On Kingdom Mountain (24 page)

“She is.” Jane consulted her notes. “I cite Professor Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-born naturalist, who in 1860 and again in 1861 journeyed to Vermont with his student, my uncle Pilgrim”—gesturing toward the young man with the snake staff—“to view the rare Arctic plants and glacial phenomena on Kingdom Mountain. In his monograph entitled
Glaciation of Kingdom Mountain
, besides identifying four new species of Arctic saxifrages and a pink and blue windflower previously unknown to science, Professor Agassiz wrote, ‘In the three tarns on the north side of the mountain, and in the upper reaches of the East Branch of the Kingdom River, there dwells a bluish fish of the
Salmo
genus, a species I have named
borealis fontinalis Kinnesonian
, found elsewhere only in a lake on Baffin Island.' The Vermont Fish and Game Department lists the blue-backed brook trout as endangered. Benson's authoritative
North American Fresh Water Ichthyology
classifies ‘the blue trout of a few cold-water ponds and brooks in remote northern Vermont and southern Quebec' as a
separate species.
”

The justices were taking notes. Henry Satterfield was beginning to feel excited. Whatever self-doubts she might have had when conversing with him or alone in On Kingdom Mountain with her dear people, Miss Jane's public presence was magisterial.

Chief Justice Dewey said, “Miss Kinneson, wouldn't the Connector bring jobs and industry to rural northern Vermont?”

“Certain local businessmen hope to purchase the mountain and turn it into a winter spa so that idle folks can slide down hill by day and roister by night. When it comes to roistering, people can always be counted on to be very industrious, you know.”

“Miss Kinneson,” a younger justice said, “do you own all of Kingdom Mountain?”

“Every square foot. In trust for the Memphremagog branch of the Abenaki nation.”

“I don't believe that the Memphremagogs or, for that matter, the Abenaki nation, have ever been officially granted tribal status by the state of Vermont.”

“The Memphremagog nation is nearly extinct. In 1856 thirty-six men of the tribe fell to their deaths in the Saint Lawrence River while constructing the Victoria Bridge. I am their last descendant. If you doubt it, ask Memphre Magog.” Miss Jane gestured at her two-headed wooden sculpture of the Creator of Kingdom Mountain, standing erect and tall, drawn up to his full seven feet, and regarding the justices sternly with both his heads.

“I understand that the international border, as designated by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, actually runs through your home, Miss Kinneson.”

“The international border is an arbitrary line on a map, nothing more. But Kingdom Mountain, which is silent, or it would inform you of this fact itself, officially belongs to neither the U.S. nor Canada.” From her cardboard folder Miss Jane withdrew an ancient handwritten document. “Your Honors, behold. The
first
Webster-Ashburton Treaty, drafted by Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton as a letter to my great-grandfather, Freethinker Kinneson. He's the gentleman to my left who looks like John Brown. ‘As for the massive wild peak along the border known as Kingdom Mountain, lying between Vermont and Quebec, bisected by the 45th Parallel, and stretching from
Lake Memphremagog on the west to the headwaters of the Upper East Branch of the Kingdom River in Pond Number Three of the Chain of Ponds on the east, and from the Grand Bayou du Nord or Great Northern Slang on the north to the Lower East Branch of the Kingdom River on the south, comprising approximately one hundred and fifty square miles of forests, lakes, and streams, this territory shall belong to neither the United States nor Great Britain but rather to Freethinker Kinneson and his heirs, to be held in trust for the Memphremagog branch of the Abenaki Nation, for as long as the summer sky over the mountain is blue, its waters flow north to the Saint Lawrence, and the grass on its slopes turns green in the spring.'”

“Miss Kinneson, does this interesting provision appear in the ratified Webster-Ashburton Treaty?”

“It does not. It was struck out by politicos in Washington and London at the last minute. But this document predates the final treaty by eight months and was signed by both Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton.”

“Where is its legal validity if it wasn't incorporated into the final treaty?”

“It was intended to be in the final treaty or it would have been invalidated in that treaty. Frankly, Kingdom Mountain was so remote and forbidding that originally neither the United States nor Great Britain wanted it. Now that it has some potential value, the town of Kingdom Common wishes to steal it from me.”

