Woodstock: An historical sketch

Woodstock: An historical sketch
Clarence Bowen

Clarence Winthrop Bowen

Woodstock: An historical sketch

As a full history of Woodstock has been in preparation for several years and will, it is hoped, be published in the course of another year, this brief sketch is issued as it was read at the Bi-Centennial Anniversary of the town.

I

The history of the town of Woodstock is associated with the beginnings of history in New England. The ideas of the first settlers of Woodstock were the ideas of the first settlers of the Colony of Plymouth and the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The planting of these colonies was one of the fruits of the Reformation. The antagonism between the Established Church of England and the Non-Conformists led to the settlement of New England. The Puritans of Massachusetts, at first Non-Conformists, became Separatists like the Pilgrims of Plymouth. Pilgrims and Puritans alike accepted persecution and surrendered the comforts of home to obtain religious liberty. They found it in New England; and here, more quickly than in the mother country, they developed also that civil liberty which is now the birthright of every Anglo-Saxon.

II

The settlement of Woodstock is intimately connected with the first organized settlement on Massachusetts Bay; and how our mother town of Roxbury was first established is best told in the words of Thomas Dudley in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln under date of Boston, March 12, 1630-1:

“About the year 1627 some friends, being together in Lincolnshire, fell into discourse about New England and the planting of the gospel there. In 1628 we procured a patent from his Majesty for our planting between the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River on the South and the River of Merrimack on the North and three miles on either side of those rivers and bay … and the same year we sent Mr. John Endicott and some with him to begin a plantation. In 1629 we sent divers ships over with about three hundred people. Mr. Winthrop, of Suffolk (who was well known in his own country and well approved here for his piety, liberality, wisdom, and gravity), coming in to us we came to such resolution that in April, 1630, we set sail from Old England… We were forced to change counsel, and, for our present shelter, to plant dispersedly.”

Settlements were accordingly made at Salem, Charlestown, Boston, Medford, Watertown, and in several other localities. The sixth settlement was made, to quote further from the same letter to the Countess of Lincoln, by “others of us two miles from Boston, in a place we named Rocksbury.”[1 - Also spelt Roxberry, Roxborough, Rocksborough.]

The date of settlement was September 28, 1630, and just three weeks later the first General Court that ever sat in America was held in Boston. The same year the first church in Boston was organized.[2 - July 30, 1630.] Roxbury, like the other settlements of Massachusetts Bay, was a little republic in itself. The people chose the selectmen and governed themselves; and as early as 1634, like the seven other organized towns, they sent three deputies to Boston to attend the first representative Assembly at which important business was transacted. The government of Roxbury, like the other plantations, was founded on a theocratic basis. Church and state were inseparable. No one could be admitted as a citizen unless he was a member of the church. Many of the first settlers came from Nazing, a small village in England, about twenty miles from London, on the river Lee. Morris, Ruggles, Payson, and Peacock, names read in the earliest records of Woodstock, were old family names in Nazing. Other first inhabitants of Roxbury came from Wales and the west of England, or London and its vicinity. Among the founders were John Johnson, Richard Bugbee, and John Leavens, whose family names are well known as among the first settlers of Woodstock. All were men of property[3 - Young’s “Chronicles of Massachusetts,” p. 396.]; none were “of the poorer sort.” In 1631 the Rev. John Eliot, a native of the village of Nazing, arrived with a company of Nazing pilgrims. Eliot, though earnestly solicited to become pastor of the church in Boston,[4 - Winthrop’s “Journal,” by Savage, vol. i., p. 111.] accepted the charge of the church in Roxbury, which was organized in 1632,[5 - “Ordained over the First Church, Nov. 5, 1632.” – Eliot’s tomb in Roxbury.] and was the sixth church, in order of time, established in New England. Another name equally prominent in the earliest years of the history of Roxbury was that of William Pynchon, afterwards known as the founder of Springfield in Massachusetts. Only Boston excels Roxbury in the number of its citizens who have made illustrious the early history of the Massachusetts colony.[6 - “Memorial History of Boston,” vol. i., p. 403.] Among the early settlers of Roxbury who themselves became, or whose descendants became, the early settlers of Woodstock, were the Bartholomews, Bowens, Bugbees, Chandlers, Childs, Corbins, Crafts, Griggses, Gareys, Holmeses, Johnsons, Lyons, Levinses, Mays, Morrises, Paysons, Peacocks, Peakes, Perrins, Scarboroughs, and Williamses.[7 - Though the Williamses did not settle permanently in Woodstock till some years after the first settlement, the family was most prominent in Roxbury, and one of its representatives visited the grant officially in 1686.]

