Vermont

In the 1750s, when this map was prepared,  most Europeans in New Hampshire lived in the older towns along the seacoast such as Exeter and Portsmouth.  Only a few settlers lived in the more remote towns whose settlement and growth was limited by the near constant threat from other peoples who shared this continent – the native population we call Indians – and their French allies.

The French and Indian War – which was fought between 1754 and 1763 in North America – is a prime subject of this map, which was prepared in 1757 and printed four years later. The title describes it as depicting “The Theater of War…”

The major battles of the war were fought to the west and north of this area of New England.   The war started in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburg in 1754. Lake Champlain, Lake George and the Forts along the upper Hudson River (left side of the map) were the sites of several battles.

In the 1700s the French and Indian stronghold was to the north, along the St. Lawrence River. From this area several assaults were made upon the English colonies in New Hampshire and Massachusetts,

Between the English in New Hampshire and the French in Quebec lay an unsettled wilderness – the lands that would become the State of Vermont.

In the fall of 1759 a battalion of New Hampshire soldiers was sent to cut a road through the wilderness of western New Hampshire – now Vermont. That road – the Crown Point Military Road – is the diagonal route shown coursing through the left side of the map.    The road connected the Connecticut River outpost at Charlestown – Fort Number Four – with Lake Champlain’s Fort Ticonderoga. That old road followed the general courses of roads which pass from Springfield through Ludlow and Rutland to the Lake. The road was enormously important to the war effort, and to subsequent settlement of Vermont.

Prior to the opening of this roadway travelers had to go south into Massachusetts and then follow a road to Albany, New York, and from there north towards Quebec. The 1757 manuscript map does not show this road as it was not yet made.

Note just below the road the entry “This way captives have been carried by the Indians”.  The Black River – still so named 250 years later, was a natural route for foot travel.  Indian raiding parties from Canada often took hostages from English settlements in the Connecticut River valley up this route which passed through the modern Town of Springfield, Vermont.

Further upstream another such Indian captive route is shown – this one connecting the river with the lake via the Wells River and Winooski River (here the “French River”) from the Woodsville, New Hampshire area northwesterly towards what is now Burlington, Vermont (at the entry “Monsr. Leaperriere”).