Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. ETHNOGRAPHIC HISTORY. ' H E settlement of the Naugatuck valley must be considered in what may be called its ethnographical relations, in order to bring to view the significance and bearings of the various purchases made by the first settlers. The valley was claimed by the Paugasetts' on the south, the Pootatucks on the west and the Tunxis Indians on the east. With one or other of these tribes the white men had to deal, and in Waterbury the settlers found it expedient to purchase the same lands from different tribes, without attempting to decide between their rival claims. Considering the Naugatuck valley as ending where that river enters the Ousatonic, the first sale of land in the valley made by the Indians was previous to 1646, and was probably the land on which Mr. Wakeman's men were employed in 1642 ; which was on what is now Birmingham Point. The then governor of New Haven is authority for the statement that this land was purchased of the Indians,2 but no deed has been seen of that sale. The next purchase was made in 1653, by Mr. Goodyear3 and others. It consisted of a tract of land at Paugassett, which was sold to Richard Baldwin and nine other men of Milford, in the spring of 1654, and a settlement was made at that time, of three or four families. All this land lay east of the Naugatuck, but no deed is found of this sale of it ; the fact, however, is recorded on Derby books. The next year, in the spring, the settlers petitioned the General Court of New Haven to be made into a separate plantation, which was granted and the name of the place called Paugassett, but in the next autumn, in consequence of the strong opposition of Milford, the decree of the court was informally revoked. name was written for many years Paugasuck by the best spellers, but aft...