. In
March "1779, it was
"Voted, that those Tories and their families, that this town had leave to
send away, should not return and inhabit in this town again."
Polly

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