The settlers for many years crushed their grain by hand in mortars or carried it to mill at Danbury, Woodbury, or Derby, and brought back the flour and meal. In 1717, John Griswold, under an arrangement with the town, built a grist and sawmill on Still River, at what is now Lanesville. 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. They also wore wooden shoes and moccasins, or went barefoot, although leather boots and shoes were sometimes used. The implements which they used in subduing the wilderness, their axes, saws, plows, hoes and scythes were of the rudest description. Their horses, cattle, sheep and swine we should now regard as of very inferior quality. The same was true of the few vegetables they cultivated, and of their fruits, especially their apples. Turnips, squashes and beans were the principal vegetables. Potatoes were not as yet cultivated in New England, onions were not generally, and tomatoes were looked upon as poisonous. Some of them owned negro slaves but worked the harder themselves to make them work. They had little or no currency, taxes and debts being paid in produce. What they ate, what they wore, what they coaxed from the reluctant soil of these hillsides, cost them infinite labor. As was to be expected, a stingy avarice was their besetting sin, which manifested itself in all the relations of life. They were without newspapers, none being published in the Colony until 1755. They had few books, the first printing press in the Colony not having been set up in New London until 1709. They suffered greatly from malaria and other forms of sickness, as did all the early settlers in the State. Medical treatment was poor and difficult to obtain. The women went to the limit in childbearing, and the burden of rearing their large families was awful. The art of cooking was little understood. They had no stoves or table forks. The food was served in a very unsavory fashion, and was very indigestible. The people therefore had frightful dreams, and dyspepsia was very prevalent. No carpet was seen here for a hundred years after the settlement. 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.