USA > Vermont > The history of Vermont, from its discovery to its admission into the Union in 1791. By Hiland Hall > Part 4
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
This appears to have been the last and indeed only claim ever made in behalf of the duke to extend his province eastward. to Con- necticut river. Controversies however afterwards arose in regard to the precise position of the boundary line, to which position little importance had been attached so long as it divided the settlements of the respective provinces. At the time the line had been fixed upon in 1664, the only plantation under New York on the main land east of the Hudson. is believed to have been in the vicinity of Westchester on Long Island sound, and this embraced but few in- habitants. But when the settlements from the two colonies began to approach and interfere with each other. conflicting claims were found to exist ; and it was seen that there had been an evident mistake in the language by which the boundary had been described in 1664, and especially in the direction of the northern line which running " north-northwest" would cross Hudson's river instead of being parallel to its general course, as had been designed. And the king's commissioners declaring they had not intended the line should come nearer than twenty miles to that river, it was afterwards by further negotiations surveyed and established as a twenty mile line from the Hudson, the colony of Connecticut being extended westward along the sound to a less distance than twenty miles to include the English settlement made in conformity to the boundary treaty, with the Dutch in 1650, before mentioned. New York receiving other terri- tory farther north as an equivalent.
This final establishment of the Connecticut boundary line was effected under the administration of Gov. Thomas Dongan, who on his appointment in 1683 was specially instructed by the duke " with all convenient speed after his arrival in New York, to endeavor to ascer- tain and agree upon the boundaries of his territories towards Con- necticut." The following authentic account of the establishment of this boundary line is given in a report of the English board of trade to king William, dated March 3, 1700.1
" In order to the settling a division line between the said province [of New York ] and colony [Connectient ] commissioners were appointed by his late Majesty King Charles the second who in the year 1664 having heard the allegations on both sides did by the mutual consent if both parties agree upon and sign a report by which those boun- daries were to be settled ; but it being afterwards found that some places named in the said report for boundaries, were not at that
1 Smith's N. Y., vol. 1. p. 4. 15. 41 - 49. 51. Trumbull's Conn., vol. 1, p. 330. 3 Cl. His. N. Y., 216, 235. 347, 264, 333. 4 Col. ITis., 628.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
distance from other places which had been agreed upon (as the commissioners for New York declared) to be the rule and measure of their proceeding, and that the towns of Rye and Bedford which by the supposed distance of the aforesaid places named for boundaries would have been included in the province of New York, were by the mistake about that distance made to fall within the colony of Con- necticut ; another agreement was afterwards made and concluded in the month of November 1683 between Colonel Dongan then governor of the province of New York for the then duke on the one side, and the governor of Connecticut, Robert Treat, Esq., with three others in commission with him, on the other side, by which last agreement the division line between the said province and colony is more exactly expressed and settled, from place to place. so as to answer the true intention of the first agreement, and to remove all future controversy about the towns of Rye and Bedford by including them undoubtedly in the province of New York."
This report of the board of trade concludes by recommending the confirmation by the king of the agreement of 1683, which was accordingly done the next day. The line thus authoritatively established had been partially surveyed in 1684, but controversies from time to time arising in regard to the proper location of portions of it a new and more perfect survey was made and completed in 1731, and sanctioned by an agreement of indenture executed by com- missioners of the respective provinces. 1
1 Col. His. N. Y., vol. 4, p. 625-6. Smith's N. Y., vol. 1, p. 38, 285-8. N. Y. Senate Doc., 1857, No. 165.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
CHAPTER IV.
on THE EASTERN BOUNDARY OF NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS.
1664-1786.
Massachusetts supposed to reach north to Canada until 1740 - Evidence that the eastern boundary of New York was understood to be a twenty mile line from the Hudson from 1664- Established by agreement as such in 1773 - Adjustment with New York in 1786, of the claim of Massa- chusetts territory west of the Hudson.
