THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Golden Hill Indians
The Housatonic
The Wepawaug
Cupheags and Pequannock
Weantinock
Goodyear's Island
Indian Slaves
Indian Remnants
Indian Troubles
New Indian Papers

THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Wm. Howard Wilcoxson

Stratford Indians

Trouble with the Indians

Establishing Title to the Land

Indian Deeds and Relics

White Hills Purchase

FORREST MORGAN

Lifestyles, Government, Religion and War

Indian Titles and Mohegan Land Troubles

Sowheag, Uncas, and Miantonomo

Owenoco, the Son of Uncas

THE HOUSATONIC

CHARD POWERS SMITH

The Promised Land
Heathen in the Land
The Lord's Scouts

The Land and The Lord

The Next Seven Tribes

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON

Connecticut Indian History

The Pequot War

Chard Powers Smith – The Housatonic

The Next Seven Tribes

The Next Seven Tribes (1655 -1743)

For three years thereafter they lived a migratory existence in their new domain, occupying tents in the summers, laying out and clearing the ground, building a mill for their grain, worshipping in the gorgeous, uplifted, natural temple of the Orenaug rocks, clearing by order a highway down to Paugasset, and returning to Stratford for the winters while the Indians stole the grain they left hidden in log cribs. During King Philip’s War in 1676, the development was suspended for fear of disaffection among the local Indians and because Woodbury, like the other towns in the valley, sent more than its quota of men to the colonial forces. In 1677, after the peace, they completed permanent settlement along wide Woodbury Main Street as it is today, building several stockaded houses in place of a palisade round the whole mile long village. In 1681 the impossibility of agreeing on a place for a meetinghouse required a reference ti Magistrate Nathan Gold of Fairfield and Colonel Robert Treat of Milford who was now deputy governor of Connecticut. The place “pitched upon” was near the grave of the Sagamore Pomperaug who had ruled the region, and across the street fro, Drum Rock where the Masonic Temple now stands. The site of the meetinghouse is today occupied by a small barn, while that of Pomperaug’s grave is marked by a fitting bronze tablet on one of the characteristic outcrops of his one-time domain.

During the period of Woodbury’s schism and settlement, the chief event elsewhere, other than King Philip’s War, was the absorption of New Haven, including Milford, into Connecticut Colony in 1665. In the same year the colony was divided into four counties, of which New Haven and Fairfield were divided by the Housatonic, each having a fringe of towns in its watershed.

In 1673 Paugasset changed its name to Derby and was incorporated as a town. Not till 1682 did that rich little settlement build a church, and then a wretched shanty in a section appropriately called the Squabble Hole, a shanty hardly larger than a deckhouse on one of the merchantmen being built in the flourishing shipyards below.

In 1680 Stratford, having greatly increased in population in spite of the defection of the Woodburyites, built its second church, this time on Witch House, now Academy Hill. The new structure was graced with high back pews.

In 1681 Connecticut Colony reached a new agreement with all the sachems having any claims to the Stratford lands, repurchasing them all and taking a new blanket deed for the whole tract, which included most of modern Shelton, until the eighteenth century.

Fifth Tribe, Pahquioque, or Danbury (1685-1708)

In the spring of 1685 seven families from Norwalk and one from Stratford made their way twenty-five miles northward through the woods with their possessions, bought from the friendly Indians Pahquioque, the “open plain” on the tributary Still River, and typically marked each of the three corners of he survey by “a rock” and the forth by “an ash tree.” They built their cabins in two rows along Town Street, which is today lower Danbury Main Street where it ends at South Street.

The local historian says the early inhabitants were famous for piety. On the other hand, there is no evidence that they organized their church, until 1695, and, though they built an early meeting house, its date, location and description are not on record. Furthermore, the Devil’s motive is intimated from the beginning by the fact that they and their “open plain” became immediately famous for excellent beans, which they hauled to the market down to the older towns on the Sound, thereby earning the name of Beantown.