Foundation for the inception of

Vermont’s Early History – A Brief Overview

William McKern

March 11, 2018

Prior to the last Ice Age (millions of years ago), the area that is now Vermont was periodically covered with shallow seas.  During the last Ice Age, the low-lying areas of what is now western Vermont were flooded by a glacial body of water now called Lake Vermont.  Lake Vermont connected to a large glacial lake near what are now the Great Lakes, which allowed several marine life species native to the western United States to enter what is now Lake Champlain.

As the glaciers of the last Ice Age retreated, Lake Vermont was replaced by a body of water which modern researchers refer to as the Champlain Sea.  The Champlain Sea was an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, and stretched from Vermont to what are now Ontario and Quebec in Canada. The sea existed from about 13,000 to 10,000 years ago, and dissipated as land that had been compressed by glaciers during the Ice Age expanded one the glaciers were gone.  The remnants of the Champlain Sea gave way to modern Lake Champlain, a fresh water lake that is fed by several rivers in Vermont, New York, and Quebec.

Native Americans are known to have inhabited parts of Vermont, and to have used it as a hunting and fishing ground.  From 7000 to 1000 BC, Native Americans are believed to have migrated in and around Vermont year-round. From 1000 BC to 1600 AD, settlements became more prevalent, including villages and trading networks. The western part of Vermont became home to small numbers of tribes that spoke the Algonquian languages, including the Mohican and Abenaki.  American Indians certainly lived in other parts of Vermont during this period, as proved by the discovery of artifacts in towns including Poultney, Jamaica, and Newport.

In the 1500s and early 1600s, Mohawk Indians warred with other tribes living in what is now Vermont, and succeeded in driving many of smaller bands out of the Lake Champlain Valley so the Mohawks could use the area for hunting and fishing.  During the early 1600s, the Mohawks fought periodic battles with the remaining Abenaki, who were unsuccessful in their effort to permanently reclaim the valley.

Samuel de Champlain was prominent in France’s efforts to colonize Quebec in the late 1500s and early 1600s, and is the first white European known to have seen what is now the state of Vermont.  Champlain named the area Les Monts Verts (in French, “The Green Mountains”), and was the first to map Lake Champlain, which he named for himself.

Champlain allied himself with the of Vermont and Quebec during their wars with the Mohawk.  In 1609, Champlain, a small contingent of French soldiers, and several hundred Abenaki engaged in battle with several hundred Mohawk and their allies from other Iroquois tribes, with the two forces meeting somewhere in the area between what are now Ticonderoga and Crown Point, New York.  The Abenaki prevailed, with Champlain demonstrating modern European warfare when he killed two Mohawk leaders with a shot from his arquebus, while one of his men shot a third.  In the short term, the Abenaki reclaimed Vermont, while the French gained allies among the non-Iroquois tribes, which facilitated their settlement of Quebec and explorations elsewhere in North America.  In the long term, the French alliance with the non-Iroquois tribes was later recognized as a strategic error, because the Iroquois allied themselves with the British in North America, and played a key role in England’s defeat of France and acquisition of Canada following the French and Indian War of the 1750s.

France claimed Vermont as part of its Canadian provinces, and it became apparent that with the French in Canada, the British in Massachusetts and other New England colonies, and the Dutch in New Netherlands (New York after it was acquired by the British), the Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor was going to be the primary north-south transportation route.  Whoever controlled the corridor was likely to enjoy both economic and military advantages, and the Europeans began to contest for control. In 1666, the French constructed Fort Sainte Anne on Lake Champlain’s Isle La Motte. Other colonists subsequently contested the French, including New Yorkers who established a stockade at Chimney Point in what is now the town of Addison.

French and British expeditions began passing through Vermont on their way to and from attacks in the other’s colonies, including a 1704 French expedition that traveled from Quebec via Lake Champlain, the Winooski River, and the Connecticut River to carry out a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts. As a result, there were also contests for control of what is now eastern Vermont.  During Dummer's War in the early 1700s, British colonists in Massachusetts were once more doing battle with the French in Canada and their Abenaki allies. As part of an effort to provide defense and early warning, Massachusetts established Fort Dummer in what is now the town of Brattleboro. Fort Dummer was intended to defend Brattleboro and Dummerston, two towns that had been founded in the early 1700s under the auspices of the Massachusetts colonial government.  Tensions between the French in Canada and the British North American colonies increased again During King George’s War in the 1740s, and Massachusetts constructed another defensive work, Bridgeman’s Fort, which was intended to protect Vernon, another town that had been founded by the authority of the colonial government in Massachusetts.

