Daniel Davenport

“ We believe that as the years roll by, at the close of each century of its life, the events of this day will be repeated here. What will be the lot of those who stand here, one, two, three and four hundred years hence, to recall the origin and history of this town, we cannot conceive. Our hope is that it will be as peaceful, as prosperous, and as contented, as our own. ”

“ As the descendants of those people assemble here to-day [19] after the lapse of two hundred years, to commemorate their work and rejoice in all the strength, beauty and order, now smiling around us in peace and plenty, which have grown out of what they began, and as we look back upon their condition, trials and experiences, we are apt to imagine that their lot, contrasted with our own, was an unhappy one. ”

“ The French had been for fifty years hounding on the numerous tribes of Canada and northern New England to attack and exterminate the settlers of New England. The conquest of Canada by the English was therefore an object of the greatest political importance, and necessary for the peace and safety of the colonies, and their future growth, and it continued to engross the efforts and exhaust the means of the colonists, until their purpose was finally accomplished in 1763. ”

“ It may well be doubted whether the sum total of human pleasure among the whole five thousand inhabitants of the town to-day is any greater than it was among the few hundred who settled it. Probably our own superabundance of good things has actually lessened our capacity to enjoy, in comparison with theirs. ”

“ It was in the midst of alarms and dangers such as these that the settlement of this town was begun. One of the first houses constructed here had palisades about it to serve as a fort, which lasted many years, and in 1717 soldiers were stationed here for the protection of the inhabitants, and this was repeated several times afterwards. Every man was a [8] soldier. He was a soldier when he sat at his meals, a soldier when he stood in his door, a soldier when he went to the cornfield, a soldier by day and by night. ”

“ All the rest must depend upon their own exertions. There was a pleasure in facing and overcoming the perils and difficulties which they encountered, which those, more delicately reared who now live here can never know. Their individual helplessness in the face of appalling obstacles to be met, but bound them closer together in mutual helpfulness. ”

“ The refining, educating, stimulating influence of the women had much to do in withstanding the tendency back to barbarism, which life in an isolated and new community led to. The debt which is owed to them is incalculable. ”

“ Whatever it shall be, we expect that their desire to know what can be known of that long vanished world, in which both present and future have their roots, will lead them to examine the memorial of what is said and done here to-day. ”

“ The origin of evil, the [16] ineradicable tendency of the human heart to sin and do evil, the mournful spectacle of ruin and desolation in the moral world, and the future life are the same inscrutable mysteries to us as to them. If we have constructed or adopted a more comfortable theology, it is probably because we are less logical than they. ”

“ The women throughout New England immediately discontinued the wearing of hoop skirts then recently come into fashion, believing that the earthquake was the sign of the Lord's displeasure at the sinful innovation.
Hardly had the first settlers here begun to build permanent homes for the living, when they were called upon to provide resting places for the dead. The first person to be buried in yonder burying ground was a child, a girl, Mary, the daughter of Benjamin Bostwick. The next was John Noble, the first settler, and the first Town Clerk. ”

“ In those days in New England women were not thought to have minds worth educating, and they were brought up in extreme illiteracy. Nevertheless, their natural wit, brightness, and good sense made them very agreeable companions of the superior sex. ”

“ They had red blood in their veins. They were among the most enterprising men of their generation. They were backwoodsmen, the vanguard of that wonderful race which in two hundred years pushed westward the frontier from this place to the Pacific, fighting with man and beast the whole way, and sowed the land with vigorous sons and daughters.
The congregational singing in those days must have been an interesting performance. When the first settlers came to [18] New England from the old country, they brought with them a few tunes to which they sang all the psalms and hymns. ”

“ The least sin that thou didst ever commit, though thou makest a light matter of it, is a greater evil than the pains of the damned in hell, setting aside their sins. All the torments in hell are not so great an evil as the least sin is; men begin to shrink at this, and loathe to go down to hell and be in endless torment. ”

“ Suspicions were entertained that the attack would fall upon western Connecticut, and that the Indians in this vicinity intended to join the French and Indians. The Council of War determined that the then western frontier towns, Danbury, Woodbury, Waterbury and Simsbury, should be fortified with the utmost expedition. They were directed to keep scouts of faithful men to range the forests to discover the designs of the enemy, and give intelligence should they make their appearance near the frontier. ”

