Read Ebook: Log-book of Timothy Boardman Kept on Board the Privateer Oliver Cromwell During a Cruise from New London Ct. to Charleston S. C. and Return in 1778; Also a Biographical Sketch of the Author. by Boardman Timothy Boardman Samuel Ward Contributor

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The Congregational church in West Rutland, one of the oldest in Vermont, had been formed in 1773, nine years before his arrival. He became a member in 1785, and his wife in 1803. Not long after his coming, Rev. Mr. Roots, the pastor, died, and the widely known Rev. Samuel Haynes, a devout, able and witty man, became their pastor, and so continued for thirty years, until his dismission in 1818. Timothy Boardman's children were early taken to church, were trained and all came into the church under, the ministry of Rev. Mr. Haynes.

He said that he would sooner do without bread than without preaching, and he was always a conscientious and liberal supporter of the church. He appreciated and co-operated with his pastor. In the great revival of 1808, five of his children were gathered into the church. One of them, perhaps all of them, were previously regarded by their parents as religious.

In politics he was a Federalist. In respect to the war with Great Britain 1812-1815, his views did not entirely coincide with those of some others, including his associate in the diaconate, Dea. Chatterton, who was a rigid Democrat. This eminently devout and useful man, was so burdened with Dea. Boardman's lukewarmness in promoting the second war with Great Britain, against whose armies both had fought in the Revolution, that he felt constrained to take up a labor with him, hoping to correct his political errors by wholesome church discipline. It must have been a scene for a painter.

Perhaps no better man or one more effective for good, ever lived in West Rutland than Dea. Chatterton. In both politics and religion he was practical and fervid. The church meeting was crowded.

The occasion compelled my grandfather, as Paul was driven, in his epistle to the Corinthians, and as Demosthenes was forced in his oration for the crown, to enter somewhat upon his own past record. Though a very modest and unpretentious man, yet it is said that the author of the Log-Book, on this memorable occasion straightened himself up, and boldly referred his hearers to the glorious days of the war for Independence, which had tried men's souls, and when he had forever sealed the genuineness of his own patriotism, by hazarding his life both by sea and land for his country.

Weighed in the balances on his own record, so far from being found wanting, his patriotism was proved to be of the finest gold; and his place like that of Paul, not a whit behind that of the chiefest apostle. Though he did not feel it to be his duty to fall in behind the tap of the drum, and volunteer to fight, beside the aged democratic veteran who served with him at the communion table; yet he showed that the older was not a better soldier; that with diversities of politics, there was the same loyalty, and that his own patriotism was no less than his brother's.

The tremendous strain which the struggle for American Independence put upon the generation who encountered it, was touchingly illustrated in the lives of these two men, a generation, or two generations after the struggle had been successfully closed. Amid the quiet hills of Vermont, the minds of both were affected for a time, with at least partial derangement. Dea. Boardman labored temporarily under the hallucination, that he was somehow liable to arrest, and prepared a chamber for his defence. He was obliged, for a time to be watched, though he was never confined. A journey to Connecticut, on horseback, with his son Samuel, when he was perhaps sixty years old, effected an entire cure. Dea. Chatterton in his extreme old age, after a life of remarkable piety, became a maniac and was obliged to be confined. He had suffered peculiar hardships, perhaps on the prison-ships, in the Revolution; and his incoherent expressions, in his insanity, sixty years afterward, and just before his death, were full of charges against the "British."

In social and domestic life, he was a son of the Puritans and of the Connecticut type. He exacted obedience, and somewhat of reverence from his children. They did not dare, to the last, to treat him with unrestrained familiarity. His wife and children stood, waiting at their chairs, until he was first seated at the table. He gave his children a good education for the time, sending them to "Master Southard." His habitual temper of mind was one of deep reverence toward God. He sat in awe during a thunder storm, and a cyclone which passed over his home deeply impressed him. His letters abound in affectionate and in religious sentiments. He was scrupulous in the observance of the Sabbath; required it of his children, and he expected it of the stranger within his gates. The family altar probably never failed from the day he first entered with his newly married wife, into their pioneer home, amid the forests, till his death. He was solemn, earnest and felicitous in prayer. The atmosphere of his home was eminently that of a christian household. Two of his four sons became officers in their churches, and also both his sons-in-law. Four of his grandsons entered the Christian ministry, and a granddaughter is the wife of a clergyman. Those who regard the Puritans in general, as too severe in industry, in frugality, in morals and in religious exercises, would have regarded him as too exacting in all these directions. He certainly could not on one hundred and fifty acres of land, which he found wild, and not all of it very good, have reared a large family, and supported public institutions as he did; have given each of his sons at settlement in life, six hundred dollars, and left to each at his death, eight hundred, if he had not practiced through life, a resolute industry, and a somewhat rigid economy.

