id="id00107">"Recorded from ye originalls pr Jon Minor, Recorder, March, 1700- 1701."

Under this contract Mr. Stoddard served his congregation for sixty years, and died September 7, 1760, in his eighty-third year, and the sixty-first of his ministry. He was educated at Harvard College and graduated in 1679. Mr. Cothron, in 1872, says of him:

"He was at the same time minister, lawyer and physician. Like many of the early ministers of the colony, he prepared himself for the practice of physic, that he might administer to the wants of the body, as well as those of the mind. In this capacity he was often called. The only person the author has found who ever saw him, was Deacon Amos Squire, of Roxbury, who died two or three years ago, aged ninety-nine, and who recollected having seen him when a lad about eight years of age, while on a visit in this capacity to his father, who had received a severe wound from an ax. He had also done what other ministers did not, and that was to perfect himself in legal knowledge."

It must be remembered that the pastor of a church in those days was in quite a different position than one now, when the constitution guarantees to every one liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. The Congregational mode of worship was then adopted and established by law in Connecticut, but it was provided that all sober orthodox persons dissenting therefrom should, on representing it to the General Court, be allowed to worship in their own way. Such a privilege, however, was regarded with distrust. Our fathers who desired religious freedom and periled all for it in the wilderness, had not anticipated that they would speedily have an opportunity to extend that toleration to others which in the fatherland they had in vain sought for themselves. The town church was, therefore, in substance, the only church, and the preacher was the autocrat of the place.

Mr. Stoddard was not only a preacher, lawyer and doctor, but he was also a fighter. In 1707 an expedition was made by the French and Indians against New England, which created general alarm throughout the country. Woodbury was exposed to the raids made by the Indians, and suspicions were entertained that the neighboring tribes would join the French and Indians in their foray. During the continuance of this war, on one Sabbath evening, after the conclusion of the services at church, while he was walking in his garden, he discovered an Indian skulking among the surrounding trees and bushes. Apparently without noticing the movements of the Indian, he contrived to re-enter his house, and obtained his gun. After playing the same game of skulking with his adversary for a while, Mr. Stoddard got a fair view of him, discharged his piece, and the Indian fell among the bushes. He dared not investigate farther that night, but having quietly given the alarm, the inhabitants sought their palisaded houses for the night. Early in the morning he discovered another red foe, in the vicinity of his companion, and whom he also laid low with his musket. By this time the people had assembled, and after the country was scoured in all directions for several hours, and no other savages were found, the alarm subsided.

Before leaving my Woodbury ancestors, who resided there nearly one hundred and fifty years, I wish to relate my first visit to Woodbury. I was at West Point, as one of the Board of Visitors, one Saturday in June, 1873, when I concluded to respond to an invitation I had received, and go to Woodbury and spend the Sabbath there. I did so and found, as I had anticipated, beautiful valleys with picturesque hills, a rural air and a quiet, peaceful, Sunday outlook. I knew no one except Hon. William Cothron, and him only by correspondence. I believe he was superintendent of the Sunday school; but, at all events, upon my presenting myself, and stating my desire to explore Woodbury, he kindly consented, and went with me. I located many of the most interesting objects in the town. The large, well-built stone house of Daniel Sherman was still standing, made after the usual pattern, two stories high with a lean-to roof in the rear, and with low ceilings. He had lived there during most of his active life, and had entertained Washington and Lafayette, when they at different times visited the French vessels at Newport. The fortified house of Rev. Anthony Stoddard was in a good state of preservation, with its projecting eaves and loop holes for defense. We visited the old church and graveyard, and drove southward to what were called the "Sherman settlements." Evidently the comparatively few families in Woodbury were in a state of comfort as they were found to be living in good houses and drawing, no doubt, an income from investments in the great and growing West.

On that quiet Sabbath day the village of Woodbury recalled to me
Mr. John H. Bryant's description of his native village:

  "There lies a village in a peaceful vale,
   With sloping hills and waving woods around,
   Fenced from the blasts. There never ruder gale
   Bows the tall grass that covers all the ground;
   And planted shrubs are there, and cherish'd flowers,
   And a bright verdure born of gentle showers."

Subsequently I again visited Woodbury with General Sherman. Mr. Cothron was still there and was very kind to us. It seemed to me that the old place had run down a little, that the walks were not so clean, the grass was not as fresh in the fields, and evidently the graveyards had lost some of their monuments, but a prominent one had been erected in the churchyard to Rev. Anthony Stoddard, to which General Sherman had contributed. We heard of no one of our name in Woodbury, but when General Sherman saw an old sign, "Sherman's Tannery," he said that he believed he had at last found some tangible evidence of the residence of our fathers in Woodbury; that Sherman had been a good honest tanner no doubt, and that was the most that could be said of any one.

As I have said, my grandfather, Taylor Sherman, and his wife, Elizabeth Stoddard, moved from Woodbury to Norwalk, where he practiced his profession as a lawyer. He attained a good position as such, and for many years he was a Judge of Probate. He became early associated with the proprietors of the half million acres of land lying in the western part of the Western Reserve in Ohio, called "Sufferers' Land."

In the period immediately before and after the adoption of the constitution several of the states laid claim to western lands, founded upon grants by James I, the chief of which were the claims of Virginia to the region north and west of the Ohio River, and the claim of Connecticut to all the land lying west of Pennsylvania to the South Seas and north of the 41st parallel of latitude. These claims were finally compromised by Congress granting to Virginia all the land lying between the Scioto and the Miami Rivers in Ohio, and to Connecticut the land in Ohio north of the 41st parallel, extending westward of Pennsylvania one hundred and twenty miles.

During the Revolutionary War the coasts of Connecticut had been subjected to several raids by the British and Tories, and several towns, including Norwalk, Greenwich, Fairfield, Danbury, New Haven and New London, had been burned. Indemnity had been proposed, but the state was in no condition to pay such losses.

In the year 1800, the State of Connecticut granted to her citizens, who were sufferers by fire during the Revolutionary War, a half million acres of land, lying within the State of Ohio, which was to be taken off the west part of what was called the "Western Connecticut Reserve," now embraced in the counties of Huron and Erie. By an act of the legislature of the State of Ohio, passed in 1803, the sufferers were incorporated under the name of "The proprietors of the half