Addendum to the Petition for Federal Recognition
Dated January 10, 1986
In Repsonse to the "Letter of Obvious Deficiencies and Significant Omissions"
Dated (6/14/1983).
Part B
Page 160: The Glode family cited at Swanton Junction from 1827 to 1830 is also of particular interest. 659 The Glode (Claude/Paganne) family has a close connection to the Benedict family and a shared history at Odanak which is well documented. 660 Members of the Odanak branch of the family usually returned to Shipyard Bay in Highgate Springs with the Benedicts to sell their wares in the…
Footnote 659. See 1827, 1829, & 1830 Swanton scholar’s lists in Appendix 3 and 1830 Swanton census in Appendix 1B.
Footnote 660. Day 1981: 79, 91. “Identity of the St. Francis Indians” by Gordon M. Day.
Page 161: … late 19th and early 20th centuries. 661 The Abenaki name for the family was Paganne, or Pakonowit, meaning ‘Butternut’. 662 The Pierre Peckenowax listed holding an Indian farm on the north side of the Missisquoi River in 1765 was most likely a member of this same family. 663
In northwestern Vermont, the Glode family appears in a variety of forms including Glade, Glodish, Gliodu, Gadue, Ladue, Ladie, LaOrder, LeBlanc, White, Butter, Normandin and Verge. 664 The Bluto Central family from St. Albans Bay derives in part from a Glode/Verge ancestor. 665 Several other citations of this family at St. Albans bay, Alburg and in the Islands have appeared, and the Ledoux Small family and Ladue ancestors of some present families all hail from this old Missisquoi name. 666
Footnote 661. Moody 1979: 75; RP: 58-9, 98; Moody, Field Notes, 1977-84.
Footnote 662. Day 1981: 91.
Footnote 663. Ibid: 91; RP: 173.
Footnote 664. See Glode/ Ladue Ancestral family history in Section 5 and cards in AA.
Footnote 665. See Bluto Central family history genealogy in RP and cards in AA; & Family chart 3’s 16 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 666. See Ledoux Small family history in Section V and cards in AA and Glode/Ladue Ancestral family cards in AA.
Page 163: [The Upper Ferris Road and Bow of the River Neighborhood] “Upper Ferris Road/Jewett Street neighborhood , or stove pipe alley as it was often called in this century, and the whole bow of the river area are very similar in history and composition to the Lake Road area discussed earlier.” 673
“For instance, it is likely that Martha Morits’ father William Morits drowned while fishing there in 1885 but the records do not distinguish that neighborhood from Back Bay and the rest of Swanton village.” 676
Footnote 673. RP: 114-D & Map #5 both show the neighborhood. It is southeast of Back Bay just across Grand Avenue/ Vermont Route 7 in Swanton.
Footnote 676. See Will Morits card in AA. He was drowned in July, 1885 at union District 9 & 17.
Page 172: The village out at the Monument in Highgate Springs was never the sole location of Abenaki neighborhoods. Both the bow of the river and the Lake Road/ Rood farm areas were used in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries for subsistence and Indian settlement. It is now conclusively shown in the census and Swanton school records that the Morits, Micha (Mitchel), Francis (St. Francis), Lampman and other families have made continuous use of the large Lake Road neighborhood since the 18th century. Evidence has even appeared which suggests that the old Towgisheat (Tanagite) Abenaki Indian farm was in fact Morits (Maurice) land and remained in their control well into the 19th century.
Page 174: “With the Indian wars over, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph and many other leaders and bands killed or subdued, America was going through one of its ‘pro-Indian’ phases. The popular ‘Chief Benedict’ and his ‘tribe’ of Benedicts, Claudes (Glode) and others from Odanak and Missisquoi had been a widely heralded part of the summer tourist trade at Shipyard Bay in Highgate. 715 The ‘First Church in Vermont’ ceremony and other parts of the Tercentennial celebration of Champlain’s ‘discovery’ of the Lake had occurred with numerous local and regional Indian participants appearing on the scene in ‘full costume’.”
Footnote 715. 216, 3/18/79: 3; Moody 1979: 75; RP: 74-5, 97-8, 211-2.