'HE boundary adjustment between the king's commissioners and T
those of the colony of Connecticut, was in terms, made only with the Connecticut colony. It was however the withdrawal from the outlet and main body of a navigable river as a boundary, and the substitution for it of another, parallel to its general course and under the circumstances would, without explanation, be naturally regarded as an abandonment of the whole river as a limit. There is strong evidence that the new line, twenty miles from the Hudson, was understood at the time, as applicable to the whole of the duke's patent. Indeed, there can be no doubt that such was the case.
It should be borne in mind that there was not, at the time of the original adjustment of the boundary between New York and Con- necticut, and for nearly a century afterwards, any established northern boundary of New York ; that no dividing line had been ascertained or agreed upon between the French and English ; that it was not until the year 1763, three years after the surrender of New France to the English, that the line of the 45th degree of latitude running from the river St. Lawrence across Lake Champlain to Connecticut river, was designated by proclamation of King George the third, as the southern limit of Canada ; and that this line was fixed upon after the whole country had become British territory as a convenient line of division between the king's provinces, without any reference whatever to any previous boundary. Until the conquest of Canada the respective claims of the English and French were conflicting. Sir Henry Moore, who had attended to the survey of the proclamation . line on the part of the province of New York, in writing to Lord Hillsborough on the subject, under date of October 24, 1768, says, " No line of jurisdiction having ever been settled between this province [New York ] and Quebec till that which was fixed by general Carleton, and myself and approved by his majesty, cach of the provinces have
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
endeavored to extend their claims as far as they possibly could ; the English to the river St. Lawrence, and the French to the southward of lake George." The French were, beyond doubt, the first dis- coverers and explorers of both lake Champlain and lake George, and they were the first to take possession of the former lake, if not of the latter. Some of the bloodiest battles between the forces of the con- tending nations were for the possession of the southern borders of those lakes, and it was not until late in the summer of 1759 that Ticonderoga and Crown Point were abandoned by the French and occupied by the English. Up to that time. both lakes had been claimed as being within the limits of New France, and upon the principle, then acknowledged, that prior discovery and occupation constituted a good European title to American territory, it is difficult to see how their claim, especially to lake Champlain, could be sue- cessfully controverted. Practically, the south end of those lakes was the northern limit of New York, though the pretensions of the province went farther north. The northern limits of New England also being unknown and undetermined, it was, n& until after the determination of the boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1740, before mentioned, universally understood that the province of Massachusetts, as well as that of New York, reached northward to the undefined limits of Canada. 1
Among the facts to show that the settlement with Connecticut was intended and understood to apply to the whole eastern boundary of New York; are the following, which, indeed seem to be quite. conelusive.
1. In the decision of the King's commissioners in 1664, before recited, the Connecticut western line is declared to extend from the sound northerly " to the line of Massachusetts," thus clearly indicat- ing that the latter province reached at least as far west as the line established for the former.
2. Col. Nichols in giving an account to his master, the duke, of that adjudication and agreement speaks of it as an act of justice to Connecticut to be followed towards the other colonies, whose prior charters, he says, were of forty years standing. He gave the duke distinctly to understand that the boundary between the territory held e by him under his patent and the whole of New England, was a line twenty miles east of Hudson's river. This appears by the fol- lowing extracts from a letter written by him to the duke, dated November 1665.
