New Britain herald., 1916-06-09

settlers and soon became a favorite Tn return for their kindness, Squanto, for such was his name. taught the inexperienced villagers the art of en- riching the soil, and before long farm ing became most profitable. Squanto in his leisure hours, often told to the wondering people, stories of land south of theirs. a land watered by the Beautiful River, a land of plenty So enticing were the stories, that when Squanto's chief appeared one day and begged the people to settle in his band, some of them read fly consented and soon a company, led by Thomas Hooker, moved south ward and started the town of Hart ford.
 This settlement grew rapidly and soon Wethersfe1d and Windsor were founded from the mother colony. Later these towns grew rather crowd ed and in 164O a number of settlers migrated from them and started new village, Tunxis, on the banks of the Tunxis River. and thus began the parent of New Britain.
 As Tunxis was located on very fer tile meadowland many enterprising men were attracted to it, and so rapid was the growth of the village that in 1645 it was incorporated as the town of Pennington.
 Sergeant Richard Beckley, a plant CT from New Haven made the first settlement in Berlin in 1860. Beck ley had purchased the land from Ter ramoogus, an Indian chief, the. suc- cessor of Sowheag, from whom Tunxis h91 IT a a house and barn and cultivated the land; others by the name of Beck ley settled around him and the place became known as Beck1ey Quarter Tn 1715 this settlement was separated from Wethersf1eld and united with Kensington. Thus it became the first settlement in Berlin.
 Not long after Pennington was incorporated as a town a few settlers started a village in what is now the northeastern part of New Britain Gradually the settlement spread until it covered a large area. This section known as Stanley Quarter became a part of Pennington and contained what is now Clark Hill, Wolf Plain and northern Stanley Quarter Soon after this the northern end of East street was settled by a few families who had moved from WethersfeId. For a time the center of population remained here, for it was on the main highway, connecting Meriden, Berlin and Hartford.
 Still another settlement made about this time was the Great Swamp Vil- lage.
 Tn August 1861, the general court granted to Jonathan Gilbert, a faith full officer of the court three hundred and lift yacres of meadowIand in the southeast part of Farmington within the towns of Berlin and New Britain. Tn the next year a similar grant was made both to Daniel Clark and John Moore.
 In 1872 Gilbert bought Clark's tract and rights and this added to his own land made a strip reaching from southeastern Pennington to Southern Berlin. Gilbert kept a tavern in Hartford, and among it's frequenters was Captain Andrew Belcher, a veal thy merchant of Boston. He became acquainted with the Gilbert family and married one of the daughters. The father-in-law sold his land to Belcher, who made improvements upon it by opening highways, build ing tenement houses and in other ways making it Inviting to settlers. The southern part of the tract was called Great Swamp and the northern part as Christian Lane.
 In. 1686-7 Richard Seymour and