Essex

FRENCH, Hains & Volney

Vermont Historical Magazine, No XI, October 1867, pp 1039-1042 (extracted 
from a section on the history of Maidstone, Essex County, Vermont)

Biography of Hains FRENCH - pp 1039-1040 [father of Volney]

The father [John FRENCH] of the subject of this article [Hains FRENCH] was 
one of the early settlers of Maidstone [Essex County, Vermont]. He emigrated 
to the town from Walpole [Cheshire County], New Hampshire, shortly before the 
Revolutionary War. He had a large family. The oldest son was John, named 
after his father. He was a captain in the continental army and well 
acquainted with [George] Washington. Hains, the second son [of John FRENCH], 
was born about 1760 [on 15 May 1761 in Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire 
to John and Olive FRENCH?], and at the early age of thirteen became a waiter 
of Major WHITCOMB in the Revolutionary War, and subsequently enlisted. He 
went with the army of Gen. MONTGOMERY down Lake Champlain and was at the 
siege of Quebec in December 1775. At the departure of the American troops, 
he was unable to accompany them on account of having the smallpox, and fell 
into the hands of the British as a prisoner of war. Here he suffered great 
hardships from ill treatment and neglect. At length he was sent around by 
water to New York, there being an exchange of prisoners, and after an absence 
of two years came back to Maidstone. When he knocked at the door and went 
into his father's house, not even his own mother knew him, he was so much 
emaciated. In 1784 he [Hains FRENCH] was married to [Miss?] Irene LEARNARD, 
whose father then resided in Columbia [Coos County], New Hampshire, and 
settled down to farming for a few years. From this marriage there were five 
children, his wife [Irene FRENCH] dying in 1799. In 1804 he [Hains FRENCH] 
was married again, to [Miss?] Sally HUGH [submitter's assumes HUGH is a 
surname; HUGH or HUGHES?], by whom there were four children: Eusebia, Hains, 
Volney, and Sarah. Mr. FRENCH was proverbially a social man, and the soul of 
a gathering among the early settlers for an evening before the old-fashioned 
fireplace filled with a blazing fire. To have a good practical joke or pun, 
a song, and a story were the best kind of an entertainment.

Having no early advantages of an education, Hains FRENCH neglected no 
opportunity to acquire the rudiments of a common school education, even after 
his marriage. It was a well-authenticated fact that his first wife [Irene], 
among other things, taught him to write. Having an investigating mind, 
however, he read much of the general literature of the day, such as was then 
published. He was extremely fond of the study of ancient and modern history 
and spent much of his leisure time in perusing the best authors to be had. 
He also took a lively interest in the subject of the different forms of 
government, and was well versed in the diplomatic tactics of foreign courts. 
He was an ardent Republican, and a great friend of the Jeffersonian school of 
politicians.

Soon after the organization of the county of Essex [Vermont], Mr. [Hains] 
FRENCH was elected as a member of the council of the state and was either 
elected to that body or the house of representatives for twelve years. He 
was also county clerk for nearly the same length of time, and held several 
other offices of trust in the county and in his own town. He was once 
appointed Judge of the county [Essex], but declined to serve. Being clerk of 
the court, it naturally led him to the investigation of the principles of 
law, and from that to a small practice, in which it is said he was very 
successful. One of his early efforts, it may not be out of place to remark 
here, was not only characteristic of the liberality of the man in religious 
matters, but a chronological event in the history of the separation of church 
and state in that quarter of New England: It appears at that early period 
the tithing system, as known in England before then and subsequently, was in 
full force in all or most all of the New England states. A man had neglected 
to pay the minister-rates, and his only cow was seized to satisfy them. Mr. 
[Hains] FRENCH was called upon to defend, and he entered upon the subject 
with as much zeal as if the man was to have been burnt at the stake unless he 
abjured heretical doctrines. Able counsel was procured to sustain the 
church party, and elaborate arguments made at the trial. But the doctrine 
was ignored that men were obliged by law to sustain a church whose doctrines 
perhaps were repudiated by his own conscience. Both he and every 
liberal-minded man considered it a most signal triumph.