It is worthy of notice that like his grandfather, Timothy Boardman of Wethersfield, he owned, what by a little change of circumstances, might have brought, not a competence merely but wealth to his heirs. Early in his residence at Rutland, he became possessed, with many others of a small lot in what was called the "Cedar Swamp." These lots were valued almost exclusively for the enduring material for fences which they afforded. Their cedar posts supplied the town. They obtained also on the rocky portions of these lands a white sand, which was employed for scouring purposes, and also for sprinkling, by way of ornamentation, according to the fashion of the times, the faultlessly clean, white floors of the "spare rooms." Timothy Boardman's cedar lot, is now one of the largest marble quarries in Rutland, a town which is said to furnish one-half of all the marble produced in the United States. It brought to one of his sons, a handsome addition to farm profits, but was disposed of just before its great value was appreciated and lost, as in case of the Maine lands.

His grandfather Timothy Boardman, is said to have been "a short, stocky man;" his monument, and until recently that of his father Daniel, son of the emigrant from England, might both be seen, near together in the old cemetery at Wethersfield.

The author of the Log-Book, was a little below the average height, of rather full face, with a peach-bloom tinge of red on each cheek in old age, and of light complexion, and light hair. His motions were quick, and his constitution healthful, though he was never strong. He had undoubtedly a mind of fair ability; inclined perhaps to conservative views, and acting as spontaneously, it may be in criticism, as in any other exercise of its energies. I remember to have received reproof and instruction in manners, from him when I was five or six years of age. He was careful of his possessions, and articles belonging to him, were very generally marked "T. B."

It is a tradition among the older kindred, that the writer, though he does not remember it, finding at the age of five or six, on grandpa's premises, some loose tufts of scattered wool, and being told that they were his, expressed the candid judgment, that it could not be so, "because they were not marked T. B."

I am not aware that he was much given to humor, yet he would seem not to have been entirely destitute of it from the philosophical account he gave of the advantages of his position, when some one ventured to condole with him on the steep hill of nearly a mile which lay between his house and the church. He said it afforded him two privileges, first that of dropping down quickly to meeting, when he had a late start; and secondly, that of abundant time for reflection on the sermon while he was going home.

His wife, undoubtedly his equal in every respect, to whom much of his prosperity, usefulness, and good repute, as well as that of his family was due, after a married life of fifty-three years and three months, died in Dec., 1836. She had long been feeble. Her children watched around her bedside on the last night in silence till one of her sons, laying his hand upon her heart, and finding it still, said "we have no longer a mother." I remember the hush of the next morning, throughout the house, when we young children awoke. It was lonely and cold in grandma's room, and only a white sheet covered a silent form.

On the death of his wife, he had ordered two monumental stones to be prepared just alike, except the inscriptions; one of which was to be for her, and the other for himself. They may be seen from the road, by one passing, of bluish stone standing not very far from the fence, and about half way from the northern to the southern side of the lot. On these stones was inscribed at his direction, where they may now be read, the words, contained in Rev. 14: 13, divided between the two stones; on the one: "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord from henceforth;" and on the other: "Yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them:"

His children were:

Hannah, born July 23, 1784; died Oct. 26, 1803.

Timothy, born March 11, 1786; settled in Middlebury, and died there April, 1857.

Mary, born Jan. 27, 1788; married Dea. Robert Barney of East Rutland 1824; died at her son's house, in Wisconsin, 1871.

Dea. Samuel Ward, born Nov. 27, 1789; died in Pittsford, Vt., May 13, 1870.

Dea. Elijah, born March 9, 1792; died Sept. 24, 1873.

Capt. Charles Goodrich, born Feb. 19, 1794; died Dec. 17, 1875.

Betsey, born, 1796; married Dea. Martin Foot of Middlebury; died April 26, 1873.