' Col. Ilis. N. Y., p. 121, 126, vol. 6. Doc. Ilist. N. Y., p. 552, vol. 4.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
" I have formerly rendered account of the decision and settle- ment of bounds between your royal highness and the patent of Con- necticut made by his majesty's commissioners, and the governor and council of Connecticut, wherein five towns were relinquished to Con- nectieut by virtue of their precedent grant from his majesty, although the same tracts of land were given to your royal highness to the utter ruin of that colony, and a manifest breach of their late patent, which determination was a leading case of equal justice, and of great good consequence in all the colonies, and we are therefore assured would be an acceptable service to your royal highness, though to the diminution of your bounds. So that to the east of New York and Hudson's river, nothing considerable remains to your royal high- ness except Long Island and about twenty miles from any part of Hudson's river. I look therefore upon all the rest as only empty names and places possessed forty years by former grants, and of no consequence to your royal highness, except all New England could be brought to submit to your royal highness's patent."1
3. After attending to the affairs of the conquered territory of New Netherland, the king's commissioners proceeded to New England, where they had a long and bitter controversy with the authorities of the province of Massachusetts. Among the complaints made by the commissioners against the government of that colony was their alleged extravagant claims of territory under their charter, the limits of which territory they say, " the commissioners find to be Seconnett brook on the south west and Merrimack river on the north east, and two right lines drawn from each of those two places till they come within twenty miles of Hudson's river ; for that is already planted and given to his royal highness." This determination of the com- missioners was so far approved by the king that the governor and council of Massachusetts were, in April 1666, instructed in an ad- monitory letter from secretary Morrice, that it was his majesty's pleasure " that all the determinations of his commissioners upon the bounds and limits of the several colonies should continue and be observed till upon a full representation of all pretences, his majesty shall make his own final determination."?
' N. Y. Col. Hist., vol. 3, p. 106, and vol. 8, 597. That it would have been " to the utter ruin " of Connecticut to have the Connecticut river for the duke's boundary is very plain, three-fourths of the population of that colony being west of that river. The former grants "of forty years" were undoubtedly those of Massachusetts.
* Col. Ilist. N. Y., vol. 3, 52 - 53, 110, 117, 170-240 ; vol. 7, 597.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
4. That Massachusetts was understood in New York to extend as far westward as Connecticut, is further shown by the agreement made in 1683, between the duke's governor Dongan and the commissioners from Connecticut, before mentioned, in relation to the boundary line of that province with New York, and the report by the commissioners of the two provinces, of the survey of that line made in 1684, in both of which the northern termination of the Connecticut line is declared to be " the south line of the Massachusetts colony."1
The authority of the Duke of York as lord proprietor continued until February 1685, when upon the death of King Charles he sue- ceeded to the throne and his title under his charter became extinct by merger in the crown. Of all this Gov. Dongan was soon after- wards officially informed by letter from the new king, in which it is recited that " by the decease of the late king our most dearly beloved brother, and our accession to the imperial crown of this our realin, our province of New York, the propriety whereof was, by letters patent of his said majesty vested in us, has now wholly devolved upon our royal person and annexed to our other dominions." 2 From this date the charter to the duke ceased to have any effect whatever, in regard, either to the powers of government which it had conferred, or to the extent of territory conveyed by it, other than as furnishing historical evidence of the past. Thence forward, New York became a royal province subject to such government and such limits as the king might preseribe.
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In the commission of the Duke of York to Governor Dongan, bearing date Sept. 30, 1682, the territory over which he was to pre- side is described in the language of the charters to the duke as com- prehending " Hudson's river and all the lands from the west side of Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware bay," excepting out of it, however, East and West Jersey, which are recited to have been released to Sir George Carterett and others. Accompanying this commission, it will be remembered, were instructions from the duke to make a speedy adjustment of his limits with Connecticut, which was the only colony whose settlements had approached the Hudson river. This adjustment had been made prior to his accession to the throne, as has already been seen. Under date of June 10, 1686, the same person as king issued a new commission to Dongan, in which the charter boundaries are wholly omitted, the commission consti- tuting him "our captain general and governor in chief in and over
' Col. ITist. N. Y., vol. 4 p. 628-630.
2 Col. HIist. N. Y .. vol. 3, p. 359.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
our province of New York and the territories depending thereon in America." 1
This change in the language of the commission which was ever afterwards followed in commissions to other governors, must be con- sidered as an adoption, in lieu of the charter boundary, of the actual extent of the colony as then understood, which to the east- ward, we have seen, was limited by a twenty mile line from the Hud- son. From this date for a period of over sixty years, nothing, after a very thorough search, has been found in the New York or English documents indicative of a belief that the province extended cast- ward to any part of the Connecticut. On the contrary the language used in the official, and other papers connected with the New York government, is in accordance with the understanding that it only renched to the twenty mile line before mentioned.
