The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a Faith’s pure shrine.
“Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They left unstained what there they found,
Freedom to worship God.”
They called Mr. Daniel Boardman to be their minister, and built the meeting-house and the schoolhouse, for these two institutions went hand in hand throughout New England and formed the characters of their descendants.
These early settlers of our town were busy men. They had
| MINOT S. GIDDINGS Chairman Historical Committee | DR. GEORGE H. WRIGHT Chairman Loan Committee |
hard work to perform in those early days to subdue the wilderness, to plant and cultivate the corn and the rye for their sustenance, to raise the flax and the wool which the womenfolk made into garments. Mechanics, artificers, and wheelwrights were at a premium. The village blacksmith was a most important and necessary person, and concessions were made and land given to induce blacksmiths to settle in the community.
Small manufactories were soon established on every considerable stream. The grist mill, the saw mill, the flax mill—these were important institutions. The spinning wheel was in every house, and the loom was set up in every neighborhood. It remained for our day to develop the immense manufactories situated near the large marts. Those were days that developed brawn and brain—two hundred years ago.
What were the deeds our fathers performed in those strenuous times? They have told us but little; a few things were recorded in the town books of record. They were too busy making history to expend much time in writing it. They cleared and fenced the fields; they built the town and the village.
They did not pretend to great academic learning, but they had good common sense which served them well. They went out to drive off the French and Indians who harried their borders in their peculiar savage way. They rallied to defend their liberties in the great War of the Revolution, for which they poured out their blood and treasure, more than two hundred and twelve from the town serving in that war.
Referring to the founders of this country, a noted orator said, “How little did these rulers of the Old World—James the First seeking to strangle the liberties of England, or Richelieu laying his plans to build up a kingly despotism—realize that a little group of English yeomen were founding a colony in a Western wilderness, from whose vigorous loins would spring a mighty nation to dominate the world when the Stuart and the Bourbon were alike forgotten!”
Of these Puritans and their English brethren, King James had scornfully said, “I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land.” He did indeed drive these Pilgrim Fathers from his land; but within five generations thereafter their descendants had harried the English Government from these shores, and, within another five generations, had compelled not only England, but the whole world as well, to conform to America’s principles of free government, to America’s ideas, to America’s commercial predominance.
Those early days of New Milford produced some noted men, whose lives and example did much to mould the characters of the inhabitants. The names of Boardman, Taylor, Noble, Gaylord, Bostwick, Canfield, Baldwin, Griswold, Sherman, Sanford, Mygatt, Marsh, Hine, Turrill, and others of the same stamp will be recalled as those of leaders in the affairs of the town and the church.
The greatest and the most celebrated man that ever honored the town with his citizenship was Roger Sherman. He came from Newton, Mass., in 1743, at the age of twenty-two years, and was active and influential in affairs of the town and church; but the town could not retain him long. Of him Edward Everett Hale said: “They say dear Roger Sherman was a shoemaker. I do not know, but I do know that every central suggestion in the American Constitution, the wisest work of men’s hands, that was struck off in so short a time, is the suggestion of this shoemaker, Roger Sherman.”
It was said that Roger Sherman was placed on every important committee while in Congress, and that no law, or part of a law, that he favored failed to be enacted. John Adams said that Chief Justice Ellsworth told him that he made Roger Sherman his model in youth.
The Fathers of New Milford wrought wisely and well in establishing the religious and civic institutions. They built well the town and wide the streets, and their descendants have enlarged and improved so much that this little village has the name far and wide of being one of the most beautiful spots in New England.
Remembering these hardy pioneers, their devotion to righteousness, their perseverance amid discouragements, and their
many virtues, we all—the loyal sons and daughters of New Milford, those who went forth to make homes for themselves elsewhere and have now returned hither, and the strangers from foreign shores who have settled here—join together this beautiful month of June to celebrate the founding of the town, two hundred years ago.
Minot S. Giddings.
GLIMPSES OF OLD NEW MILFORD HISTORY
Contributed by Charlotte Baldwin Bennett
FEW contrasts could be more striking than our beautiful village of to-day against the background of the place John Noble, the first white settler, found two hundred years ago. An unbroken wilderness met his eye, save for the Indian settlement across the river on Fort Hill, where the smoke, curling from many wigwams, marked the homes of over two hundred warriors with their families.
Even four years later, when the white man’s plantation included twelve settlers and about seventy souls, we find it a rather dismal picture. An irregular cart path, winding in and out among stumps of newly cut trees, formed the Main Street. A narrow road led from the north end of this street to the river, then followed the river bank a mile north to the rapids, the general crossing place. The first bridge over the Housatonic was built at New Milford, but not until 1737.
John Noble’s house, the first in the town, stood on the site of Mr. Levi P. Giddings’ present residence. At the time it was built, it was the last house this side of Albany, and fourteen miles from any white man’s dwelling. The original “Town Plot” was on Aspetuck Hill, our forefathers evidently being impressed even then with the beauty and healthfulness of the hilltops. What is now Park Lane was also in the first century of the town a more populous neighborhood than the one in our village. But the valley offered more shelter and protection in the rigorous winters, and doubtless the toilsome life of the pioneer made the hill-climbing a heavy burden; so the valley triumphed at last, and claimed the larger population.
In 1712 the “New Milford Plantation” became a town, the inhabitants having petitioned the General Court to that end. In this year, also, “Mr. Daniel Boardman was called to preach ye gospel at New Milford.” Previous to this, except for occasional preaching here, the people had been obliged to go to Woodbury or Derby for church services. John Noble became a member of the Woodbury Church in these first years. When we recall what was meant by that long journey of twenty-eight miles through the wilderness, in which the narrow Indian trail was the only path,