“It is thought also that the ground where we now stand and Aspetuck Hill had been in a large measure cleared of trees by the Indians by burning, as was also Grassy Hill, two miles east of here. There appears also to have been some meadow land partially cleared at the mouth of the Aspetuck River.
“At that time the country about here presented no such appearance as it does now. The river then flowed with a fuller tide. With the exceptions I have noted, a continuous forest overspread the whole landscape. No thickets, however, choked up the ways through it, for the underbrush was swept away every year by fires built by the Indians for that purpose. Winding footpaths led here and there, which the Indians and wild beasts followed. The roots of the smaller grasses were destroyed by this annual burning over. A coarse, long grass grew along the low banks of the river and wherever the ground was not thickly shaded by trees. After the occupation of the country by the white settlers this annual burning was prohibited. In lieu thereof, the General Court early in its history enacted that every inhabitant, with a few exceptions, should devote a certain time yearly, in the several plantations, to the cutting of brush and small trees in the more open forests for the purpose of allowing grass to grow in such places, as during the summer the cattle ranged through the forests near the plantations subsisting on what grew there. It is said that in the early settlement of this town all meadow land was secured by clearing marshy or swampy ground and allowing it to grow up with grass from the roots and seeds already in the soil. It was one of the early difficulties in the colony to secure grass from want of seed.
“The forests about here abounded with bears, wolves, foxes, and catamounts, deer and moose, wild turkeys, pigeons, quail and partridges, and the waters with wild geese, ducks, herons, and cranes. The river itself was alive with fish, and every spring great quantities of shad and lamprey eels ascended it. Strawberries, blackberries, and huckleberries were extremely abundant in their season.
“The winters were usually of great severity. In 1637 the snow lay on the ground three feet deep all over New England from the third of November until the twenty-third of March, and on the twenty-third of April it snowed for several hours in Boston, the flakes being as large as shillings. The springs were very backward, the summers extremely hot and often dry.
“Upon the petition of the people of Milford, in May, 1702, the General Assembly granted them liberty to purchase from the Indians a township at Wyantonock, the Indian name of this place, and directed them to report their doings to the Assembly. The next March they made an extensive purchase of the natives, and a patent for the same was granted by the Assembly. In October, 1704, the Legislature enacted that the tract so purchased should be a township by the name of New Milford, and that it must be settled in five years,—the town plat to be fixed by a committee appointed by the General Assembly. In October, 1706, the Legislature annexed the tract to New Haven County. In April, 1706, the first meeting of the proprietors was held at Milford, and it was voted that the town plat and home lots should be speedily pitched and laid out by the committee appointed by the Legislature, according to its own best judgment, following certain rules laid down by the proprietors. During that year and according to those rules, the town plat was laid out.
“It was originally intended to lay out the settlement on the hill immediately east of the present village, from this circumstance called Town Hill to this day. In point of fact, it was laid out on Aspetuck Hill, and consisted of the town street and sixteen home lots. The street was twenty rods wide. It began at the south end of the brow of the hill, or at the lower end of what was then called the ‘Plain on the Hill,’ and extended northward. Eight lots were laid out on each side of this street, each lot being twenty-one rods wide and sixty deep.
“By the rules adopted by the proprietors, these lots were to be taken up successively in regular order by the settlers as they should arrive. John Noble took the first lot on the east side of the street at the lower end, he being the first settler to arrive. John Bostwick took the lot on the opposite side of the street, he being the next settler on the ground. This method was followed by the others until there were twelve settlers, with their families, numbering seventy souls, located on this street in 1712. Of these twelve families, four were from Northampton and Westfield, Mass., four were from Stratford, two from Farmington, and only two from Milford. In 1714 the town street was extended southward to the south end of the present public green.
“The first houses constructed here by the settlers were of the rudest description. They were built of logs fastened by notching at the corners. They were usually from fifteen to eighteen feet square, and about seven feet in height, or high enough for a tall man to enter. At first they had no floors. The fireplace was erected at one end by making a back of stones laid in mud, and not in mortar, and a hole was left in the bark or slab roof for the escape of the smoke. A chimney of sticks plastered with mud was afterwards erected in this opening. A space, of width suitable for a door, was cut in one side, and this was closed, at first, by hanging in it a blanket, and afterwards by a door made from split planks and hung on wooden hinges. This door was fastened by a wooden latch on the inside, which could be raised from the outside by a string. When the string was pulled in the door was effectually fastened. A hole was cut in each side of the house to let in light, and, as glass was difficult to obtain, greased paper was used to keep out the storms and cold of autumn and winter. Holes were bored at the proper height in the logs at one corner of the room, and into these the ends of poles were fitted, the opposite ends, where they crossed, being supported by a crotch or a block of the proper height. Across these poles others were laid, and these were covered by a thick mattress of hemlock boughs, over which blankets were spread. On such beds as these the first inhabitants of this town slept and their first children were born. For want of chairs, rude seats were made with ax and auger by boring holes and inserting legs in planks split from basswood logs, hewn smooth on one side. Tables were made in the same way, and, after a time, the floor, a bare space being left about the fireplace instead of a hearthstone.
“No sooner had the first settlers taken up their abode here than they were called upon to defend the title to their lands in the courts of the Colony. About thirty-seven years before, the General Court had granted permission to certain Stratford parties to buy land from the Indians and settle a plantation at this place, and they had bought over twenty-six thousand acres hereabouts. Apparently, however, no attempt was made towards a settlement of the same until after the purchase of the same tract from the Indians by the Milford parties in 1702, and the grant for a patent for the same to them by the General Court in 1703. Soon after the settlers first broke ground here, in 1707, a suit was begun against them by the Stratford people in the County Court at New Haven in May, 1708, and it was carried thence to the General Court. It was tried sixteen times. The first fifteen times the plaintiffs won on the strength of their Indian title. The sixteenth, the defendants won on the strength of their Indian title, the patent from the General Court, and occupation. This incident is particularly interesting, because one of the plaintiffs and the lawyer in this great case was the famous John Read, one of the ablest men and most remarkable characters which New England has produced. Some notice of him will not be inappropriate here, as he was one of the earliest inhabitants of this place.
“He was born at Fairfield, June 29, 1679, and was a brother-in-law of Governor Talcott. He graduated at Harvard in 1697, and became a minister, preached in Woodbury as a candidate, and in various towns in Hartford and Fairfield counties, and preached the first sermon ever delivered in this place. He studied law, and when, in 1708, the General Assembly first provided for the appointment of attorneys as officers of the court, he was one of the first admitted. He held the offices of Colony Queen’s Attorney, 1712-16; Deputy for Norwalk, 1715-17; Commissioner to settle the boundary with New York, 1719; and he was Connecticut’s representative in the Inter-Colonial Commission in regard to Bills of Credit, in 1720. He removed to Boston in 1722 and became the Attorney General and a member of the Council of Massachusetts. He was by far the most eminent lawyer of New England, and was called ‘The Pride of the Bar, Light of the Law, and Chief among the Wise, Witty, and Eloquent.’ It was he who prepared the instructions to Lord Mansfield, the counsel for Connecticut in the great case of Clark vs. Tousey, in which was discussed the question whether the Common Law of England had any force in Connecticut other than as it was adopted by the people of Connecticut. His exposition of the principles involved was most masterly, and it was the great authority upon which in a later generation the people of Connecticut relied to sustain them in their opposition to the measures of the crown in 1775.