Naming Cabot

Some material excerpted or adapted from Esther Munroe Swift's "Vermont Place Names: Footprints of History," Stephen Green Press, Brattleboro, Vt. 

It has been said that a man could live in Cabot for seventy-five years and have been a resident of four counties, without ever leaving his place of birth. The town has been successively part of the Vermont counties of Cumberland, Orange, Caledonia and, since 1855, Washington. As far as can be discovered, Cabot is the only town in Vermont named as a result of a romantic attachment. Major Lyman Hitchcock, of Connecticut, and Miss Sophia Cabot fell in love while Lyman was still in the Continental Army. Sophia's father (see NOTE below) refused to let his daughter marry a soldier, and the lovers were thwarted. Then Lyman got in on a Vermont grant, in which he was the next-to-largest land buyer. 

Sophia's father went north with a survey crew to inspect the holding of his would-be son-in-law and liked what he saw. He gave the couple his blessing, and the other grantees of Lyman's Vermont town agreed to let him name it for his fiancee. After the Revolution, the young couple settled on their Vermont land, and the 1790 census (actually taken in Vermont in 1791) listed Lyman Hitchcock as head of a household of four people.

Cabot began as an army town. When the town was officially organized, eight years after the chartering, six out of seven people elected to fill town offices had been commissioned Continental Army officers (the odd private was elected to the office of highway surveyor). The fact that soldiers bought many of the charters sold by Vermont during the Revolution has engendered the mistaken idea that the land was pay for their services. In fact, however, hard money changed hands, and went into the treasury of the little Vermont Republic. And the money was badly needed; the Continental Congress did not pay any of  Vermont's war expenses because she was neither an old colony not yet recognized as a separate, independent entity, and Cabot did not have what the proprietors of every town hoped for: good farm lands, plenty of mill sites and no excessively high hills. At first the town grew quite rapidly, then, after the Civil War, it started to decline. The population at present (1977)  is somewhat less than it was thirty years after the charter was written.

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NOTE (2020): According to Prentiss R. Carnell III, a direct descendant of Lyman Hitchcock and Sophia Cabot Hitchcock, part of this story is wrong. Research shows Sophia's renowned father, the Reverend Marston Cabot, died "of apoplexy" April 8, 1756, in the pulpit of the Second or North Society of Killingly (now Thompson), Connecticut. Sophia was born July 20, 1756, three months later. Probably it was her brother, Marston Cabot, Jr., (1747-1814) who objected to her marriage until Major Hitchcock bought land in Cabot. Marston Cabot, Jr. was a farmer and early settler of Hartland, Vermont. He was Windsor County surveyor. He surveyed several Vermont towns, including Hartland, Williamston, Berlin, Northfield, Wildersburgh (now Barre) and Cabot.

A 19th century history of Cabot by John M. Fisher, in Vermont Historical Magazine, states, " Cabot . . . was granted Nov. 6, 1780; chartered by Vermont to Jesse LEVENWORTH and 65 others, Aug. 17, 1781; but not surveyed and lotted till 1786. The survey was made by CABOT, of Connecticut, and James WHITELAW. Thomas LYFORD, whose father was one of the first settlers, being at that time a young man, 18 years of age, worked with them through the survey. In the extreme west part of the town Mr. CABOT broke the glass in his compass, and was obliged to go through the wilderness to the nearest house about 6 miles away, and take a square of glass out of the window to replace it."

Major Lyman Hitchcock married Sophia Cabot Sept. 14, 1785, before the survey.

Whitelaw was the Republic of Vermont's Deputy Surveyor-General; he also did private surveys. In Oct. 1787, Whitelaw became the second Vermont Surveyor-General, succeeding Ira Allen.

In 1789, Thomas Lyford, Jr. and his father built an up-and-down sawmill on the Winooski River, alongside what is now Main Street in the village of Cabot.

What’s In A Name? By Peter Dannenberg, Cabot Historical Society

In 1881, Hemenway’s Historical Gazetteer, published John M. Fisher’s history of Cabot. One sentence says, “The town was named by Lyman Hitchcock, one of the grantees, in honor of  his bride-elect, Miss Cabot, of Connecticut, a descendant of Sebastian Cabot.”

This romantic tale was embellished and retold. In 1977, Vermont Place Names, Footprints of History, by Esther Munroe Swift, added: 

Cabot was named for Sophia Cabot, fiancee of Major Lyman Hitchcock.
Sophia’s father wouldn’t let her marry until he appraised Lyman’s land. It was the second-largest land buy in Cabot.
The real story is more involved.

