and another appointing Matthew Beal as "Quorister to set the Psalm in this Society." On the 29th of December, 1766, it was voted to build" another Meeting House, 50 by 40, and 22 high." This house was inclosed three years later, but not entirely finished till 1798. January 19, 1825, the third meeting-house, a convenient edifice of stone, was dedicated. This house is fifty-four feet by forty-four, twenty-four feet high, and stands entirely on solid rock. Besides this, the society is now building a new church at the "Upper City," or Raumaug.

The church was fully organized in 1757, and Rev. Noah Wadhams, as we have seen, was its first minister. At its organization, it was constituted of thirty-nine members, and fifty-four more were added during the ministry of Mr. Wadhams. He was a graduate of Nassau Hall College, of the class of 1754, and Yale College conferred the degree of Master of Arts on him in 1764.

The second minister was Rev. Jeremiah Day, who was ordained over the church, January 31, 1770, and died September 12, 1806, in the seventieth year of his age. During the long period of his ministrations, one hundred and twenty-three persons were admitted to the church, and three hundred were baptized. The church enjoyed during this time, much peace and prosperity. Mr. Day graduated at Yale College in 1756. He was the father of Rev. Jeremiah Day, D. D., LL. D., ex-president of Yale College, and of Hon. Thomas Day, LL. D., reporter of judicial decisions for the State of Con

necticut.

Rev. Samuel Whittlesey was the third minister, and was installed over the church and society December 30, 1807, and dismissed April 30, 1817. A hundred and forty-two were added to the church during the time of his ministry, and one hundred and sixty-seven were by him baptized. After a successful ministry of ten years in this parish, he was connected with the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford, and subsequently, for several years, acted as editor of the Mother's Magazine in New York. He was a pleasant, gentlemanly man, of a versatility of talent to meet the variety of his employ

ments.

Rev. Charles A. Boardman was installed June 24, 1818, and dismissed March 9, 1830. During his ministry, one hundred and thirtyfour were admitted to the church, and two hundred baptized. In 1819, he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Yale

1 State Archives-Ecclesiastical, II., vol. 1.

College. The whole number of members admitted to the church between the years 1757 and 1825, was three hundred and nineteen. Rev. Robert B. Campfield was ordained over the church November 16, 1831. Eighty-eight persons were added to the church during his continuance over it, and there were seventy-nine baptisms. Rev. Benjamin B. Parsons was ordained, in 1839, to the work of the ministry in this society, and was dismissed on his resignation of the ministerial office, 1842. Rev. Hollis Read was settled in 1845, and dismissed in 1851. The church is now without a settled pastor.

There have been several revivals, which added considerable numbers to the church: thirty in 1780; twenty-five in 1804; thirteen in 1812; eighty in 1816; forty-one in 1821; thirteen in 1826; thirtyeight in 1827; and thirteen in 1829.

The following persons have borne the office of deacon in this church. Eliphalet Whittlesey, date not given; Moses Averill and Isaac Dayton, in 1783; Jonah Camp, 1784; Joseph Bassett, 1803; Daniel Whittlesey, 1807; Samuel B. Buck, 1812; Clark Hatch, 1822; Charles Whittlesey and Benjamin B. Knapp, 1826.

Washington, composed of the two societies of Judea and New Preston, was the first town incorporated in the state, after the declaration of independence. It was incorporated at a special session of the General Assembly, January 7, 1779. The petitioners, who numbered forty-seven in Kent, one hundred and seventy-six in Woodbury, twenty in Litchfield, and twenty in New Milford, desired the Assembly to call their town by the name of Hampden, but their agents were persuaded to consent to have it called Washington, in honor of the commander-in-chief of the American armies. Its first meeting was held February 11, 1779, and William Cogswell was the first mod

erator.

Its boundaries are as follows:

"Beginning at the south-west corner of Judea parish; thence running a straight line easterly, to the south-west corner of Bethlehem, five miles and about one ne quarter of a mile; thence North by Bethlehem to Litchfield line, it being the north-west corner of Bethlehem; thence continuing north in a straight line, to the north-east corner of the tract annexed from Litchfield; (the east line of Washington, so far as it is straight, is between five and six miles ;) thence in a north-westerly direction, across the western part of Mount Tom, to Mount Tom bridge, crossing the western branch of Sheppauge river: thence in a line westerly, between Washington and Warren, to the West Pond; thence across said pond ninety rods to Fairweather's Grant. The diagonal line from the northeast corner of Washington to Mount Tom bridge, is about two miles and an half: the north line is about five miles in length. From the northwest corner of Washington the line runs about South, between Washington and

Kent, one mile and a half to New Milford line; thence still South to the South line of New Milford, north purchase; thence Southerly to the South-east bounds of the parish of New Preston, about one mile and an nalf; thence by New Milford, about three miles and an half to the first inentioned bounds."

The only incident in the possession of the author, not before noticed in these pages, is here introduced. Rhoda Logan, daughter of John Logan, during the Revolution, was shot by her brother while standing in the front door of her father's house, under the following circumstances. A few persons opposed to the Revolution, then going on, were assembled in Davis' Hollow, a mile or two north of Logan's. The whigs in his neighborhood wished to dislodge them, and had assembled at his house to devise the best method of doing it. While they were in council, young Logan went to a neighbor's, and returned with a musket, when his sister, seeing him in warlike mood, asked him what he was going to do with the gun. He replied, "Shoot tories." She rejoined, "You kill tories; you have not courage enough to fire the gun." He said he had. "Then shoot me," she said playfully. Upon which he fired, and she fell dead at his feet.

