Timeline of Early
Dummerston History
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April 25, 1715: The Colony of Connecticut is granted a stretch of land that includes what is now Putney, Dummerston, and Brattleboro, Vermont, in the “Equivalent Lands” agreement. When the boundaries of Massachusetts and the Colony of Connecticut were determined in 1713, it became clear that the Province of Massachusetts Bay had sold tracts of land to settlers in what was now Colony of Connecticut’s territory. To retain its territory, the Province of Massachusetts Bay agrees to give Connecticut various tracts of land adding up to “107,793 acres…as an equivalent.”
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April 24th, 1716: The untamed land north of Massachusetts given to Connecticut in the “equivalent lands” agreement proves to be of little practical use as it is separated from the colony by Massachusetts. Connecticut sells part of its land in a public auction on April 24 of 1716 to William Dummer, Anthony Stoddard, William Brattle, and John White. They name it after William Dummer, the oldest proprietor.
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November 30th, 1727: The first visit to Dummerston by a white colonist is recorded. Colonel Joseph Kellogg tells in his journal of his scouting party’s trip from nearby Fort Dummer to the top of Black Mountain to survey the country for Abenaki smoke signals.
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January 1752: John Kathan, the first white settler of Dummerston arrives. His “wife and seven or eight helpless children” leave their home in Worcester, Massachusetts, to join him in 1754.
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December 27th, 1753: A charter is issued dividing the tract of land into three townships, “Putney, Fullum, and Brattleborough.” Fullum, alternately spelled Fullam and Fullham, also was called Dummerston for many years.
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March 1771: The heads of families of Fullam, now numbering 44, meet for the first town meeting at the house of Isaac Miller. The ell part of the house where this first meeting occurred still stands today. In this meeting, settlers make committees to “lay out roads”, “look out a burying place”, and “choose a spot to set the meeting house.”
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May 16th, 1774: The town holds the first meeting in the new meetinghouse and church, located about sixty feet southeast of where the current Dummerston Congregational Church stands. As the town is unable to secure a minister, Dummerston resident John Hooker serves as minister until one is hired the following year.
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1780: The town’s first schoolhouse, most likely made of logs, is erected near the meetinghouse.
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1810: Dummerston’s first store is built by Asa Black on the common.
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1937: The town’s Representative to the Legislature, Walter Chamberlain, after receiving input from the town, seeks a new charter and officially changes the name Fullum to Dummerston.
-Compiled by Madeline Conley, 2017 using Dummerston: An "Equivalent Lands" Town, published 1986 by the Dummerston Historical Society
Dummerston once had twelve school districts, as shown in this 1869 map.