New Britain herald., 1919-06-25

Old Settlers. In 1747 Moses Hills, grandfather Iourth removed Of Edwin H. Hills, bought his first piece of land on the Great Plain, In 1759 he built the ,, house still standing at the east end of l Broad street and became the founder of the Hills family in Plainville. ] In 1771 Allen Merrill built at White 1 Oak.
 In 1774 Asahel Hooker, a descend 1 ant of the Rev. Thomas Hooker 1 founder of Hartford, settled at Red , Stone Hill and built the house since i remodeled by Mrs. Russell T. Good l rich.
 In the year following Richard Por- ter built opposite the Hooker house.
 In 1777 the original part of the 1 Colonial Inn was built by Salmon 1 Root and about the same time his brother Samuel Root built the small brown house opposite Cooke's garage The small white house at East Main I and East streets was built at this ] time and s'>en after occupied by Lad 1 wick Hotel kiss.
 ! Up to this time the necessary 1unn- 1 Der for our buildings was sawed eith- CT at Pennington or Bristol and 1t was not until 1785 that Demming's mill
 was built where the Hills factory now stands.
 Another early settler was John Hamblin who doubtless came to White Oak to live in 17sS in which year the birth of his first child is recorded. Be ! this as it may, it is known that in
 17S4 he built the house now owned by Frederick C. White at Whites cross ing.
 Tn 1759 Thomas Bishop came to Red 1 Stone Hill.
 In 17S9 Phineas and Oliver Ham bin l built at White Oak, the former. the red and yellow house on the north , side of the New Britain road, the lat
 ter, the house owned by Orrin Hes ford.
 Ira Hooker built what we know as
 the William Manchester house ill 17e1
 or e2.
 John Cooke's tavern built just prior to 1794, came into possession of the Cooke family in 1795 when John
 Cooke enlarged the house to it's pres
 ent size and opened a tavern which
 he conducted fer a number of years.
 Tn 1790 Phineas Cowles settled just
 north of the cemetery on Unionville
 avenue.
 Ezekiel Covles settled in the Scott S
 Swamp district, buying his first piece
 of land there TITO and in 1799 Ben
 ja,n1in Styles owned the property To-
 cated at the northwest corner of the
 town on the Pennington line.
 Soil Thought Poor.
 Thus, briefly, Plainviile was settled l It's beginning had been long postponed due to the fact that the. land in this
 vicinity was considered thin and prac-
 {L,1r
 rich meadows to which the founders
 of Pennington came in 164O. In il-
 illustration of this feeling, there is a
 tradition that one old Pennington pro-
 prietor was in the ha pit, when com
 ing to Plainvi1le on horse back. to dis 1 mount and crawl on his hands and
 knees over some of the very sandy 1 spots for fear Of breaking through. With the Warriors.
 During the period we have just con- sidered occurred the several wars with the French and Indiars. The "Old 1 French war;" so-called between the
 years 1744 and 174S. While none ot , the men then dwelling on the Great / Plain, took part in that conflict, Asa Bronson who lived on Red Stone Hill ; in 1914 and whose means of liveli-
 hood was in making hair sieves, was , a survivor of that war as was our Dr. tI Samuel Richards who, in later years
 lived on Broad street Dr. Richards
 was assistant surgeon in the expedi-
 ton against Cape Breton and is bur
 jed in the old cemetery on East street , Tn the Revolution. , During this period also the war fo1
 American Independence was fought Tn this conflict Pennington did its | >t,J :, kind were sent from here to the in 1 habitants of Boston during the dis tress occasioned by the enforcemen , of the Boston port bill A committee , of correspondence was maintained
 and the town prepared for eventuali- , ties by the purchase in 1T74 of 3.00( Il 1 pounds of lead, 10000 gun f1ints anc . l 36 barrels of gunpowder Men, muni . tions and money were supplied 1T /, abundance. The men from Plainvfllt who fought against the British were 1 Ira Hooker, Daniel and James Low ] rey of Red Stone Hill, Lieut., Joh1
 Hamblin of White Oak and Ladwicl 5 Hotchkiss.
 ., More Warriors. = Tn the war of 1912 P1ainvile wa h represented by Salmon and lame I Hills and Demas Warner. Georg tOOk9 was uIalIeu LOT SSiNlCS Dub Uo G fore his call came the war had ended y Tn the Mexican war, Julius Dorman 0 who was then working in White Oak I served from February 3 to May f 1S47, and rose to the rank of ser q geant,
 = Religious Beliefs. q In respect to the religious though e and life of this community in tn t early days. the great majority of ou
 families attended church and Thurs
 day lecture at the Congregations