Westminster Massacre

[1] It resulted in the killings of two men, William French and Daniel Houghton, by a sheriff's posse, after a crowd occupied the Westminster Courthouse to protest the evictions of several poor farmers from their homes by judges and other officials from New York.

Surveyors employed by the Yorkers were often attacked and beaten by angry farmers, who formed the radical Green Mountain Boys, an anti-Yorker militia led by Ethan Allen and Remember Baker.

When the rioters refused to disperse and end their "riotous assembly", Patterson rode to the town of Brattleboro, a Yorker stronghold, and recruited "25 residents for the purpose of 'keeping the peace'".

[citation needed] By 9:00 pm, when Patterson returned to Westminster with a posse of "60 to 70 armed men", the rioters were in control of both the courthouse and local jail.

One eyewitness described the chaos that ensued: They rushed in with their guns, swords, and clubs, and did most cruelly maim several more, and took some that were not wounded, and those that were, and crowded them all into close prison together, and then told them they should be in hell before the next night, and that they did wish that there were forty more in the same case with that dying man [William French].

News of the massacre spread quickly throughout New England and New York, partly because many of the rioters rode to neighboring towns and told locals how the sheriff's posse had killed William French.

The mob broke into the town jail, freeing all the prisoners, including the seven rioters who had been arrested, and proceeded to lock up the officials and Yorkers they had dragged through Westminster.