Wabbaquassett retained its virgin bloom of nature long after the surrounding country had been occupied by white invaders. Stafford, Ellington, Somers and Tolland Streets had become self-centered, while the sleeping beauty, Wabbaquassett, was held by the Nipmunks as a sort of rendezvous for the Pequods, Mohegans. Mohawks, Narragansetts and several other tribes who were roaming over New England, stealing fowls, cattle and even children, for the red man felt that the brooks, lakes and forests, together with all they contained, virtually belonged to him. Wabbaquassett of old, with its broad sandy shore, dreaming in the protecting arms of a dense forest of oak, pine, chestnut and maple giants was truly the gem of New England. When the Richardsons, Dimocks, Newells and Aborns began their encroachment into these forests the Indians were loath to leave their pow-wow home in the oak grove, on the south shore of the lake, for the American Indian dreaded the law more than the tomahawk, but the following instance routed them. A buck named Wappa, who lived on the shore, south of the old West Rock, killed his squaw, Dianah, for which he was tried at Tolland Street and hanged. On the gallows he saw Captain Abner Dimock, my mother's father, among the spectators and called for him to come on the gallows and pray for him. My father and mother were in the crowd and when the sheriff asked the Indian if he was ready, mother fainted. The execution took place August 22, 1816, after which the Indians left Wabbaquassett and never returned. In those days, Wabbaquassett, since called Square Pond, and now Crystal Lake, was the nucleus of four prominent families, Dimocks, Richardsons, Newells and Aborns. The group consisted of the following families: Abner Dimock Anson Newell Orwell Dimock Armherst Newell Ephraim Dimock Charles Newell Lorain Dimock Ezekiel Newell Sexton Dimock Ephraim Newell Warren Richardson Lucius Aborn Orson Richardson Parkel Aborn Marvin Richardson Morton Aborn John Richardson Gilbert Aborn Royal Richardson Jedediah Aborn Of these twenty families in 1850 I now find, at the Lake, only one descendant, A. M. Richardson, son of my brother, Collins, who with his interesting wife, Bessie, actually holds the fort alone. WOODCHUCK IN THE WALL Recently when my son Arthur and myself with our families were touring with automobile over the Alleghanies, up the sea-shore, and over the Green Mountains, we spent several days at the Lake, with many old-timers who came to meet us, when they coaxed me to tell the woodchuck story, which ran as follows: Bow-wow-wow is heard on the hillside across the little meadow from our old farm house. We boys, Gordon and I, drop our hoes and run, for we knew by the sound that old Skip had a woodchuck in the wall and wanted us to come and get him out.