In the 1740s, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York all began laying claim to the area that is now Vermont.  Massachusetts based its claim on the description of its borders as detailed in its 1629 colonial charter. New York based its claim on the details of the 1664 North American land grant given to the Duke of York (later King James II).  New Hampshire’s claim was based on the description of its western border described in its colonial charter. In 1740, King George II ruled that Massachusetts's northern boundary in this area would be a line due west from the Merrimack River.  Brattleboro, Dummerston, and Vernon were all found to be north of the line when it was surveyed in 1741, and England’s Colonial Office directed that New Hampshire assume responsibility for their government and defense.

New Hampshire’s and New York’s claims on the territory now known as Vermont proved more difficult to resolve.  New York’s eastern border was based on the Hudson River, and New Hampshire’s was based on the Connecticut River.  However, early colonial maps had mistakenly located the Hudson too far east, and the Connecticut too far west. Before the question could be resolved, New Hampshire’s governor decided to act.  In 1749, Benning Wentworth began to sell charters for settlements in the disputed territory. While potential settlers and land speculators bought titles, and the towns were planned on maps, they were not settled because of continuing disputes and occasional fighting between Britain and France.

During the French and Indian War of 1755 to 1763, some settlers in towns that are now part of Vermont joined the colonial militias that assisted in British offensives against the French in Canada, including the unsuccessful 1758 attack on Fort Carillon, and the successful 1759 attack which resulted in the British occupation of the fort, which they renamed Ticonderoga.  In 1759, the light troops of Rogers' Rangers attacked the Abenaki village of Saint-Francis, Quebec, after which they retreated through what is now northern Vermont on their way back to safety in New Hampshire.

The 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the war resulted in the French departure from their North American colonies, and the area that is now Vermont was recognized as being part of the British colonies, though it was largely unsettled and undeveloped.  The British government attempted to limit colonial settlement to areas east of the Appalachian Mountains, and attempted to divide Vermont along a diagonal line from Lake George, New York to Lake Memphremagog on the Vermont-Quebec border, with the northwestern portion of Vermont, including the Champlain Valley reserved for the use of the Abenaki.

Following the French and Indian War, settlers who had purchased titles from New Hampshire began to move to take possession of their land, and Wentworth began selling new titles.  The towns founded as the result of Wentworth’s sales became known as the New Hampshire Grants, and beginning with Bennington in 1761, several more towns were founded and the population of the Grants began to rise.  By 1764, Wentworth had granted approximately 160 town charters, not all of which were immediately settled, and the number of people living in the Grants had risen from a relative handful to nearly 10,000. Wentworth became wealthy; in addition to receiving the fees from the sale of the charters, he reserved a parcel of land for himself in each town he granted, which he could later develop or sell as he saw fit.

New York’s colonial government continued to press its claim to the New Hampshire Grants, with several leaders reasoning that they might have the same opportunities to profit that had been Wentworth’s good fortune.  In July 1764, King George III decreed that the west bank of the Connecticut River would be New York’s eastern boundary, which at least theoretically resolved the question of authority over the Grants in favor of New York.  Initially, those who lived in the Grants were not concerned, because they assumed that New York would exercise control in the future. However, New York’s government demanded that holders of titles granted by New Hampshire purchase confirmatory titles from New York, otherwise New York’s government would evict them and resell their land.  The residents of the Grants by and large refused to comply, reasoning that it was unfair to make them pay twice for the same land. New York attempted to exert jurisdiction, including granting towns, building courthouses, and appointing individuals to government offices including deputy sheriff and justice of the peace. In response, New Hampshire’s government and residents of the Grants protested to the British government.  In 1767, the King’s council agreed to reconsider the 1764 decision, and forbade New York from any efforts to take control of the New Hampshire Grants until the King made his pleasure known.

