Press reviews:

“Thereupon one of the Green Mountain Boys mounted the stump and thanked Senator Mason and Mr. Austin for their magnanimous conduct toward Colonel Lyon, but told them the Green Mountain Boys who had fought under Colonel Lyon in many bloody battles with the British in the war for independence, and the sons of those old Green Mountain fighters, would insist on paying their old Colonel's fine themselves; and then he told the crowd that, in order that every friend of Matthew Lyon who was present might have a share in liberating him, no one should contribute more than half a dollar to the payment of his fine, and he then asked every Vermonter present who wanted to share of paying Colonel Lyon‘s fine to lay a half dollar or a quarter on the big stump; and immediately the stump was covered with silver coins."- Two Fighters and Two Fines. (Campbell)

That sounds like a crowd fund challenge from 1790...