Page 179: "The later Chief, Swasson Tanagite (Joachim Morits) was virtually unknown to anyone but the Abenaki families and their close Dutch/Indian friends. If still living by 1800, he was probably located in the Highgate woods, where his family had gone when driven out of the village area by about 1798.” 736
Footnote 736. See Footnote # 291, pg. 69 & #302, page 72 here.
Footnote 291. "2262, 10/6/83:3. (IN PART) Furthermore, the name 'Swatson' is close to the common Abenaki given name of the time 'Swasson', which in turn was an Abenaki translation of the French Baptismal name Joachim [Day 1981:84:95]. This Joachim or Swatson, was probably a Morits/Tanagite family member, as each family tends to recall their more celebrated ancestors and, in most cases, derives their contemporary name from this source. [Day 1978:156; Day 1981:73]. That has also proven to be true of both the St. Francis and Medor Abenaki family names at Missisquoi by oral tradition within those families.
Page 181: These Phillips’s came and went as their family has since the 18th century. From 1700 to present day they have been documented in Maine, New Hampshire and New York. 744a However, they have always remained in and returned to Missisquoi, and constitute a Central family with extensive kin relations in the Abenaki community today. As noted earlier here, this family was one of those associated with the 18th century ‘Swatson’ tradition in the Morits and Lampman families.
Footnote 744a. RP: 226 & Phillips Central family genealogy in RP; & Family chart #’s 3, 4 & 7 in Appendix 11. See also Phillips cards in AA & Phillips Central family history in Section V here.
Page 190: Given the large number of Indian families associated with the Swatson tradition who later show up with the Morits families in the 1810 Highgate census, it is safe to assume that in 1800 John Minels (Morits) and Henry Mowen (Morits) were serving as front families for a large Rock River/Highgate woods neighborhood of Abenakis. 783
Footnote 783. The Phillips, Lapan (Pine), Lampman & Gardner families were all cited specifically in the Swatson tradition associated with the Missisquoi village from 1780 to 1798. [Footnote 46, page 3 here]. Those families also appear in the 1810 Highgate census [Appendix 1B]. The Francis/St. Francis family was also associated with the Swatson account. One Francis family appeared in Swanton in 1800, a second with the Morits family in the 1830 census (Abraham Freyner) and a third with John Morits on the Rock River in 1840 [See 1800 Swanton census & 1830 & 1840 Highgate census in Appendix 1B].
Page 191: “There is now substantial evidence that the old Missisquoi village was maintained on the Rock River in Highgate Springs in the same way it had been in earlier times of war, plague or other disruption. Historical accounts already summarized in the Petition only recount early Abenaki use of Highgate as a seasonal campground. 786 However, oral and written traditions unearthed recently detail the origins of the “Indian reservation” in Highgate Springs from the old Missisquoi Abenaki village.”
“The area involved was many times larger than any previously recorded projections about the old Missisquoi village. Careful research in the early history of Highgate has confirmed that the Rock River part of the old Missisquoi Indian town was inhabited by Abenakis when John Saxe first came and built a sawmill…
Footnote 786. Skeels 1871: 371; Moody 1979: 38; Day 1981: 57: RP: 54.
Page 192: … there in the 1790’s. 788
The story of Saxe’s first years in this area of Highgate are yet another episode in the Indian/white land struggles common in Swanton and Sheldon during this period. Sax, like John Hilliker and the Lampmans, was of German/Dutch ancestry and as such enjoyed generally good relations with the local Indians. 789 In fact, John Hilliker, Henry Lampman, John Waggoner, the Teachouts and other early allies of the Indians had also removed to the Highgate side of the Missisquoi by 1800 as well. 790 However, when the Abenakis were attempting to retain some portion of their cleared village lands in Highgate Springs after the agents of the Allen’s had driven them out of the Monument area, they fell into conflict with Sax and his fledgling efforts to establish a grist mill on the Rock River falls. 791 As the census and land records attest, the Morits family among others had retreated from the Monument to the Rock River area by 1800 where they were attempting to establish a permanent enclave from 1800 to 1830. 792 No strangers to the value of owning, or at least renting the land on which the mill would stand, they made their displeasure with Sax’s…
Footnote 788. Skeels 1871: 254, 272.
