This map of unknown authorship shows approximately where many of the early settlers lived. It uses the current boundaries of Clarendon and with modern day roads that can be used as references. At the time under the Lydius Grants and then under NY's jurisdiction there was a competing set of names and boundaries. The northern part of what is now Clarendon was part of the town of Socialborough which extended up through what is today Rutland and West Rutland. South of Socialborough were the towns of Durham and Kelso. Kelso was the western side of town (Chippenhook & Clarendon Springs). Durham was everything on the eastern side of the mountain. Clarendon's name and boundaries came from the New Hampshire Grants which ultimately prevailed over the competing Lydius and NY claims. Those competing land claims in combination with the confiscations of Tory properties during the Revolutionary War made the 1770's the most tumultuous period in Clarendon's history.
More information on this period can be found at:
In the Soldiers & Wars collection:
- Tory Prisoners
In the Places collection:
- Kelso
- Land Grants & Confiscations
- A Brief History of Clarendon
In the Documents collection:
- History of Clarendon
Note that the Sprague lot in the bottom half of the map would be the Jesse Sprague family. They may have been the very 1st family to settle in Clarendon. The 1st family recorded as coming to Clarendon was the Charles Button household in the autumn of 1767 but in the book People of Wallingford by Birney C. Batcheller published in 1937 it is said that the Spragues were the only neighbors that the Buttons had when they arrived.
Note that Clarendon's early settlement history found in the 1877 publication The Vermont Historical Gazetteer, Volume III, by Abby Maria Hemenway, and the various subsequent histories that drew off of it, lists the very first settlers as a group of men who came to what is now North Clarendon in 1768. From the Button's account we know that they and the Spragues were here in the autumn of 1767 in the very southern part of town.
This map was contributed by Dawn Hance.