In 1643 the towns within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts had grown to thirty, and Roxbury did more than her share towards the organization of the new towns. In fact, Roxbury has been called the mother of towns, no less than fifteen communities having been founded by her citizens.[8 - Drake’s “Town of Roxbury” and “Memorial History of Boston,” vol. i., pp. 401-422.] Among the most important of these settlements was the town of Woodstock, whose Bicentennial we this day celebrate.

III

A glance at the country about us previous to the settlement of the town, in 1686, shows us a land sparsely inhabited by small bands of peaceful Indians, without an independent chief of their own, but who paid tribute to the Sachem of the Mohegans, the warriors who had revolted from the Pequots. Woodstock was a portion of the Nipmuck[9 - De Forest’s “Indians of Connecticut,” and Palfrey’s “History of New England,” and Miss Ellen D. Larned’s “History of Windham County.”] country, so-called because it contained fresh ponds or lakes in contrast to other sections that bordered upon the sea or along running rivers. Wabbaquasset, or the mat-producing place, was the name of the principal Indian village, and that name still exists in the corrupted form of Quasset to designate a section of the town. Indians from the Nipmuck[10 - Also “called the Wabbaquassett and Whetstone country; and sometimes the Mohegan conquered country, as Uncas had conquered and added it to his sachemdom.” Trumbull’s “History of Connecticut,” vol. i., 31.] country took corn to Boston in 1630, soon after the arrival of the “Bay Colony”; and in 1633[11 - September.] John Oldman and his three Dorchester companions passed through this same section on their way to learn something of the Connecticut River country; and they

may have rested on yonder “Plaine Hill,” for history states that they “lodged at Indians towns all the way.”[12 - Winthrop’s “Journal,” by Savage, vol. i, 132. Palfrey’s “Hist. of New England,” vol. i., 369. The same year (Nov. 1633), “Samuel Hall and two other persons travelled westward into the country as far as this [Connecticut] river.” Holmes’ “Annals,” vol. i., 220.] The old “Connecticut Path” over which that distinguished band[13 - Winthrop’s “Journal,” vol. i., 171.] of colonists went in 1635 and 1636 to settle the towns of Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford, passed through the heart of what is now Woodstock.[14 - Possibly some of the Dorchester emigrants, including Henry Wolcott, William Phelps, and others, may have passed a little south of this line. Dr. McClure’s MSS., in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society: “In a conversation with the late aged and respectable Capt. Sabin of Pomfret, Ct., he related to me the following discovery, viz.: About forty years ago he felled a large and ancient yoke about the north line of Pomfret adjoining Woodstock. On cutting within some inches of the heart of the tree it was seen to have been cut and chipped with some short tool like an axe. Rightly judging that at the time when it must have been done the Indians so far inland were destitute and ignorant of the use of iron tools, he counted the number of the annual circular rings from the said marks to the bark of the tree, and found that there were as many rings as the years which had intervened from the migration of the Dorchester party to that time. Hence ‘the probability that they had journeyed along the north border of Pomfret, and as they traveled by a compass, the conjecture is corroborated by that course being nearly in a direct line from Boston to the place of their settlement on the Connecticut River.’” – Stiles’ “History of Ancient Windsor,” p. 26.] This path so famous in the early days of New England history, came out of Thompson Woods, a little north of Woodstock Lake, and proceeding across the Senexet meadow, ran west near Plaine Hill, Marcy’s Hill, and a little south of the base of Coatney Hill. For more than fifty years before the settlement of the town, this historic path near Woodstock Hill was the outlet for the surplus population of Massachusetts Bay and the line of communication between Massachusetts and the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. But the most noteworthy feature in the description of the Indians of the Nipmuck country is that as early as 1670 they were formed into Praying Villages. Evidently the instructions of Gov. Cradock in his letter of March, 1629, to John Endicott had not been forgotten. In that letter he said: “Be not unmindful of the main end of our plantation by endeavoring to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the gospel.” In the heart of one man at least that idea was paramount. John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, was not content to be simply the pastor of the church of Roxbury for nearly sixty years. Amid his countless other labors he preached the gospel to the Indians of the Nipmuck country. The first Indian church in America had been established by him at Natick in 1651; and, in 1674, he visited the Indian villages in the wild territory about these very hills. As he found it, to quote his own words,[15 - “Memorial Hist. of Boston,” vol. i., 263.] “absolutely necessary to carry on civility with religion,” he was accompanied by Major Daniel Gookin, who had been appointed, in 1656, magistrate of all the Indian towns. Maanexit was first visited on the Mohegan or Quinebaug River, near what is now New Boston, where Eliot preached to the natives, using as his text the seventh verse of the twenty-fourth Psalm: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.”

