No sooner had the first settlers taken up their abode here than they were called upon to defend the title to their lands in the courts of the Colony. About thirty-seven years before, the General Court had granted permission to certain Stratford parties to buy land from the Indians and settle a plantation at this place, and they had bought over twenty-six thousand acres hereabouts. Apparently, however, no attempt was made towards a settlement of the same until after the purchase of same tract from the Indians by the Milford parties in 1702, and the grant for a patent for the same to them by the General Court in 1703. Soon after the settlers first broke ground here in 1707, a suit was begun against them by the Stratford people in the County Court at New Haven in May, 1708, and it was carried thence to the General Court. It was tried sixteen times. The first fifteen times, the plaintiffs won on the strength of their Indian title. The sixteenth, the defendants won on the strength of their Indian title, the patent from the General Court, and occupation. This incident is particularly interesting because one of the plaintiffs and the lawyer in this great case was the famous John Read, one of the ablest men and most remarkable characters which New England has produced. Some notice of him will not be inappropriate here, as he was one of the earliest inhabitants of this place. He was born at Fairfield, June 29th, 1679, and was a brother-in-law of Governor Talcott. He graduated at Harvard in 1697, became a minister, preached in Woodbury as a candidate, and in various towns in Hartford and Fairfield Counties and preached the first sermon ever delivered in this place. He studied law, and when in 1708 the General Assembly first provided for the appointment of attorneys as officers of the Court, he was one of the first admitted. He held the offices of Colony Queen's Attorney, 1712-16, Deputy for Norwalk, 1715-17, Commissioner to settle the boundary with New York 1719, and he was Connecticut's representative in the Inter-Colonial Commission in regard to Bills of Credit, in 1720. He removed to Boston in 1722, and became the Attorney General and a member of the Council of Massachusetts. He was by far the most eminent lawyer in New England, and was called "the Pride of the Bar, Light of the Law, and Chief among the Wise, Witty and Eloquent." It was he who prepared the instructions to Lord Mansfield, the counsel for Connecticut in the great case of Clark vs. Tousey, in which was discussed the question whether the Common Law of England had any force in Connecticut other than as it was adopted by the people of Connecticut. His exposition of the principles involved was most masterly, and it was the great authority upon which in a later generation the people of Connecticut relied to sustain them in their opposition to the measures of the crown in 1775.