Vague Village Limits

A roaming cow on Cabot’s Main Street propelled a legal case all the way to Vermont’s Supreme Court. ISRAEL CUTTING Qui tam vs. JOSEPH STONE Caledonia March 1835.

Israel Cutting wanted a fine of $10 from Joseph Stone. Stone rescued his cow from the Cabot pound, where Cutting confined it. Cutting was a canny businessman. Fisher’s history of Cabot said, “In 1840, a starch factory was built below the shops on the river, by Israel Cutting, which like everything else in his hands, proved lucrative In connection with his factory, he built a grist and a sawmill which he ran a few years.”

Cutting’s claim was based on an 1819 law that provided selectmen, on proper application, are to “lay out and establish the limits and bounds” of a village. It established penalties, for allowing cattle, horses, geese, etc. to run at large within legal village bounds. The statute allowed impounding horses and cattle to enforce the penalty. Vermont statutes included:

§ 3451. Cattle, horses or swine - If a person suffers his or her neat cattle, horses, or swine to run at large on the highways or commons, any person may impound them. The owner shall pay the charges of the impounder and poundkeeper, and the poundkeeper shall not release such animals until the charges are paid.

§ 3483. Hindering retaking - A person who hinders or impedes a poundkeeper or impounder in retaking an animal shall be fined $10.00 and shall pay the damages to the person injured.

§ 3484. Taking beast from, or impeding impounder - A person who rescues an animal from the custody of a person driving or about to drive it to pound, or resists him in so doing, shall be fined $10.00 and shall pay the damages to the person injured

The first appeal of the fine was to Caledonia County Court. (Cabot was in Caledonia County until 1855.) Stone’s final appeal went to the Vermont Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court found the selectman did receive an application and established a village. They also properly posted notices of the new village. Stone’s cow did wander onto neighboring property on Main Street.

What the selectmen did not do was properly describe limits and bounds of the village. Instead of citing physical points at the village edges, or having village borders surveyed, the selectmen defined the village by listing real estate owners in the village. This was too vague for the court.

The court could not definitively determine if the cow was grazing inside or outside legal village limits. Cutting did not get ten dollars from Stone. (The $10 would be worth $300 in 2020.)

Stone’s plodding cow slowed establishing legally enforceable village limits until more than 30 years later, in 1866. The village merged back into the town in 2010.

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ISRAEL CUTTING, Qui tam, vs. JOSEPH STONE CALEDONIA, March, 1885.

This was an action to recover the penalty of ten dollars given by statute for resisting the plaintiff in driving the defendant’s cow to pound, and rescuing her. The cause came by appeal to the county court, and was tried on the general issue joined to the court. On the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence the application to the selectmen of Cabot, which was as follows:

“ To the selectmen of the town of Cabot: We your petitioners request you to lay out and establish a village in said town, to extend from Samuel Hail’s to William Scales’ and also to John W. Dana’s and Thomas Lyford’s inclusive, to be hereafter known and designated by the name of Jacksonville; as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. Cabot, Jan. 11, 1834. (Signed) ISRAEL CUTTING,” and others.

This was objected to by the defendant, but admitted by the court. The plaintiff proved that more than seven of the signers thereto were freeholders in said town, and that there was a village of more than ten dwelling houses. The plaintiff offered in evidence a copy of the town clerk’s record of the doings of said selectmen, which was as follows:

"Whereas, application has been made to us by more than seven freeholders of the town of Cabot to set off' and establish a village, in said town—We hereby set off and establish a village bounded as follows, viz: Commencing with Samuel Hall, thence to William Scales, and also including John W. Dana, Jason and Warren Britt and Thomas Lyford.

LEONARD ORCUTT,

JOSEPH FISHER,

MATTHlAS STONE, Selectmen. Cabot, Jan. 20, i834.”

VERMONT SUPREME COURT DECISION: The laying out and establishing the limits and bounds of a village in these words—“Commencing with Samuel Hall, thence to William Scales, also including John W. Dana, Jason and Warren Britt and Thomas Lyford,"—-is uncertain and insufiicient. It must be so described as to include territory, with certain outlines and boundaries. case Vermont Supreme Court