Online Encyclopedia
New Hampshire Grants
The New Hampshire Grants were land grants, including 131 towns, made between 1749 and 1764 by the governor of the Province of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth (they are thus also known as the Benning Wentworth Grants). The land grants, totalling about 135, were made on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River, but which properly belonged to the Province of New York. The resulting dispute led to the eventual establishment of the U.S. state of Vermont.
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Real estate
According to Wentworth, the border between New Hampshire and the Province of New York was ambiguous, especially if he leaned on the dictate from Britain "that the northern boundary of Massachusetts be a similar curve line pursuing the course of the Merrimack River at three miles distance on the north side thereof, beginning at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north of a place called Pautucket Falls , and by a straight line drawn from thence west till it meets his Majesty's other governments." Wentworth took this to mean that New Hampshire's jurisdiction extended as far west as the jurisdiction of Massachusetts extended—in New Hampshire's case this meant a line 20 miles east of the Hudson River. New York correctly stated that the letters Patent granted the Duke of York all of the lands west of the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay.
Wentworth made the first grant, Bennington, a township west of the Connecticut River, on January 3, 1749. Cautioned by New York to cease and desist, Wentworth promised to await the judgment of the king, and refrain from making more grants in the claimed territory until it was rendered, but in November 1753, New York reported that he had continued to grant land in the disputed area. Grants briefly ceased in 1754, because of the French and Indian War, but in 1755 and 1757, Wentworth had a survey made 60 miles up the Connecticut river, and 108 grants were made, extending to the line 20 miles east of the Hudson, and north to the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.
Arrangement
The grants were usually six miles square (the standard size of a U.S. survey township, although the Public Land Survey System is not used in Vermont) and cost the grantee(s) £20. The grants were then subdivided amongst the proprietors, and six of the lots were set aside—for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, for the Church of England, for the first clergyperson to settle in the township, for a school and two for Wentworth himself. The permanent annual tax on each grant, called a quitrent , was one shilling, paid directly to the King.
Royal adjudication
In September 1762, New York caught New Hampshire surveyors working on the east side of Champlain, provoking the former state's government to reinterate its claim to the area, citing both its own patent and the New Hampshire letters patent of 1741. In March 1764, Wentworth released a statement to the effect that the resolution of jurisdictional dispute required a royal verdict, which he was certain would be made in his favor. Meanwhile, he encouraged his grantees to settle in to the land and to cultivate and develop the land.
The New York went to the British authorities, requesting a confirmation of their original grant, and the crown resolved the border dispute between New York and New Hampshire in favor of New York. The royal order of July 26, 1764, in response to New York's petition, affirmed that "the Western bank of the Connecticut, from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay as far north as the 45th degree of northern latitude, to be the boundary line between the said two provinces of New Hampshire and New York." Wentworth issued his final two grants on October 17 of that year: Walker, Vermont and Waltham, Vermont.
Invalidation
New York interpreted the decision as invalidating Wentworth's grants entirely—to the great dismay of area residents—and subsequently divided the territory into four counties, Albany, Charlotte , Cumberland and Gloucester. New York required that grantees surrender their charters, and in many cases buy their lands back from New York at greatly increased prices. Those who would not pay lost legal title to their lands, as New York reassigned them to others. The people who would later become Vermonters petitioned the governor of New York to confirm the New Hampshire Grants, he complied in part by declaring that no other grants should be made until the King's wishes were known. Land not previously granted by New Hampshire was considered open for distribution.
In 1770, the New York Supreme Court advanced New York's case by declaring all of Wentworth's grants invalid. This infuriated residents of the area, including Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, leading to the Vermont Republic and general rebellion against the New York government.
Outcome
Following the American Revolutionary War, during which period and beyond the people of the Green Mountain State had been self-governing (having written their own constitution and settled into the habit of sovereignty), it became clear that the New Hampshire Grants should become a state. The idea was pursued at several stages, ending in failure for one reason or another until 1790, when New York consented to the admission of Vermont into the Union, ceded control of the New Hampshire Grants to Vermont and stated the New York-Vermont boundary should be the western edge of the New Hampshire Grants and the mid-channel of Lake Champlaign. The Vermont-New Hampshire boundary is the Connecticut River.
Vermont voters ratified the United States Constitution on January 6, 1791 and the U.S. Congress passed the resolution admitting Vermont into the Union on February 18. On March 4 of the same year, the New Hampshire Grants, as Vermont, became the first American state admitted to the Union after the original 13 colonies.
In order to prevent further legal to-dos, the government of Vermont paid the government of New York $30,000 (New York had sought $600,000) in compensation for that state's lost Grants.
Despite Wentworth's land sales throughout the mid-18th century, New York had continually issued land patents in the same area, however, in contrast to the New Hampshire grants, the New York patents were generally irregular, and issued to wealthy landowers. The New Hampshire grants were town-sized, and generally settled by middle-class farmers, setting the stage for Vermont's populist uprising of the Revolutionary era. So, in general, after statehood, the New York boundaries were ignored in favor of the New Hampshire boundaries and designations. Some of these New York patents are now referred to as paper towns , because they existed only on paper.
Sources
- Robinson, Rowland, Vermont: A Study of Independence, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company (American Commonwealths Series), 1892.
- Thompson, Charles Miner, Independent Vermont, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942.
- Van de Water, Frederic, The Reluctant Republic: Vermont 1724-1791, New York: The John Day Company, 1941.
See also
External links
- The Problem of the New Hampshire Grants
- Virtual Vermont: Benning Wentworth
- Vermont Genealogy Resources
- FindLaw: Vermont vs. New Hampshire 289 U.S. 593 (1933)