Among the public documents of this period which have more or less hearing upon this boundary question, the following may be mentioned.
Gov. Dongan, under date of Feb. 22, 1687, in answer to an en- quiry of the lords of trade and plantations, as to what were the bounda- ries, and longitude and latitude of the colony of New York, refers to a map sent with his answer, of which no copy is given in the pub- lished report, from which map he says : " you will see in what nar- row bounds we are cooped up." He also says of the land of the province that " what was good and did lie convenient to the sea, for the most part is taken from us by Connecticut and East and West Jersey," and that "what is left is pretty well settled," which is inconsistent with the idea that New York to the northward of the colony of Connecticut, extended eastward to Connecticut river,2 on which river there were no settlements whatever.
Governor Sloughter in a circular to the governors of the other colonies, asking for aid against the French and Indians, dated 11th July. 1691, says : " I doubt not that you are very sensible of the many branches that have been lopped off from this government in the late reigns, and that it is now confined to great narrowness, having only Hudson's river and Long Island for the bounds."3
In the year 1720 the lords of trade and plantations, addressed certain questions in writing to Brigadier Robert Hunter, who was then in England. and who had been governor of New York, from 1710 to 1719, in regard to the condition of the province. Among them
1 Col. Ilist. N. Y., vol. 3, p. 328, 3:7.
" Col. Hist. N. Y., vol. 3, p. 397.
3 Col. Ilist. N. Y., vol. 3. p. 745.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
he was asked "what were the reputed boundaries thereof? To this he returned the following answer, viz :
" Its boundaries east, a parallel twenty miles distant from Hudson's river, to the west, the New Jersey patent, here on record must determine."!
Although a line twenty miles to the eastward of the Hudson, extend- ing northerly to Lake Champlain, was generally understood to be the eastern boundary of New York, no survey had been made of it, and its exact position was unknown until a late period. Massachusetts made pretensions under her conveyance from the council of Plymouth in 1627, and also by virtue of her charters from the crown. to extend westward to the Pacific ocean, and denied the authority of the king to regrant any part of the territory to others. The uncertainty of the true position of the line, together with this claim of Massachu- setts to extend beyond it, furnished occasions for controversies which were not terminated until a short time prior to the commencement of the American revolution. Some notice of them should now be given.
At the time of the conquest of New Netherland by the English in 1664, the Dutch had made no settlements on the east side of the Hudson river to the northward of Manhattan Island, and their pro- gress to the westward of any part of that river was extremely slow. In Massachusetts the English had already occupied Springfield, Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield, on both sides of the Connecticut river, and two years later they had begun a settlement at West- field ten miles farther towards the Hudson. Their settlements gradu- ally extended along the valley of the Connecticut, and before the close of that century reached northward to the present northern boundary of the state. In 1722, the general court of Massachusetts granted two townships situated on the Housatonic river, and under this grant a settlement was commenced at Sheffield in 1725, which appears to have been temporarily suspended in consequence of some disturbance by claimants under New York. The difficulty was, however, in some way obviated, and the town reoccupied in 1730. The surveyors in laying out these townships are said in a letter of Lt. Gov. Clark of New York, to have come within sixteen miles of the Hudson river, and to claim lands which had been granted by that government as early as 1688; alluding no doubt to Livingston's patent. Two years after the grant of the Massachusetts townships, in 1724, the proprietors made a purchase and took a deed from the Indians of a tract bounded south on the divisional line between
