 
Perhaps a few words of his future life are not without interest. He was one of the early settlers who went from Connecticut to Vermont and made a home in what was then a frontier settlement. He lived and died at Cornwall, Vt., and was successful and respected in the community. From 1801 to 1810 he was sheriff of Addison County. Of his sons, one, William, was especially conspicuous among the men of his generation for his abilities and attainments. After graduation from Middlebury College in 1810, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and filled many offices in his town and county. After some business reverses he secured a position in the State Department in Washington in 1821. He was on the wrong side politically in General Jackson’s campaign for the presidency, being like most Vermonters a supporter of John Quincy Adams. Some time after Jackson’s inauguration, Slade was removed from his position in the State Department and this so incensed his friends in Vermont that as soon as a vacancy arose he was elected as Representative to Congress, where he remained from 1831 to 1843. On his return from Washington he was elected Governor of Vermont in 1844, and in his later years was corresponding secretary and general agent of the Board of National and Popular Education, for which he did most valuable work. He was a distinguished speaker and an author of note, his Vermont State Papers being still a standard reference work. To revert to the prison ship martyrs, their suffering was so great and their bravery so conspicuous that immediately after the War a popular attempt was made in 1792 and 1798 to provide a proper resting place for the bones of the victims, which were scattered in the sands about Wallabout Bay. This effort did not progress very rapidly and it was not until the matter was taken up by the Tammany Society that anything definite was really accomplished. Owing to the efforts of this organization a vault covered by a small building was erected in 1808 and the bones were collected and placed in the vault in thirteen large coffins, one for each of the thirteen colonies, the interment being accompanied by imposing ceremonies. In time the vault was neglected, and it was preserved only by the efforts of a survivor, Benjamin Romaine, who bought the plot of ground on which the monument stood, when it was sold for taxes, and preserved it. He died at an advanced age and was, by his own request, buried in the vault with these Revolutionary heroes. Early in the last century an attempt was made to interest Congress in a project to erect a suitable monument for the prison ship martyrs but without success. The project has, however, never been abandoned by patriotic and public spirited citizens and the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Society of the present time is a lineal descendant in spirit and purpose of the Tammany Club effort, which first honored these Revolutionary heroes. The efforts of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Association have proved successful and a beautiful monument, designed by Stanford White, will soon mark the resting place of these prison ship martyrs.
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