Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Historical Address; Delivered at the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary, of the First Church of Christ, in Colchester, Connecticut: August 27th, 1903
About two hundred and five years ago - seventy-eight years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and thirty-six years after King Charles II granted the famous Charter to Connecticut, under which we lived so many years, - when this Colony consisted of thirty-three towns and contained about twelve thousand inhabitants, - in the year 1698, a settlement was begun at Jeremiah's Farm, or Twenty-Mile River, and this plantation was afterwards called Colchester.
As appears from the Colonial Records of the State of Connecticut:
"Att a Generall Court Holden at Hartford October the 13th: 1698: This Court upon the petition of Divers of the inhabitants in the Countie of Hartford Grant Libertye for a plantation at or near the place Called Jeremiahs farme upon the Rode to Newlondon, and Captn Danll Wetherell Captn John Hamlin Mr. Will Pitkin Captn John Chester Mr. Richard Christophers and Captn Samll ffosdick they or the Majr part of them are by this Court appointed to be a Committee to lay out a town Ship there beginning at the North bound of twentie mile River and So to Extend Southward to a River called deep River And to extend Eastward from the bounds of Haddum Seven miles" - also in the next year:
"Att a Generll assembly Holden att Hartford May 11th 1699 - Ordered and Enacted &c that the north bounds of the new Plantation Lately granted at or neer Jeremies farme upon the Roade to Newlondon Shall be (as formerly at twentye mile River, and the South bonds ioyne to the North bounds of Lyme, and the west bounds to Joyn to the East bounds of Middltown and the East bounds of Haddum and the East and North East bounds to Rune to the bounds of Lebanon and Norwich," - and again,
"Att a Generall Assembly Holden at Hartford October 13, 1699 - Michael Taintor Saml Northam and Nath'l Foot appearing in this Assembly in the behalfe of the New plantation called Colchester and complaining that they are obstructed in the improvement and settlement of said plantation by reason of severall persons that claim considerable tracts of land within the grant of said Township, and particularly severall of the inhabitants of Saybrook, This Court do therefore order that all persons claiming any lands there shall appear at the Generall Court in May next and make their claims appear, that so the Grantees may not be further obstructed in their settlement of said plantation and that the name of that plantation shall be called Colchester and belong to the County of New London, and further that this act be transmitted to the severall towns where any person claiming land, there doe reside that so they may have reasonable notice thereof."
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