Ethan Allen - The New Hampshire Grants

The New Hampshire Grants

As early as 1749, Benning Wentworth, New Hampshire's governor, was selling land grants in the area west of the Connecticut River, to which New Hampshire had always laid somewhat dubious claim. Many of these grants were sold at relatively low prices to land speculators, with some land kicked back to Wentworth. In 1764, King George issued an order resolving the competing claims of New York and New Hampshire in favor of New York. New York, which had also issued land grants that overlapped some of those sold by Wentworth, insisted that holders of the Wentworth grants pay a fee to New York to have their grants validated. As this fee approached the original purchase price, and many of the holders were land-rich and cash-poor, there was a great deal of resistance to this demand. By 1769 the situation in the Grants had deteriorated to the point where surveyors and other figures of New York authority were being physically threatened and driven from the area.