The War of 1812 found Mr. [Hains] FRENCH engaged upon his small farm in 
Maidstone, in poor health, following his usual pursuits. In the legislature 
of that fall he became acquainted with James FISK, then a sitting member, who 
was afterward elected to Congress. Mr. FISK the following winter procured 
his appointment as Major of the Thirty-first Regiment U. S. Infantry in the 
division commanded by Gen. Wade HAMPTON. Notwithstanding his feebleness 
from a severe illness of which he had just recovered, and the advice of 
friends, Maj. [Hains] FRENCH immediately accepted his commission and 
proceeded to Burlington [Chittenden County, Vermont] with his regiment. No 
arguments could overcome the loyalty and the observance of what he viewed a 
duty he owed to his country. With him, nearly the same time, enlisted his 
three sons, Homer, John, and Ovid, the last being only seventeen years of 
age. Homer FRENCH was killed at the battle of Chippewa, while storming a 
battery, 17 September 1814, and the other two [John FRENCH and Ovid FRENCH] 
served during the war.

During the summer, Maj. [Hains] FRENCH was engaged in drilling and 
disciplining his regiment at Burlington, but still in poor health. In the 
early part of the fall of the same year [1814], an attack had been planned on 
Montreal by the uniting of HAMPTON's and Gen. WILKINSON's armies together, 
the latter proceeding down the St. Lawrence. From Burlington our forces were 
ordered to move on to Plattsburg, and then by way of the Chateaugay River 
down to the St. Lawrence, to form this junction. As the army advanced the 
weather became cold and rainy, and the roads almost impassable. When they 
arrived at a little village in the northern part of the state of New York, 
called Chateaugay Four Corners [Franklin County, New York], Maj. FRENCH's 
health became so poor he was obliged to stop. At this spot he lingered along 
a few days and expired about the middle of November of the same year [02 Nov 
1814], only regretting that his life and health could not be prolonged until 
his country had subdued her enemies. The subject of this memoir [Hains 
FRENCH] was literally a self-made man of more than ordinary natural 
endowments, patriotic in his devotion to his country, strictly honest and 
honorable in his dealings, faithful in all offices of public trust, and died 
lamented. He was a brave officer, and sacrificed his life for his country. 
His last word was a prayer for the prolongation of his life to battle her 
cause.

Biography of Volney FRENCH - pp 1040-1042 [son of Hains FRENCH]

Hon. Volney FRENCH was born in Maidstone [Essex County, Vermont; no birthdate 
is given], and is the youngest son of Major Hains FRENCH. His early 
advantages for an education were very limited, being only those derived from 
a common school two or three months in the year, at a distance of nearly two 
miles from his home. But storms and bad roads had no terrors for him. He is 
remembered here as a close student, more intent on mastering the tasks of the 
schoolroom than joining in the usual sports of the scholars, with the 
exception of his favorite amusement, that of skating, of which he was always 
fond whenever tempted by the smooth crystal surface of the Connecticut 
[Maidstone being west of the Connecticut River, which separates the states of 
Vermont and New Hampshire]. From Maidstone he pursued his academic studies 
at Concord [Essex County], Vermont, and Lancaster [Coos County] and Meriden 
[Sullivan County], New Hampshire, and thence he entered the University of 
Vermont. His health and means failing, he left Burlington [Chittenden 
County, Vermont] and entered the law office of Messrs. Gay & Buchan, at 
Rochester [Monroe County], New York. Here he stopped three years and 
finished his profession. During all this time he was entirely dependent upon 
his own exertions for the means of subsistence. Frequently, it is said, his 
exchequer was so low that he was obliged to live in a garret on crackers and 
cheese.

In 1840 he joined the army of emigrants that were moving on to settle the 
West. He has ever been regarded as an upright lawyer and a successful 
practitioner. Among other offices which he has held he has been twice 
elected judge of his own county [Essex]. By strict integrity and close 
application to business he acquired in a few years a competency, but having 
more taste for literary pursuits than the legal profession, some years since 
he closed his books and his office door. In the fall of 1854 he left for the 
old world, and spent two years in traveling through some of the most 
interesting portions of Europe, Asia, and Africa. From one of his published 
letters, written at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, the following is made to show the 
extent of his travels and researches: "There is one thing," he says, "that I 
have aimed at: variety of matter, for there is so much material I had only 
to choose my subject. I described to the reader a winter passage over the 
ocean, the commercial city of Southampton, and then Paris with all its 
splendors, its gaieties, its dissipation, its churches and works of art. I 
then took him through the valley of the Rhone, calling a Nice and Genoa, to 
the eternal city, Rome, home of the Caesars, and pointed out to him her 
palaces, her churches, and all the places within her of great historic 
interest. Leaving these pulchers of the great dead here and the catacombs of 
the poor persecuted Christians, I took him to Naples and showed him the 
buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, ascended Vesuvius, descended to 
avernus and passed over the shaowy Styx. With the sun we went northward, not 
forgetting to call at beautiful Florence and take a ride in the gondolas of 
Venice, along the canals bordered by her marble palaces. Striking over the 
German plains by battlefields and castes, famous in legend and song, we 
arrived at the Baltic, took a hardy peep at Stockholm, and the lovely Mallar 
lake, and thence passed over to Norway, the New England of Europe, and saw 
her cool and limpid streams, her evergreen hills, lakes and mountains. But 
night here had become day, and we hastened towards Switzerland. Here if the 
reader caught half the inspiration which I felt, he must have been pleased 
with the cataract, the glacier, the avalanche and the crevices, down into 
which the chamois, bred in the mountain tops, looked with dread. Passing 
into Italy once more, we glided over two of the most beautiful sheets of 
water the eye can rest on, lakes Maggiore and Como; recrossed the Alps into 
the Tyrol, heard the chime bells of Salsburg [Salzburg], that once each day 
recalled the memory of Mozart, and halted for a week in Munich. Thence we 
went through the whole valley of the Danube, passed over the Black Sea and 
found ourselves in the land of the Orient. From thence to ancient 
Alexandria, by Athens and Smyrna, and from thence, passing by raised temples 
and cities, up the Nile to this place, a point upwards of a thousand miles 
from the sea. Thus roaming through parts of the four continents within forty 
degrees of latitude and one hundred and ten of longitude, learning the 
history of the countries passed, and the manners and customs of the people, 
visiting the palaces of the great, and the huts of the poor, the tombs of 
kings and emperors and the pit prepared for the pilgrim."

