Paper Towns
When Ethan and Fanny Allen moved to the Homestead in 1787, they lived in a Vermont that had declared itself to be an independent republic. From 1777 to 1791, Vermonters, tired of the back-and-forth claims of their land by both New York and New Hampshire, declared their independence from the newly-formed United States. Ethan Allen and several other New Hampshire settlers formed the Green Mountain Boys, a militia group created to keep “Yorkers” out of Vermont.
The Province of New Hampshire claimed that their western border extended to Lake Champlain, rather than the modern-day border of the Connecticut River. The Province of New York, however, also claimed this territory, asserting that the Connecticut River, rather than Lake Champlain, constituted their eastern boundary. Thus, both New Hampshire and New York were laying claim to the same land, at the same time.
From 1749-1764, New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth split what he referred to as the New Hampshire Grants into dozens of 36-square-mile tracts of land. George III, King of England at the time, signed off on all of these grants, allowing the New Hampshire Grants to be settled by hundreds of small-scale farmers. In these same decades, Cadwallader Colden, Governor of New York, gave out his own land grants in the area now known as Vermont. George III signed off on these grants as well.
Upset over the prospect of having to pay New York for land they had already purchased from New Hampshire, many Vermonters rebelled and fought for the rights to land they had already claimed as their own. After the English legal system declared that New York, rather than New Hampshire, had the legal claim to the land, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys resisted the Yorker incursion. Years later, in 1791, New York authorities agreed to let Vermont join the Union as the fourteenth state.
Seven land grants near modern-day Burlington were explored for this project. Maps detail the borders created by the New Hampshire grants compared to the New York grants, as well as showing the modern towns in these areas today.
Please click on a land grant town below to view a map of its area and a copy of the original charter from George III:
Burlington Town Charter (1763)