



Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed
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  WOODSTOCK

  AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

  BY

  CLARENCE WINTHROP BOWEN, PH.D.

  READ AT ROSELAND PARK, WOODSTOCK, CONNECTICUT, AT THE BI-CENTENNIAL
  CELEBRATION OF THE TOWN, ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1886

  NEW YORK & LONDON
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
  The Knickerbocker Press
  1886

  COPYRIGHT BY
  CLARENCE WINTHROP BOWEN
  1886

  Press of
  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
  New York


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.




CONTENTS.


                                                    PAGE

     I. INTRODUCTION                                   7

    II. THE SETTLEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY
          AND OF ROXBURY                               8

   III. THE NIPMUCK COUNTRY AND THE VISIT OF
          JOHN ELIOT TO THE INDIANS AT WABBAQUASSET,
          OR WOODSTOCK                                12

    IV. THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW ROXBURY, OR
          WOODSTOCK                                   20

     V. THE CHANGE OF THE NAME OF NEW ROXBURY
          TO WOODSTOCK                                28

    VI. THE GROWTH OF THE NEW TOWNSHIP--1690-1731      32

   VII. ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS                        36

  VIII. THE TRANSFER OF WOODSTOCK FROM MASSACHUSETTS
          TO CONNECTICUT                              43

    IX. MILITARY RECORD                               46

     X. EDUCATIONAL MATTERS                           53

    XI. DISTINGUISHED CITIZENS                        55

   XII. CHARACTERISTICS OF WOODSTOCK                  58

  XIII. CONCLUSION                                    61

        INDEX                                         63




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