Quinnatisset, on what is now Thompson Hill, was the name of another Praying Town. But a quotation[16 - “Historical Collections of the Indians in New England. By Daniel Gookin, Gentleman, Printed from the original manuscript, 1792.” See “Collections Mass. Hist. Soc.,” vol. i., First Series, pp. 190-192.] from the homely narrative of Major Gookin is the best description of Eliot’s memorable visit to Woodstock:

“We went not to it [Quinnatisset], being straitened for time, but we spake with some of the principal people at Wabquissit.[17 - Wabbaquasset, or Woodstock.] … Wabquissit … lieth about nine or ten miles from Maanexit, upon the west side, six miles of Mohegan River, and is distant from Boston west and by south, about seventy-two miles. It lieth about four miles within the Massachusetts south line. It hath about thirty families, and one hundred and fifty souls. It is situated in a very rich soil, manifested by the goodly crop of Indian corn then newly ingathered, not less than forty bushels upon an acre. We came thither late in the evening upon the 15th of September, and took up our quarters at the sagamore’s wigwam, who was not at home: but his squaw courteously admitted us, and provided liberally, in their way, for the Indians that accompanied us. This sagamore inclines to religion, and keeps the meeting on sabbath days at his house, which is spacious, about sixty feet in length and twenty feet in width. The teacher of this place is named Sampson; an active and ingenious person. He speaks good English and reads well. He is brother unto Joseph, before named, teacher at Chabanakougkomun[18 - Dudley.] … being both hopeful, pious, and active men; especially the younger before-named Sampson, teacher at Wabquissit, who was, a few years since, a dissolute person, and I have been forced to be severe in punishing him for his misdemeanors formerly. But now he is, through grace, changed and become sober and pious; and he is now very thankful to me for the discipline formerly exercised towards him. And besides his flagitious life heretofore, he lived very uncomfortably with his wife; but now they live very well together, I confess this story is a digression. But because it tendeth to magnify grace, and that to a prodigal, and to declare how God remembers his covenant unto the children of such as are faithful and zealous for him in their time and generation, I have mentioned it.

“We being at Wabquissit, at the sagamore’s wigwam, divers of the principal people that were at home came to us, with whom we spent a good part of the night in prayer, singing psalms, and exhortations. There was a person among them, who, sitting mute a great space, at last spake to this effect: That he was agent for Unkas, Sachem of Mohegan, who challenged right to, and dominion over, this people of Wabquissit. And said he, Unkas is not well pleased that the English should pass over Mohegan River to call his Indians to pray to God. Upon which speech Mr. Eliot first answered, that it was his work to call upon all men everywhere, as he had opportunity, especially the Indians, to repent and embrace the gospel; but he did not meddle with civil right or jurisdiction. When he had done speaking, then I declared to him, and desired him to inform Unkas what I said, that Wabquissit was within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and that the government of that people did belong to them; and that they do look upon themselves concerned to promote the good of all people within their limits, especially if they embraced Christianity. Yet it was not hereby intended to abridge the Indian sachems of their just and ancient right over the Indians, in respect of paying tribute or any other dues. But the main design of the English was to bring them to the good knowledge of God in Christ Jesus; and to suppress among them those sins of drunkenness, idolatry, powowing or witchcraft, whoredom, murder, and like sins. As for the English, they had taken no tribute from them, nor taxed them with any thing of the kind.

“Upon the 16th day of September[19 - 1674.] being at Wabquissit, as soon as the people were come together, Mr. Eliot first prayed, and then preached to them, in their own language, out of Mat. vi., 33: First seek the kingdom of heaven and the righteousness thereof, and all these things shall be added unto you. Their teacher, Sampson, first reading and setting the cxix. Ps., 1st part, which was sung. The exercise was concluded with prayer.

