The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-10-25

New Haven, Conn, Oct 25-''De- sire for trade was the motive which first led people to settle in the region we know as the state of Connecticut" according to Dor othy Deming's The Settlement of the Connecticut Towns, which has been isued by the committee on historical publications of the ter centenary commission of the state of Connecticut. The publication, one of a series, is published for the commission by the Yale University Press.
 It was the Indian residents of the region who first called atten- tiun to the desirabilities of the present Connecticut, Miss Deming says. adding that "the possibilities of the country were practically unknown to the English at Ply mouth and Massachusetts Bay un- til in 1881 small band of Mo hogan Indians came to Plymouth to suggest starting a trade with them in the Connecticut valley.
 In their turn the Indians were moved by Il desire for protection from the stronger PeQuot Indians. First the Mohcgans had turned to tue l(utCh MNh AoPPN~sf the Dutch, their hands being full otherwise. let 1t pass"
 When the residents of Plymouth were taking their time to consider the new field of possible trade, the Mohegans went to Boston. Mas sachusetts proved friendly but eva slvc," Miss Deming points out. Even when Plymouth people de- scired to have Massachusetts unite in the enterprise, suggesting the two should combine In setting up a trading house." Massachusetts refused.
 She was unwilling to run the risks of a trade in a strange cour- try among hostile Indians, and on Il dangerous river" But Miss Dcin- ing states that, these perils did not deter Massachusetts from sending out explorers few weeks later."
 Among these explorers was John Oldham, "a freeman and an in- habitant of Watertown." Oldham '.journeyed with three companions through the wilderness and brou ght back glowing accounts of fertile meadows and rich valley lands"
 Such was the source of the first definite knowledge received by those who afterward created the present state of Connecticut.
 Before the English finally had moved to take possession of the new land they first heard about through the Indians, the Dutch were on the scene. The Dutch. ac- cording to Miss Dcming's study, had sailed up tho river to the present site of Hartford, where they bought land of the Pequots, built small house.. and fortined 1t with two cannon"
 Then the English appeared, es- tablishing the first of line that still participates largely in aafffrs Of those places, places that were founded in the years immediately after 1893.
 Miss Deming tells how, when the Dutch had scarcely finished their labors, Captain William Holmes, of Plymouth, sailed past them 10 a point near the mouth of the Tunxis (now the Farmington) rive. bought land of the Mohegans, tho trueowners of the soil, and set m A frame house he had brought from Plymouth.
 .'Thus the first settlements of the white man on the river were Tn the interest of trade with the Indians"
 Miss Deming points out that Tn thesummer of 1893 party leit and" settling near the Plymouth tradaing house, and wthe relations with the traders were Tor timc strained, on account Of the intru- sion. -
 Arguments resulted until "thc ificreasing number of the Massa- chusetts people that were daily ar. irving overwhelmed the Plymouth arguments by sheer weight of num- bers and the traders were at length forced to compromise.'
 The Plymouth traders "gaye up all but one sixteenth of their orig lnai purchase and the trading house, surrendering the rest to tho Dorchester immigrants"
 "Thc southern part of this cedcd tract, known as the Lords Waste. was occupied in the summer of 1885 by a group of young men from Newtown, called tho .Adven- turcrs,' and became known as the sventurers Field a section of thirty-five acres which was pur- chased from the Dorchester set- tiers and became . part of Hart ford"
 A third step in the settlement Of Connecticut was that of permanent home making. Miss Deming says that until the spring of 1885 the settlement in Connecticut had been largely temporary, of an experi- mental nature, but with the re- moval of large bodies of people from the Massa chusetts towns per manent home-making was begun"
 An early handicap was the fact that "the title to the territory was doubtful"
 Originally the territory twas Kings demesne, which had been granted. together with the rest of the New England. to the council for New England in it's charter Of incorporation in 1620."
 A cloud lay over the title of the land. Supposedly grant of this southern portion had been made by the council in 1632 to a group of Puritan lords and gentlemen who were planning to leave Eng