Sophia Cabot was unrelated to Sebastian Cabot. The Neapolitan explorer was baptized Caboto. In 1497, King Henry VII, of England, commissioned Sebastian and his brother to explore the coast of North America. Anglicizing explorers’ names helped sell popular books about discovering the New World.

The New England Cabot family descended from brothers George and John Cabot. They were born in Jersey, a Channel Island, and emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts in 1700. George, a mason, was Sophia’s grandfather. Sophia’s father was the Reverend Marston Cabot, born in 1704, a 1724 graduate of Harvard College. Harvard’s Library has a leather-bound handwritten notebook in which Marston copied excerpts from textbooks.

The North society of Killingly, Connecticut organized the First Church of Thompson in 1730. Thompson soon became the town’s name. Marston Cabot, of Salem, Massachusetts, became the first Congregational pastor. In 1731, he married Mary Dwight. They had 13 children.

Five of his published sermons survive. Especially poignant is, “THE BEAUTY OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE UNVAILED. A SERMON DELIVER'D AT THOMPSON IN KELLINGLEY, NOV. 30. 1740. SOON AFTER THE DEATH OF THREE OF HIS CHILDREN.” The children died in a diphtheria epidemic. Cabot wrote, "We are (at best) poor short sighted creatures that can see but a very little way into Things...But God sees with other and clearer Eyes. His Thoughts are not like our Thoughts. . . . I can't leave off till I thus publickly express my unfeigned Gratitude for all the Kindnesses you have shown to me, and my dear deceased in the Time of their distressing Sickness. This Labour of Love will not soon nor easily be forgotten."

On April 8, 1756, Parson Cabot, suffered a stroke while preaching and died "of apoplexy." Sophia was born three months later, on July 2nd. One of her brothers, was also named Marston.

Marston Cabot, Jr. (1747-1814) was a farmer and early settler of Hartland, Vermont. He became Windsor County Surveyor. Marston surveyed Hartland, Williamston, Berlin, Northfield, Wildersburgh (now Barre) and was one of Cabot’s surveyors. Perhaps he suggested Major Hitchcock should buy land in Cabot, 30 years after Rev. Cabot died.

Lyman Hitchcock (1746-1819) was born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a Second Lieutenant in Col. Samuel Elmore’s Connecticut State Regiment from April 1776 to April 1777. About 1779, he became a partner in Douglas & Crane, an Albany, NY tailoring business. In August 1779, Hitchcock was appointed assistant commissary of hides for the northern department. His job was to buy badly needed leather and shoes for the military.

On July 1, 1780, Lyman enlisted, for eight months, as a Continental Army Major and by April 1781 he was an inspector and muster master for the New York militia levies. The unit guarded the northern frontier against raids and invasion from Canada. Major Hitchcock oversaw training and discipline.

The war ended in 1783. Lyman and Sophia married on September 14, 1785. The Cabot survey was in 1786. They were already married for a year when lots were drawn to assign parcels to buyers. There were 72 lots; each was the same size, 53.3 acres. Lyman Hitchcock drew only one, lot 54. It was one row away from the Woodbury line. Sophia Hitchcock got one lot in her married name. Hers was lot two, on the Peacham town line. Sophia’s lot was worth more than Lyman’s, because it was nearer the Bayley-Hazen Road, which entered Cabot from Peacham. That was the only road.

Frequently, surveyors were paid with land. There was no lot in Marston Cabot’s name, nor record of other payment for his work. Was lot two a gift to his kid sister, Sophia?

In March 1784, Lyman Hitchcock sent a petition to the Vermont Council and became the first town clerk of Cabot, in 1788. In 1790, he was the first Cabot Justice of the Peace. He was a Selectman in 1791 and 1792. In 1793, he was a delegate to the Vermont Constitutional Convention.

Lyman and Sophia had one daughter and four sons. Two sons died in childhood. The daughter, Sophia Marston Cabot, died at age 27, without marrying. Hiram Washington Hitchcock, and his brother, Dwight Cabot Hitchcock, became farmers in Champlain, NY. Lyman died there on February 15,1819; Sophia died there on November 28,1825.

The heartwarming romance is a fairy tale. The true story is a saga of a family struggling and enduring through war, peace, love, and loss to build a new nation.

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