Call it "land hunger." Competing interests from New York,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut all looked with covetous eyes at
the land to the west of New Hampshire in the early to middle
decades of the 18th century — land that constitutes the current
state of Vermont. Somehow Connecticut speculators got the upper
hand in the competition by realizing that New Hampshire Gov.
Benning Wentworth was very willing to sell land grants to them
at the right price. Wentworth, who had recently declared
bankruptcy, was cash hungry and happy to sell the land, despite
major jurisdictional disputes with the state of New York over
true ownership of it. Astute Connecticut speculators were more
than willing to buy, and they did. Huge tracts of it. Between
the years 1750-1765, Benning Wentworth sold land charters for
more than 3 million acres of land in Vermont, much of it to
Connecticut speculators. These charters came to be known as the
"New Hampshire Grants." To gain support for the sales, Wentworth
often reserved the right to fl