“Resolve never to become Slaves”: Champlain Valley Residents Declare Their Principles
The General Association signed at Crown Point.
Posted on June 15, 2025
“Resolve never to become Slaves”: Champlain Valley Residents Declare Their Principles
On April 29, 1775, a group of New York City citizens signed a document declaring their intent to stand with the Continental Congress in resistance to “arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament”. The document was sent out to other New York counties as a “form of association” that people could use to declare their principles. 250 years ago today—June 15, 1775—Benedict Arnold and 30 other men signed their names to their own copy of the association at Crown Point.
Rather than committing themselves to the radical idea of independence, the signers held out hope for reconciliation with Britain. They “Resolve[d] never to become Slaves” and “Associate[d] under all the Ties of Religion, Honour and Love to our Country, to adopt… whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress”, but only “until a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America, on Constitutional Principles, (which we most ardently Desire) can be obtained”.
The first signer of the document was Benedict Arnold, then commanding at Crown Point. The others hailed from throughout the Crown Point region and beyond. There were Vermont residents like Zadok Everest, one of the Green Mountain Boys who had accompanied Ethan Allen on the Ticonderoga Expedition. Some were prominent citizens of New York, like Dr. Thomas Sparham, a justice of the peace and ex-British soldier who had received a land grant in Crown Point as compensation for his Seven Years’ War service. Some were from farther afield, like Connecticut resident Isaac Hitchcock.
The signers’ paths would diverge after signing this association. Independence would delight some but be a bridge too far for others. Many signers would serve in the American army, while at least four of them would remain loyal to Great Britain. Arnold infamously walked both paths, becoming an American hero in the war’s early years before turning his coat in 1780. For this moment, though, each of them agreed that “the Salvation of the Rights and Liberties of America” was worth standing up for.
View the association (MS.1934) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database here.