Woodbury, Waterbury and Simsbury, should be fortified with the utmost
expedition. They were directed to keep scouts of faithful men to range
the forests to discover the designs of the enemy, and give intelligence
should they make their appearance near the frontier. At the October
session in 1708, it was enacted that garrisons should be kept at those
towns, and so it continued until after the close of the war in 1713.

It was in the midst of alarms and dangers such as these that the
settlement of this town was begun. One of the first houses constructed
here had palisades about it to serve as a fort, which lasted many years,
and in 1717 soldiers were stationed here for the protection of the
inhabitants, and this was repeated several times afterwards. Every man
was a soldier. He was a soldier when he sat at his meals, a soldier when
he stood in his door, a soldier when he went to the cornfield, a soldier
by day and by night.

At the time the first settlers arrived here there was a tract of cleared
land on the west side of the river called the Indian Field. It extended
from where the river runs in an easterly direction south to the mouth of
the little brook which runs along Fort Hill. It was not included in the
original purchase from the Indians, having been reserved by them in
their deed. It was, however, purchased from them in 1705, by John
Mitchell, and was conveyed by him to the inhabitants of the town in
1714. This was of the greatest advantage to the first settlers. It
furnished them a space of cleared ground, where each planter could at
once plant his corn and other crops, without the delay of felling the
trees.

It is thought also that the ground where we now stand, and Aspetuck Hill
had been in a large measure cleared of trees by the Indians by burning,
as was also Grassy Hill, two miles east of here. There appears also to
have been some meadow land partially cleared at the mouth of the
Aspetuck River.

At that time the country about here presented no such appearance as it
does now. The river then flowed with a fuller tide. With the exceptions
I have noted, a continuous forest overspread the whole landscape. No
thickets, however, choked up the ways through it, for the underbrush was
swept away every year by fires built by the Indians for that purpose.
Winding footways led here and there which the Indians and wild beasts
followed. The roots of the smaller grasses were destroyed by this annual
burning over. A coa