Footnote 789. Skeels 1871: 273; Barney & Perry 1882: 996; Swift 1977: 244; Mooy 1979: 30-2.
Footnote 790. Skeels 1871: 256-8. Hilliker did not buy the land he had settled on at “Hilliker’s Landing” downriver from the old Missisquoi village on the south side of the Missisquoi in Swanton until 1811. [SLR, Bk 7:30 & 1811 Swanton Land records list in Appendix 4A]. He purchased a homestead of 14 acres across the river in Highgate Springs n 1803 and lived there the remainder of his life. [HLR, Bk 2:132 & 1803 Highgate Land records list in Appendix 4B]. Both purchases were from the Allen family or their legal representatives.
Footnote 791. Skeels 1871: 272. Skeels reports that John Sax and his family “were harassed by Indians and wild animals, Mr. Saxe was at one time obliged to swim the River [Missisquoi], breaking ice with his hands.”
Footnote 792. See 1800-1840 Highgate censuses in Appendix 1B & Morits family history in Section I (pp 2-6) and Section V here.
Page 193: …occupancy clear. 793 Records of the Morits family land transactions early in the 19th century make clear that Sax did eventually make peace with the Abenakis by supporting their efforts to hold onto other land further up the Rock River. 794 Skeels’ (1871) generally positive overview of the relationship between the local Abenakis whose children “froliked” with the non-Indian Highgate settlers is further testimony to a better turn in relations. By 1900, even the area around the old Sax homestead on the lower Rock River had become, once again, part of an Abenaki community neighborhood. 795
Footnote 793. The heart of the first Abenaki negotiation about land at Missisquoi on record had involved the French asking permission to build Levasseur’s sawmill in the 1740’s which the Abenakis agreed upon in so much as they could have “what boards they want for their use gratis.” [Moody 1979: 14]. Sax was building the first mill north of Milton and as such was a logical target for Abenaki concern about development in the area.
Footnote 794. In 1812, Peter and Jacob Sax helped setup a barter mortgage for Morits land on the Rock River. [HLR, Bk 4: 185-6 & 1812 Highgate Land records in [Apendix 4B]. Also, George Sax, their brother, was a “hunter and drover” who had gone the ‘white Indian’ route in lifestyle. [Skeels 1971: 272].
Footnote 795. See Phillipsburg Road families in household #’s 290-2 & 335-47 in 1910 Highgate census in Appendix 1B.
Footnote 796. See 1790-1983 Highgate summary in Appendix 1A.
Page 194: Another indication of continuous Abenaki use and occupancy in Highgate comes from local Indian oral tradition. Several area farms and remote spots from the Rock River down through to the Missisquoi River delta were called the “Indian farms” and generally the “Indian reservation” right into the 20th century. 800 This tradition is widely held in the Abenaki community and it effectively stretches over the whole length of Abenaki history from the 18th to the mid-20th century. Odanak Abenaki with 19th century ties to Missisquoi also had a name for that area which is in the common Abenaki form for village terms. They even remembered that one of these old names for Highgate Springs pinpointed the location of an open meadow where crops could be raised. 801
Footnote 800. Baker 1976: 2; Moody 1979: 54, 56 fn’s 32 & 33, 64-5; RP: 83, 86, 88; 76, 5/3/78:6; 78, 4/22/81:3-4; 6/24/81:5; 206, 6/19/78: 1-3; 208, 7/31/80:1-2; 2258, 7/8/81:11; 2292, 1977:2.
Footnote 801. Day 1981a: 143. The sulphur springs for which Highgate Springs was named were known to the Benedicts [dit Panadis] of Odanak as “nebizonnebik” or “at the medicine water”. This form of the word is stated like “masipskoik”
(Missisquoi), “where there is flint” and “winostegok” (Winooski), “at the onion river.”
