the Disposer of all things, they drew lots according to the agreement, every man being satisfied and contented with God’s disposing.” Would that the words of that prayer and the picture of that scene could to-day be reproduced! Surely the spirit of the Puritans of 1630 was the spirit of that band of pilgrims in 1686 on yonder hill. These are the honored names of the first settlers: Thomas and Joseph Bacon, James Corbin, Benjamin Sabin, Henry Bowen, Thomas Lyon, Ebenezer Morris, Matthew Davis, William Lyon, Sr., John Chandler, Sr., Peter Aspinwall, John Frizzel, Joseph Frizzel, Jonathan Smithers, John Butcher, Jonathan Davis, Jonathan Peake, Nathaniel Garey, John Bowen, Nathaniel Johnson, John Hubbard, George Griggs, Benjamin Griggs, William Lyon, Jr., John Leavens, Nathaniel Sanger, Samuel Scarborough, Samuel Craft, Samuel May, Joseph Bugbee, Samuel Peacock, Arthur Humphrey, John Bugbee, Jr., Andrew Watkins, John Marcy, Edward Morris, Joseph Peake, John Holmes, and John Chandler, Jr.

Of that list of thirty-nine,34 Benjamin Sabin, Nathaniel Sanger, Nathaniel Garey, John Hubbard, Matthew Davis, and George Griggs afterwards moved to Pomfret; Peter Aspinwall and his step-sons, the sons of John Leavens, went to Killingby; and Arthur Humphrey and others became the first settlers of Ashford. A few returned to Roxbury. But a large share of the original settlers lived and died in Woodstock, including Edward and Ebenezer Morris, Jonathan and Joseph Peake, James Corbin, Thomas and Joseph Bacon, Henry Bowen, William and Thomas Lyon, John Chandler, Sr., and John Chandler, Jr., John Butcher, Nathaniel Johnson, Joseph and John Bugbee, John Marcy, John Holmes, and perhaps a few others. As an illustration of the ages of the pioneers in 1686, it may be mentioned that Benjamin Griggs was nineteen; Joseph Bacon and Andrew Watkins, twenty; John Bugbee, John Chandler, Jr., James Corbin, and Jonathan Davis, twenty-one; Peter Aspinwall, Matthew Davis, John Frizzel, and Lieut. Ebenezer Morris, twenty-two; John Butcher and Nathaniel Garey, twenty-three; John Bowen and John Marcy, twenty-four; George Griggs, John Holmes, and Samuel May, twenty-five; Thomas Bacon, twenty-eight; Samuel Peacock, twenty-nine; William Lyon, Jr., and Nathaniel Sanger, thirty-four; Thomas Lyon, thirty-eight; Nathaniel Johnson, thirty-nine; Benjamin Sabin and Samuel Scarborough, forty; Joseph Peake, forty-one; Joseph Bugbee and John Leavens, forty-six; Samuel Craft and Jonathan Peake,35 forty-nine; Deacon John Chandler, fifty-one; Lieut. Henry Bowen, fifty-three; Edward Morris, fifty-six; and William Lyon Sr., sixty-five.36

The first one of the thirty-nine to die was Lieut. Edward Morris, whose gravestone bears the date of 1689, the oldest in the county.37 The last one of the thirty-nine to die was Thomas Bacon, who lived to be ninety-six years of age. To show the extreme ages of some of the Woodstock people, it may here be said that Paraclete Skinner, now living, remembers Deacon Jedediah Morse, who died in 1819 at the age of ninety-three, and Deacon Morse was seventeen years old when Col. John Chandler, a first settler, was living; and thirty-two years of age the year that Thomas Bacon, another first settler, died. That is, an inhabitant of this town remembers one who knew some of the first settlers of Woodstock. Lieut. Henry Bowen, one of the first settlers, attained the age of ninety. Deacon Morse’s grandmother, who came in April of 1687 to Woodstock with her husband Jonathan Peake, Jr.,38 likewise lived to be ninety, lacking twelve days. One of the oldest persons that ever lived in Woodstock was Sarah, the daughter of Jonathan Peake, Jr., and the mother of Deacon Morse, who reached the age of ninety-nine, lacking forty-four days, and who had about her while living three hundred and nineteen descendants.39 The combined ages of Thomas Bacon, Sarah Morse, and Paraclete Skinner is now two hundred and eighty years. Time alone can tell to what figure their combined ages may attain!

But what a small number in that list of first settlers have descendants bearing the same family name among the citizens of Woodstock to-day! Only James Corbin, William Lyon, John Chandler, Nathaniel Johnson, Benjamin Griggs, Henry Bowen, Joseph Bugbee, Nathaniel Sanger, and John Marcy! But Woodstock is proud to own among the descendants of the first settlers influential and honored citizens of many towns and cities, and some of them, I rejoice to say are here to-day.

The first settlers of Woodstock had the right stuff in them to succeed. After the home-lots were chosen highways were laid out, a grist-mill and saw-mill built, bridges constructed, new inhabitants brought in, and every thing possible was done to make the settlement permanent. A general meeting of the inhabitants was held July 2, 1687, when “John Chandler, Sr., Nathaniel Johnson, Joseph Bugbee, James White, and James Peake, were chosen to order the prudential affairs of the place as selectmen, for the year ensuing.”

V.

An effort was now made to get a confirmation of the grant occupied by the new settlers, but as long as Sir Edmund Andros was the Royal Governor of the Province, it was impossible. A delay ensued until William and Mary became sovereigns of Great Britain. The new settlers had not yet an organized town government. The settlement, like the first settlements in Windsor and Hartford, received its name from the mother town.40 But the New Roxbury people wished to have a name of their own and a town of their own. At the beginning of the year 1690 they chose a committee of three to petition the General Court to substitute a new name for that of New Roxbury. The committee at once conferred with the mother town, for on Jan. 13, 1690, Roxbury held a town meeting at which it was voted to request the General Court to allow the settlement in the Nipmuck country to become a town, to confirm the grant and to give a suitable name. The New Roxbury committee pressed their claims, and on March 18, 1690, the General Court confirmed the grant and voted that the name of the plantation be Woodstock. We owe the name of Woodstock to Capt. Samuel Sewell41 who was Chief-Justice of Massachusetts from 1718 to 1728. He has been called “a