“Then I began a Court among the Indians, and first I approved their teacher, Sampson, and their constable, Black James,[20 - Black James was a distinguished Indian. He met Eliot again in Cambridge in June of 1681, where a meeting of the claimants of the Nipmuck country was held. The village and much of the land of the town of Dudley was known years after the settlement of Woodstock as “The Land of Black James and Company.” – Ammidown’s “Historical Collections,” vol. i., 406, 461.] giving each of them a charge to be diligent and faithful in their places. Also I exhorted the people to yield obedience to the gospel of Christ and to those set in order there. Then published a warrant or order, that I had prepared, empowering the constable to suppress drunkenness, Sabbath breaking, especially powowing and idolatry. And, after warning given, to apprehend all delinquents and bring them before authority to answer for their misdoings; the smaller faults to bring before Watasacompamun, ruler of the Nipmuck country; for idolatry and powowing to bring them before me: So we took leave of this people of Wabquissit, and about eleven o’clock returned back to Maanexit and Chabanakougkomun, where we lodged this night.”

History fails to locate the spot where John Eliot’s sermon to the Indians of Woodstock was delivered, but tradition points to “Pulpit Rock,” so-called, under the aged chestnut trees of the McClellan farm near the “Old Hall”[21 - Named after “Wabbaquasset Hall,” built in the spring or summer of 1686.] road.

But Eliot’s good work in the Nipmuck country was destroyed when King Philip’s war broke out in 1675. In August of that year a company of Providence men journeyed as far as Wabbaquasset, thinking that possibly King Philip himself had escaped thither.[22 - Palfrey’s “History of New England,” vol. iii., 159.] They found an Indian fort a mile or two west of Woodstock Hill, but no Indians. A party from Norwich in June of the following year also found deserted Wabbaquasset and the other Praying Villages. Desolation and devastation followed the disappearance of the Red Man. The Nipmuck country became more a wilderness than ever, forsaken of its aboriginal inhabitants whose barbaric tenure could not stand against a superior civilization.

“Forgotten race, farewell! Your haunts we tread,
Our mighty rivers speak your words of yore,
Our mountains wear them on their misty head,
Our sounding cataracts hurl them to the shore;
But on the lake your flashing oar is still,
Hush’d is your hunter’s cry on dale and hill,
Your arrow stays the eagle’s flight no more,
And ye, like troubled shadows, sink to rest
In unremember’d tombs, unpitied and unbless’d.”[23 - Mrs. L. H. Sigourney’s “Pocahontas.”]

IV

The time had now arrived for the white man to make a settlement at Wabbaquasset. In May, of 1681, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay had given to William Stoughton and Joseph Dudley the care of the Nipmuck country, with power to ascertain the titles belonging to the Indians and others, and a meeting of the claimants was held the following month at Cambridge, at which John Eliot rendered much assistance as interpreter. Dudley and Stoughton purchased all the claims, and the following year,[24 - Feb. 10, 1682.] the whole Nipmuck country became the property of Massachusetts Bay. Jurisdiction over the country had already been claimed, under the terms of the Massachusetts charter. Many of the inhabitants of the town of Roxbury now felt that they could improve their condition and increase their usefulness by forming a settlement in some desirable portion of the new country. Undoubtedly their pastor, John Eliot, had told them of the beauty and fertility of the country about the Praying Villages of Maanexit, Quinnatisset, and Wabbaquasset.[25 - Ellis’ “History of Roxbury Town”: “When the people of Roxbury came to take up lands, they selected their locations amongst the praying Indians or where Indians had been converted to Christianity… This certainly is a sure indication of the steady adherence of his [John Eliot’s] fellow-townsmen and their belief in the actual benefits of his missionary labors.”] Town meetings to arrange for a new settlement, were held in Roxbury in October of 1683.[26 - Oct. 6, 10, and 17.] A petition was signed, by a number of representative citizens of the town, asking that the General Court might grant to them a tract seven miles square about Quinnatisset, in the Nipmuck country. All save six of the thirty-six who signed this petition, afterwards became settlers of the new town, and of the five selectmen of Roxbury who presented the petition to the General Court, three[27 - Joseph Griggs, John Ruggles, and Edward Morris.] represented families prominent in the early history of Woodstock. The General Court at once granted[28 - Dec. 5, 1683.] the petition provided the grant should not fall within a section to be reserved for Messrs Stoughton and Dudley, and Major Thompson, and provided also that thirty families should be settled on the plantation within three years from the following June, “and mainteyne amongst them an able, orthodox, godly minister.”[29 - “Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England,” vol. v., 426.] In 1684 Roxbury accepted the terms of the General Court, and sent Samuel and John Ruggles, John Curtis, and Edward Morris, as a committee of four, to “view the wilderness and find a convenient place.”

