"Some of our readers may have thought we devoted more space to the troubles between New York and Vermont than belonged to them in a strictly local history of Washington county. But, in fact, that imbroglio affected even the internal affairs of Charlotte county, and in 1781 some very curious movements took place in several of the towns of that and Albany counties, which have seldom or never been treated in national histories, but which might have had a serious effect on the welfare of the whole country.
   "As has been stated, the county of Charlotte and that part of Albany county now included in Washington were principally settled by New Englanders, and by Scotch and others of foreign birth. The former had almost all adhered to the American cause, which many (though by no means all) of the latter were friendly to the king. As the Americans were most of the time in possession of the territory in question, the New Englanders were largely in the majority among the dominant class.
   "These had generally sympathized more or less with their compatriots who were striving to set up an independent government in Vermont. The Vermonters, too, although they had openly claimed only to the present east line of that State, had kept up a kind of faint half-claim to the territory between that line and the Hudson, or even farther west, on the ground that it had been included in Skene's new province of Ticonderoga, of which they deemed their State in some way to be the political heir.
   "...The intrigue for the annexation of the territory before mentioned was going forward at the same time. Not liking to rest their claim on no higher authority than the supposed organization of the province of Ticonderoga, the Vermonters also resorted to the secession doctrine. In April the Legislature of that State directed that a convention be held at Cambridge the following month, composed of delegates elceted by the people of the various districts of Charlotte county of that part of Albany county lying north of the south line of Vermont prolonged to the Hudson, which convention should decide whether, and on what terms, those districts should be united to the State of Vermont."

Text taken from "History of Washington County, New York" by Crisfield Johnson, originally published in 1878.

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