Norwich bulletin., 1909-07-07

CONTINUED from page two.)
relations OF things industrial and po-
litical came, broadly speaking, about
halfway between the settlement of
Norwich and the present time
What led UP to the incorporation Of
the city, Of Norwich, and it's life and
that OF the town for some years aft
erwards, it is my part to describe
briefly.
Nine Miles Square.
The mine miles square" was pur-
chased and settled by, self-selected
company. AS a community, it cut the
forests. grubbed the underbrush, titled
the fields; launched first the shallop,
then the sloop, and finally the ship. It
was the community also that turned
the trails to bride paths, and then
to wagon roads. ALI this it did with
perseverance, in the fear of God, and
with honorable self-respect. The
founders and their descendants to the
third generation were no mere hewers
of wood and drawers of water. Who
they were, we know. What they did,
we can never know, in spite of far
more abundant data than most towns
can boast. The glory of their achieve
ment we can well appreciate, but new
er can express. No address, even as
eloquent and complete as that to which
we have just listened, can do 1t, and
our fathers, Justice. OF somey things,
however, in the past of Norwich, we
are sure. We know that the figures
of these fathers and mothers of ours
do not bulk unduly large in retrospect,
magnified by the mists of time. Mason
and Tracy, Fitch; Leffingwell, and their
companions, were men such as our i'm
aginations now paint them-the out
lines correct, the colors in proper tone.
We must not forget that our fathers
called this place a plantation" Here
they settled as a community. AS a,
company they bought this land The
government of England to them-was
it shadow, or not? Historians and
lawyers can debate for days upon
that subject, but there is no tribunal
to determine 1t. But of the relations
of the plantation to the colony there
can be no difference of opinion. At
a session October Q, 1861 Major Mason,
deputy governor, presiding, the general
court ordered .the secretary to write
letter to Norridge to send up a
committee in May next, invested with
full power to issue of the affair re-
specting settling that plantation I'M
lowing the freemen from Norwich
were presented and accepted and
sworn by Major Mason. The general
court granted title to lands within the
plantation itself. Indeed, it was orig
inally called upon to confirm Uncas'
deed to the company, provided that
it shall not prejudice any former grant
to our worshipful governor or Others"
Yet it is still. claimed by some ac-
cepted historians that Connecticut was
a confederacy of towns.
1t was in 1888 that IT'S freemen of
the town of Norwich, then containing
Bozrah, Franklin, Lisbon, and part
of Preston as well, petitioned for the
Incorporation of the Landing and the
uptown district as a city. Their rea-
sons were stated in their memorial as
follows: THAT your memorialists,
from their local circumstances, are not
able to gain a Subsistence by agricul-
ture: That, therefore, they have for
many years past turned their atten-
ton to commerce and mechanical arts:
That, during the late war they have
been unfortunate in their navigation,
having the greatest part captured by
the enemy and burnt and destroyed by
them when they were at New Lon
DON" The memorial goes on to COM
plain that the. internal police system
is defective; that good wharves and
streets are lacking; and, finally, that
they must have court of their own.
I shall not attempt to detail the
subsequent changes in the local gov
6IHnenLS OF the various parts OF the
original town plot. They have been
lately fully chronicled; but they have
more than purely historic. interest,
for they illustrate the imperfect reia-
tons which have always existed be-
tween the state and the municipali-
ties OF course, Connecticut is not pc
culiar in this respect, but she has
yielded, on the whole, more than her
sister states to temptations to special
legislation.
Reason for Town.
The Connecticut town exists prima-
rily to take care of roads and bridges,
and paupers within its limits. 1t must
be of such convenient size that its
voters can often meet at some central
place. The original nine miles square.
split, as it were, by two rivers, was
too large. If town meetings were fire.
quent they absorbed too much of the
voters time in coming and going. The
Incorporation of the city, and of the
three, northern and western towns was
approved by a large majority of the
jewellers in the original township. La
ter legislation, actual and proposed. to
alter local boundaries, met vigorous
opposition. In the late years of the
eighteenth and the early years of the
nineteenth centuries, it was apparentlv
the policy of Connecticut to regulate
municipalities through general laws.
That practice has unfortunately fallen