HARON, venerable which moved out of one of the old coast

as it is with asso- settlements upon a curious vehicle that an
ciations of old New ingenious young man of the family had
England days is yet constructed—the first wagon ever seen in
the last town that its streets !
the Colony of Con- It thus happened that in October, 1732,
necticut formed. as we learn from Gen. Sedgwick's invalu-

Its first settlement able history, a committee appointed by was a full century later than those upon the Assembly to view the colony lands the Sound and upon the banks of its prin- west of the Ousatonic River, laid out the cipal river.

town of Sharon and marked its bounds by There is a striking difference between sundry piles of stones and the blazing of the process of settling the country in the trees. The township was divided into early period and that of a later day, when fifty-three rights one of which should be Progress had donned her Seven League for the use of the ministry, one for the Boots. With slow facilities of travel, the first gospel minister settled, and one for territory was filled and occupied as the the support of the school. The remaining wave swept on; and if the pace was that fifty rights were to be “vendered and sold,” of the ox-team instead of the locomotive, and their purchasers were to have "a sure there were not lacking advantages in all indefeasible estate in fee simple” from his that pertains to the solidification of com- majesty, King George the Second _" in munities, and the avoidance of that iso- fee and common socage, and not in capite lation which is a potent factor in the ten- nor by Knights Service."

Earlier than dency to barbarism. Even so late as this, one Capt. Richard Sackett had 1794 there is tradition of a family which thought to appropriate to himself a princely came to a border town of Sharon, and estate here, through a colonial patent from

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New York, and purchases from the Indian as sweet," it is still hard to believe that chief, Metoxen, some 22,000 acres in the there would not be some alien flavor to two states—but his scheme, most fortu- even so delectable a spot, had it retained nately, ended in failure. There is how- permanently the uncouth designation of ever nothing recorded of him specially “N. S.” for a name. But the petition was dishonorable ; he was but availing himself granted and henceforth this wild rose of of methods in securing a fortune, then, as Sharon had its fragrant and appropriate still, in high repute.

name.

There was nothing of haphazard in the

Puritan's way of !

founding a sette
ment. He had a
genius for organiza
tion, and he came
with institutions, civil
and religious, already
perfected; there was
only to set them up
at first, and town and
parish were in work-
ing order. So the
founders immediately
laid out the tradi-
tional village street
with a meeting house
in the center of the
green, as instinctively
as a colony of bees
constructs a comb.
The surveyors did
not end their work,
indeed, until they

had covered that part
CONGREGATIONAL, CHURCH.

of the township with

a right-angled netSharon was known only by the cabalis

work of highways, many of them on all tic name of "N. S.”—so it was designated manner of impossible grades. It would in the committee's report to the Assembly; seem that their ideal plan must be carried but when the first body of settlers came, in out, despite the incorrigibility of the 1739, they sent a petition "To the Honor- geological formation. able, the Governor and Representatives in “ The Sharon fathers, we may suppose, General Court assembled at New Haven," paused upon the New England borderstating that their township they had the Ultima Thule of civilization to them" "presumed to call by the name of SHARON."

-says a local chronicler of this region, If "a rose by any other name would smell

"and from their vantage ground of the hill

,

Built in 1824.

Toliath God.cine toinue

peered over into the sister state with meeting house or even a village green in mingled feelings of curiosity and disap- the whole settlement !'" proval. They must have pondered gravely "It was a piece of the irony of fate," on the mysterious ways of their neighbors continues our chronicler," that the very in the Province of Amenia, N. Y.; for first white man to live in the town of here they met abruptly a wave of emigra- Sharon was a Dutchman! This was one tion which had flowed in a direction opposite to their

By His EXCELLENCY own, from the banks of the

A

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Ese; Hudson. They were the

General and Commander in Chief of the Forces of the people whom Diedrich Knickerbocker long ago

United States of America. portrayed in his renowned

HESE are to CERTIFY that the Bearer hereof *History of New York'--a people differing in language,

in the A FemeckuRegiment, having fuit:fulcustoms and all their social

dy ferved the United States from pret 79 traditions from the New

me;"708

and being inlisted for the War only, is England type. Germans and

hereby DISCHARGED from the American Army.
Hollanders, including their
foster brethren, Huguenots,

GIVEN at HEAD-QUAR TER S the
had been already established
for fifteen or twenty years in
'The Oblong,' as that strip

noor of territory, fifty miles long

By H 15 E ICELLENCY'S and less than two miles wide,

Command,
which had been ceded by

sembarceiro
Connecticut to New York in
1731, in exchange for the
'Horseneck' on the Sound,

REGISTERED in the Books
was called in those days; or

pl che Regimento "The Equivalent,' as we see

Adju:ant, it in land titles of the period.

What manner of man is this Dutchman?' we imagine their exclaiming, “He can

THE above build for himself substantial

has been honored with ehe Badge of Merit fon bic
houses, indeed, of brick and

Years Saithful Service.
of stone, with deep shady
stoups, and with name and

DISCHARGE OF HEZEKIAH GOODWIN.
date inscribed upon them ;
sometimes with huge initials and figures Baltus Lott—Dutchiest of the Dutch, it
fantastically wrought into the masonry of would appear. The offence of his intru-
a whole quaint gable ; but his roads are sion, and his profaning with his outlandish
devious, wandering trails in the footsteps gibberish the sacred precincts of a Puritan
of the Indians. Where is his organic settlement, were not without some pallia-
town development? There is not tion, for the state boundary was not clearly

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