ontinually into the wilderness of New Hampshire. The
Connecticut river towns pressed steadily up that stream, along its
tributaries into the Hoosatonic valleys, and into the valleys between
the Green Mountains of Vermont. By the end of 1723, the General Court of
Massachusetts enacted,--

That It will be of Great Service to all the Western Frontiers,
both in this and the Neighboring Government of Conn., to Build
a Block House above Northfield, in the most convenient Place
on the Lands called the Equivilant Lands, & to post in it
forty Able Men, English & Western Indians, to be employed in
Scouting at a Good Distance up Conn. River, West River, Otter
Creek, and sometimes Eastwardly above the Great Manadnuck, for
the Discovery of the Enemy Coming towards anny of the frontier
Towns.[53:1]

The "frontier Towns" were preparing to swarm. It was not long before
Fort Dummer replaced "the Block House," and the Berkshires and Vermont
became new frontiers.

The Hudson River likewise was recognized as another line of advance
pointing the way to Lake Champlain and Montreal, calling out demands
that protection should be secured by means of an aggressive advance of
the frontier. _Canada delenda est_ became the rallying cry in New
England as well as in New York, and combined diplomatic pressure and
military expeditions followed in the French and Indian wars and in the
Revolution, in which the children of the Connecticut and Massachusetts
frontier towns, acclimated to Indian fighting, followed Ethan Allen and
his fellows to the north.[54:1]

Having touched upon some of the military and expansive tendencies of
this first official frontier, let us next turn to its social, economic,
and political aspects. How far was this first frontier a field for the
investment of eastern capital and for political control by it? Were
there evidences of antagonism between the frontier and the settled,
property-holding classes of the coast? Restless democracy, resentfulness
over taxation and control, and recriminations between the Western
pioneer and the Eastern capitalist, have been characteristic features of
other frontiers: were similar phenomena in evidence here? Did
"Populistic" tendencies appear in this frontier, and were there
grievances which explained these tendencies?[54:2]

In such colonies as New York and Virginia the land grants were often
made to members of the Council and their influential fr