Excerpt from A Century of Vernon, Connecticut, 1808-1908 The Pilgrim Fathers who founded the colony of Plymouth, and their successors who established the colony upon Massachusetts Bay, were the bearers of a new and more excellent order of life. They constituted the vanguard of a new civilization based upon freedom of spirit which aspired to religious liberty, and upon freedom of mind and of body which is the civil liberty of our modern state. From the leaders of these two colonies, with vigor of manhood and nobility of ideal, there migrated in the year 1635. the pioneer settlers of our three original towns - Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield. In 1726 from one of these original towns. Windsor, there journeyed into the territory of North Bolton. Samuel Grant, the first permanent settler. In 1808, by reason of the large increase of these pioneers, this northern part of the Mother Town. Bolton, was set off and incorporated as a separate town. Thus it was that Vernon was not only descended from the foremost pioneers of the nation, but inherited the motives and impulses of a new era. The original towns were founded upon a distinct principle of government. Shortly after the migration, a legislative council was convened, under the name of the "Corte." afterward called the General Court, our General Assembly. The powers of this "Corte" were delegated by the towns. The central authority was regarded as dependent finally for its claim to power upon the townships themselves. They were the creators of the state, were therefore the source of authority and finally supreme. Such has been the governing principle of all the successive towns of the commonwealth. Imbued, in her turn, with this principle of her natural autocracy, Vernon entered upon existence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.