The Newtown bee., 1889-12-20
Laying Out the Land.

Laying OuU the Lana.
 The early towns of this state were close corporations, in which each proprietor or partner shared according to the number of rights he held and these rights were so nearly equal that all started on about the same footing in the ownership of the common land that was theirs by pur- chase or settlement. which they divid- ed in four-acre, siN-acre, 30-acre, 60-acre and 100-acre divisions, as their need or greed required. Nor was it always an easy matter to squeeze into these close corporations. ssCapt Jincks," not he of the horse marines, but Capt Jonathan Chicks wanted to settle in Newtown as an inhabitant in 1723, but he was shut out by vote of the town in town meeting assembled, nor would the town permit him to set shop in the highway, as the record runs.
 There were IS rights in Newtown, at first, afterward increased to 49 and | then to 30. The minister, Rev Thomas Tousey, was given right equal to the other proprietors and it was sometimes the case that one proprietor held two or three rights. The first recorded layout was of 20 acres, March 24, ITO. There seem to have been several Iay-outs of four acres of land and there were two kinds of these 4-acre divisions apparent ly, for it was voted in 1712 that s'a de- vition of fore acres siseable land be laid out to each proprietor for the second devtion of blow land.'' There was evi- dently upland for blowing and low lands or open swales in which the cattle might feed, where their Winter supply of feed might be cut. It was also voted at the afore mentioned date that James Hard take four acres of land Sin the rome of the second devition'of upland" The 's7 dave" of April and so ''suksescively till they have don, excepting fowl weather hinder'' was set for drawing one of these four-acre divisions in 1712.
 The manner of drawing the land was settled in town meeting. It was to be laid out by pitches ,49 lots to be laid out, prOprietors to go eight in a company and draw by figures. John Glover was to pay the town l2 shillings for the privilege of having his pitch or choice of land, where he wished it, at the rear of his home lots. Abraham Kimberly was given the same privilege and was to draw for all the town, though, if any proprietor failed to appear when it came his pitch, he was to lose his turn.
 d vii voted and I00-acre division in 17l7. This was followed in February of that year by the layout of the Great and Lit tie Bogs. They are described as lying stat ye he'd of ye norwest sprain of Pote- tertuck brook souwest from ye town in ye bounds of sd town and the litell mead ow also lying abOute half mile easterly on ye stream that comes out of ye afore- sd great bogs.'' It is only necessary to repeat what the BEE has before explain ed that the swamps or bogs were then open, kept so by Indian fires and were relied on as meadows, the uplands being largely covered with forests. Many of these swamps, like that in Sugar Street, then called the ''hum" meadow, though once moved over yearly, are now cover ed with trees of considerable size. The Great Bogs were that swamp in Pales- tine near Oliver Northrop's and it would not be difficult to locate the Little Bogs half mile distant.
 To illustrate the method of numbering the lots and give the names of the origi- nal proprietors, the BEE will give the all lotment of a six-acre division made No