Pawlet, Vermont

About 1780 Gideon Cobb and his wife, four of their sons and at least one daughter, and their families, moved to the frontier community of Pawlet, now in Vermont. At the time, the area which had originally been claimed by New Hampshire, was claimed by New York, and the newly-declared independent republic of Vermont was struggling to be recognized.

The four sons, John, Elkanah, Ebenezer and Joshua had been living near Stillwater, New York, for nearly ten years. It is not clear whether Gideon and his wife had been there, or had stayed in Connecticut until moving to Pawlet. Elkanah at least,¹ and perhaps John,² had moved back to Connecticut, likely because of the warfare in the Stillwater area in 1777. Their daughter Wealthy Ann supposedly had children in Pawlet in 1782.³

It is not clear why the Cobbs decided to move to Pawlet. There is evidence that Elkanah's wife, Jonathan Willard's daughter Mary, was living in Pawlet before their marriage. Thus it seems likely that Elkanah had been in Pawlet before he and his brothers moved to New York. What may have taken him there is lost to history.

Gideon and his wife died in Pawlet in 1798 and 1808, respectively. John moved to Orwell, some 35 miles north, by 1807, and died there in 1815. Elkanah moved to Wells, about 6 miles north, about 1792, and died there in 1798. Ebenezer and his family moved to Shelburne, about 75 miles north, on Lake Champlain, by 1800, and died there in 1826. Joshua and his family moved to Vernon, New York, between 1810 and 1820. Wealthy Ann and her husband moved to Wells by 1790, to Shelburne by 1800, to Burlington by 1810 and died there in 1827.

The town of Pawlet was granted to Jonathan Willard and 61 others in 1761 by the Royal Governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. According to tradition, Willard and two others obtained the rights to three townships, each six miles square, and drawing lots, he won Pawlet. He added the names of his old neighbors in Connecticut in order to record the required number of proprietors, and then purchased many of those rights "for a mug of flip or a new hat" from many of the unintentional proprietors. Like many such traditions, examination of the evidence finds it to be only partly true. For details see the full story in our narative for him.

Apparently neither Willard nor the other proprietors intended to settle in the town, and they struggled to meet the minimal requirements for settling the grant. He made some token efforts to clear a homestead in 1762, and free land was given to a few other early settlers.⁴ But after heavy losses in his businesses in Saratoga Willard did move there permanently a few years later.

In 1764 King George III established the boundary between New Hampshire and New York as the Connecticut River, making the area of present-day Vermont part of New York. New York refused to recognize the grants made by New Hampshire, and the resulting clouded titles discouraged settlers. In 1770 there were only nine families in the town. The town was the center of considerable military action in the early years of the Revolution, particularly as a staging ground for the attacks on Gen. Burgoyne's forces at Ticonderoga and elsewhere in 1777. Following the war a number of soldiers returned to Pawlet and settled there, and the population began to increase.⁵ In the 1790 census (taken after Vermont became a state in 1791) Pawlet had 249 families, with a total population of 1,458.⁶