Along the Connecticut River in the quiet town of Westminster, Vermont, a headstone in the town’s old cemetery commemorates the life of William French, a man whose death indirectly led to Vermont’s independence, both from the British Loyalist government of New York Colony and the crown of Great Britain. In 1775, Westminster was a part of the once-fraught New Hampshire Grants, a strip of disputed land that was claimed by the provinces of both New Hampshire and New York. Tensions quickly rose between individuals granted land by New Hampshire and those…
