The Newtown bee., 1889-11-22
The Musty Past.

The Musty Past.
 The BEE has been striving to give glimpses at Newtown's first settlement and arouse interest in an honored past. It will assist in the thoroughness and re- liability of these articles if any preserv- ing traditions of that past or, better still, possessing deeds or other documents dat ing back of the Revolution will let it be known. There was an error in the last article, in stating that the tavern which stood opposite the residence of Philo Clarke, Esq, was owned in the Northrop family. It was kept by Moses Shepard. Years ago, an old man uamed Birch re- turned to Newtown, after an absence of years and told MT Clark that, when he left, Newtown was most thickly settled on the plain in the vicinity Of MT Clarke's home. MT Clark himself can count up 90 from the Congregational church past Barney Kelly's, west from MT Clarke's to Lawrence Mitchell's present homeand east to the corner beyond Mir Harris's. Josiah Booth preserves the tradition of an old man, Andrew Stillson, who re- turned to Newtown from York State and said that the first house built in New town stood between the Theophilus Mich ols place and W. J. Dicks and the sec ond was Thomas Sharpe's, who built somewhere on the hill where MT Ronalds has located. There is we'll preserved I. part of the town was once proposed as the town center; also that there was talk of building on Taunton hill. MT Booth says that the choice finally lay between Queen Street, the Island (the plain north east of the depot) and the present loca- | tion- Josiah Booths father formerly told him of going to school when the school house stood back from the Street, near the present Grand Central. When there were but two school houses in town, the
 North and South, this was probably the North. The South, Abel Prindle and eX-Town Clerk Peck unite in locating on the triangle of land east of H. H. Pecks. The home meadow was in Sugar Street or Scotia and the Great Boggs, which figure in the early records, were in Palestine near Oliver Northrop's. When the h. dians held this primeval wilderness, they swept hill and vale with almost annual fires, wipiTg out the undergrowth that now accumulates in forest and swamp.
 The Pootatuck Indians, who roamed the country in pursuit of game, were once powerful tribe, but long previous to- the settlement of Newtown, their power was broken by the more powerful Mohawks of the Hudson river valley. MT Booth has preserved this tradition of the bloody means by which this was ac- complished: The Mohawks swarmed into this country in such overwhelming num- bers that the POOtatucks were obliged to seek shelter in their fort on the west side of the Housatonic river, on a round knoll about an acre in extent, still known as Fort hill. Here they had barricade of timbers, inside which they considered themselves safe. The Mohawks sur rounded this fort and showered it with arrows, but aimed so that the arrows passed over the Pootatucks without harming them. After an unsuccessful siege in this fashion, the Mohawks final ly shot their arrows straighter into the air so that they fell inside the barricade and began to kill its inmates. The ar rows were large and heavy, with barbed stone points and were shot in such num- bers that they seemed to darken the air. As the fort was an open enclosure with out roof or covering for protection from the flight of arrows, the Pootatucks tried to break out, but were overcome by the
 Mohawks and most of them carried cap- tive to the Mohawk country. This near ly broke up the Pootatuck tribe. but MT
 Booth says that the remnant made their
 headquarters, before they joined the
 Scatticooks at Kent, on the Housatonie
 river near Frank Mitchelrs and across
 the river near Leroy and Warren Mitch. elPs. Rev John Beach, after he returned
 from England in Episcopal orders, labor
 ed among these Indians and, though re, pulsed at first, is said to have conciliateG many of them finally by his cheerful
 spirit and indomitable perseverance.
 | Rondholflers will find Salvation Oil n slirt