From here Mr. [Volney] FRENCH visited Syria and Palestine, and thence again 
through the Mediterranean and Italy to Belgium and Holland, and afterwards 
spent four months in traveling through Great Britain. At Jerusalem, the Dead 
Sea, and Jordan, he spent some weeks. While at the former place he visited 
the Holy Sepulcher. Of what he saw in it he says: "The main object of 
attraction is the whole building, and around which there is always a great 
crowd, is what is called the sepulcher itself. This is a small but beautiful 
temple-like building, standing in the center of the church. The marble 
material of which it is built has a rosy hue, and was brought from the Dead 
Sea. Led by a priest, we entered the holy of holies. We were shown the 
stone (according to tradition) on which the angel sat; also the stone that 
was laid against the door of the sepulcher. Stooping, we were again 
conducted to another inner room, flooded with lights from lamps of gold which 
are continually burning, containing the sarcophagus into which the body of 
Christ was placed after the crucifixion. From he we next descended to the 
vault hewed out of the sold rock, where was shown the sepulchered vault of 
Joseph of Arimathea. From here we were taken into various parts of the 
church, both above and below, and were shown the place where the Saviour was 
confined previous to his crucifixion, the stone on which he sat while being 
crowned, the place where his garments were parted, the pillar on which he sat 
during his flagellation, the fissure in the rocks that were rent in twain, 
the room in which Mary, his mother, sat during the crucifixion, and lastly, 
the place where the Empress Helena found, among a pile of rubbish, the true 
cross. The latter place was in a subterranean vault, many feet under the 
church, but brilliantly lighted with lamps. The crowds of processions moving 
solemnly along in various directions, with different orders of priests, the 
chanting of music, accompanied by the deep tones of the organ, the flitting 
part of spectral shadows of pale men and women, whose constant vigils make 
them appear to belong more to the dead than living, the low and sepulcharal 
voices of the half-famished beggars that ask for alms, all taken together 
invest the place with a reverential awe that cannot be easily effaced from the 
memory. But those who excited my sympathy and pity the most were the poor 
worn out pilgrims who had come from foreign lands to see the spot where their 
Redeemer died. These poor creatures, with wasted limbs, blanched cheeks and 
sunken eyes, would be there early and late upon their bended knees; and from 
their earnest looks and anxious countenance I have not the least reason to 
doubt the sincerity and earnestness of their devotions."

As has been before said, Mr. [Volney] FRENCH still resides in Wisconsin, 
enjoying his "otium cum dignitate" with that ease and independence only known 
to cultivated minds. [Volney FRENCH settled in what was known as the 
Territory of Wisconsin (from 20 April 1836 until statehood was achieved 29 
May 1848), in the community on Lake Michigan known as Southport (which became 
the city of Kenosha 07 February 1850), which was formerly in Racine County, 
but became part of Kenosha County when that county was created 26 January 
1850. Submitter's only connection to Volney FRENCH is that his name appears 
as a previous owner in the abstract of property owned by submitter. 
Bracketed additions included by submitter to support or clarify information 
given in the biography and to raise questions. For additional information on 
this FRENCH family see the Kenosha County, Wisconsin, biographies.]

Submitted by Cathy Kubly