Fort Dummer Survey 1749 Brattleboro

Brattleboro's Fort Dummer, built in 1724, was the first English settlement in Vermont, and was an important military fort and  trading post before there was a Vermont.  This was Massachusetts at the time. An accurate survey of the fort as it stood 25 years later was made by surveyor Matthew Patten from New Hanpshire*. 
This surveyor's 1749 notebook sketch shown above is likely not proportional , a normal practice when a surveyor is making his raw measurements.  (see the Jones drawing following),

There may not be a final drafted version of this survey, as this image was used as the basis for published drawings of the fort, such as this 1896 rendering (BELOW) by PVMA (Deerfield, MA)

****** Volunteers needed to transcribe  more old docs. ******

If you would like a nifty winter project to help flesh out this 300 year old bit of history. contact dave allen:    daven@sover.net.  I have original documents (copies) that need transcribing and analysis.  ****In winter of 1726 a dozen or so men and one woman, with child, were here.****

This is clearly a copy of the 1749 field book sketch:   "The Perade"...and "Fort Dumer".
This image was used for several histories such as Mary Cabot's History of Brattleboro and Crockett's History of Vermont both published in the1920s.

There is a different iteration of the fort on a drawing by  E.A. Jones if Marlow NH. Below is an edited version if the drawing which was given to Brooks Library in 1891:
The EA Jones drawing is more accurate than the widely used 1896 print, as the math matches the original 1749 text (see later page). An 1891 news story (below) reports on the gift of the map by Mr. Jones, and states that "this plan does not correspond with the historical historic description of the fort... but it is the belief of the best authorities that it is correct."

.It is puzzling that the inaccurate 1896 sketch was used for Mary Cabot's History of Brattleboro and the other 1920s publications, and continued to be used a century later, despite the existence of the EA Jones more accurate drawing, and the fact that Jones was not a secret! For many years it was on display at the Brooks Library. (My photograph was in 2003). The drawing is now at the Windham County Historical Society in Newfane.
:

In the 1960s interest in the fort led to a wooden scale model being made by one Hertzberg.  The scale model was depicted in a 1961(1963?) newspaper story. A warm weather project will be to measure the model (now stored in a cold facility) to see how it compares to Jones.

The actual math (metes and bounds) of the 1749 survey is available and will be plotted out this month.  The math appears on the same notebook sheet as the surveyor's sketch at the top of this page.  Below is a "mini-poster" which depicts the 2-page notebook.sheet.  (In the field while surveying, this sheet was folded twice to fit into a pocket).

Below are the 2 excerpts "A-sketch" and "A-math".  



Above:   "A-Math".    These 21 lines are the actual metes and bounds of the 1749 fort. After they are transcribed a 2026 plot can be made and compared with the Jones map above. The new plot will derive also  from the 2 sketches on this document and also on building descriptions found in a separate 30-page notebook , also dated 1749.
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Narrative on Fort Dummer History and Use in 1749  (title supplied)

"The first building of Fort Dummer 
was in the beginning of Lovewell's War .."

the above is from page 7 of the 30-page notebook.  Pages 7-11 have been transcribed:
below is typed page 7: (The complete transcriptions and sketches are in a link below.)

    You will note that we have trouble with some of the words.  However the text seems to report two versions of the fort, one 80' square which burned in 1737, and the second much larger fort mapped by this 1749 survey..
The first Fort Dummer was probably built to the  Stoddard design, seen below.

The shetch above - of the first Fort Dummer -  was drawn by Sara Campbell based on the words on page 7. The link below is a PDF of typed pages 7-11 along with sketch interpretations of the 1749 words. 
The text and the sketches can be reviewed again to see if we can construct  a 3d picture of the fort.

The 1749 Notebook pf 7-11 - Interpretation by Sara Campbell:  

See also these pages from Early Maps of Brattleboro  
 
..........  to be continued ...

*  In 1724 this was part of Massachusetts.  There was no Vermont until much later. The Fort was built to protect Massachusetts settlements further south such as Deerfield and Northampton. In 1740 the fort became part if New Hampshire when the Mass-NH boundary was settled.  The 1749 survey was made by New Hampshire so that officials in faraway Portsmouth & Concord could know what they had. 

Dave Allen
old-maps,com     Jan 2026