Page 195: “Evidence is growing that the Odanak families that came to the old Tyler Place at Shipyard Bay in Highgate Springs each summer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were returning as much to their ancestral village home where relatives still resided as they were to a resort where they could sell their wares to the tourists.The Morits (Maurice) family along with the Claude (Glode/Pagonowit/Paganne/Ladue) and Benedict (Panadis/Baraby/Parady) Ancestral familes are identified with this annual return from Odanak to Highgate which…
Footnote 801. Continued … and implies a previous long term site of a settled community or use of the land [Ibid: 154, 162]. An area north of Shipyard Bay on the Rock River was called “Dawskodasek” or “where the open meadow is”. [Ibid: 143]. This probably refers to the same old meadow one resident of the Springs used to hay for a local farmer. It had a patch of sweet grass in the middle of it which he would leave standing for the Benedicts and other Odanak Abenakis to use in their summer basket making at the turn of the 20th century. Although the memory of that field may simply go back to this fairly recent use, it is likely that the field and tradition date to the late 18th century as well. [2242, 9/28/81: 2-3; Moody, Field notes, 1977-1985].
Page 196: ...began in the late 1800’s. 805 All three families had relatives still living at Missisquoi which have been discussed here and in earlier tracts.” 806
Gordon Platt was a young man in the early 20th century and used to wander with Theophile Panadis around the Missisquoi region. Theophile was one of Gordon Day’s principal informants and the grandson of Sophie Maurice. 807 Sophie is remembered at Odanak as a ‘traditional’ who knew many of the older Western Abenaki stories including several from Lake Champlain which she passed on to Theophile Panadis over the course of his life. Gordon Platt recalls that Theophile Panadis had a strong interest in the part of the ‘Indian reservation’ which ran from Highgate Spring down to the Missisquoi delta. He reported that Theophile Panadis and he had located several old sites which included pottery and an assortment of village debris in their frequent summer travels. 808
The combination of these oral histories and recent data gathered on the many neighborhoods in Swanton, Highgate and other towns in the area require a new perspective on the 18th century Missisquoi Indian village. In summary, the Missisquoi village, even in peaceful interludes, was a much larger area with a greater population that is commonly thought. The village can no longer be described as a cluster of fifty households at the Monument farm. It too in an area at least 100 times the size ordinarily ascribed to it. 809
Footnote 805. Moody 1979: 73-75 & Field Notes, 1977-84: Day 1981: 91; RP: 58-9, 97-8.
Footnote 806. See Glode/Ladue history in fn’s 658-69, pp 160-2 here & Glode/Ladue Ancestral family history in Section V. See Benedict/Panadis Ancestral history in Section V here; Morits/ Maurice history, pp 67-81 here; & Family chart #’s 5-6. 16. 17 & 18 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 807. Moody 1979: 73 fn 50; RP: 59 fn 15.
Footnote 808. 76, 5/3/78: 5; 216, 3/16/79, 2, 5, 6, 11, 13; Moody 1979: 73 fn 50.
Page 197: “The Morits family exemplifies this continuity at Missisquoi in three important ways. First, they retained a role in community leadership by their well documented efforts to establish a permanent Abenaki neighborhood on the Rock River. 810 Henry Morits even retained 600 acres in that area “by possession” until 1812. 811 Although land purchase and ownership did not succeed in the area like it did somewhat later in Back Bay from 1820 to the late 19th century, their effort was enough to ground an extensive network of at least 140 Abenakis in twenty six linked families by 1840 in Highgate. 812
The 1840 census also illustrates the other three important aspects of Morits family constancy in Highgate. They had close ties to the rest of the 1840 Abenaki”…
Footnote 809. The village size was never more than two to four acres by any accounts thus far without considering the fields on the Missisquoi delta. Greylock’s castle on Maquam Creek, the old Missisquoi village at the Monument in Highgate Springs and Taquahunga village at Swanton Falls all fit in that narrow definition. In these accounts, the basic village area is expanded about 100 times to include all of Swanton and Highgate towns. As the Petition noted, the fifty hut (250 to 750 population) limit for ‘Missisquoi’ was always focused in either the Monument farm area or at Taquahunga/Swanton Falls. [RP: 32] The Petition was careful to point out that this did not “…represent the total Indian population on the eastern shores of Lake Champlain”. In fact, it did not even reflect the total population of Indians in the large Missisquoi village itself.
