Historical Picture Postcards

Supplies of the  above cards are still available at the Historical Society

My Berlin Town

http://vimeo.com/23949575  

 My Berlin Town Sung by Linda Radkte at the Congregational Church along with other Vermont Historical Songs in September of 2010.  Words by Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hewitt and Music by William D. Bartlett

 Berlin will celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Town Charter on June 8, 2013

The township of Berlin was granted on June 8, 1763, to Rev. Chauncey Graham and sixty-three associates by Benning Went­worth, governor of the Province of New Hampshire. The original charter is in the office of the Secretary of State at Montpelier in the Surveyor General's Papers (II, page 149 A-B).

The first Proprietors' meeting of record was held at Arlington, Vermont, on May 17, 1785, and the town was organized and the first town meeting held at Berlin, on March 31, 1791. Around these three dates-1763, 1785 and 1791-runs the story which I shall try to record relative to the founding of the town of Berlin.

In order that a true picture can be given of the circumstances under which the township came into being, it is necessary to show the unconventional manner in which all the New Hampshire Grants under Governor Benning Wentworth were made.

The customary procedure whereby lands in the American colo­nies were granted began with a formal petition, signed by the prospective grantees (or patentees, as they were sometimes called) requesting a grant of a certain tract of land. These petitions were sent to the governor of the colony within which the land lay, and by him taken before his councillors, and together they made (or withheld) the grant, fixing the fees and terms and condi­tions of settlement.

There are no such petitions extant in the New Hampshire archives for lands west of Connecticut River for the simple reason that they never existed. Governor Wentworth pursued quite another course in making his grants which was contrary to explicit orders received by him in his Royal Commission from the British Government which contained instructions for carrying out the commands laid down in the Commission. The manner in which these grants were made is set forth in a sworn deposition of Joseph Blanchard, a surveyor and member of the New Hampshire legis­lative assembly, made on March I, 1771, and incorporated as Appendix XXVII of the famous document known as State of the Right of the Colony of New York, published in 1773.

 The details are outlined in Mary Greene Nye's  History of Berlin 1763 - 1820 which is under Berlin Historical Societies Page in its entirety.