For the Discovery of the Enemy - December 27, 1723
Looking south from the flanks of Wantastegokiwajo- Mount Wantastiquet to the now-flooded Kwenimskodak-Long Meadows on the west bank of Kwenitekw-Connecticut River just south of Brattleboro, VT, to the site of Fort Dummer, commissioned on Dec. 27, 1723 with construction begun on Feb. 3, 1724.
On this day, 301 years ago…
“…the General Court of the province of the Massachusetts Bay voted, on the 27th of December, 1723, "that it will be of great service to all the western frontiers, both in this and the neighboring government of Connecticut, to build a Block House, above Northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands call'd the Equivalent Lands, and to post in it 40 able men, English and Western Indians, to be employed in scouting at a good distance up Connecticut river, West river, Otter creek, and sometimes eastwardly, above great Monadnuck, for the discovery of the enemy coming towards any of the frontier towns, and that so much of the said Equivalent Lands as shall be necessary for a Block House be taken up with the consent of the owners of the said land, together with five or six acres of their interval land, to be broke up or plowed for the present use of the Western Indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring their families thither."
To fulfil the provisions contained in this vote, to which Lieutenant-Governor Dummer gave his assent, Col. John Stoddard of Northampton was ordered to superintend the building of the block house. The immediate oversight of the work was committed to Lieut. Timothy Dwight, who with a competent force, consisting of "four carpenters, twelve soldiers with narrow axes, and two teams," commenced operations on the 3d of February, 1724.”
From “History of eastern Vermont, from its earliest settlement to the close of the eighteenth century” Benjamin H. Hall, 1858 (pg.15)