Footnote 810. See 1803 to 1822 Highgate land records in Appendix 4B.
Footnote 811. See 1812 Highgate land records in Appendix 4B. The Benjamin Powers cited here could have been related to the Joseph Powers from Ferrisburgh, Vermont who witnessed the Missisquoi Abenaki village at the Monument farm in late 1759. [Barney & Perry 1882: 956; Moody 1979: 11; RP: 32, 34]. This would explain how John Perry retrieved the Powers family tradition about Missisquoi from local researches as well as documenting a close Powers family/Abenaki relationship.
Footnote 812. See 1840 Highgate census in Appendix 1B.
Page 198: “…neighborhoods, links to the 18th century Missisquoi Abenaki families, and clear associations with Highgate Indian families whose names come down to present day Abenaki families. Later Highgate Abenaki families including Barnes (Barratt), Belor (Blair), McGee (Maille/Medor), Salisbury, Salt, Sharkey and Martin families were cited that year living in proximity to Francis (St. Francis), Michael (Michel), Corliss (Curtis), Sibalet (Sabadit/St. John), Dacar (Decarr), Winters, Laraway/Laset (St. Lawrence), Shampang, Perriso (Parizo) and Newell (Wells) families associated with Swanton, St. Albans Bay and other community neighborhoods. 813 The same year, Morits family members were also living in all listed Swanton neighborhoods including the Lake Road where they retained ancestral lands, in Sheldon, St. Albans Bay and Alburg.” 814 De Mair (Demar/de Mora/Mora/ Mars/Murray) branches of the Maurice family were among the citations in Alburg and the Swanton Junction neighborhood as well as in Franklin and St. Albans Bay. 815 This is the point where the Morits/Maurice/Demar family was at its apex, and like several Odanak and Missisquoi Abenaki families, split into two major lines with different names: Morits and Demar.” 816
“Also the old Benard (Bernard), Nolete (Wawanolet/Whitehead) and Butter…
Footnote 813. Ibid: 1840; & Family chart #’s 2, 3, 4, 5-6, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17 & 18 in Appendix 11.
Footnote 814. See Calvin Maray, Thomas Moran, Jos. Morrina & Sally Mars in 1840 census in Appendix 1B. See John Morits & Francis Morritts in 1830 St. Albans census in Appendix 1B.; John Morits of ‘St. Albans’ in 1837 Swanton land records in Appendix 4A; & John Morice/Julia Desmarrais baptism of child in 1841 O’Callaghan register in Appendix 5A. See Desera Murray in 1840 Alburg census & Wm Morrow in 1840 Sheldon census, both in Appendix 1B.
Footnote 815. See De Mair (Demar/deMora) families in 1840 Franklin census; Desera Murray (Dizara Mora) in 1840 Alburg census & household # 492 in 1850 Alburg census; 3 De Mair (Demar) families in 1840 St. Albans census; & Sally Mars in 1840 Swanton Jct neighborhood in Swanton census, all in Appendix 1B.
Footnote 816. De Mair/de Mora/Mora/Murray/Des Marrais/Demar all appear as family names of Demar family members in the immediate northwestern Vermont area. See Demar family cards in AA & Demar Central family history in Section V here.
Page 199: …(Pagonowit/Glode) Missisquoi Abenakis appeared in the Highgate woods area next to other Indian families in 1840. 817 As just discussed above, the Claude/Butter/Glode family from Odanak often returned to the Springs each year with the Benedicts to do craft work in the 19th century.”
“The Morits/Maurice family appear extensively in local records up to 1840 and were definitely a leading extended family during the transition from old Missisquoi to the contemporary period. Highgate in this period is a well documented example of a general phenomena in the Abenaki community: single families being listed in lieu of substantial neighborhoods of Abenakis which are present but not listed in the records.
“The oral tradition about Chief Swasson Morits being associated with a large group is confirmed by the census lists from 1800 to 1840. In 1800 and 1820, small clusters of families appear with the Morits families.” 819
Footnote 819. See 1800 & 1820 Highgate censuses in Appendix 1B
