New Hampshire Grants

The New Hampshire Grants are areas of land that have been proclaimed as municipalities 1749-1764 by Governor Benning Wentworth of the British colony of New Hampshire in previously undeveloped areas west of the Connecticut River and sold to settlers. They formed essentially governs the later Vermont Republic, from the turn of the 14th state of the USA, Vermont emerged.

In order to expand its land and deliver the settlers in its colony of new space called Governor Wentworth on January 3, 1749 a previously uninhabited, cultivated to be made area on the west bank of the Connecticut River under the protection and as part of the colony of New Hampshire, which he called after his own first name Bennington, and sold them to interested settlers. This provoked the protest of the colony of New York, because they lack the areas on the west bank of the Connecticut River from King George III. had been awarded. Wentworth stopped then the settlement to await another of the king's decision, but did not. From the end of 1753, therefore, resulted in further land acquisitions in the disputed area through New Hampshire. During the riots that were caused by the Seven Years' War in the colony, the further colonization of 1754-1755 was largely discontinued, but after further intensified. In two large settlement actions in 1755 and 1757 a total of 108 sites of an average of 90 km ² were called to colonize and sold; the faces ranged around a hundred kilometers along the west bank of the Connecticut River to the north and up to thirty kilometers to the east of the Hudson River. 1762 Lake Champlain was achieved by settlers from New Hampshire. Until 1764 a total of 135 areas emerged as the New Hampshire Grants.

At the same time New York began selling the same areas. It divided the land otherwise a defined and sold much larger contiguous areas than New Hampshire. Thus, a class difference emerged in the settler structures: while the settlers were mostly medium-sized farmers on the part of New Hampshire, bought on the New York side rather rich landlords, landowners, the land. Between the colonies of New York and New Hampshire escalated the dispute.

The by Wentworth again called in March 1764 English King George finally decided the dispute in favor of New York: With Royal Order of 26 July 1764 colony of New York was the area between the west bank of the Connecticut River and the Hudson River and the northern boundary of the colony Massachusetts awarded to the 45th parallel ( the present-day border with Canada). Wentworth retired then returned after the proclamation last two settlement areas in October 1764 from the fortunes of the New Hampshire Grants.

New York then declared the land sales Wentworth invalid and offered it to the settlers, where areas were not already sold to other owners, to re- purchase. This resulted in considerable, civil unrest, establishing civil militia and a paramilitary unit, the Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen. Until 1777, the New York colonial rule was fought, then dropped: The population of the county of declared itself independent of the British Crown and the colony of New York. Since New York City, now an independent state, founded in 1776 the United States still claim was raised on the lands and taxes of this area the area is not included in this confederation, although it was stated aim of the settlers. This would have carried the dispute into the ranks of the members of the young, not yet politically consolidated federal. So had as an interim solution in 1777, the first Vermont Republic is founded, which was responsible for the necessary administrative work to a and had to seek for others to solving the outstanding issues with New York. The dispute was finally settled by payment of a sum of money and the grants received in 1791 as the 14th state of the United States under the name of Vermont.