. The New England magazine . ecamenecessary in 1862 to legislate againstrattlesnakes; but a much more vexa-tious difficulty was to plague thesettlers. Three years of prosperity andgrowth were followed by the beginningof that obstinate struggle over the NewHampshire Grants which raged sobitterly and afflicted Bennington es-pecially, because of its proximity to theNew York border. Of these early daysof Bennington, Bancroft says : Men of New England of a superior sort hadobtained of the government of New Hampshire awarrant for land down the western slope of theGreen Mountains on a branch of the H
. The New England magazine . ecamenecessary in 1862 to legislate againstrattlesnakes; but a much more vexa-tious difficulty was to plague thesettlers. Three years of prosperity andgrowth were followed by the beginningof that obstinate struggle over the NewHampshire Grants which raged sobitterly and afflicted Bennington es-pecially, because of its proximity to theNew York border. Of these early daysof Bennington, Bancroft says : Men of New England of a superior sort hadobtained of the government of New Hampshire awarrant for land down the western slope of theGreen Mountains on a branch of the Hoosick,twenty miles east of the Hudson River; formedalready a community of sixty-seven families in asmany houses, with an ordained minister; hadelected their own municipal officers; formedthree several public schools; set their meeting:house among their primeval forests of birch andmaple; and in a word enjoyed the flourishingstate which springs from rural industry, intelli- State House, Boston. 776 BENNINGTON AND ITS The Bennington Monunnent. gence and unaffected piety. They called theirvillage Bennington. The royal officers of NewYork disposed anew of that, as well as of othersnear it, so that the King was known to thesettlers near the Green ^Mountains chiefly by hisagents who had knowingly sold his land twice In this way the soil of Benning-ton became a fit battle ground for inde-pendence. New Yorks claim was basedon an ancient blanket grant fromthe Stuarts of all land east to theConnecticut; but no attempt wasever made to enforce the claimagainst the stronger provinces ofMassachusetts and Connecticut,to whose territory it applied asmuch as to the New HampshireGrants, which under later chartersplainly embraced A^ermont. Itmade little difference to the peo-ple of Bennington whether theylived under the government ofNew York or of New Hampshire ;but when the royal officers ofNew York, not satisfied withclaiming jurisdiction, attemptedalso to dispossess them of th
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