On March 13 1775, a large crowd assembled in front of the county courthouse in Westminster, Vermont. At the time Vermont did not exist. The region was contested by settlers with New Hampshire land titles and also claimed by New York which identified the area as Cumberland County, New York. The assembled crowd sought to prevent the New York court that was set to begin the next day from entering the courthouse and conducting business.
A New York Sheriff demanded the dispersal of the crowd, estimated at nearly a hundred, but was rebuffed. The Sheriff departed to assemble a posse, while the crowd continued to guard the court’s entrances. Later that night the Sherriff and posse returned, armed, and demanded entrance. The Yorker Sheriff ordered his men to open fire. Shots rang out and fighting became close in and around the courthouse until the crowd was violently dispersed.
The encounter cost the lives of two New Hampshire Grant settlers, with more wounded. News spread rapidly of the “Westminster Massacre” and sympathetic armed companies marched to Westminster in defiance of the Yorker courts and government and seized some of the attackers.
This was only the most recent example of violence in the New Hampshire Grants where the Green Mountain Boys had been formed to contest New York’s dominion. At least as early as 1773 Governor William Tryon had appealed to British officials to “seek the Protection of the Military Power, in Aid of the Civil Authority” to assert New York’s claims.(1) Acting Commander in Chief General Frederick Haldimand responded that “it appears to me of a dangerous tendency, to employ regular Troops, where there are Militia laws. and where the Civil Magistrate can at any time call upon it’s trained inhabitants to aid and assist them in the performance of their Office”(2) Even if they had been mobilized, the destruction of Crown Point, and poor condition of Ticonderoga did not provide any place for troops to be quartered near the disturbances.
Army commanders did not want troops involved in disputes between colonies. Haldimand explained he would not use “the Kings Troops in supporting claims depending on the Antient [sic] limits of different provinces, and the validity of grants made by different governments.” He continued, noting that “the Troops of a King the common father of all the people and All the provinces, can only act with propriety in such cases when the sense of His Majesty is Signified.”(3) Additional conflict between the Green Mountain Boys along the Otter Creek in the western New Hampshire Grants in late 1774 caused the New York government again to petition British military officials for aid. General Thomas Gage, now in overall command again, referred back to Haldimand’s earlier response to not send in troops without orders from the King.
The “Westminster Massacre” once more brought the issue of the violence in the Grants to the desk of General Gage. On April 8, 1775 Gage received an impassioned letter from Lieutenant Governor Cadwalader Colden of New York about “that dangerous and insolent affair.”(4) Colden informed Gage the New York assembly had raised funds, despite the objection of certain members such as “Colonel Schuyler” to fit out an expedition to “bring to Punishment the atrocious offenders” and reinstate New York’s jurisdiction. Previous appeals for troops from the army had been rebuffed, so Colden assured Gage “A sufficient supply of Provisions is to be had on the Spot, but Arms and Ammunition, especially Arms, We cannot get unless from your Excellency.”
With dissent and threats of violence brewing in multiple colonies now, but not facing a direct request for troops, Gage was more open to Colden’s efforts to restore order to part of the province. Gage’s information about the “massacre” was slim, since he was penned up in Boston with virtually no contact with even other parts of Massachusetts and he was unable to “come to any certainty, of what may happen so far back from this.” Gage informed Colden that “The Number of Arms you want, I will by the first Opportunity send you” along with powder. These weapons would have to travel by water to Albany, rather than overland, and even then Gage was concerned that they be stored “with great care to be kept in some safe Place from the hands of any of the lawless Rabble.” He ended telling Colden that “I sincerely hope you may be enabled to bring some of the Offenders to Justice, and restore the Authority of Government in the County.”(5)
The arms were sent to equip New York’s loyal militias, but Gage’s hopes would be dashed when he received a follow up letter from Colden, who claimed “that it will not be possible to reinstate any legal Authority in the County, without assistance from the military power.” Supplies of muskets for loyal militiamen would not be enough, and once again he pleaded that “If any Troops can be spared from Quebec, I think it would be for his Majesty’s Service, should your Excellency think fit to order a considerable Body of them to march from Crown Point, and Fort Edward…directed to search for and apprehend particular Persons” and “executing such a Plan, as may be form’d for reinstating the Authority of Government in that County, and punishing the Offenders”
Colden hoped to sweeten this escalation by assuring Gage that it might be useful for him to have “a Body of Troops so near the Borders of Massachusetts Bay” that “may be very effectually employed in executing the coercive Measures which seem unavoidable for bringing the eastern Colonies submission to Great Britain or any legal Authority.”(6)
This was the last time New York’s colonial government would appeal to the British military for military support for their claim to the New Hampshire Grants. By the time Colden’s April 13th letter got to Gage, war had erupted at Lexington and Concord on the 19th. In New York City revolutionaries seized arms belonging to the city and gunpowder and paraded in defiance of the colonial government. “The Arms and Ammunition your excellency has sent, at my request, for the use of Cumberland County, Captain Montague has taken on Board of his Ship, as the only Place of Security” never to be turned against the residents of the New Hampshire Grants.(7)
- Tryon to Haldimand, Sept 1, 1773. Haldimand Papers, British Library.
- Haldimand to Tryon, Sept 1, 1773. Haldimand Papers, British Library.
- Haldimand to Tryon, Haldimand Papers, British Library.
- Colden to Gage, April 2, 1775, Gage Papers, American Series, Volume 127, Clements Library, University of Michigan.
- Gage to Colden, April 9, 1775, Gage Papers, American Series, Volume 127, Clements Library, University of Michigan.
- Colden to Gage, April 13, 1775, Gage Papers, American Series, Volume 127, Clements Library, University of Michigan.
- Colden to Gage April 25, 1775, Gage Papers, American Series, Volume 128, Clements Library, University of Michigan.
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