Early History of Windham County

Royal charters & land grants

In colonial New England, the king of England appointed governors to his various royal provinces and
ruled through them. They had the authority to grant, in his name, any unchartered land in their province,
but this could be complicated when the land to be settled was unsurveyed wilderness, and the province
borders uncertain.

The earliest grant in what would become Vermont was land in the future town of Vernon, included in the
1672 township of Squakheag (later Northfield MA). A further deed ".......covering (this) grant was made
August 13th, 1687 by..... Indians of the place, in consideration of 200 fathoms of Wampum and 57 value
of trading goods" (1). In 1736, Massachusetts granted another section of future Vernon, and it was here
that Sartwell's and Bridgman's fortified settlements were built around 1740.

The year 1740 is an important date and will be returned to later, but first it is necessary to backtrack to
another early land sale. In its eagerness to found new towns, the province of Massachusetts had
exceeded its bounds. In 1713, in settlement of various disputes, Massachusetts agreed to cede to
Connecticut 107,793 acres of equivalent lands. These lands were then sold by Connecticut in 1716 "one
of the portions, containing 43,943 acres, being the present towns of Putney, Dummerston and
Brattleboro" (2).

Unfortunately for the aspiring settlers of these newly acquired backwoods, "....the whole of this tract of
county had previously, from time immemorial, been in the possession of the native Indians" (3), the
Abenaki, who wanted to keep their land and were prepared to fight for it. Until the end of the French and
Indian Wars, the Abenaki presented a formidable obstacle to settlement.

In recognition of the threat posed to their frontier, the Massachusetts authorities voted to build a
defensive "....blockhouse above Northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands called the
equivalent lands" (4). By the summer of 1724, Fort Dummer was ready for habitation. It was used as a
base for "...scouting and punitive expeditions into Abenaki country" (5) during times of war, and as a
trading post during times of peace. John Sargent arrived at the Fort with his family around 1730,
followed by a few others. Another handful of frontiersman tried to develop settlements along the
Connecticut River at Westminster (chartered by Massachusetts in 1735 as Township Number One) and
Rockingham (under possible charters as Number Two or Fallstown or Goldenstown). Around 1740,
fortified settlements were started on Fort hill on the Putney Great Meadows of the equivalent lands, and,
as already mentioned, in Hinsdale/Vernon. All but Fort Sartwell were abandoned or destroyed during the
King George's War of 1744-1748, and many of the inhabitants killed or taken captive.

But to return to 1740. On March 5th, King George II ordered a survey to settle a north/south boundary
dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Upon its completion, Fort Dummer was found to
be in New Hampshire, whose governor was Benning Wentworth. Despite an inconclusive
correspondence with the governor of New York over their respective east/west border, and the decision
to refer the question to the crown, Benning Wentworth took the 1741 survey results as recognition of his
jurisdiction over the lands to the west of the Connecticut River. With the ending of the King George's
War, he went to work issuing Royal Charters to this land, starting with Bennington in the far
south-western corner. In 1750, his second Vermont charter went to Halifax, his third in 1751 to Marlboro,
followed by one to Wilmington. In 1752, the previous Massachusetts Township Number One, now
abandoned, was regranted as Westminster, and the possible Township Number Two to the north was
granted as Rockingham. According to Child's Gazetteer "...Wentworth was interested in the settlement
of Rockingham on account of the excellent masting for ships obtained in this section, and came here
personally to make examination and to take measures for better securing the masting trees from being
cut and felled, as they had, by charter, been secured for the masting of His Majesty's navy".

In 1753, Governor Wentworth was particularly busy. The equivalent lands together with the other lands
were divided into townships of Fulham (later Dummerston), Putney and Brattleboro; Vernon was
"confirmed to the proprietors", and Fane and Townshend were chartered. As were Grafton and Guilford
in 1754. And then all this activity was brought to a halt by the outbreak of the final French and Indian War.
The towns where some settlement had preceded the New Hampshire charters, Westminster, Putney,
Brattleboro and Vernon, were again disrupted by Indian attacks. The other towns either had their
charters extended, or forfeited and reissued after the war's end in 1760, because of the impossibility of
compliance in the face of Indian hostility. But then the earlier hindrance worked to the advantage of the
settlers for "...in their expeditions against the French, the English colonists had made themselves
acquainted with the fertility and the value of the lands lying between the Connecticut River and Lake
Champlain, and the conquest of Canada having now removed the difficulty and the danger of settling
them, swarms of adventurers began to migrate hither, and from the year 1760, the population of
Vermont began to increase with considerable rapidity" (6).

This is not the end of the complicated story of the New Hampshire land grants. In 1764, King George III
ruled in favor of New York in its east/west dispute with New Hampshire. With the Connecticut River
declared the border, New York’s' governor began issuing his own charters to the New Hampshire
Grants, which were now considered part of Cumberland County, New York. The resulting period of
turmoil played out differently in each town, with some accepting New York's authority and others refusing
it.

In 1777, Vermont declared itself an independent state with a constitution that prohibited slavery. In 1791,
Vermont was admitted to the Union as the 14th state and grants to all remaining lands were made by
the Vermont General Assembly.

1 Hemenway Vermont Gazeteer vol. 5, 1891
2 Child's Windham County Gazeteer 1884
3 Thompson's History of Vermont 1842
4 Child's Windham County Gazeteer 1884
5 Calloway Western Abenaki of Vermont 1600-1800, 1900
6 Thompson's History of Vermont 1842