Washington County History
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Land long disputed over by New Hampshire and New York
The first Europeans to claim land in today’s Washington County were the Dutch. However, substantial settlement only occurred toward the end of the French and Indian War (1755-1763), when the British crown awarded land to many soldiers of that conflict, and sold land patents to potential settlers and investors.
But the land was already at the heart of a huge dispute between the Provinces of New Hampshire and New York. In 1749, New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth began granting land in the area west of the Connecticut River claimed by New York State. These "New Hampshire Grants" today comprise much of Vermont. New York was already in conflict over its eastern boundary with Connecticut and Massachusetts. Wentworth’s actions led to further controversy. In 1751 Governor Wentworth and Governor Clinton of New York sent representatives to London to settle the argument.
A decision was not made for several years, with both governments letting people settle in the disputed area. When eventually a New Yorker was forcibly driven from land in the Hoosick Patent, clashes erupted along the eastern border of today’s Washington County. Ethan Allen and others who had invested in the New Hampshire grants raided settlements in Washington County, driving Scottish veterans of the French and Indian War off lands granted to them in the Town of Hebron. Many of these Scots eventually settled in New Perth (today, Salem).
Charlotte County was created March 12, 1772, in some measure to help solve this dispute. It was hoped a new county would more efficiently manage the land claims. Named in honor of Charlotte, wife of King George III, the county was huge. It contained all of the present state of Vermont west of the Green Mountains. In New York it held all lands in present Washington County north of the Battenkill River (plus the northwest corner of the Town of Jackson), all of today’s counties of Warren, Essex, and the eastern part of Franklin County.
The conflict between New York and the New Hampshire Grants settlers continued, even after blood was shed at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. When in May, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, along with Benedict Arnold, seized Fort Ticonderoga, land disputes were momentarily put aside.
In January 1777, the inhabitants of the New Hampshire grants declared themselves an independent state, first called New Connecticut, then The Republic of Vermont. Several Washington County towns strongly considered joining Vermont. Then in June 1777, General Burgoyne’s Campaign swept from Canada. From Ticonderoga south, little was left untouched and every community on Burgoyne’s route gained some measure of fame for its role. The Stars and Stripes were said to have first been raised in battle at the Battle of Fort Ann, July 8, 1777.
Washington County as such came into existence May 12, 1784, when Charlotte County was renamed in honor of George Washington, who had visited the county the year before. (Not every name associated with the British was changed, however, Fort Edward, Kingsbury and Lake George, being good examples.) For the first time since 1776, county court was re-instituted at Fort Edward, then in the Town of Argyle, where Patrick Smyth first presided in 1773. Smyth, a Loyalist, was one of the many county residents who fled to Ontario, eventually to become one of modern-day Canada’s founders.
New York’s problems with Vermont unfortunately persisted, with Washington County as the focus. This was finally solved with Vermont’s statehood in 1791, the same year that the present Towns of Cambridge, Easton Jackson and White Creek were taken from Albany County.
The completion of the Champlain Canal in 1822 opened Washington County to a new, very different era, increasingly so when the railroad came in 1848. Agriculture, such as sheep, dairy and potato farming flourished alongside such industries as lumbering, papermaking, slate quarrying and stoneware production. The Abolitionist movement also flourished, alongside that for women’s suffrage.