I went to college in Vermont, and it's beautiful. But I imagine a more important consideration to New Englanders migrating up to Vermont in the 18th century was the prospect of land. In the older colonies (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and maybe Rhode Island), land disappeared as families begat families and towns correspondingly begat towns. Also, some farmland was wearing out. People were not free to go West, because the King's Proclamation of 1763 forbade settlement beyond the Appalachians. So - why not try, say, the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania? Why not try - Vermont? (Beautiful as it was, it never looked very fertile to me, and our meals confirmed that impression.) Anne