Stephen Bradley comes to Vermont 1779
If you are interested in early Vermont history then you should become acquainted with Stephen R. Bradley. He moved to Westminster, Vermont in 1779 and quickly became an important figure in the economic and political establishment of the state. He was born in Connecticut, but we know little of his early life. Bradley graduated from Yale in 1775 and joined the Connecticut Militia at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. He became an officer in the militia and also trained to be a lawyer. In early 1779 he resigned from the Connecticut Militia and moved to the newly established region of Vermont. Towns from the area had met in 1777 and declared their independence from New York and Great Britain. Vermont operated as its own state but New York still claimed the land as theirs. Bradley’s first Vermont court case placed him in the middle of another kind of battle. In May of 1779, while […]