Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) 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.