The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-10-28

small fee, usually one hundred dollars,
and became the owners as tenants in
common of the whole township, ex-
cept five hundred acres which the
! Governor reserved for himself.
These townships were from the first
called the New Hampshire Grants and
were spoken of by that name both
within the territory and outside and
often called 1.-The Grants"
In 1851 or 62 and directly after, the
owners of these Grants, or those to
whom the owners sold their interests,
began rapidly to settle these townships
and settlers continued to come in
| large numbers up to and during the
| Revolution and for years later. Though
no accurate census was taken in those
early days it may be safe to say that
at the opening of the Revolution in
1775 there were more than twenty
five thousand settlers in what is now
Vermont, and they were hardy race
of men, sturdy and brave in defence of
their rights; many of them had been
soldiers in the Colonial Wars. All
were imbued with a desire to estab-
lish for themselves permanent homes,
They well knew that there was to be
life Of toll and labor. but they
shrank not from it, for it was the
toll of free men and not of slaves.
They were not, as some historians
have written, poor and needy, but
many of them were possessed of fair
amount of worldly possessions, and
they brought with them much to make
life comfortable. They were as a
whole well to do people. They
came here with the same spirit of en-
terprise, the same impulses that two
carnations later impelled their des-
cendants and all NV England to emf
CRATE toward the setting sun and build
up the mighty west.
Among them were many young men,
strong, brave and fearless in defence
of the rights of the inhabitants Of the
Grants healthful and vigorous in mind
as we'll as in body. And it was largely
through their exertions, that in the
dark days when all outside were
against her the inhabitants of New
Hampshire Grants sustained their
claims to the lands they had bought,
and maintained their independence as
a free state-a nation
If the men of The Grants were brave
and true equally so were the women,
the mothers, wives and daughters who
came with them. History and tradit-
ion tell us how noble and self-sacri-
ficing they were.
With this class of settlers the Grants
began at once to show evidence OF
prosperity and advancement. The
owners Of each township divided the
lands among themselves, so that each
had his portion and on 1t built his
log house and commenced to clear his
lot of the timber that grew so lux
uriousiy thereon. Roads were laid out,
saw mills and grist mills were built,
churches organized and school houses
erected
The first settlers of each township
organized local self government,
established the New England town
meeting. elected their officers, and
made such rules and regulations as
they deemed necessary for the orderly
government of the town. and the man
agement of its affairs, the same as we
do today, only they had far more pow
er than the towns of Vermont now
have, for no legislature existed to
control or limit their action, or pre-
scribe what they should or should not
dc. Each township wa sin effect lit
tie Republic, self-governing. so far as
its internal affairs were concerned and
while it acknowledged its allegience
to the Colony of New Hampshire and
the King neither interfered with them |
They were the freest civilized people |
o hearth, and consequently happy and |
Such was the condition that existed |
in the Grants in 1865. In that year
trouble began.
The Colonial governor of New |
York had frequently protested to Gov
Grnor Wentworth against the grant of
charters by him on the disputed terri |
tory. but without avail Governor |
Wentworth believing he had a right |
10 do so continued to grant them, and |
the settlers continued to come.
In 1864 Lieutenant Governor Cold |
en- then acting Governor of the Colony |
of New York appealed to King George |
complaining that Governor Wentworth |
was granting lands in the territory of |
the New York Province and praying
that he be restrained from doing so
and that the Connecticut River be
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