The proclivity of the Puritans for education is illustrated in the fact, that only five years after the foundation of Yale College one of this family, Daniel a grandson of Samuel, the emigrant from England, became a student there and was graduated in 1709, and that wherever different branches of the family have since been settled they have generally sent sons to the nearest colleges, not only many to Yale, but several to Dartmouth, Williams, Middlebury, Union, and others. The eighth and ninth generations are now in the process of education, in various institutions east and west. The descendants of Timothy Boardman who have entered professional life, are:

Hon. Carlos Boardman , a lawyer and judge, in Linnaeus, Mo., oldest son of Capt. Charles. G. Boardman, of West Rutland.

Rev. George Nye Boardman, D.D. . Prof. of Systematic Theology, in Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Ill.

Rev. Samuel W. Boardman, D.D. . Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Stanhope, N.J.

Rev. Simeon Gilbert Boardman . Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Champlain, N.Y.

Charles Boardman, a member of the class of 1850, in Middlebury College, and who died of typhoid fever in the sophomore year, doubtless had in view the Christian ministry.

These four were sons of Dea. S. W. Boardman, of Castleton.

Horace Elijah Boardman, M.D. , in practice at Monroe, Wis., youngest son of Dea. Elijah Boardman, of West Rutland.

Harland S. Boardman M.D., , a grandson of Timothy 4th, and son of Timothy 5th, of Middlebury, was graduated at the Homeopathic Hospital College of Cleveland, Ohio, 1877. He is now practicing at Ludlow, Vt.

William Gilbert Boardman, in practice of dentistry in or near Memphis, Tenn., a grandson of Dea. Elijah Boardman.

Edgar William Boardman, M.D., son of Dr. Horace E., now practicing at Janesville, Wis.; both he and his father were graduated at the "Hahneman Medical College and Hospital, of Chicago."

Dea. Martin Foote, the husband of Betsey, was a student in Middlebury College for two years, it is believed, in the distinguished class of 1813, but by reason of impaired health, he was unable to complete the course.

It must have come into my father's hands with some other papers, on the division of his father's effects in 1839. Both seem to have been reluctant to destroy anything, though they did not much value it. My father, at last, weary of keeping it, would seem to have given it to me merely for its blank pages, as scribbling paper. Six leaves, apparently blank, were torn out. Several pages are covered with mere vacant scrawling by my boyish hand; whether I threw it away in utter contempt, or concealed it back of the old chimney, in curious conjecture whether some unborn generations, would not at some distant day discover it, and puzzle over it, I cannot tell. I have no recollection of it whatever; except that I had a general impression that we used to have more of grandfather's writings than we possessed in later years. Whether we had still others I know not. How little of such writing survives for a century! It was lost for forty years, till a quarter of a century after we had sold and left the house. It was found in 1884, in a dark recess, back of the chimney, in the garret, by Master Fred. Jones, the son of an esteemed friend, who in her childhood, about the time of the loss of this manuscript, was a member of my father's household. Many years afterwards, she became the worthy mistress of the house, and this lad, exploring things in general, came across this old Log-Book. If it is of any interest or value; to him and to Dr. J. M. Currier, the accomplished secretary of the Rutland County Historical Society, and to James Brennan, Esq., an old schoolmate who took an interest in the manuscript, is due all the credit of its publication.

JOURNAL AND SAILING DIRECTIONS OF THE OLIVER CROMWELL SECOND CRUISE.

JOURNAL OF THE SECOND CRUISE.

April 7th the Defence had Five Men Broke out With the Small Pox.

May 2^nd Sprung Our Foretopmast Struck it & Ship^d Another in its Room.

SAILING DIRECTIONS OF THE SECOND CRUISE.

An Account of the Months, Days And Knots Run, by the Ship Oliver Cromwell in her Second Cruise.

CONTRACT BETWEEN TIMOTHY BOARDMAN AND CAPT. PARKER.

FOR THE THIRD CRUISE.

Charlestown, July 6^th, 1778.

Conversation Between Cap^t Parker & My Self this Day.

P^r. What are you Doing a Shore.

My Sf. I wanted to See You Sir.

P^r. Verry well.

My Sf. The Term of my Inlistment is up & I would be glad of a Discharge Sir.

P^r. I cannot Give you One, the Ship is in Distress Plumb has been trying to Get You away.

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