page_title: William Dummer
section_title: Western frontier war
hierarchical_section_title: William Dummer / Lieutenant governor / Western frontier war
caption_attribution_description: Letter containing a plan for Fort Dummer, in the southeastern corner of what is now Vermont.
context_page_description: William Dummer was a politician in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He served as its lieutenant governor for fourteen years, including an extended period from 1723 to 1728 when he acted as governor. He is remembered for his role in leading the colony during what is sometimes called Dummer's War, which was fought between the British colonies of northeastern North America and a loose coalition of native tribes in what is now New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.
  Dummer was born into a wealthy Massachusetts merchant family, traveling to England as a young man to participate in the business. Upon his return to Massachusetts in 1712 he entered provincial politics, gaining a royal commission as lieutenant governor through the efforts of his brother Jeremiah. He served during the turbulent tenure of Governor Samuel Shute, in which Shute quarreled with the assembly over many matters. Shute left the province quite abruptly at the end of 1722, while it was in the middle of a war with the natives of northern New England.
  The war was brought to a successful conclusion by Dummer.
context_section_description: Dummer's tenure as acting governor has been described by historian John Ragle as "unspectacular but able".  In the first half of 1723 Dummer made concerted efforts to recruit the Iroquois (of what is now upstate New York) as allies against the Abenaki, and sought to avoid the participation of bands of western Abenaki (based in what is now Vermont) in the conflict.  In both of these he was unsuccessful: the Iroquois, despite significant financial inducements, refused to take up arms against tribes seen to be allied with New France, or to engage in a conflict in which they had no stake.  The Massachusetts embassy to Grey Lock, the principal leader of the western Abenakis, failed to find him.
  In August 1723 Grey Lock began raiding Massachusetts frontier communities in the Connecticut River valley, taking captives and inflicting casualties at Northfield.  Dummer appealed to the leaders of the Connecticut Colony, who stationed a company of militia there in December to little effect.  He also authorized construction of a fort north of Northfield, on land he had acquired a few years before in Connecticut's auction of the so-called "Equivalent Lands" Massachusetts gave to Connecticut as compensation for border issues.  The stockaded fort was located in what is now Brattleboro, Vermont, and was named Fort Dummer in his honor.  It is regarded as the start of permanent European settlement in the modern state of Vermont.
  Fort Dummer was ineffective at stopping the Indian raids. When Grey Lock's raids continued unabated in 1724, Dummer renewed his appeals to Connecticut Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, noting that Connecticut was equally vulnerable to raiding should the Massachusetts towns in the Connecticut River be abandoned.  Saltonstall sent further reinforcements, but Abenaki raids in the area continued until 1727, when Grey Lock apparently tired of continuing the war without outside support.  Embassies sent by Indian commissioners in Albany, New York and by eastern Abenaki leaders failed to make contact with the warrior, and he disappeared from view.
caption: Page from a 1724 letter by Captain Thomas Stoddard describing plan for Fort Dummer
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