“Miss Kinneson, can people—the public—visit your mountain and see these natural wonders you've told us about? Isn't it all private land?”

“Private, certainly. But open to anyone who wishes to fish, hunt, hike, look for birds. Not a square foot of kingdom Mountain is posted.”

“Are you yourself an American or a Canadian citizen?”

“Neither. I'm the last member of the Memphremagog tribe and the last of the Kingdom Mountain Kinnesons, speaking on behalf of the rights of kingdom Mountain.”

“How can a mountain have rights? Does the United States Constitution stipulate such rights?”

Once again Miss Jane dived into her cardboard case. “I now read from the Constitution of the Memphremagog Tribe of the Abenaki Nation, dictated by Chief Joseph Hubert, my Indian great-great-grandfather—whose name was subsequently anglicized to Hubbell—to my Kinneson great-great-grandfather, Seth.” Miss Jane gestured at the figure in the ox yoke. “'The domain of the Memphremagog, including the lake and mountain of that name, belong to Memphre Magog, our Creator, and to his Memphremagog children, in perpetuity.' Since the domain in question belongs to another nation, not Canada or the U.S., neither the U.S. nor Canada can exercise
eminent
domain. Kingdom Mountain
is
an eminent domain. It belongs to itself. If it were not obliged to keep its own counsel and remain silent, it would readily enough say so.”

“This is all intriguing. But could you please clarify, Miss Kinneson, what the
legal
issue is here? Are you arguing that the town can't exercise eminent domain on your mountain because of your ancestors' aboriginal rights?”

“Take care, sir, whom you call an aborigine. This case has nothing to do with aborigines, though in 1759 Robert Rogers and his so-called Rangers hunted down many of my ancestors and slaughtered them, even as the poor aborigines on the far side of the world were hunted down and slaughtered. I am arguing that the state has no right to appropriate property outside its own boundaries. Eminent domain, a term I have never much cared for, is, of course, the so-called right of a government to appropriate private property for public use, just compensation being given to the owner. But there can be no just compensation for destroying the last original wilderness in
Vermont. And how, pray, do you compensate someone for taking away her history and traditions? How do you propose to compensate me for taking away and defiling the place that binds me to my family?”

“I assume, Miss Kinneson, that you pay taxes to the state of Vermont? And to the federal government as well? And property taxes to the township of Kingdom Common?”

“I pay taxes to no one. Kingdom Mountain is an unincorporated township. No Kinneson has ever paid a penny of taxes to any governmental entity—town, state, or federal. Seth Kinneson saw to that.”

“Miss Kinneson, how do you propose that people travel by road from Kingdom County to Canada without the Connector?”

“That's not my lookout. They may go in a handbasket for all care.”

Two or three of the justices smiled.

“Doesn't your mountain lie directly in the way?”

“Let travelers go the long way round then. In the Kingdom people have always gone the long way round to get nearly anywhere. Look you, my friends. Do you see this young gentleman? This is Morgan Kinneson, my father, as a boy of seventeen, setting out to go south to find his brother, Pilgrim, missing in action in the Civil War. Morgan had no paved high road to follow. He went the long way round. So too did this worthy, Venturing Seth, who helped his ox pull the sled carrying his family through trackless wilderness to settle the mountain. This gentleman in gray is one of the Confederate raiders who carried away a fortune in gold from the bank in Kingdom Common. To return back to the South, he first traveled north. Here is Canada Jane Hubbell, my Memphremagog mother's mother, a basket maker who traveled from the Saint Lawrence to the Atlantic and back each summer. She needed no high road to complete her annual migration. Let Kingdom Mountain remain as these good people all knew it. Let it remain itself, as Judge Ira Allen of Kingdom County has determined it should.”

“What significant damage will a narrow corridor of paved roadway do to an area of one hundred and fifty square miles?”

This was the question Miss Jane had been waiting for. Out of her cardboard file came photographs she had taken of the scalped hillsides of East and West Round Hill, the deep ruts filled with muddy water, and the brush-choked spawning pool of the blue-backed trout. The Gate to Canada looked as though a meteor had crashed into it.

