Volume 2, Chapter 5, New Hampshire Breaks Free
Conflicts over land grants and claims and over corollary governmental jurisdiction were
important sources of inter-colonial conflict in 18th century New England. Massachusetts
laid claim to the bulk of New Hampshire, and the General Court handed out arbitrary grants
to New Hampshire Land. Furthermore, the Massachusetts towns insisted on claiming tax revenue from
their junior New Hampshire neighbors. Massachusetts encroachment on New Hampshire was facilitated
by their having a common governor, and by the 1730s, Governor Jonathan Belcher, a wealthy
Boston merchant, was heading the Massachusetts party in alliance with Secretary Richard
Waldron III and the oligarchs of the New Hampshire Council.
The popular opposition to Massachusetts in New Hampshire was led by Lieutenant Governor
John Wentworth and then by his son Benning, also a powerful merchant.
The opposition shepherded the New Hampshire legislature into making conflicting land grants
of its own.
To secure the favor of the Crown, the New Hampshire General Court voted the governor
a fixed salary, thus going beyond Massachusetts.
Influenced by this good conduct, in addition to bribe money spread where it could help,
by the importance of New Hampshire's ship mass, and by the perennial troublesomeness
of Massachusetts, the English Privy Council finally decided in 1737 on a boundary in favor
of New Hampshire By 1741, New Hampshire was assured of approximately
its present dimensions. Massachusetts conspired to revive the old Mason claim to proprietorship
to New Hampshire. Not only did this fail, but Britain in disgust removed Belcher from
his post and ended the system of joint governorship, which threatened to keep New Hampshire under
The Leader of the Popular Opposition, Benning Wentworth, now became full governor of New
Hampshire in 1741, and Massachusetts received a royal governor of its own.
Freed from the burden of this struggle, New Hampshire flourished and grew apace.
At his inauguration, Governor Wentworth prophetically hailed the final separation of the two colonies
as an event which will be a lasting advantage, will be a means of replenishing your towns
with people, of extending and enlarging your commerce.
With New Hampshire secure from Massachusetts aggression, Governor Wentworth decided to
safeguard the newly decided-upon western part of the colony, now Vermont, for his control
by parseling out huge land grants to that unsettled region, known as the New Hampshire
Grants. Here, Wentworth was worried about New York's old claims to jurisdiction over
this territory. Wentworth, it should be noted, took good care to assign himself a fee of
five hundred acres in each newly designated township. Fortunately, no feudalistic proprietary
Utilistic proprietary was sustained, as the grantees quickly divided and sold the land.
An annual quick rent of one shilling per hundred acres was demanded by the grantees, but they
typically found it impossible to collect.
With settlement rapidly developing, the period of transfer of land holdings from grantees
to actual settlers fortunately tended to be brief.
New York, however, continued to make its claim and to hand out conflicting Western New Hampshire
grants of its own. Governor Wentworth began the grants in 1749 by creating the town of
Bennington and by the 1760s was founding many towns per year, 63 in 1761 alone. Here, considerable
All absentee speculation served as wholesale and jobber intermediaries before the land
developed fairly rapidly upon the settlers.
In making the grants, incidentally, Wentworth did not neglect his own family.
At least a dozen Wentworths received handsome gifts, as did many leading citizens of New
New Hampshire and New England