The Bennington daily banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1877-1877, 1877-08-15
THE FOUNDERS OF YERMONT AND THE
.J)f DAY WE CELEBRATE.

VIC iuOi WAN bhO hhoeVi VI ehS SS'eAS-
ment of Bennington, the cradle of its
infancy In January 1749 parties from
Portsmouth, N. H. obtained from her
Governor, Benning Wentworth, in the
name of King George the Second, a
grant of land six miles square, six miles
north of Massachusetts, line and twenty
miles east Of. the; Hudson. Among the..no.
table features of this charter were the
provisions reserving one of the original
Ga shares for the first settled minister,
and one for schools. This township,
called Bennington after the name of
the New Hampshire governor,remained
a wilderness for thirteen years until
Captain Samuel tRobinson, returning
from the French War, saw and liked
the country, and with his companions
brought out the original grantees and
came hither. This Samuel Robinson
was moderator of the first proprietors'
meeting and John Fassett clerk the
first public meeting as town taking
place Feb. 18th, 1862. The first emf.
grafton took place June 18th, 1851, aud
consisted of Peter and Eleazar Har-
wood; Samuel and Timothy Pratt of
Amherst, Mass, and Samuel and Leon.
ard Robinson of Hardwick, Mass, with
their families,i in. all twenty-five persons
During the summer and fall Samuel
Robinson and John Fassett of Hard
wick, Mass. Joseph Stafford, John
Smith, John Burnham and Benajah
Rood fromg Newint, + Conn, Elisha
Field and Samuel Montague from Sun
derland, Mass, and several others ar
rived with their families to the number
of some thirty additional persons. The
first work was to fix place for "the
meeting house" which was first occu-
pied in 1866, but not entirely finished
evidently until IVA, This meeting
house" seems also to have served as a
town house when necessary. In it
thanks ss::were given for Ticonderoga,
and 50 warmly did Parson Dewey give
the glory to Almighty God that Ethan
Allen interrupted Ehim with "P lease
mention to the Lord about my being
there" here this same Parson Dewey
preached a war sermon the Sunday be-
fore Bennington; here the Hessians
captured in that battle were confined
here the first Legislature met in June
177S; here the, General Assembly of
1T79, and that of 1880 met and several
successive Legislatures. This meeting
house" was also once used as a court
house The first test of the mettle of
the new settlement was the celebrated
"Land Title Controversy" which orig |
mated in 1853, Dec. %, when Governor
Golden of N. Y, by proclamation
claimed jurisdiction for New York as
far as the Connecticut River under an
old, absurd and untenable charter grant
ed in 1865 by Charles the Second to
his hrnther the Duke of York. This |
charter to the Duke of York applied
alike to Connecticut and Massachusetts
as itgave the Duke of York all lands
from the west side of the Connecticut
River to the east side of Delaware Bay,
and was therefore stupidity inconsistent
with previous charters. Up to the date
of Governor Colden's proclamation no
jurisdiction had ever been asserted, and
at this time 124 land patents had been
issued by Wentworth valuable i'm
provements had been made, when sud
denly these hardy settlers found them
selves threatened with loss of house
and land on writs of ejectment unless
they repurchased the lands they had
already paid for and improved at a
ruinous price from the greedy New
York land spectators to whom land
patents had been issued by Golden. Alb.
surd as this claim was in law and equity
the Vermonters would have submitted
if this proclamation of Golden had
only meant change of prospective
Jurisdiction, but "thes; Y orkers" insisted
not only on Jurisdiction but on their
right to all the lands that had been pre-
viously sold by New Hampshire, and
to retrospective Jurisdiction. Governor
Golden thus granted over two millions
of acres in Vermont to land specula-
tors, officials, &c, and Gov. Golden put
in his pocket $4,000 of fees, SO that
the men of Bennington had good case
both in law and equity and resisted a
robbery that to most of them meant
AFFECT poverty. There followed one of
the most singular contests in history, a
bitter, determined, effectual resistance
on the part of the settlers ito the legal
officers of New York which lasted
from 1894 to 1890, remarkable also for
its bloodlessness, for not man was
killed, not even a gun fred by the set
tiers during the whole struggle. The
principal leaders of the settlers pre-.
vious to the Revolution were the cele-
brated Ethan Allen, and Seth Warner,
Allen came to Bennington from Itch
field, Conn, about 1859, and lived at
Bennington until he was taken prisoner
in IT'S. Warner came also from Con-
necticut in January 1855, and remain
ed here until 1884 when he removed to
Woodbury.. Con. and soon after died |