Brattleboro came into being in the early decades of the 1700s, during a turbulent time in the history of northern New England. European settlers were moving upriver into the wilderness from the older Connecticut Valley towns of Deerfield and Northfield. These English speaking settlers were not always welcomed by the native peoples - the Indians - who resisted, sometimes with force, the intrusions by Europeans onto the lands they used. Here, on a site of level land below the West River, a small wooden fort was built, in 1724, to protect downstream settlements. Fort Dummer was in continuous use for a generation as a military garrison and a trading post. Here families were raised, and the English speaking history of Vermont began.

The towns depicted here were all established by Massachusetts, which claimed all the land shown on this part of the map. The oldest town on the detail map is Northfield, which then included Vernon, Vermont and Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Northfield was established in 1672, and was the northernmost settlement until the early 1700s. The heavy shaded line is the New Hampshire / Massachusetts line, which was set by the English King in 1741. There was no Vermont in the early years. The town called Canada to Gallop is now Guilford, Fall Fight Town is Bernardston, Mass., Chesterfield is township "No. 1" (east side of the river), next to ‘Lower & Upper Ashuelot" (Swanzey & Keene, New Hampshire). It is interesting that this very old map shows the two principal waterways in Brattleboro by their present names, the West River and Whetstone River (Brook).