New Britain herald., 1916-05-03
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Views on all sides of timely questions as discussed in ex- changes that come to tho Herald Office.
Where Robert Treat Built Town.


 Two and a half centuries ago the members of thirty families from Mil ford, Branford and Guilford, to give body and substance to their protest against the consolidation of the New Haven and Connecticut colonies, emil grated from the land of steady habits, man of ability and force The site of their new home they had bought from the Lords Proprietors, and it consisted practically of what Is now Essex county. New Jersey To it they took their way. only to find that the Indian occupants considered them selves i'll used, and maintained that the land was theifs. Let 1t be re- corded that the colonists recognized the rights of the aborigines; they paid to the Indians, according to the East Jersey records, fifty double hands full of powder, one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, twenty coats, twenty pistols, ten kettles ten swords, four blankets, four barrels of beer. ten pair of brooches, fifty knives, twenty hoes. eight hundred and fifty fathoms of Wampum, twenty ankers of liquor and ten troopers coats"; of the value of about s70O. and thus fortified their title. They set them selves up, and Robert Treat spoke their purpose in this fashion:
 We all desire to be of one heart and consent to carry on our spiritual concernments, our civil and town af- fairs, according to Cop, and God1y government here by this river Pas saill.'
 Thus was founded the settlement that, following the imm orial GUS tom of the English, the emigrants called Milford: in memory of the New Haven town from which a consider able number of them came. The com munity they established was to en- dure, but the name Milford was soon abandoned; it's first pastor was hon. Ored by the adoption of the title Newark, to commemorate the place of his origin, Newark Trent. Rob- crt Treat remained in it six years, and then returned to New England, to rise in honor and establish a popular fame that endures to this day prin- cpally because of the attribution to him of the plan to preserve the Con- necticut charter in the stormy days of Andros by hiding it in Charter Oak.
 How admirable the situation of this Puritan esta blishment was. the great CltE tlldl SpIdllS IIoIIl i1tdt ttuNSli- ture tells us. He was sailor, a surveyor. a politician; he recognized the natural advantages of the lands along the "Passaik'; and where .1e set his staff in 1666 there stands to- day a city great in numbers. indus tries and accomplishment Its his tory has been one of uninterrupted progress and development, and in it 11o 016 nf serious men who dealt fairly with the Indians has been preserved. Access sions of population have strengthened it's spirit. but never altered if. The have not deprived it of the indiVidu dual- ity it's earliest inhabitants impressed upon it. nor has the proper pride oI it's people diminished as the place of their domicile attained to maturity.
 It is not by accident that the plans for the six months celebration oI Newark's two hundred and fftieth that begins today provide for an enduring and permanently useful memorial. The pageants. the sports, the mcrrymalIings will be adequate and serve their purpose, for New arkers know how to play but while they entertain themselves they will be building for the future. a future filled with the promise of rich and de- served prosperity and growth.