“ The sacramental bread often froze upon the communion plate, as did the ink in the minister's study. The people worked their minister very hard, as was the case in all early New England communities. They went to church not so much because they had to as because they wanted to. Church-going was their principal recreation. They demanded long prayers and two long sermons each Sabbath from their minister, usually on doctrinal points, which they acutely criticised. ”

“ In order that we may appreciate, somewhat, the broader political conditions under which the first settlers took up their abode here, which largely engrossed their thoughts and vitally affected them and their children for two generations, it is necessary, before taking up the narrative of their actual settlement here, to advert briefly to the state of affairs at that time in England, and on the continent of Europe, and in the English, French and Spanish Colonies of North America. ”

“ Daniel Boardman was called to preach to the settlers. In May, 1715, the settlers petitioned the General Assembly that they might obtain liberty for the settlement of the worship and ordinances of God among them, and the Legislature granted them liberty to embody in church estate as soon as God in his providence should make way therefor. On November 21st, 1716, Mr. Boardman was duly ordained as the pastor of the church of Christ in New Milford, the total number of inhabitants of the town then being one hundred and twenty-five. ”

“ To study the scriptures day and night to ascertain the will of God, and to struggle without ceasing to conform their wills to his as therein revealed, was therefore the great object of existence for them, not that they could thereby alter in the least their future state, but that they might, if possible, find out what it was likely to be. ”

“ Though the Indians, right about them here, seem to have been few in number and comparatively harmless, they knew from their own and their fathers' experience, that their position was one of extreme danger, and that at all times their scanty and hardwon possessions and their lives were liable to instant destruction, from unheralded irruptions by the more distant Indian tribes of the North and Northwest, urged on by their French instigators and allies. ”

“ Their simple tastes and homely joys amid their rude surroundings were probably more productive of positive pleasure and real happiness, than all the refinement and culture of our twentieth century civilization. ”

“ The inhabitants of Connecticut then numbered about fifteen thousand, settled in thirty towns, mostly along the shore of Long Island Sound, and upon the banks of the Connecticut and Thames Rivers. During the thirty years next before, a few families from Norwalk had settled at Danbury, from Stratford at Woodbury, from Milford at Derby, and from Farmington at Waterbury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the lapse of time and the advent of a new generation, these tunes became jangled together in inextricable confusion. The practice was for a deacon as leader to read a line of the psalm or hymn, and the congregation sang at it as best they could, each one using such tune as he chose, and often sliding from one tune to another in the same line or improvising as he went on. ”

“ This need of more land, and the protection from invasion which the settlement of this section would afford the communities near the coast, and the innate love of adventure and desire to subdue the wilderness which have characterized the American people from the beginning, were the impelling causes which led to the planting of New Milford. ”

“ It is said that in 1713, there was but one clothier in the colony. The most that he could do was to full the cloth which was made in the homes. A great proportion of it was worn without shearing or pressing. He lived at Woodbury, and thither the early inhabitants of this town resorted to have their cloth fulled. People, to a very large extent, wore clothing made from the skins of animals. ”

“ A clean blooded, land-loving thrifty race, through their activities they escaped from the poverty of their beginnings and attained unto an almost ideal abundance of the primal needs of civilization. Their physical condition became probably as good as that of any other village community in the world. ”

“ Communication with the outer world was slow, difficult and rare. On several occasions, owing to the failure of their crops and the difficulty in getting relief from distant places little better off, they nearly starved to death. ”

“ Before they came they knew that they were to wrest their living from an uncongenial soil, to struggle with penury and to conquer only by constant toil and self-denying thrift. The forest would supply them with the materials for shelter and fuel and to some extent with food and clothing. ”

“ For this purpose they fitted out hundreds of parties of savages to proceed to other portions of the English settlements, shoot down the settlers when at work at their crops, seize their wives and children, load them with packs of plunder from their own homes, and drive them before them into the wilderness. ”

“ Accordingly as they had succeeded in this, they had a reasonable assurance as to their fate, although no wile of the devil was more frequent than to falsely persuade men that their prospects were favorable. ”