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TWICE ENDORSED BY HANCOCK
30
●
(VERMONT.) JAY, JOHN. Letter Signed, as President of the Continental
Congress, to Massachusetts Council President Jeremiah Powell (“The Honorable President
Powell”), sending the Act of Congress of September 24 concerning the resolution of
boundary disputes between NY, MA, and NH, noting that the act was passed unanimously,
and urging the relevant states to adopt it.With two endorsements signed by John Hancock
as Speaker of the MA Council on the verso, acknowledging the act’s reading on October 8
and approval on November 13.With other endorsements signed by John Avery, on recto
and verso. 1 page, tall 4to, with integral blank; faint scattered foxing, folds; matted in a dou-
ble-sided frame. (MRS)
Philadelphia, 25 September 1779
[8,000/12,000]
In 1777, the region circumscribed by New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth’s New
Hampshire Grants was declared by its inhabitants to be the independent republic of Vermont, though
the neighboring states did not recognize it.When disagreements about the boundaries of New York,
New Hampshire, and Massachusetts aroused the interest of the Continental Congress in 1779, it
resolved to adjudicate the border disputes in the act mentioned in the present letter. In 1791,Vermont
became the 14th state of the union.
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