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Description

Vermont In the Year of Its Independence From New York

Detailed map of Vermont and contiguous parts of New York and Massachusetts (with a large inset of Boston), one of four sheets from the Lotter edition of Jefferys map of New England.

Published in 1777, the map is centered on the area which would declare its independence from New York on January 15, 1777 and includes most of the 135 townships which would become a part of Vermont.

The map includes all English nomenclature and names counties, towns, rivers, lakes, bays, and a host of other details. Nice early illustration of the townships and roads in the region.   Includes a nice early plan of Boston and detailed treatment of the Upper Hudson River Valley.

The map illustrates the region toward the end of the long-running controversy between New Hampshire and New York over sovereignty in the region lying between the Champlain Valley and Connecticut River. Despite New York’s strong legal claim to the region, between 1749 and 1764 New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth (1696-1770) granted at least 135 townships in the disputed region, many of which were directly or indirectly acquired by the Allen brothers of Connecticut.  

In 1764, the British Crown finally ruled that the region belonged to New York, thereby invalidating the Wentworth grants. New York’s legal victory counted for little, however, in the face of resistance by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. Prevented by New York from joining the thirteen newly-united states, in 1777 Vermont declared independence and endured as a republic until joining the Union in 1791.

Tobias Conrad Lotter Biography

Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717-1777) is one of the best-known German mapmakers of the eighteenth century. He engraved many of the maps published by Matthaus Seutter, to whose daughter Lotter was married. He took over Seutter’s business in 1756. Lotter’s son, M. A. Lotter, succeeded his father in the business.