The convention begged that they might not °be put under the jurisdiction of New York, but allowed to remain in that of New Hamp shire.° The conditions were rapidly growing vrorse and were already unbearable. Various rumors of the movements of troops were com mon and disturbing and the following declara tion of loyalty was signed by all but one of the members of the convention.
" We the subscribers, inhabitants of that district of land, commonly called and known by the name of the New Hampshire Grants, do voluntarily. and solemnly engage, under all the tics held sacred amongst mankind. at the risque of our lives and fortunes to defend, by arms. the United American States against the hostile attempts of the British fleets and armies, until the present unhappy contro versy between the two countries shall be settled." At an adjourned convention, held at the same place, 25 Sept. 1776, a covenant or com pact was formulated,— 58 delegates present and uCumberland and Wilmington or Draper by letter,a representing 35 towns, 10 of which were on the °East side,a— that still further raised the framework of the future independent State. Ethan Allen was a prisoner with the British. It was voted unanimously: ((That suitable ap plication be made to form that district of land, commonly called and known by the name of the New Hampshire Grants, into a separate dis trict') A uCoimnittee of War') was appointed to act as the government, civil and military, ad interim, namely : Simeon Hathaway, Jonas Fay, Nathan Clark, Joseph Bradley, Martin Powell, Cephas Kent, Joseph Bowker, Joseph Woodward, Nehemiah Howe; 15 Jan. 1777 fol lowing were added from the ((East side,a Thomas Chandler, Stephen Tilden, Ebenezer Harrington, Joshua ‘Vebb, Dennis Lockland, Jotham Bige low, Thomas Johnson, Elijah Gates, Nicholas White. At the October convention, and the January meeting, Ira Allen served as clerk,— both held at Westminster. Events had moved rapidly in the aGrantsa or in the embryo com monwealth. The people of the Green Moun tains, loyal to freedom from Great Britain and discredited in their contention with contiguous territory, were ready to take an independent step. Accordingly, at Westminster, 15 Jan. 1777 in the Court-House, the following was promul gated: " This Convention (whose Members are duly Chosen by the Free Voice of thew Constituenta in the several Towns on the N. Hampshire Grants) in public Meeting Assembled, in otn. own names and in behalf of our Constituents. Do hereby Proclaim and Publicldy declare that we will at all times hereafter cqnsider ourselves as a free and independent State, capable of regulatMg our internal police in all and every respect whatsoever, and that the people on said Grants have the sole and exclusive right of ruling and governing themselves in such manner and form as in tha. ovm wisdorn they shall think proper, not inconsistent or repugnant to any resolve of the Honorable Continental Furthermore, we declare by all the tiesC°nZecrere held sacred among men, that we will firmly stand by and support one another in this our declaration of a State, and in endeavoring as much as in es lies to suppress all unlawful routs end disbutances whatever.
Also we will endeavor to secure to every individual his life, peace, and property against all tmlawful invaders of the same.
Lastly we hereby declare, that we are at all times ready in conjunction with our brethren in the United States of America to do our full proportion in maintaining and sup porting the just war against the tyrannical lavanons of ministerial fleets and armies, as well as any foreign enemies sent with the express purpose to murder our fellow brethren and with fire and sword to ra our defenseless country.
The said State to be called Neer t." The above is not exactly in the original form, but as it was later revised and published.
At the next convention held in June the name New Connecticut, given for the reason that a large part of the original settlers had come from Connecticut, was found to be al ready used for a district on the Susquehanna. For this reason the new State was renamed Vermont There is some uncertainty as to the origin.of this name.
It is generally supposed to have been sug gested by Dr. Thomas Young of Philadelphia, an old and enthusiastic friend of the %Tante' and a trusted adviser, but this does not deter mine where Dr. Young found the name. Did it come from the often quoted exclamation of Champlain, ((Voila les Verts Monts,a or did it come, as some suppose from a letter which one Saint John de Crevecoeur is said to have written to Ethan Allen asking that uas Vermont is en tirely French') some of the counties have French names given them? Crevecoeur is supposed to have suggested Vermont because he had in mind L'Abbe de Vermont, reader to Marie An toinette. This is given for whatever it may be worth. As also the following statement which refers to the Rev. Samuel A. Peters, DD., LL.D., the first Church of England clergy man to visit this district, and who was after ward chosen Bishop of Vermont, but never con secrated. Dr. Peters, in October 1763, climbed a high niountain in the “Grants,a where the waters of Lalce Champlain could be seen on the one hand, and those of the Connecticut River on the other, and broke a bottle upon a rock, naming the territory uVerdmont,° dedi cating it to God. Little credence was given to this alleged incident, because of the repeated failures to find such a location. Mounts Mans field and Camel's Hump, and Knox Mountain in Orang.e County, were each ascended with out results; but, in 1880, Spruce Mountain in Plainfield was selected for an ascent from Brad ford, where the Peters family settled, and the conditions found at the summit served to con firm the Dr. Peters' claim.