New Hampshire Grants - Background

Background

The territory of what is now Vermont was first permanently settled by European settlers when William Dummer, acting governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, ordered the construction of a fort roughly where Brattleboro is located. Massachusetts laid claim to the territory west of the Merrimack River at the time, and it had settlers on the Connecticut River who were prepared to move further north. The border between Massachusetts and the neighboring Province of New Hampshire was fixed by royal decree in 1741 at a line 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Pawtucket Falls, where the Merrimack River turns north. This decision eliminated claims by Massachusetts to the north of that line. The territory between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain, however, was also claimed by the Province of New York, whose claims extended eastward to the Connecticut.

Also in 1741, New Hampshire native Benning Wentworth was appointed the first governor of New Hampshire of the 18th century that was not also a governor of Massachusetts. Wentworth chose to read New Hampshire's territorial claims broadly. He construed the decree setting the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border to mean that New Hampshire's jurisdiction extended as far west as the jurisdiction of Massachusetts extended. Since the Massachusetts boundary extended to a point 20 miles (32 km) east of the Hudson River, Wentworth assumed the area west of the Connecticut belonged to New Hampshire. New York based its claim on the letters Patent granted the Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany all of the lands west of the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay.