Petition of James Wawowos to the Connecticut General Assembly
To the Honorable General Assembly to be held at New Haven on the Second Thursday of October Next,
The petition of James Wawowos, one of the Tunxis Tribe of Indians belonging to or residing at Farmington in behalf of himself and the rest of the said tribe, humbly showeth that by an agreement made by and between the English first settlers of said town and your petitioners’ ancestors, the original inhabitants and possessors of said town, there was reserved and conceded to the said Indians for their use, a certain piece of land in said town consisting of about one hundred acres lying at a place called the Indian Neck, being mostly encompassed with a creek, and anciently staked and bounded out, as more fully appears by the original compact or agreement entered in the public record of said town April 9th 1650, which piece of ground the English people, inhabitants of said town, have from time to time and by little and little entered and encroached upon until they have gotten almost the whole thereof. Also one piece of land in said Farmington at a place called the Indian Hill where the gristmill now stands and is butted, west on the river, south and east on Thomas Hart Hooker’s land, south on land belonging to Solomon and Amos Cowles away from your petitioners, the children and successors of their said ancestors, to their great grief and detriment. Whereupon your petitioners humbly pray that Your Honors will interpose your wise and paternal authority in behalf of your poor supplicants and cause them to be reinvested with the full use and possession of their said lands or otherwise grant them relief in the premises in such way and manner as Your Honors shall think fit.
And they, as in duty bound, shall ever pray,
James Wawowos
Dated at Farmington, September 7, 1767
Endorsement: To the Sheriff of the County of Hartford, his Deputy or Constable of Farmington in Said County, Greeting. In His Majesty’s name you are hereby required to summon and give notice unto Solomon Whitman, Esq., Captain William Wadsworth, Giles Hooker, John Rew, Daniel Curtis, Ezekiel Cowles, Solomon Thompson, Thomas Smith, Elisha Scott, Samuel Scott, John Porter, the widow Armee Lewis, Thomas Hart Hooker, Noadiah Hooker, Captain Solomon Cowles, John Thompson, Hezekiah Scott, and Elizabeth, his wife, Hezekiah Thompson, and Elisha Cowles and Daniel Thompson, all of said Farmington, being the persons gotten upon and occupying the aforsaid Indian land, to appear, if they see cause, before the General Assembly to be held at New Haven on the second Thursday of October next; that is, that they appear on the Tuesday next after said Thursday to show reason, if any be, why the prayer of the foregoing petition should not be granted. Hereof fail not. Roger Sherman, Assistant, dated at Hartford, September 7, 1767
NB: you are give attested copies of the foregoing petition to the several persons before mentioned or leave such at their usual abode.
Notation: Then was left true attested copies of the within petition and citation at the usual abode of the within named persons by me, Ichabod Norton, Constable of Farmington. Farmington, September 30, 1767 / Fees £2.00.00Then I left true attested copy at the dwelling house of the within named.
Legislative Action: In the Upper House, the question was put whether (for the reasons alleged by the respondents) the petition should be continued for consideration to the General Assembly in May next. Resolved in the negative. Test, George Wyllys, Secretary. In the Lower House, on this petition a committee is granted to enquire [illegible ] in the matters and things set forth and complained of, as prayed for, and that a bill, etc. Test, William Williams. Concurred in the Upper House. Test, George Wyllys, Secretary
James Wawowos, etc. v. Solomon Whitman, Esq., etc. Petition, October 1767. Not continued. Passed Lower House. Passed Upper House, October 26 p.m. Bill, Indians. Passed Upper House, October 29 p.m. Passed Lower House. Entered
Cataloguing: 172a, 172b