In January 1775 Committees of Safety from over twenty towns in the New Hampshire Grants area met in Manchester to discuss the need for local self-governance independent from New York. The Manchester meeting created a "civil and political Body" to regulate their community. Two months later, another convention meeting at Westminster renounced the authority of New York's government. On March 13, 1775, two men were killed in Westminster by officers from New York. News of the first clash between American militia and British troops at Lexington and Concord interrupted the Westminster convention, but settlers gathered at yet another convention at Dorset in 1776 and petitioned the Continental Congress to recognize Vermont as a state and seat its delegates. The New York delegation convinced the Congress to deny the petition.