Fort Dummer
first permanent European settlement in Vermont
Fort Dummer was built in the winter of 1724 in what is now the Town of Brattleboro in southeastern Vermont. Today, it is notable as the first permanent European settlement in Vermont. The original site of the fort is now lost below the waters of the Connecticut River impoundment of the Vernon Dam.
History
Greylock's War
Fort Dummer was a British colonial fort built in 1723 during Dummer's War by the militia of the Province of Massachusetts Bay under the command of Lieutenant Timothy Dwight in what is now the Town of Brattleboro, in southeastern Vermont. At the time of construction, the fort was built on territory administered by Massachusetts. This was in the heart of one of the three main sections of the Equivalent Lands.
The fort was the first permanent European settlement in Vermont. It consisted of a 180-square foot (17 m²) wooden stockade with 12 guns manned by 55 men (43 Massachusetts militiamen and 12 Mohawk warriors). It was named after Lieutenant Governor William Dummer, who was acting governor of Massachusetts at the time of the fort's construction.
In June 1724, Chief Gray Lock was seen in the vicinity of Fort Dummer with 40 Indians, though no attack was made by them or the soldiers.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fort Dummer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.