In 1703, Col. Robert Treat and others representing 111 persons, all of Milford, obtained a patent to a certain tract of land in New Haven County, formerly called Weantinogue. This tract contained 84 square miles, embracing what is now known as the towns of New Milford, and Bridgewater, with parts of Brookfield and New Preston. It cost the Proprietors about 8 mills an acre. The first settler, though not a Proprietor, was John Noble, who came here from Massachusetts, in 1707. The Indians were then and long afterwards numerous, but seem always to have been on friendly terms with the settlers. The Proprietors held their meetings at Milford until 1715. The first Town Meeting seems to have been held in 1713. The town was first represented in the Legislature in 1725. The first record of freemen was made in 1744. The town belonged to New Haven Colony until the incorporation of Litchfield County, in 1751. The first bridge over the Housatonic, between the sea and its source, was built here in 1737. The first school in the town was opened in 1721, and was taught 4 months in the year, the town paying half the expense. In 1707 two persons came into New Milford. In 1712 there were here 12 families or between 60 and 70 persons. A census, taken in 1756, reports 1137 in the town; another taken in 1774, reported 2776, while in 1800, after parts of the town had been ceded to Brookfield and Washington, the population was 3198. The census of 1870, gives the population of the present New Milford, as 3586, while Bridgewater, formerly a part of this town, has 877 inhabitants.