New York’s government disregarded the council’s order, and continued its efforts to take control of the New Hampshire Grants.  In response, holders of Wentworth titles, including Ethan Allen, his brother Ira, Seth Warner, and Remember Baker (a cousin to both Warner and the Allens), formed a militia, the Green Mountain Boys.  The Green Mountain Boys worked to prevent New York from exercising jurisdiction over the Grants, including blocking sheriff’s posses from evicting holders of Wentworth titles, and administering punishment to any settler who “collaborated” with New York by agreeing to purchase a confirmatory title from New York or buying the land of a Wentworth titleholder who had been evicted.

In 1775, individuals from New York who had purchased titles to land that had been previously granted by New Hampshire traveled to Westminster with a judge, who intended to commence eviction proceedings against the holders of the New Hampshire titles.  Holders of titles from New Hampshire attempted to occupy the courthouse and block the proceedings, which resulted in the sheriff loyal to New York and his deputies firing on the crowd. Two individuals, Daniel Houghton and William French, were killed, and the event, which came to be known as the “Westminster Massacre”, helped coalesce public opinion in the Grants against the government of New York.

Beginning in 1776, residents of the New Hampshire Grants began discussions and meetings on whether to establish themselves as an independent entity, free from the control of New York or New Hampshire.  In January 1777, delegates meeting in Westminster declared their grants to be an independent republic, and named it New Connecticut. In June 1777, a second convention changed the name of the new republic to “Vermont” after they discovered that “New Connecticut” was already in use to describe an area in the Northwest Territory, which later became the state of Ohio.  The June convention delegates resolved to meet in Windsor in July for the purposes of considering a constitution for the independent republic of Vermont. On July 8, the delegates agreed on a constitution, with provisions that included the prohibition of slavery, allowed the right to vote for adult males even if they didn’t own land, and mandated the creation and maintenance of local public schools.  The Vermont Republic was led by a provisional council of safety until 1778, when it elected a government that included Thomas Chittenden as governor and Joseph Marsh as lieutenant governor. The government of the Vermont Republic operated during and after the American Revolution, and sought ways to cooperate with the newly organized United States during the American Revolution. It often contributed soldiers for the Continental Army or ordered militia units to take part in actions in and around Vermont.  These troops often credited to New York as a way for the Continental Congress to avoid upsetting New Hampshire and New York, both of whom still claimed jurisdiction, and neither of which wanted Vermont to maintain its independence or join the former British colonies as the 14th state.(?)   Vermont’s independent government also carried out other pro-United States measures within its borders, including operating courts of confiscation to seize the property of residents loyal to Britain and resell it to support the war effort.

The debate over control of Vermont continued during and after the Revolution, with New Hampshire and New York both unwilling to cede its claim.  When it appeared that Vermont was vulnerable to British attacks launched from Canada, members of Vermont’s government engaged in secret negotiations with the British governor, Frederick Haldimand.  By appearing to be willing to rejoin the British Empire, perhaps as an extension of the province of Quebec, Chittenden and other Vermont leaders hoped to prevent a British invasion. Their efforts proved successful, but it wasn’t until several years after the Revolution that the claims of New Hampshire and New York were resolved, which enabled Vermont to join the union as the first state admitted following independence from England.

1609 June 28th

Samuel de Champlain, an organizer of French possessions in Canada, begins exploration of what is now Vermont, and names Lake Champlain for himself. He also coins the name "Les Vert Monts", which is later anglicized to "Vermont"

1666 July 26th

The French and English begin contest for control of Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor. The French complete construction of Fort Sainte Anne on Isle LaMotte, the white settlement in what is now Vermont.

1690 March 26th

British colonial government in New York orders construction of a fort overlooking Lake Champlain at Chimney Point, which is now in the town of Addison. A party led by militia Captain Jacobus de Warm complete construction later in the year and begins to garrison the post.

1716 April 24th

1723 December 17th

1724 October 11th

1730 November 26th

1749 January 3rd

1759 July 27th

1759 October 26th

1761 July 4th

1764 July 20th

1767 July 24th

1770 June 28th

1770 June 28th

1775 May 10th

1776 July 7th

1777 January 15th

1777 June 4th

1777 July 8th