OF REDDING, CONN., FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME. WITH NOTES ON THE ADAMS, BANKS, BARLOW, BARTLETT, BARTRAM, BATES, BEACH, BENEDICT, FOSTER, GOLD, GORHAM, GRAY, GRIFFIN, HALL, HAWLEY, HILL, HERON, HULL, JACKSON, LEE, LYON, LORD, MALLORY, MEADE, MEEKER, BY CHARLES BURR TODD, AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE BURR FAMILY." NEW YORK: THE JOHN A. GRAY PRESS AND STEAM TYPE-SETTING OFFICE, 1880. PREFACE. AN interest is attached to the place of one's birth which change of scene rather enhances than removes, and which increases rather than diminishes in intensity as one approaches the later stages of life: this home feeling has been largely instrumental in the production of this work, and to it is due nearly every thing of interest or value that the book possesses. A history of Redding has been long contemplated by the author as a service due his native town, and as long shrunk from because of the labor, the expense, and the difficulty of its compilation. Whether well or illy done, it is now completed, and goes out to the somewhat limited public for whom it was written. The materials for the work have been drawn largely from the ancient records of the town and parish, from the records of the colony, and from the files of musty papers in the State Library at Hartford. Tradition and oral information have not been neglected, and every reasonable effort has been made to render the work as far as possible a thorough and reliable history of the town. That errors and discrepancies will be found, is to be expected; but it is not believed that they are sufficiently numerous or important to destroy its historical value. In the preparation of the book the compiler has aimed to preserve the character of a local historian, and has confined himself chiefly to the narration of local facts and incidents. In harmony with this principle, an extended biography of Joel Barlow, at first intended for this work, has been excluded. The sketch of the poet so grew on the author's hands, that it was found it would make a volume by itself, and contained so much of general interest and detail that it could not be made to harmonize with the local character of this work. A concise sketch of the poet's life, however, and the original portrait from Fulton's oil-painting, that formed the frontispiece of the Columbiad, are included in its pages. The compiler has not aimed at making a large book: many facts in few words is what a busy age demands of the historian, and in deference to this demand only such matter as was of real value and interest has been admitted. The church histories and the genealogical notes are, perhaps, the most important, if not the most interesting, portions of the work. It would have added to the value of the ecclesiastical history, no doubt, if it had been prepared by the pastors of the different churches represented; but, with one exception, these had so recently assumed the care of their charges, that they did not feel at liberty to undertake it, and the task fell to the lot of the compiler. If this department is not what it might have been, the cause may be found in the disadvantages which a layman must labor under in attempting to write ecclesiastical history. The Rev. Mr. Welton, rector of Christ Church, very kindly consented to prepare the history of that church, and his paper will be read with interest by our citizens. In preparing the notes on the early families of the town, it was the writer's intention at first to make them much more complete and extensive. But the little interest in the matter manifested by the families concerned, and the great labor and expense involved in compiling any thing like a complete history of the thirty or forty |