Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, BY SAMUEL STILES, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern TO THE MEMORY OF ASAH E L STILES, OF SCANTIC PARISH, EAST WINDSOR, CONN., WHO SERVED IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AS DRUMMER IN ONE OF THE COMPANIES WHICH WENT FROM HIS NATIVE TOWN, AND WHO, AFTER THE WAR, WAS ELECTED CAPTAIN OF THE SAME COMPANY; AND WHOSE LIFE EVINCED A SINCERITY OF PURPOSE, AND A RIGID ADHERENCE TO CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE AND DUTY, PREFACE. While engaged, some years since, in tracing out the genealogy of my family, I became deeply interested in the history of the ancient town where they first settled. This interest gradually deepened into a conviction that its history ought to be written, ere it was too late. There were other heads and hands, as I thought, better fitted than mine to undertake this labor; but failing to enlist their services, I reluctantly undertook it myself. I was, at that time, in very poor health, and suffering from a serious affection of the eyes, which totally incapacitated me from any continuous effort at reading or writing. Thus prevented from the pursuit of my profession, I felt the necessity of something, which, by occupying my mind, should relieve me from both the constant contemplation of my physical sufferings, and from the still greater discomfort of idleness. Seeking the country for its genial influences upon my weakened frame, I spent my time amidst the pleasant scenery of Ancient Windsor, visiting among friends and relatives, and drinking in, from aged lips, rich stores of historic lore. Meanwhile, taking advantage of an occasional "favorable spell" of eyesight, I cautiously used it, in examining the old written records, and in marking out such portions as were necessary to be transcribed. These were afterward copied by my brother, WILLIAM L. STILES, in whose accuracy I have as much confidence as in my own; and to whom I here desire to express my gratitude for the deep interest which he has constantly manifested in everything pertaining to this work. The large stores of material thus collected were afterward collated and read to me; and so, gradually, reading when I could, thinking when I could not read, and trusting my thoughts to the ready pen of an amanuensis, the skeleton of the history was constructed. From time to time, as my eyesight improved, I visited the old records, each time bringing away with me new material. Many times my health and eyesight failed me, but visiting Windsor for the benefits of its air and sunshine, I never gave up the purpose of writing its history, if my life should be spared. Gradually, and to an extent which, if I had imagined before I undertook it, would probably have deterred me from the labor-the work grew on my hands; but to the Great Physician I humbly record my gratitude, that with the increased burden has also come an increase of strength, and that to day I enjoy a degree of health which I once scarcely dared to hope for. These circumstances, however, I would not mention here, were it not in the hope that they might serve to explain and to excuse, what perhaps might seem to others inexcusable faults of omission and commission. The original plan of the work included the history of East and South Windsor and Ellington to the present time. Finding, however, that Dr. H. C. GILLETTE of South Windsor, had undertaken the history of those towns from the commencement of the Revolution to the present day, and had indeed commenced its publication in the Hartford Times, I relinquished that portion of my intended labor, and contented myself with giving the history of those towns only down to the year 1768, at which time they ceased to be a portion of Ancient Windsor. For the sake of completeness, however, I continued the ecclesiastical history of the east side towns, as well as the genealogies of the families therein, to the present date. In the construction of my history, I have endeavored to make it a treasury of all that was valuable and interesting relative to Ancient Windsor. My constant aim has been to bring out the original documents; and to impress upon this history not the seal of my own authorship, but the broad seal of undoubted authenticity. I have preferred to imitate the pious zeal of Old Mortality, who wandered thro' "bonnie Scotland," not raising new monuments, but carefully removing from decaying tombstones, the thick moss, and reverently chiselling deeper the almost effaced inscriptions which preserved the blessed memory of the "covenanting fathers." Such, I conceive to be the work of the true historian; and wherever (as especially in the case of the chapter on Scantic Parish), I have found material garnered by other hands, I have availed myself of their labors, with the same freedom which I would myself allow in like circumstances, and with full acknowledgment therefor. As before mentioned, this work has increased on my hands to an unexpected size, and, consequently, I have felt obliged to make it mainly a contribution of original material to the history of Windsor, and to cast out all such as being elsewhere printed, could be safely omitted here. This was especially the case in the biographical department. The lives of such men as Jonathan Edwards, John Fitch, Governor Roger Wolcott, and Chief Justice Ellsworth, would each, if as fully written out as we should wish, fill a volume of the size of this. And, with all the abundance of original matter pressing upon me, I determined to give it the preference, even at the expense of having my work censured as incomplete, by many who naturally expect to find lengthy biographies of Windsor's eminent sons. I preferred to leave them to other pens, and to content myself with rescuing from fast T ་ |