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In 1761 the then Royal Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, under the power invested in him by King George, issued 12 charters for towns along the Connecticut River along with specifications as to what purveyors needed to accomplish to make the charter valid, including governance, number of settlers, and land allotment. This was the first in a series of such grants. The first towns are known as the Middle Grant Towns and include Fairlee, Hartford, Norwich, Hartland in Vermont, and Canaan, Lebanon, Lyme, Plainfield, Hanover, Enfield, Grantham in New Hampshire. Grantham did not meet its charter expecations, so its first grant was revoked.
Some original proprietors of the land grants did not settle but were speculators who sold their land grants to those who actually settled in the new towns. In other cases, names were faked so a land grantee could end up with a larger portion of land. Primarily the original settlers of European descent came from the colony of Connecticut traveling via the Connecticut River.
Major exceptions to this include the towns of Haverhill, NH and Newbury, VT. Here at the wide oxbows of the Connecticut River the native Abenaki people had a large farm village. Gov. Wentworth reserved these lands for his cohorts and friends in southeastern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts.
This project includes the profiles of any person who was either from a native family if the Koasek Abaenaki band or was born in Connecticut, Massachusetts or southeastern New Hampshire and moved to settle in the Middle Grant towns during the settlement period from 1761 to approximately 1830. Their immediate descendants should also be included.
Please make deceased profiles included in this project public.