Historic Events of Colonial Days

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Here, at the town of Westminster, in the Grants, the first blows were struck that preceded the coming Revolution.

Those of the men who escaped from the court-house carried the news of the bloodshed to the Whigs all through the neighboring country, and so quickly that before noon of the next day two hundred armed men reached Westminster from the province of New Hampshire. Before that night every one who had had a part in the shooting of the citizens at the court-house was seized and held under a strong guard. Still more Whigs, roused by the story of what the king's officers had done, poured into the little town from the southern part of the county, and even from the colony of Massachusetts, so that by the following day it was said there were in the little village five hundred soldiers all ready for war.

All these men met and voted to choose a committee to act for them and see that justice was done. This committee ordered that all those who were known to have taken part in the shooting should be put on trial at the next court. Then the men of the Grants, and those from New Hampshire and from Massachusetts, went back home.

But the men of the Grants heard news later that spring of 1775 that made them forget the affair that was called "the Westminster Massacre," and the trial of the sheriff's soldiers was neglected in the whirl of far more exciting events. One day in April came the word that the farmers of Lexington and Concord had fired on the redcoats who marched out from Boston. The spirit of revolt, smouldering so long, leaped into instant flame at the news. All through the colonies from New Hampshire down to Georgia men vowed to stand beside the farmers of Massachusetts and defy His Majesty, King George the Third. The men of the Grants, who had been resisting the orders of the royal governor of New York, the Green Mountain Boys, who had driven Yorkers time and again from their country, were among the first to arm for independence. And Yorker fought side by side with Green Mountain Boy in the war of the Revolution.

Peter Jones, and Jack and Sam, Snyder, "Big Bill" Dutton, and the others who had made the stand at Beaver Falls, were among the men and boys who flocked to the flag of Ethan Allen when he took the field in the Green Mountain country. And Ethan Allen's Boys won some of the greatest victories of the Revolution, at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, and in many battles along the Canadian border. The people of the Grants also met and declared their territory a free republic, belonging neither to New Hampshire on the east nor to New York on the west, and choosing for themselves the beautiful name of Vermont, which means Green Mountain.

Thirteen states formed the original union of the United States, and Vermont became the fourteenth state of the Union in 1791. By that time Green Mountain Boys had become a name of great honor, and the Yorkers were their staunchest friends and allies.