Norwich bulletin., 1913-06-19

This ancient town of East Hadda1n which has 243 years of settlement behind it, looked its holiday best Saturday for the dedication of its new S225,000 highway bridge span ming the Connecticut. and East Hao- dams best was very good indeed. The weather was perfect. Flags were flying, bands were playing, anl there were thousands of visitors thronging the narrow and somewhat crooked streets. The honk of horns and the odor of gasoline filled the air, and if one were to judge from the number of automobiles, 1t would be that most of the visitors came hY that means. Over 5000 people were present
 The Line of Parade.
 The line of parade was from the the upper landing, countermarch, stop at Nathan Hale memorial park for brief exercises, then return to the plaza and break ranks.
 Formal Speech Making.
 At o'clock the speech making of the day began. from the veranda of River Side Inn. Seats were arranged there for guests and Rollin U. Tyler of Haddam was the presiding office:. Governor Baldwin was the first speaker and his address was brief.
 
 left for Saybrook Junction in an auto mobile there to take the 4:15 express for New Haven.
 Senator B1IkeIey. whose remarks were tmpromptu, assured the ass a7n- blaze of the great pleasure which it afforded him to revisit the town of his birth and rejoice with its people in the realization of the wish which has been nearest and dearest their hearts for many years-a bridge across the Connecticut Fix Gov ernor Waller was heard in a delight
 The Haddams.
 The history of the Haddams has been closely identified with the ca H. lest of the state, and no towns have 8 better record in the Revolution or the Civil War. than these two small towns now celebrating their release from bondage The first settIemen Ut was made in Haddam in 1862. The lands, together with those in East Haddam were long known as the lands at Thirty Mile Island, now known as Haddam Island, but origin ally. called Thirty Mile Island, from the suppositien that it was thirty miles from the mouth of the Connec- ticut. This island. which is about op- posite the Rock Landing House, con- tains a little more than eighteen acres For years it was a resort of the Indians, and in the early 1S00 one of the most famous shad- fishing places on the river Its size has been materially increased by the constru = don of pier about ninety rods north of it in I793. used for fishing The sand washed down by the river has accumulated between the pier and the island; and today they are nearly one.
 Buying the Land.
 In 1860. the Colonial Court ap- pointed Matthew Allyn and Samuel Wfllys a committee to buy the lands from the Indians. For some reason the lands were not bought until 1Ss2, when for a consideration of thi.ty coats, worth at the most a bare s199, four Indian kings. Sachusquatevema- pid, Keawaytahue, Turramuggus, and %abahuett, and two Indian Quee e"s, fte~unnemo- pampoossame and Tow fishe, transferrer to the Connecticut Colony of Hartford Colony as It was straits just above MaromaS, for six miles on either side of the river, down to the lower side of Pattaquo lk, now Chester Meadow, at the cro Oks or bends of Chester River, except ing for their own use Thirty Mile IS- land, forty acres at Pattaquonk and Twenty-Mile Island. now Lords Is- land, off East Haddam. and d tract running up Salmon River cove. Twenty-Mile Island and the tract on Salmon River had been laid out for ten years as property of Cap l n John Cullick. for some time secretary of the Connecticut Colony, and about this time he built house on it.
 The First Proprietors.
 Twenty-eight young men, from