Putnam patriot., 1928-10-18

house, three of the desperate leaders vaulted upon the roof. came down through the great chimney, opened the barred door. and let in the sheriff who had hung around go long. Even then Mistress Utter refused to yield pos session and was violently dragged out and flung down backward out of the door; but at last, late in the after noon, they drove me away from my home and drove my children with me into the wilderness, and set guard about me and left me there to perish without any shelter but the Heavens but with life enough to make her way to a justice, and make pitiful com plaint as His Majesty's distressed, forlorn subject"
 There was room and to spare in any quarter of that bewildering region for courageous woman with wailing chil- dren, foodless and unsheltered against the chill of the night, and it is a won der that they did not perish in the days that followed, through fatigue and exhaustion. There were mosqui- toes. too, dinning their threat into the stricken senses of the wanderers. And there was terror of the wild denizens of the forests and the red men. The tattcred clothing and swollen faces and hands told in part the horror and suffering they had endured It was a shocking tale the woman told the justice in tragic notes of the manner in which she made her way through the tangled wilds of the hideous will derness by the help of her God and Heaven.
 Rhoda Utter of witchcraft fame was probably a descendant of Mary Utter and as the old lady said. "You know she came from Salem" so perhaps while the young child was on visit there she came under the evil spell, or her early life may have been infiuenc- ed by the situation of her home on the edge of the forest where
 The boot of the owl broke the silence
 of night:
 And the moon cast a single beam on
 the moving tree branches.
 We're Contemporaries
 "Old Mother Younglove" and Nut ter. Mutter. Rhoda Utter" were ap- parently contemporaries living in op- posite sections Of Thompson, and their powers of mischief were of the same nature--assuming the form of differ ent animals for the torment of people who had offended them. Living as they did on the verge of vast wilderness invested them with the power to imi- tate the sounds of the wild animals and the birds as did the Indians to the bewilderment of the early settlers.
 Thompson Parish was named an TIPS just two hundred years ago ana incorporated as a separate town rom Killingly in 17S5. Connecticut was largely settled by societies Of Congre- gationalists. These parishes were re. snonsihle for the building of walls and fences. making and repairing roads tho maintenance of the poor, and the cara of the pounds and the general comfort of the inhabitants in the dit- eora,t tov.-, ~hins in which they were locg.ed OF ~-sr'apped. as we had the Thompson parish in the town of Nil linely. l.
 The boundaries of the parishes in several towns makes the early history of those places somewhat confusing and even in our day and generation we find the parishes or churches exer- cising n neiRhborlv care over the peo- ple in their vicinity who because Of noe or misfortune are in need of sym pathetic care. The organization of the congreqaitonalist Society of Thomp- son Hill was the North Society or neighborhood of Killingly. In l72s It became the Thompson Parish of hil- lingly and in 17s5 the General Assem- blv granted that the North Society or Thompson Parish become a separate town. The accounts between the two towns were settled promptly and satis- factorilv. The first meeting house was two years in building and at that time no dwellings. but a tavern stood on the Hll. This was built by mem bers on the Common and stood until 1915 when a great wind took Of the steeple. Another building was erect ed on the Common. The present edi- fee. that is often admired by visitors owes it's haantv to eorv from the plans of Sir Christopher Wren.
 Rhoda Utter. whose baptismal rec ord as recorded among other children's in f75O in Thompson. is. we believe. kinswoman of Mary Utter~-the pi- oneer of Windham County and eio- quent defender of her own rights women's rights.
 Darkness brings doubt when with the
 fall of night
 Steals hollow silence and wild shad-
 ows start:
 Then. as the rising moon, let Faiths
 pure light
 Flame from the holy altar in thy
 heart.