As Quinnatisset had been in part already granted, the committee reported[30 - Oct. 27, 1684.] a territory “commodiose” for settlement at “Seneksuk and Wapagusset and the lands ajasiant.” A committee was therefore appointed to draw up an agreement for the “goers,” as they were called, to sign. In 1685,[31 - Jan. 28th.] in answer to the petition of Edward Morris, deputy in behalf of the town of Roxbury, the General Court extended the limit of the time of settlement from June 10, 1687, to Jan. 31, 1688, and granted freedom from rates up to that time.[32 - “Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England,” vol. v., 468.] At town meetings held in Roxbury, during the same year, it was arranged that one half of the grant should belong to the new settlers and one hundred pounds in money be given to them in instalments of twenty pounds a year, and the other half of the grant should belong to “the stayers” in consideration of the aid given “the goers.” The southern half of the grant was the portion subsequently occupied by “the goers.” Actual possession, however, was not taken until April of the following year. On the second page of the cover of the old and musty first volume of records of the proprietors of New Roxbury, afterwards called Woodstock, are these words:

    “April 5, 1686.

“These are the thirteen who were sent out to spy out Woodstock as planters and to take actual posession: Jonathan Smithers, John Frissell, Nathaniel Garey, John Marcy, Benjamin Griggs, John Lord, Benjamin Sabin, Henry Bowen, Matthew Davis, Thomas Bacon, Peter Aspinwall, George Griggs, and Ebenezer Morris.”

These thirteen planters, or the “Old Thirteen” as they have always been called, were visited in May or June[33 - Committee appointed May 14, 1686, and reported to Roxbury June 12th.] by a committee who had been appointed to ascertain the bounds of the grant. The last meeting of the “goers to settle” was held in Roxbury, July 21st; their first meeting in New Roxbury was held August 25th. A committee of seven, consisting of Joseph Griggs, Edward Morris, Henry Bowen, Sr., John Chandler, Sr., Samuel Craft, Samuel Scarborough, and Jonathan Smithers, having been appointed to make needful arrangements preliminary to the drawing of home lots, that drawing took place on the twenty-eighth of August, or, by the new style of reckoning time, exactly two hundred years ago to-day.

Say the old records: “After solemn prayer to God, who is the Disposer of all things, they drew lots according to the agreement, every man being satisfied and contented with God’s disposing.” Would that the words of that prayer and the picture of that scene could to-day be reproduced! Surely the spirit of the Puritans of 1630 was the spirit of that band of pilgrims in 1686 on yonder hill. These are the honored names of the first settlers: Thomas and Joseph Bacon, James Corbin, Benjamin Sabin, Henry Bowen, Thomas Lyon, Ebenezer Morris, Matthew Davis, William Lyon, Sr., John Chandler, Sr., Peter Aspinwall, John Frizzel, Joseph Frizzel, Jonathan Smithers, John Butcher, Jonathan Davis, Jonathan Peake, Nathaniel Garey, John Bowen, Nathaniel Johnson, John Hubbard, George Griggs, Benjamin Griggs, William Lyon, Jr., John Leavens, Nathaniel Sanger, Samuel Scarborough, Samuel Craft, Samuel May, Joseph Bugbee, Samuel Peacock, Arthur Humphrey, John Bugbee, Jr., Andrew Watkins, John Marcy, Edward Morris, Joseph Peake, John Holmes, and John Chandler, Jr.

Of that list of thirty-nine,[34 - Though the name of John Ruggles was on the list of “goers” and a house lot was drawn for him, he did not settle in Woodstock. The family of Ruggles is prominent among the first settlers in Pomfret.] Benjamin Sabin, Nathaniel Sanger, Nathaniel Garey, John Hubbard, Matthew Davis, and George Griggs afterwards moved to Pomfret; Peter Aspinwall and his step-sons, the sons of John Leavens, went to Killingby; and Arthur Humphrey and others became the first settlers of Ashford. A few returned to Roxbury. But a large share of the original settlers lived and died in Woodstock, including Edward and Ebenezer Morris, Jonathan and Joseph Peake, James Corbin, Thomas and Joseph Bacon, Henry Bowen, William and Thomas Lyon, John Chandler, Sr., and John Chandler, Jr., John Butcher, Nathaniel Johnson, Joseph and John Bugbee, John Marcy, John Holmes, and perhaps a few others. As an illustration of the ages of the pioneers in 1686, it may be mentioned that Benjamin Griggs was nineteen; Joseph Bacon and Andrew Watkins, twenty; John Bugbee, John Chandler, Jr., James Corbin, and Jonathan Davis, twenty-one; Peter Aspinwall, Matthew Davis, John Frizzel, and Lieut. Ebenezer Morris, twenty-two; John Butcher and Nathaniel Garey, twenty-three; John Bowen and John Marcy, twenty-four; George Griggs, John Holmes, and Samuel May, twenty-five; Thomas Bacon, twenty-eight; Samuel Peacock, twenty-nine; William Lyon, Jr., and Nathaniel Sanger, thirty-four; Thomas Lyon, thirty-eight; Nathaniel Johnson, thirty-nine; Benjamin Sabin and Samuel Scarborough, forty; Joseph Peake, forty-one; Joseph Bugbee and John Leavens, forty-six; Samuel Craft and Jonathan Peake,[35 - This Jonathan Peake was the father of Jonathan Peake, Jr., born in 1663, who came to Woodstock in April of 1687.] forty-nine; Deacon John Chandler, fifty-one; Lieut. Henry Bowen, fifty-three; Edward Morris, fifty-six; and William Lyon Sr., sixty-five.[36 - Lot 43 was given to Clement Corbin soon after the drawing of home lots. The inscription of his rude gravestone reads: “Here lies buried the body of Clement Corbin, aged 70, deceast August ye 1st, 1696.”]

