James Breakenridge
1721-1783
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James Breakenridge was born in Northern Ireland in 1727. He immigrated to the American colonies with his family in 1727 and settled in Massachusetts.
Breakenridge served as a lieutenant in the French and Indian War. Subsequently, in the early 1760s, he and his wife, Mary, were among the second wave of settlers to move to Bennington, a town chartered under the New Hampshire grants. He lived on land near the border with New York and became a prominent local figure, serving as one of the first elected selectmen in 1762.
In July 1771, Breakenridge's farm in Bennington became the center of a historic land dispute between settlers holding New Hampshire Grants and the Province of New York. After years of peaceful possession, New York land speculators claimed Breakenridge's land. A sheriff from Albany arrived with a posse of over 300 men to evict him. Breakenridge and a group of local settlers refused to surrender. Their successful armed resistance forced the sheriff's retreat and marked the first organized defiance of New York's authority in the region. This event led to the formation of the Green Mountain Boys militia and established a precedent for Vermont's eventual independence from both New York and Great Britain.
The "Breakenridge Standoff" is considered a foundational event in the "birth of Vermont."
