New Hampshire Grants - Royal Adjudication

Royal Adjudication

In September 1762, New York caught New Hampshire surveyors working on the east side of Champlain, provoking the former colony's government to reiterate its claim to the area, citing both its own patent and the New Hampshire letters patent of 1741. In March 1764, Wentworth released a statement to the effect that the resolution of jurisdictional dispute required a royal verdict, which he was certain would be made in his favor. Meanwhile, he encouraged his grantees to settle in the land and to cultivate and develop it.

New York appealed to the Board of Trade, requesting a confirmation of their original grant, which finally resolved the border dispute between New York and New Hampshire in favor of New York. The royal order of July 26, 1764 affirmed that "the Western bank of the Connecticut, from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay as far north as the 45th degree of northern latitude, to be the boundary line between the said two provinces of New Hampshire and New York." Wentworth issued his final two grants on October 17 of that year: Walker and Waltham.