VERMONT
European settlers colonized the area now consisting of the states of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire in the seventeenth century. By 1669, New York was exclusively controlled by the British, with New Hampshire to follow as a British royal colony by 1679. The two provinces were administered on behalf of the Crown by royal governors, who were authorized to make land grants of unchartered land within the province. Full control over boundaries was retained by the Crown. The European Hundred Years War was over in the colonies in 1759, leaving the population free from danger and creating an environment favorable for settlement. While he was Royal Governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth granted seventy-eight towns, many of them in 1761. Many of today’s Upper Valley towns, including Hanover, were chartered that year. Wentworth did not limit his grants to lands east of the Connecticut River; several townships were granted across the River in what became Vermont and were known as “New Hampshire Grants.”
Inevitable land disputes arose when the New York Royal Governor, Cadwallader Colden, issued conflicting grants of land previously granted by the Wentworth, claiming that the New Hampshire governor lacked authority to grant New York land. Called upon to settle the issue, the Crown issued a “Privy Council Order” in 1764, stating that the Connecticut River formed the common boundary between New York and New Hampshire provinces. This jurisdictional edict seemingly defeated the Wentworth grants west of the river. This decision was reversed in 1767, when the Crown stayed New York’s issuance of grants in the New Hampshire Grants territory until such time as His Majesty arrived at a more considered position on the matter. The Crown judiciously distanced itself from the dispute thereafter.
Understandably, given the deference of the Crown, conflicts between New Hampshire grantees and New York authorities continued, aggravated by New York’s attempts, beginning in 1769, to eject the New Hampshire Grants grantees from the lands also granted by New York. The result was revolt: lead by Eathan Allen, New Hampshire Grant grantees formed a militia known as the Green Mountain Boys between 1770 and 1775. In 1777, emboldened by rebellion fever of the thirteen colonies, the settlers of the New Hampshire Grants, declared independence and created the Republic of Vermont. A constitution was adopted, declaring that was subject to no governing authority except its own, rejecting New York and British domination and claiming dominion over the New Hampshire Grants granted by Governor Wentworth. Any challenge to the Vermonters’ ownership rights were met with open and armed defiance.
In 1781, authorities of the Republic of Vermont and officials of the federal Congress entered into negotiations preliminary to Vermont’s admission to the Union. Vermont agreed to relinquish any claims to territory east of the Connecticut River’s western bank. In the meantime, New Hampshire had become one of the thirteen original states of the Union. But federal sentiment was not universal. Forty-five townships east of the Connecticut River voted to attach themselves to the Republic of Vermont, which welcomed them. In these border towns, there were majority and minority governing bodies and elected representatives to legislatures of both New Hampshire and Vermont. Matters became especially heated when each jurisdiction arrested the sheriff of its rival authority. Militias were ordered to be armed and ready to fight, and the territories remained on the brink of civil war for some weeks. Finally, Governor Chittenden of Vermont sought the assistance of General George Washington, who negotiated a peace in which Vermont agreed to cede its claim to towns east of the river. In 1791, Vermont paid the state of New York the sum of $30,000 to settle the latter’s territorial claims. Vermont was admitted as the fourteenth state of the Union in 1791.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Unlike many of the English colonies, New Hampshire was not settled as a result of religious or political persecution. Instead, it was established as a commercial venture, planned in great detail and much enthusiasm by the English crown and Parliament. King James I conceived the settlement to exploit the natural resources of the new world, free land encumbered only by unique loyalty to English sovereignty.
In 1614, Captain John Smith of England, who later colonized Virginia, sailed the New England coast and deeply inspired by the beauty of its shores and the bounty of its resources. Smith first named the area “North Virginia,” but King James later renamed it “New England.”
In 1623, Captain John Mason, possessed of an English land grant, sent David Thomson and Edward and Thomas Hilton, who were London fish merchants, to establish a fishing village near at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, in what is now eastern New Hampshire. The men were accompanied by a number of other people organized in two divisions. Thomson’s division settled Little Harbor, or Pannaway, now Rye, New Hampshire. and built salt-drying fish racks and a stone factory. The Hilton division established fishing stages some eight miles away in a town it named Northam, now known as Dover. Soon the town of Portsmouth was established, named for the English port where Captain Mason commanded the fort. His native English county Hampshire inspired the naming of the colony “New Hampshire.”
By 1635, Mason had invested more than 22,000 pounds to clear the land, contruct building, and mount defense. Dover and Portsmouth thrived, and Hampton and Exeter were settled. The territory, organized in communities of towns based on the English model, became a royal province in 1679 with John Cutt as its president. Its status as a royal province lasted until 1698, when it was incorporated in the jurisdiction of Massachusetts under Governor Joseph Dudley. The Massachusetts dominion ended in 1741, when King George II restored its provincial status and appointed Benning Wentworth as governor. Wentworth’s leadership ended in 1766.
From 1741 to 1761, the colony of New Hampshire faced constant threat of violence at the hands of the native population. England, at war at the time with France, offered little assistance. The colonists defeated the French and the Indians largely alone, and with the Treaty of Paris in 1762 came the peace and stability necessary for explorating, surveying, and populating the colony. Governor Wentworth proceeded to partition the territory, granting thirty-eight towns before and during 1761, and many more thereafter, home to more than thirty thousand families. Many settlers came from older towns in southern New Hampshire, still others from neighboring states. Wentworth also made land grants across the Connecticut River in today’s Vermont. This land would be the subject of future jurisdictional tension. The grants conveyed land in fee simple, with political rights and governmental authority reserved by the province. Land could not be taxed until improved by the grantee, who was required to settle the property within a set amount of time. Rights were set aside for the building of roads, churches, and schools, and mill rights were given priority. The King’s navy claimed all tall pines, and it is said that the Crown particularly valued the pines on Occam Ridge in Hanover for its royal masts.
When Benning Wentworth died in 1770, his nephew, John Wentworth. Sir John, as he was later known, was the last royal governor. He is known for his large estate, Kingswood, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, which afterwards became the town of Wolfeborough. He built state-wide roads, organized a state militia, helped found Dartmouth College (1769), and published the first accurate state map. Unable to abandon his royalist loyalty, be fled to Nova Scotia at the beginning of the American Revolution, serving as its lieutenant governor until he died in 1820.
New Hampshire was the first colony to declare its independence from the Crown and adopt its own constitution. It hesitated longer in joining the Union, becoming the ninth and deciding state to do so. Its own John Langdon was the first acting vice-president of the United States and served as President of the Senate under Washington.
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