“Mountains are silent,” Jane said. “This sector of Kingdom Mountain will be silent for a long time to come.”

The courtroom, too, was silent, as the Duchess of Kingdom Mountain sat back down beside Henry Satterfield and her dear people.

 

Of course, Eben Kinneson Esquire did a very able job of presenting the township's case, arguing that that part of Kingdom Mountain lying south of the forty-fifth parallel of latitude designating the border belonged officially to the township of Kingdom Common and always had. He emphasized that the projected Connector had already been rerouted around the spawning grounds of the “so-called blue-backed trout” and that the right of the people of Kingdom County to be “connected” to the rest of the world transcended any supposed right of the mountain, based on suspect, unofficial documents and heathenish notions, to block progress. He argued that Judge Allen's decision on Miss Jane's behalf had no basis in evidence or law.

The justices had some tough questions for Eben. One wanted to know if the state could guarantee that the Connector wouldn't eradicate the Arctic saxifrage, unique windflowers, and blue trout? And wouldn't the blasting for the highway
jeopardize the stability of the balancing boulder on the summit?

“Justice Smythe,” Eben said, “I know of no such guarantees in this world. Every precaution will be taken not to disturb the native flora and fauna and the natural geological configurations on the mountain. Some change is inevitable. Are we worse off today because thunder lizards no longer stalk the land? Which of you would care to discover one browsing in your backyard? Change is a condition of the natural order of things.”

“A tiny pink and blue windflower is hardly a dinosaur,” Justice Dewey said. “How is a concrete highway that will bring noise and fumes and roadside trash and cut hundreds of acres out of the heart of Vermont's last wilderness part of the natural order of things?”

“It will also bring tourism to an impoverished and isolated corner of New England. It may attract good jobs. It will lead to the salvation of the Kingdom.”

“From what does the Kingdom need to be saved?”

“From economic stagnation,” Eben Kinneson Esquire replied. “Seventy-five percent of our young people leave the area after graduating from high school. There's no sustainable work for them locally.”

“I don't understand how the Connector will bring sustainable work,” a justice said. “Do you mean construction work on the new highway itself?”

“Yes. As well as jobs in industries attracted by cheaper transportation as the area continues to be developed.”

“That's just the issue, isn't it?” the chief justice said. “Development of the last unspoiled corner of Vermont? Isn't this a matter of two competing rights, Mr. Kinneson? The right to develop the economy of a depressed area—if, in fact, the Connector will accomplish that—versus the right of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson and the people of Vermont to retain some wilderness?”

“That's exactly what our recently established national parks are for, Justice Dewey.”

“It looks to me as though the clear-cutting has already ruined some of the wilderness. How could
any
fish spawn in that mud-choked river? Much less trout?”

“As for the blue-backed brook trout,” Eben continued, “no such subspecies has ever been officially recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They're blue from eating blue crawfish, a slight regional differentiation in pigmentation.”

“So it's all right to exterminate them? Because we can't agree on whether they're a separate species?”

“They have not been exterminated, Justice Chittenden, nor will they be.”

“How do you respond to Miss Kinneson's contention that Kingdom Mountain belongs to the Memphremagog Indians and to neither Canada nor the United States?”

“As pointed out, no such provision exists in the
ratified
Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Everyone knows that Dan'l Webster was a famous practical joker. He got Lord Ashburton drinking my great-grandfather's applejack, then drew up that spurious document and tricked him into signing it.”

“How do you explain the fact that each Kingdom owner has left the mountain to his heirs in trust for the Memphremagog nation?”

“They felt remorse for Rogers' near-annihilation of the tribe. Seth Kinneson's father was one of those Rangers. That was, perhaps, unfortunate. But what's done is done. The tribe is extinct or nearly so. The dusky Memphremagogs are a moot point.”

“Isn't your cousin, Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, part Memphremagog?”

“I advance no such grand claim on her behalf. For all I know, her mother may have had some native ancestry. Let us admit
that Jane Hubbell Kinneson does not much resemble an Indian.”