Equivalent Lands

The Equivalent Lands were several large tracts of land that the Province of Massachusetts Bay made available to settlers from the Connecticut Colony after April 1716. This was done as compensation for an equivalent area of territory that was under Connecticut's jurisdiction but had been inadvertently settled by citizens of Massachusetts.^[1][2]:137 The problem had arisen due to errors and imprecise surveys made earlier in the seventeenth century. The Equivalent Lands were never mapped.^[3]

Settlers in Springfield, Massachusetts, had several disagreements with settlers from Hartford, Connecticut, during the late 1630s when the Connecticut Colony was just getting established. The Springfield settlers decided to align themselves with the Massachusetts Bay Colony instead of Connecticut.^[4] As a result, Massachusetts Bay surveyed the border between Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1642, and took control of land as far south as Warehouse Point at Windsor Locks, Connecticut, the northernmost point on the Connecticut River controlled by the tides.

In the 1690s, Connecticut Colony officials performed their own survey and discovered errors that were made in Massachusetts's 1642 survey, but it was not until 1713 that the two colonies co-operated to survey correct boundaries. At that time, the surveyors found that Massachusetts Bay had offered Springfield settlers the right to 105,793 acres (428.13 km²) that actually belonged to Connecticut. The settlers had established themselves in and around the towns of Springfield, Westfield, Suffield, and other areas west of the Connecticut River and believed themselves to be in lands belonging to Massachusetts Bay.^[5] Most of those inhabiting the area did not want to change jurisdiction from Massachusetts to Connecticut, so they agreed that Massachusetts would retain administration over the settled lands. In return, Connecticut would be granted property rights (but not sovereignty) for an equal number of acres within Massachusetts, "as an equivalent to the said colony".^:137–138 Connecticut began to auction off the "Equivalent Lands" in 1716, using most of the proceeds to fund the establishment of Yale College.

Los levantamientos topográficos que delimitaron los nuevos terrenos concluyeron el 10 de noviembre de 1715. Un terreno se ubicaba en el área alrededor de Pelham y Hadley , otro en el área que abarcaba Putney , Brattleboro y Dummerston , y otro a lo largo del lado este del río Connecticut. Los comisionados designados para ubicar estas tierras fueron el gobernador de Massachusetts , Joseph Dudley ; el gobernador de Connecticut, Gurdon Saltonstall ; los residentes de Massachusetts, Elisha Hutchinson e Isaac Addington; y los residentes de Connecticut, William Pitkin y William Whiting. Estos terrenos, conocidos como las Tierras Equivalentes, se pusieron a la venta en Hartford los días 24 y 25 de abril de 1716, y los ingresos se destinaron a la fundación de Yale. ^{[ 2 ] : 137–138} Estas tierras subastadas se agruparon en al menos tres parcelas conocidas; sin embargo, dado que no existen mapas de las Tierras Equivalentes, ^{[ 6 ]} es posible que hubiera áreas adicionales que no se subastaron en ese momento.

Un grupo de especuladores inmobiliarios compró una parcela de 44 000 acres (180 ^km² ) . Este grupo incluía a William Brattle, Jr., de quien Brattleboro, Vermont, recibió su nombre. ^{[ 3 ]} Otros compradores iniciales de las tierras fueron Paul Dudley , Thomas Fitch III y Jonathan Belcher . ^{[ 7 ]}