This is a good agricultural town, and has a considerable manufacturing interest. There are within its limits, six mercantile stores, employing a capital of from $12,000 to $15,000; one woolen manufactory, employing a capital of some $10,000, and making from 70,000 to 80,000 yards of cloth annually. There are two forges, not now in operation, and one cotton manufactory. There are two pocket furnaces with machine shops attached, employing from twelve to twenty men each, four wagon shops, one saddler's shop, one tannery, one chair and cabinet shop, one manufactory for making carpet yarn and seine twine, and fourteen saw-mills. From 600 to 1,000 casks of lime are annually burned, and from 25,000 to 30,000 feet of marble per annum, are quarried and sawed. There are three Congregational churches, and two Episcopal; a celebrated female seminary, under the care of Miss Brinsmade, and a select school for boys, under the care of Frederick W. Gunn, A. B. There is also a good circulating library. The population of the town, by the census of 1850, is 1,802.

CHAPTER XIV.

HISTORY OF ROXBURY ECCLESIASTICAL SOCIETY, AND THE TOWN

OF ROXBURY.

1731 TO 1853; Shepaug first settled, 1713; First Settlers; FOUR MONTHS' WINTER PREACHING GRANTED, 1731; NINE YEARS Spent in efforts TO OBTAIN A NEW SOCIETY; ROXBURY SOCIETY INCORPORATED, 1713; FIRST CHURCH BUILT ABOUT 1732; SECOND CHURCH BUILT, 1746; CHURCH GATHERED, and REV. THOMAS CANFIELD SETtled, 1744; MR. CANFIELD'S CHURCH HISTORY; REV. ZEPHANIAH SWIFT INSTALLED, 1795; REV. FOSDICK HARRISON ORDAINED, JUNE, 1813; REV. AUSTIN ISHAM INSTALLED, 1839; THIRD CHURCH BUILT, 1795; REVIVALS; DEACONS; TEN YEARS SPENT IN EFFORTS TO OBTAIN A TOWN CHARTER; ROXBURY INCORPORATED INTO A Town, 1796; Casualties; PresENT STATE OF THE TOWN.

THE first settlement in Shepaug was made about the year 1713, by a man of the name of Hurlbut, who was soon joined by some of his relations. He located on the spot a few rods north of the house now occupied by Mr. Treat Davidson, a little south-east of the house once occupied by Peace Minor. This section was afterward called the "Upper Farms." Here they built a small fort for security against the Indians, to which they resorted at night. Sometimes when war existed with the Indians, in any direction, Woodbury sent a small number of soldiers to garrison this fort. One of the Hurlbuts soon married a Baker, and a number of her relations were induced to join the new settlement. Hence originated the Bakers, who were afterward of some notoriety in the society. Some representatives of this blood, in the female line, afterward became famous throughout the country. One of these was Col. Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, and Col. Seth Warner, his intimate friend and military associate. Capt. Remember Baker, also, a cousin of these, of the Baker name, was intimately associated with them in all their undertakings of moment, before and during the early part of the Revolutionary War.

It is said by some, that a family of Hurds built the first house in

the present town of Roxbury, on the top of Good Hill, east of the house now occupied by Mr. Botsford. There, too, they built a small fort. The two settlements probably commenced about the same time. In about two years, Henry Castle settled on the spot where William Pierce, Esq., formerly lived. This location, to distinguish it from the other settlement, was called the "Lower Farms." Dr. Ebenezer Warner next removed here from the old society, having bought Promiseck, heretofore mentioned, of the Indians. Numbers of his descendants, in each generation, down to the fifth, were physicians, some of whom gained a commendable notoriety. After these came a number of Castle families, and settled on what is called the "Lower Road." For some twenty years, the inhabitants attended divine worship in the "ancient Society." This was done both summer and winter, by male and female, often on foot, the males carrying their fire-arms to protect themselves from the assaults of savage foes.

This state of affairs continued till October, 1731, when "21 Western inhabitants at Shippaug in Woodbvry," constituted Henry Castle their attorney, to petition the General Assembly for liberty to hire a preacher in the "difficult parts of the year," on the ground of their living "from 4 to 7 miles from the Meeting House," and the bad state of the roads. The petition was granted, and they were allowed to hire a minister four months in the winter. They sent a petition to the October session of the Assembly next year, to have the time increased to six months each year, but the request was denied. Things remained in this state till the May session, 1736, when thirty-one persons petitioned the Assembly to be constituted into a distinct ecclesiastical society. They urged that they lived six miles from the place of worship, and the roads were rough; that they had a list of £2,200, which was increasing. They asked an extension of privileges to advance both their "temporal and spiritual interests." They prayed to be made a society with a portion of the territory of the North Purchase and New Milford, to be called Westbury. They wished the east line of the society drawn two and a half miles west from "Woodbury Meeting House," or have a committee appointed to establish it. A committee was appointed, who reported at the October session the same year, that it was difficult for them to attend 66 worship at Woodbury, but at present they are unable to bear the expenses of a parish, but may be able in two years." Their application was accordingly dismissed. In May, 1739, they renewed, and then withdrew their application for a new society. At the October