High above the Connecticut River sits a mile-long shelf comfortably nestled within the broad curve of the oxbowing waterway in the fertile eastern valley beneath the rolling foothills of the Green Mountains. It had long attracted inhabitants, but the vagaries of violence had repeatedly forced them out.

The land lies dormant. But enticing. Open. Exposed. Its potential untapped.

Beyond the mountains, out of sight, Albany holds court, too distant to exercise its authority over the outer reaches of its boundary. Closer, on the opposite shore of the river, New Hampshire saw it as an avenue of expansion.

Both colonies claimed it. Neither controlled it.

Yet, into that void, settlers arrived.

The first colonists to settle what would become Westminster, Vermont, came from Continue Reading “The Shot Not Heard ’Round the World: Vermont’s First Taste of Independence”