The Republic of Vermont

  It's always the Thirteen Original Colonies this, or the Thirteen Original States that. But does anyone care who was number 14? It was Vermont, the Green Mountain State, which had always felt like a pawn between the surrounding states.
   Massachusetts  was settled first in the early 1600s and claimed all of northern New England. As people settled along the New Hampshire coast they got a charter from the King of England to make them a separate colony from Massachusetts.
   As time went on New Hampshire was not happy to see New York moving in from the west.  On this day in 1749 New Hampshire began granting land in present-day Vermont to its own citizens to forestall the New Yorkers. The New Hampshire people were actually clearing and farming their land while the New Yorkers were wealthy men who wanted the land to resell later.
   New Hampshire appealed to the king, who found in favor of New York. By the time the king made his ruling, the New Hampshire settlers had put several years of labor into their farms and when the New York landowners told them to pay exorbitant fees or get out, the Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen formed to fight for what they believed to be theirs.
   New York would probably have prevailed eventually had not the start of the American Revolution given New York something more important to worry about. At the beginning of the war, the settlers in Vermont petitioned the new Continental Congress to recognize Vermont as a state. The New York delegation put the kibosh on that. Vermont said, "OK" and declared independence from Great Britain and formed a republic of their own.
   The Green Mountain Boys fought on the side of the Continental Army during the war. Their greatest feat was the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, freeing its cannons to be hauled overland to Boston to drive the British out of that city.
   As the war dragged on and Congress continued to ignore Vermont, some Vermont officials began negotiating with the governor of Quebec to rejoin Great Britain. Britain was interested, but just then the war ended and Vermont said, "Never mind."
  Vermont tried to join the Confederation that was formed after the war but New York continued to prevent Vermont's admission. Finally in 1790 after Vermont paid New York $30,000 for its troubles,  Vermont was allowed into the club. On March 4, 1791 Vermont became the fourteenth state. And number fifteen? Kentucky, the Bluegrass Sate.

The Technicolor State