This engaging and carefully researched book tells, for the first
time, the story of William Marsh (1738-1816), an intriguing but
little-known Revolutionary figure whose life crossed borders both
national and political. It contributes importantly to the
literature on American loyalists about whom few book-length
biographies have been written. It traces through myriad sources the
life of a founder of Vermont long overshadowed by the ample
attention paid to his famed associates, Ethan and Ira Allen. The
book also places Marsh in his family context, tracing the Marshes
from Connecticut in the late 1600s to Upper Canada where many
descendants found new homes after the American Revolution. In doing
so, it explores the roots of his values, actions, and choices in
the dramatic events through which he lived. Before the war, Marsh
and several thousand other New Hampshire Grants settlers faced
grave challenges to their land titles from New York which laid
claim to the territory that was to become Vermont. A colonel in the
Manchester (VT) militia, Marsh supported the Green Mountain Boys'
paramilitary actions against the Yorkers' moves to dispossess the
settlers. As the Revolution began, he played a key role in uniting
the Vermont towns as they organized to request the American
Continental Congress to recognize them as a state. When the
congress refused, and when the British proposed to offer them
recognition and support, Marsh turned to the British as offering
the best prospects for Vermont as it struggled to survive on its
own. Present at the British defeat at Saratoga in October 1777,
Marsh was sent into exile in Canada. He next surfaced at Fort St.
John, north of Lake Champlain, doing intelligence and refugee work
for the British secret service under General Frederick Haldimand.
Although the British failed to make Vermont into a British colony,
Marsh and other Vermont loyalists and partisans secured Vermont's
neutrality in the later years of the Revolution, protecting it from
the severe British raids unleashed against New York. After the war,
Marsh documented to the Loyalist Claims Commission the confiscation
of most of his Vermont lands and secured grants for himself and
offspring in Upper Canada. In the meantime, his father's Vermont
holdings preserved a base for the family in their homeland.
Returning finally to Vermont, Marsh spent his last twenty years out
of the public sphere, rebuilding his life and livelihood among both
old friends and enemies, while retaining on his own an attachment
to Freemasonry reflected in his remarkable gravestone in Dorset,
Vermont. Most of his children found success in Canada, even as they
endured fresh economic challenges and troubled times through the
War of 1812. A genealogical appendix adds substantially to the
family's history, filling gaps and resolving numerous old questions
that have beset the many descendants who have sought to trace their
Marsh roots. Review by Tyler Resch, Research Librarian, Bennington
Museum, Bennington, VT: This new biography opens the reader's eyes
to the political and economic hardships of Vermont's settlers
during the era of the American Revolution, a time when many were
justifiably troubled about where their loyalties should reside. Its
subject has lingered in obscurity until now, but Col. William
Marsh: Vermont Patriot and Loyalist by Jennifer S.H. Brown and
Wilson B. Brown, demonstrates that Marsh worked and associated with
many well-known figures in early New England and nearby Canada. In
revealing Marsh's little-known role in the creation of the feisty
and independent state of Vermont, and his later work with the
British on its behalf, the book makes a major contribution to its
history, telling "the Vermont story" in fresh and readable ways and
making sophisticated use of a wide variety of sources.
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