1 Col. Ilist. N. Y. vol. 5, p. 555.
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1818096
EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
Massachusetts and Connecticut ; west by the colony of New York ; eastward by a line four miles from the Housatonic river, and extend- ing northward "to the north mountain." This purchase included the two townships which had been granted by Massachusetts and covered several others in the southwestern part of the present county of Berkshire. In 1736, the Indian Mission was founded at Stock- bridge, under the patronage of the government of Massachusetts, and soon afterwards lands were surveyed and occupied under that province, which were claimed to be within the manors of Livingston and Rensselaerwick, in the colony of New York, and which were probably within less than twenty miles of the Hudson. Prior to the year 1744 quite a number of towns distant from twenty to forty miles to the westward of Connecticut river, had been granted by Massachusetts, and occupied under her grants, and during that year several forts for their protection had been erected and garrisoned ; among which was one on the Hoosick river about three miles to the eastward of the present site of William's College. It was called fort Massachusetts, and in 1746 after a brave defence was captured by an army of French and Indians and partially destroyed ; but it was soon repaired and reoccupied. By the year 1753, when the govern- ment of Massachusetts appears to have been first notified by that of New York that the latter claimed, under the charter to the Duke of York, to reach eastward to the Connecticut, the territory, thus claimed, had been nearly covered by townships granted by Massa- chusetts, and a large portion of them had been occupied. Several of the border towns, besides Sheffield and Stockbridge, had been settled. 1
That it had not occurred to the government of New York up to the year 1738 to claim for that colony an extent eastward to the Connecticut river under the old charter to the duke. seems to be incontrovertibly shown by an official report then made by the surveyor general of the province. The lords of trade in England, having addressed certain inquiries in regard to the state of the colony of New York to the governor, they were by him laid before the council, and a portion of them by that body referred to that officer. Cadwallader Colden, who had been for over fifteen years surveyor general and a member of the council, under date of February 14, 1738 in his answer to one of the inquiries referred to him, gives the boundaries of the province in much detail, in which he does not mention Con- nectieut river, or follow or profess to follow the description in the
1 Brodhead's N. Y. Holland's E. Mass., vol. 1, chap. x and xi, and vol. 2. Berkshire Co. Col. HIist. N. Y., vol. 6, p. 143. Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 3, p. 734-788 and 751.
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EARLY HISTORY OF VERMONT.
charter to the Duke of York. That charter, it will be remembered, only purported to grant to the duke " Hudson's river and all the lauds from the west side of Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware bay." Surveyor general Colden not only extends the province a long distance to the northward of Delaware bay towards the head waters of the river of that name which falls into the bay, but also westward to lake Erie, more than two hundred miles beyond that bay and river, thus including a very large territory which could by no possibility be embraced by the language of the duke's charter. He makes no mention of the Connecticut river as a boundary, but bounds the province to the eastward by the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, using language quite inconsistent with the suppo- sition that New York reached eastward to any part of that river. His account of the northern limit of New York evidently proceeds upon the idea, that the undetermined line with Canada would run from the cast end of lake Ontario in such direction as to strike the Massachusetts west line in the vicinity of the south end of Lake Champlain.
The following is Mr. Colden's description of the boundaries of the whole province.
" The province of New York is bounded to the southward by the Atlantic Ocean, and runs from Sandy Hook including Long Island, and Staten Island, up Hudson's river till the forty-first degree of north latitude be completed. which is distant twenty miles above the city of New York, East Jersey lying for that space on the west side of Hudson's river ; from the forty-first degree of latitude on Hudson's river, it runs northwesterly to forty-one degrees forty minutes lati- tude on the most northerly branch of Delaware river, which falls -near Cashiektunk, an Indian settlement on a branch of that river called the Fishkill. Theuce it runs up that branch of Delaware till the forty-second degree of latitude be completed, or to the beginning of the forty-third degree, Pennsylvania stretching along the west side of Delaware river, so far northward as to this parallel of lati- tude. From the beginning of the forty-third degree, New York runs westerly, on a parallel of latitude. along the bounds of Pennsyl- vania to Lake Erie, or so far west as to comprehend the country of the Five Nations (the French having by the treaty of Utrecht, quitted all elaims to those Five Nations). Then it runs along lake Erie, and Cadarackuy [Ontario] lake. and along Cadaraekuy lake to the east end thereof. From thence it continues to extend easterly along the bounds of Canada to the colony of Massachusetts bay ; then southerly along the boundaries of Massachusetts bay, and of
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