ley of valleys, and on these rejoicing hills, so favored of Heaven, the "remnants, that remain" of the treasures not discovered before the completion of our former enterprise, and to preserve them in the archives of our local history, "that nothing may be lost." To accomplish this, the plan of the former work will be followed, recording, step by step, all further facts obtained, under the several heads employed before, sometimes repeating facts. found in the first volume, for greater clearness of statement, and to save reference to another volume, so inconvenient in the reading of any work.

Although our country is so young, and our experience so recent, it is yet very difficult for us to picture to ourselves the novelty with which this wilderness must have struck the early gaze of our forefathers, as they came here, "bearing the ark of their covenant into the wilderness." The land was all before them. They had full authority to enter and possess it, by solemn conveyance from the Indian proprietors, and by the full consent and endowment of the General Court, encumbered by no conditions, except to receive as many other "honest inhabitants" into proprietorship with them, as the plantation would "conveniently entertain "a matter of prime necessity in new and feeble communities. How does our most fertile imagination fail to grasp and comprehend the mingled emotions which must have struggled in the bosoms of our sturdy forefathers, as, after a weary wandering in the deep forests and beside the "great rivers," they stood upon the summit of "Good Hill," first local name selected and pronounced by their lips, in the new home, and gazed into the wild and beautiful valley, divided by its lovely, meandering river, seeking with the eye, even in this first moment of enraptured vision, the sequestered nooks in which they would build their happy, moral abodes, and erect their family altars, first offerings to their adorable God and Master. Like the land of Canaan to the Israelites of old, the new land was all before them, with its woods and rocks, and hills and streams-nameless as yet. Here were a thousand hills, valleys, streams, and beautiful local objects of every form and style of loveliness, with no names by which they might be called; no appellation by which they might be described. They had bought land at "Pomperaug;" they had been granted liberty by the General Court to found a new plantation there, and that was all there was of designation. Every thing betokened that the silence of nature had remained unbroken by human voice, since those early days, when

"the morning stars sang together," save by those of nature's own uncultivated children, the red hunters of the forest. Nature, in all its grand magnificence, met the enchanted view of the pale face in these sweetly fertile plains, and mountain fastnesses. The grim chiefs of the woody wilds alone roamed over these retired solitudes, save the wild beasts, that growled upon a thousand hills. The whole face of the country was one vast wilderness, uncheered by the benign rays of civilization.

Such was the scene, and such were the circumstances that greeted the eyes of Capt. John Minor, the intrepid surveyor, and his sturdy companions, as they entered this territory, which was then the farthest point from our coast and larger rivers, that had been explored, two hundred years ago. This wilderness must be reclaimed; human habitations must be erected; the church of God, with its accompanying school-house, must be builded from these over-arching forest trees, and all objects must receive names and designations.

We may imagine the first surveyor, like a second Adam, with every living and inanimate object before him, awaiting the bestowal of an appellation. And right royally did he and his associates fulfill this duty of necessity and convenience, as they scattered among the hills and valleys, and reclaimed the waste lands. Perhaps no town anywhere has so successfully preserved its early designations as this. Every where we meet the "old landmarks." We will mention some of them, that they may be recorded, as well as remembered forever.

It was natural that they should then and there name the place whence they had had the pleasure of beholding, their "land of promise;" their future homes. They called it Good Hill. It was good and pleasant for them, in more particulars than one. It was the place of good hopes and anticipations. It was the place of good views. It was the place of good lands, and, afterwards, became the location of their "Good Hill Division," in the proportionate distribution of the lands of their new territory among the proprietors. The place where the present village stands, which was, at that date, with the adjoining intervales, cultivated by the Indians, and planted with scant crops of corn, beans, and some few other productions, was called by preeminence The Plain, and the designation has been handed down to the present day, in the conveyance of lands. The fertile plateau where the pioneers spent their first night, a little south of the village, they named Middle Quarter. It was so named, prob

ably, because they deemed it nearly midway between the plain land, which they named Judson Lane, and on which the first framed house was built, and White Oak, a place so designated by them, in the upper part of Southbury, nearest the present town of Woodbury, the place where they spent the second night of their explorations. This spot has always been one of interest. The old oak long since passed away, as is stated on a preceding page, but the interest still lingers around the ancient locality, and our artist has given a sketch of it for a future chapter.

These few names sufficed their first wants, as they builded their cabins amid these vales and hills, keeping as nearly together as possible. As the settlement extended its limits, they learned and appropriated the good old names, which had been used by the original native proprietors, and they have been carefully handed down to the present. No town of equal dimensions within the writer's knowedge has retained so many of them, and they are of far greater euphony, for the most part, than those preserved in other parts of the State. Many of our towns long since forgot the local names of the former occupants of the country. In the the neighboring town of Watertown, for instance, it is said that not a single Indian appellation, or name of local objects or places, now remains. This is the more singular, as there must ever be a lingering interest or curiosity in all the remaining traces of the aboriginal race, which preceded us, even in the least observant minds.

Quite different from this was the care with which our fathers gathered up, and applied the beautiful Indian names which abound in our territory. This may, in part, be accounted for by the fact, that Capt. John Minor, the leading man among the colonists, had been educated as missionary to the Indians, understood well their language, and seemed to take a delight in fixing forever the aboriginal names to the various localities, as he, in his office of surveyor, parcelled out the lands among the pioneers. To the lovely lake on our eastern borders he applied the name of Quassapaug, or The Beautiful Clear Water. This pleasant sheet of water, so cosily nestling among the verdant hills, furnished one of the first fishing places to the new settlers, cut off as they were from the seaboard by the boundless forests lying between them and the sea. This is an enchanting little water retreat among the hills, where one may while away an hour of pleasant thought and rest, secluded from all obtruding care, or may unite with friends in sailing