The first one of the thirty-nine to die was Lieut. Edward Morris, whose gravestone bears the date of 1689, the oldest in the county.[37 - The inscription on this small gravestone in the burying-ground on Woodstock Hill is read with difficulty and is as follows: “Here lies buried ye body of Lieu. Edward Morris, deceas’d September 14, 1689.”] The last one of the thirty-nine to die was Thomas Bacon, who lived to be ninety-six years of age. To show the extreme ages of some of the Woodstock people, it may here be said that Paraclete Skinner, now living, remembers Deacon Jedediah Morse, who died in 1819 at the age of ninety-three, and Deacon Morse was seventeen years old when Col. John Chandler, a first settler, was living; and thirty-two years of age the year that Thomas Bacon, another first settler, died. That is, an inhabitant of this town remembers one who knew some of the first settlers of Woodstock. Lieut. Henry Bowen, one of the first settlers, attained the age of ninety. Deacon Morse’s grandmother, who came in April of 1687 to Woodstock with her husband Jonathan Peake, Jr.,[38 - At that time twenty-four years old.] likewise lived to be ninety, lacking twelve days. One of the oldest persons that ever lived in Woodstock was Sarah, the daughter of Jonathan Peake, Jr., and the mother of Deacon Morse, who reached the age of ninety-nine, lacking forty-four days, and who had about her while living three hundred and nineteen descendants.[39 - MSS. of Deacon Jedediah Morse, in the possession of Henry T. Child, of Woodstock.] The combined ages of Thomas Bacon, Sarah Morse, and Paraclete Skinner is now two hundred and eighty years. Time alone can tell to what figure their combined ages may attain!

But what a small number in that list of first settlers have descendants bearing the same family name among the citizens of Woodstock to-day! Only James Corbin, William Lyon, John Chandler, Nathaniel Johnson, Benjamin Griggs, Henry Bowen, Joseph Bugbee, Nathaniel Sanger, and John Marcy! But Woodstock is proud to own among the descendants of the first settlers influential and honored citizens of many towns and cities, and some of them, I rejoice to say are here to-day.

The first settlers of Woodstock had the right stuff in them to succeed. After the home-lots were chosen highways were laid out, a grist-mill and saw-mill built, bridges constructed, new inhabitants brought in, and every thing possible was done to make the settlement permanent. A general meeting of the inhabitants was held July 2, 1687, when “John Chandler, Sr., Nathaniel Johnson, Joseph Bugbee, James White, and James Peake, were chosen to order the prudential affairs of the place as selectmen, for the year ensuing.”

