known as the New Hampshire Grants, that is now modern Vermont. New York was given legal control of the area by a decision of the British crown and refused to respect the New Hampshire titles and town charters. Although a few towns with New York land titles, notably Brattleboro on the Connecticut River, supported the change, the vast majority of the settlers in the sparsely populated frontier region rejected the authority of New York. With several hundred members, the Green Mountain Boys effectively controlled the area where New Hampshire grants had been issued. They were led by Ethan Allen, his brother Ira Allen, and their cousins Seth Warner and Remember Baker. They were based at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington. By the 1770s, the Green Mountain Boys had become an armed military force and de facto government, which was also a militia, that prevented New York from exercising its authority in the northeast portion of the Province of New York. New York authorities had standing warrants for the arrest of the leaders of the rebellious Vermonters but were unable to exercise them. New York surveyors and other officials attempting to exercise their authority were prevented from doing so and in some cases were severely beaten, and settlers arriving to clear and work land under New York–issued grants were forced off their land, and sometimes had their possessions destroyed. At the same time, New York sought to extend its authority over the territory. During an event once known as the Westminster massacre, anti-Yorkers occupied the courthouse in Westminster to prevent a New York judge from holding court, and two men were killed in the ensuing standoff. Ethan Allen then went to Westminster with a band of Boys and organized a convention calling for the territory's independence from New York. When the American Revolutionary War started in 1775, Ethan Allen and a troop of his men, along with Connecticut [[ captain (United States)| Captain]] Benedict Arnold, marched up to Lake Champlain and captured the strategically important British military posts at Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Fort George, all in New York. The Boys also briefly held St. John's in Québec, but retreated on word of arriving British regulars. In Summer 1775, the Green Mountain Boys became the basis for the Green Mountain Rangers, a regiment in the Continental Army that selected colonel Seth Warner as its leader. Some of the Green Mountain