The town was organized on the 2d of March, 1784, by the election of the following officers: Moderator, Jeremiah Bingham; town clerk, Joel Linsley; selectmen, Samuel Benton, Jeremiah Bingham, Eldad Andrus; treasurer, Hiland Hall; constable, Barzillai Stickney; listers, Nathan Foot, Roswell Post; highway surveyors, Eldad Andrus, Stephen Tambling, William Jones, Isaac Kellogg. Other officers were from year to year added to the list, such as deer-rifts or reeves, whose duty it was to protect deer from the hunter from the 10th of January to the 10th of June, when their meat would be of no value; branders of horses, tithingmen, choristers, pound-keepers, etc. Concerning the setting off to Middlebury of a portion of Cornwall in 1796, further particulars will be found in the chapter on the history of Middlebury. The early settlers of Cornwall were, almost without exception, men who were inclined by nature to pursuits purely agricultural. The fact of their settling in a town so fertile of soil and poor in water power and shipping facilities sufficiently attests that they hoped to gain a livelihood and more from the tilling of the ground. Communities of men are governed as absolutely by the beneficent and yet inflexible laws of nature’s God as are the inanimate and the inorganic elements of creation. Houses must be built and repaired; boots, shoes and harnesses must be used; horses must be shod,...

THE original grantees of Cornwall were probably residents of Litchfield county, Connecticut. The charter granted to them was signed by Benning Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire, on the 3d day of November, 1761. The following are their names; Elias Reed, Thomas Chipman, Murry Lester, Samuel Lee, Josiah Heath, James Nichols, Josiah Dean, Ebenezer Fletcher, Samuel Keep, Roswell Steel, Alexander Gaston, George Nichols, William Nichols, John Judd, Timothy Brownson, Solomon Linsley, Andrew Esquire, Moses Buck, David Cowles, Moses Read the 3d, Zuriel Jacobs, William Trumbull, Stephen Benton, Sarah Nichols, Benjamin Smalley, John Willoby, Joel Reed, Joseph Williams, James Nichols, jr., Enoch Slawson, Phinehas Holdcom, Josiah Willoby, Samuel Chipman, Thomas Tuttle, Jabez Tuttle, John Skinner, Samuel Hulburd, Hannah Austin, Ruluff White, David Averill, Amos Chipman, Jabez Williams, James Smith, Andrew Brownson and John Scovill, one right; Samuel Judd, Eleanor Smith, Benjamin Woodruff, Jonah Sandford, William Reed, Nathan Benton, Abiel Linsley, John Everts, James Landon, esq., James Landon, jr., Ezekiel Landon, Thomas Landon, John Hutchinson, esq., William Ham, David Reed, David Stevens, Richard Wiberd, esq., Joseph Newmarch, esq., Samuel Beebee, Isaac Benton. Owing to the glaring discrepancies between the town lines, as established by the charter, and a re-survey dated September 25, 1784, both of which were grossly inaccurate, a controversy arose beween Cornwall and Whiting, which in 1789 ripened into a law suit. The result being unfavorable to Cornwall, the proprietors...

The first settlers of Cornwall were Asa Blodget, James Bentley, James Bentley, jr., Thomas Bentley, Joseph Throop, Theophilus Allen, William Douglass, Samuel Benton, Eldad Andrus, Samuel Blodget, Sardius Blodget, Solomon Linsley, Aaron Scott and Nathan Foot. They arrived and made their pitches in 1774. The eight first named selected their lands in the east part of the township, bounding on Otter Creek, and by the change of limits, in 1796 became inhabitants of Middlebury. The remaining six made their pitches in the northern and central parts of this town. In 1775 Ebenezer Stebbins, Joel Linsley and John Holley made their pitches, and in 1776 Jonah Sanford, Obadiah Wheeler and James Marsh Douglass settled their locations. None of these names except those of Solomon Linsley and Jonah Sanford is endorsed on the charter. With these exceptions, and two or three others who came after the war, the surveys uniformly specify certain “original rights,” on which their claims were leased. The first settlement of Solomon Linsley embraced the farm owned, in 1862, by Milo Williamson, a few rods north of the present farm of M. B. Williamson. Aaron Scott, of Sunderland, Mass., cleared a hundred acres west of Solomon Linsley, the survey embracing the present farm of Mrs. S. D. Carr, and extended further west and south. His cabin stood southwest of the site of Mrs. Carr’s house. In 1775 John...

The Congregational Church of Cornwall, the first religious organization in Cornwall, was formed on the 1st of July, 1785, with the following members: Jared Abernathy, Stephen Tambling, James Marsh Douglass, Jeremiah Bingham, Roswell Post, Daniel Sampson, Mary Chipman, and Elizabeth Ives, and during the few weeks following August 21 Jesse Chipman, Mrs. Post, Mrs. Tambling, Nathaniel Cogswell and wife, Joel Linsley, Ethan Andrus, Isaac Kellogg, Hiland Hall, and Mrs. Ives were added to the number. On the 20th of July, 1787, a call was extended to the Rev. Thomas Tolman, and accepted on the 30th of August. Being the first pastor, he received as his right the lot of land set apart by the charter for the first settled minister, and in addition received from the town “a settlement.” The first deacons were Jeremiah Bingham, Hiland Hall, and Father William Samson. The first meetings were held in Captain Benton’s barn; afterward at his house and the house of Joel Linsley. The first house of worship stood west of the highway on which the old red school-house formerly stood. It was completed, probably in the spring of 1791, and first occupied in the following autumn. Mr. Tolman was dismissed at his own request on the 11th of November, 1790. In 1796 the place of worship was changed by vote to nearly the present site of the church edifice. The second...