V

An effort was now made to get a confirmation of the grant occupied by the new settlers, but as long as Sir Edmund Andros was the Royal Governor of the Province, it was impossible. A delay ensued until William and Mary became sovereigns of Great Britain. The new settlers had not yet an organized town government. The settlement, like the first settlements in Windsor and Hartford, received its name from the mother town.[40 - Windsor was first called Dorchester and Hartford was first called Newtown.] But the New Roxbury people wished to have a name of their own and a town of their own. At the beginning of the year 1690 they chose a committee of three to petition the General Court to substitute a new name for that of New Roxbury. The committee at once conferred with the mother town, for on Jan. 13, 1690, Roxbury held a town meeting at which it was voted to request the General Court to allow the settlement in the Nipmuck country to become a town, to confirm the grant and to give a suitable name. The New Roxbury committee pressed their claims, and on March 18, 1690, the General Court confirmed the grant and voted that the name of the plantation be Woodstock. We owe the name of Woodstock to Capt. Samuel Sewell[41 - Born in England, son of Henry Sewell of Rowley, Mass., and grandson of Henry Sewell, mayor of Coventry, England. In 1684, he became an Assistant.] who was Chief-Justice of Massachusetts from 1718 to 1728. He has been called “a typical Puritan” and “the Pepys of New England,” – the man who judged the witches of Salem and afterwards repented of it.[42 - Memorial “History of Boston,” vol. i., 210, 540.] In 1690, when Count Frontenac’s[43 - Hildreth’s “History of the United States,” vol. ii., 130. Trumbull’s “History of Connecticut,” vol. i., 401, 402. Palfrey’s “Hist. of New England,” vol. iv., 46. Holmes’ “Annals of America,” vol. i., 430, 431. Bancroft’s “Hist. of the U. S.,” vol. iii., 183.] forces were coming down from Canada upon the settlements of the United Colonies, and Massachusetts determined to ask the help of Connecticut in protecting the upper towns on the Connecticut River, Captain Sewell rode past Woodstock on his way to Connecticut. He was no doubt on business of state, being one of the Governor’s Counsellors, and one of a Committee of Seven of the Council with the same power as the Council to arrange “for setting forth the forces.”[44 - “Collections of the Mass. Hist. Soc.,” vol. v., Fifth Series, p. 315, foot-note. Palfrey’s “Hist, of N. E.,” vol. iv., 48, foot-note, and appendix. The other six members of the Committee were Simon Bradstreet (Governor), Sir William Phips (Governor, 1692-95), Maj. Gen. Wait Winthrop, Maj. Elisha Hutchinson, Col. Samuel Shrimpton, and Maj. John Richards.] The proximity of New Roxbury to Oxford in Massachusetts suggested to him, he tells us, the name of a famous place near old Oxford in England.

In his Diary of March 18, 1689/90, Capt. Sewell, says:

“I gave New Roxbury the name of Woodstock, because of its nearness to Oxford, for the sake of Queen Elizabeth, and the notable meetings that have been held at the place bearing that name in England, some of which Dr. Gilbert[45 - Thomas Gilbert, D.D., of Oxford University, author of “Carmen Congratulatorum.” Judge Sewell visited him in England, and was shown by Dr. Gilbert the Bodleian Library, “a very magnificent Thing.” See Sewell papers: Fifth Series, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collection, vols, v., vi., vii. We may be allowed to suppose that Dr. Gilbert took Judge Sewell to Woodstock, only eight miles from Oxford University, where the latter perhaps was impressed for the first time with the name and historical associations of Woodstock.] informed me of when in England. It stands on a Hill. I saw it as I [went] to Coventry, but left it on the left hand. Some told Capt. Ruggles[46 - Capt. Ruggles of Roxbury, who died Aug. 15, 1692, of whom Sewell says, in his Diary, Aug. 16th: “Capt. Ruggles also buried this day, died last night, but could not be kept.”] that I gave the name and put words in his mouth to desire of me a Bell for the Town.”[47 - Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc. for Feb., 1873, p. 399.]

Though Judge Sewell, years after his first visit had social relations[48 - Rev. Mr. Dwight, of Woodstock, dined with him Aug. 24, 1718, and made a prayer at his court Nov. 7, 1718. Also see Diary, Jan. 2, 1724: “Paid Mr. Josiah Dwight of Woodstock in full, of his demands for boarding Madam Usher there about six or seven weeks in the year 1718, £2-11.” John Acquittimaug, of Woodstock, an Indian, who lived to be one hundred and fourteen years old, was entertained by Judge Sewell in 1723. Boston News-Letter, Aug. 29, 1723. The wills of Woodstock people were proved before “the Honorable Samuel Sewell, Judge of Probate.” MSS. of Martin Paine of South Woodstock.] with some of the inhabitants of Woodstock, there is no evidence to show that he ever gave a bell to the town or to the church.[49 - Paraclete Skinner, of Woodstock, who remembers the second meeting-house that was taken down in 1821, says that that structure never had a bell.] But he gave us something better, a good name, – the name of Woodstock, associated with the memories of Saxon and Norman Kings, the spot where King Alfred translated “The Consolations of Philosophy,” by Boethius, the birthplace of the poet Chaucer, the prison of Queen Elizabeth.[50 - While in custody at Woodstock, Queen Elizabeth, according to the chronicler, Raphael Holinshed, wrote with a diamond on a pane of glass in her room these words:] History and romance[51 - Sir Walter Scott’s novel of “Woodstock.”] have made illustrious the names of Woodstock and Woodstock Park, and “the notable meetings” spoken of by Judge Sewell as having taken place in Old England have been transferred to the settlement in New England. Surely the name of Woodstock, as applied to the little village of New Roxbury, has proved to be no misnomer.

