What may be the first land deed executed for property in what would eventually become the community of Newtown has been discovered by a local historian in Stratford Town Hall.

Chris Layda, a lifelong Newtown resident and a member of the town's Historic District Commission, said he has long had interest in local history, and has spent a lot of time searching for information on the earliest settlers and documents.

Layda knew that the Newtown area had a "close association" with settlers in Stratford, as it was settlers from that area who came north to the area that would be incorporated as Newtown in 1711.

Many land deeds for early Newtown were filed there.

While at Stratford Town Hall in February, searching for early documents, Layda stumbled upon a reference to the document. Layda told The Newtown Bee the older files there are "poorly indexed" and he had been searching log books "page by page, just looking."

That's when he stumbled upon an "Indian Land Deed" in the name of Samuel Sherman, one of the first settlers in the Newtown area.

The deed in the Stratford Land Records (Vol 1, page 492) dated April 22, 1672, shows Samuel Sherman making what seems to be the first land purchase known of in the area that would later become Newtown. Newtown was settled in 1705 after 36 men, most from Stratford, purchased the townsite from the Pohtatuck Indians, a branch of the Pagussetts. The town was incorporated in 1711.

“The land area in question was a mile square in the proximity between Sandy Hook Center and Fairfield Hills and clearly notes the Indian fortress that was located across the Housatonic River in Southbury,” said Layda.

Assisting Layda with the discovery is fellow Newtown resident Ben Cruson, a trustee of Newtown Historical Society, and a son of the late Town Historian Dan Cruson. Ben has been filling in for his father since his father's passing.

The deed describes the parcel as follows (original language used) with:

*"Wee say a mile square of itt."

Cruson said Sherman's Farm was well recorded as a "Mile Squarem," or "Square Mile"

*"Beginning att ye North end of it — nigh a grat rock."

According to Cruson, this could possibly be Eagle Rock, near the center of Sandy Hook (on Dayton Street).

"Sherman’s farm was noted to be roughly at the bottom of Church Hill," said Cruson. "If it measured a mile on one side, its northern edge could very well have been near Sandy Hook center."

*"On the North of a small river yt runs into Potatuck River about two miles Southward of the place where the fort stood at Potatuck."

Cruson noted that behind PJs laundromat in Sandy Hook, across from Crestwood Drive, there is a small brook that drops into The Pootatuck River.

*“The partickular bounds hereof is not soe fully knowne att present — but wee doe ingage speedily this present summar to goe with ye sd Mr Sherman and marke tree & lay itt out more fully.”

Cruson said this explains "part of the difficulty with trying to understand the exact borders and location of Sherman’s land."

"It was not clearly laid out at the time," said Cruson, who noted that once the deed was written, Sherman would have gone out to mark the property with rocks. After some research, however, Cruson and Layda believe they might know the parameters of the property outlined in the deed.

A Clear Giveaway

"There was a Potatuck settlement across the Housatonic River roughly across from where the Potatuck enters the Housatonic [now Lake Zoar]," said Cruson. "Follow the Pootatuck south about two miles and one ends up just south of the center of Sandy Hook. It seems unclear to me whether the 'Potatuck River' refers to the river we know by that name today or the Housatonic River, which seems to have once been known as the Potatuck River. Either way, evidence seems to strongly suggest that the property is in Newtown. Chris’ interpretation merely places it a little west of my alternate interpretation."

"Pootatuck was the giveaway," said Layda. "That's what jumped out at me. I almost immediately knew what I had."

Layda believes that what makes that final conjecture so interesting is that "the land area in question is and has largely been in under the ownership of the Town of Newtown and/or The State of Connecticut over the years and has remained largely preserved."

Cruson said it has "long been acknowledged that Sherman owned two separate square mile parcels of land before the official settling of Newtown" and that he both privately and also along with John Rossiter of Guilford acquired these lands in two separate land purchases.

Cruson noted that Samuel Orcutt describes in his book, A History of the Old Town Stratford and The City of Bridgeport, the process in which the men of Stratford and The Court of The Colony of Connecticut began a hard push to begin buying more land during this time period. There are sections of the book that describe the committees appointed by The Court for purchasing of Indian lands, and the changing laws that allowed a man appointed to a committee to purchase land himself and be given his fair share later upon settlement of a plantation.

"Such is the case with the land purchase in question,” said Cruson. “The object at the time was to break up the Indians ownership and drive them out. Purchase whatever you can was the name of the game. Any land claim was a gain and an opportunity for a greater purchase in the future as the Indian populations dwindled and retreated north towards New Milford and Kent.”

While the document does appear to be a record of a Newtown land purchase, Cruson and Layda both acknowledged that it's difficult to be certain.

"It's a riddle with really old land deeds," said Cruson. "They often describe land without much to go on, like a great rock. There's lots of big rocks in New England."

Cruson said studying history can be a lot like studying science: understanding can only be formed from the best information available at the moment.

"There can always be new information to come along that could help us place this better," said Cruson.

Cruson said he and Layda both did a "considerable amount of research" into the deed and into the background of Sherman's land purchases in Newtown.

Layda said on his first discovery on the document, he was "in disbelief," and he wanted to make sure he wasn't "off in his assumption."

Cruson said with a new discover, it always starts with excitement and then some doubt. He said in trying to verify the document, he and Layda have "exhausted much of the common resources."

"At this point it might just be waiting to see if something else comes along," said Cruson. "We've followed down most leads we could find. My father said that when you come to a dead end, sometimes you'll be researching something else six months later and find a new clue."

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.