It should be said that the western part of the town, when it became a settlement years after, revived the old name of New Roxbury. The church in West Woodstock belonged to what was called the Parish of New Roxbury, or the Second Precinct of Woodstock.[52 - The last time that the name of New Roxbury, as applied to the name of the whole town, appears in the Proprietors’ Records of Woodstock is March 18, 1689. The first time the name of Woodstock appears is May 26, 1690: Woodstock Records.]

VI

The most pressing duty for our ancestors to perform, after securing a name and legalized status for the town, was the settlement of “an able, orthodox, godly minister.” The Rev. Josiah Dwight, a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1687, received the appointment, and was installed October 17, 1690, receiving £40 the first year, £50 the second, and £60 the third year and thereafter. It was with difficulty, however, that these sums were paid, and when, some years after, the account was settled by the payment of what was due, he gave a receipt in full “from the beginning of the world to May 6, 1696.” A home lot was allowed Mr. Dwight according to the original drawing of lots, and arrangements were made to build a home for him immediately after his settlement. The following year,[53 - 1691.] it was determined to construct a house of worship, which was completed early[54 - March.] in 1694. This was the first meeting-house in Windham County, and here gathered, on Sabbath days, the settlers from miles around. The people of Pomfret attended church in this rude structure until 1715, when their own society was organized.

The officers of the new town elected in 1690[55 - Town meeting November 27th and 28th.] were John Chandler, Sr., William Bartholomew, Benjamin Sabin, John Leavens, and Joseph Bugbee, as selectmen, and John Chandler, Jr., as town clerk. All of those men to-day have descendants in Woodstock or its immediate vicinity. At that time, the men of Woodstock imposed a fine of one and six pence upon every one who failed to attend the town meeting, and six pence an hour for tardiness. Disputes regarding titles to land, and the boundary line dividing the north half of the town, and disputes with the mother-town regarding this northern half, which belonged to Roxbury according to the terms of the grant, were vexatious, and not in every respect creditable to Woodstock. But Roxbury’s interest in the northern half of Woodstock continued till 1797, when the lands had all been sold or become individual property. Large tracts, however, were held by Roxbury and Woodstock speculators for many years afterward.

Troubles with the Indians, who returned to their old hunting and fishing haunts after the settlement of the town, broke out in 1696,[56 - Woodstock, at this time, was under the restrictions of frontier towns. It was called a “frontier town” in 1695. – Mass. Hist. Society Proceedings, 1871-1873, p. 395.] and again in 1700 and 1704, and even as late as 1724. When a war broke out abroad, there was trouble with the Indians at home. When an Indian outbreak was threatened, the town received some military assistance from the colony government. Such threatened outbreaks retarded the progress of the settlement.

After discussing the question for several years, the town determined, in 1719,[57 - December 28th.] to erect a new meeting-house near the burying-ground, instead of at the south end of the village, where the old building stood, yet so straitened were the people in their circumstances that they applied to the General Court in Boston, requesting that the unoccupied lands of the residents and non-residents of the town be taxed to the extent of £250, to be applied to the building of a church. As the non-residents’ lands were almost entirely in the north half of the grant, and belonged to Roxbury people, Roxbury stoutly opposed the tax in a memorial to the General Court. When the General Court refused the petition, Woodstock asked to be excused from sending her representative to Boston. The town’s representative at this time, in fact the first and only representative for many years, was Captain John Chandler, who, like his father Deacon John Chandler, was one of the first settlers. He surveyed lands in Woodstock and neighboring towns, and owned large tracts of territory in Connecticut and Massachusetts. To avoid the necessity of sending to Boston to have deeds recorded and wills proven, Captain Chandler tried to get the consent of the General Court in 1720 for the formation of a new county, to be called Worcester County, of which Woodstock should be a part, but a delay ensued until 1731, when Captain, now Colonel, Chandler was successful. Woodstock became one of the most prominent towns of Worcester County, and John Chandler was made Chief-Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions.[58 - Lincoln’s “History of Worcester County.”]

VII