History of Lebanon timeline

 

10,000 to 12,000 years ago – Paleo Indian hunter camped in a Lebanon Swamp (now Williams Pond). A 1994 archaeological excavation uncovered stone tools, flakes and debris.

 

1,000 – 8,000 years ago – Archaic period sites have been identified in town but not recorded or investigated.

 

400 – 3,000 years ago – evidence suggests the Pequot/Mohegan people made season us of natural resources in the modern Towns of Lebanon and Columbia.

 

1664 – The Connecticut General court granted a tract of land in what would become Lebanon to Major John Mason.  The tract was confirmed and surveyed as being at a place the Mohegans called Pomocock on the Hockanum Path from Mohegan (modern Uncasville) to the Connecticut River.

 

1666 – General Court granted Mason’s son-in-law, Reverend James Fitch 120 acres adjoining the Mason tract in and near stands of white cedar. (Once called Cedar Swamp and now call Red Cedar Lake.)

 

1675/6 – Joshua (Mohegan sachem Uncas’s son) granted Captain John Mason, Jr. (Major Mason’s son) a parcel of land approximately 1 mile wide and 7 miles long adjacent to the earlier Mason & Fitch grants.

 

1692 – Mohegan sachem Oweneco (another of Uncas’s sons) sold the so-called “five mile square” to Samuel Mason (son of Major John Mason) & John Stanton, both of Stonington, and Benjamin Brewster and John Birchard, both of Norwich.

 

1695 – John Mason III & James Fitch surveyed their land in the Cedar Swamp area and distributed the land to others. The four owners of the “Five Mile Square” began dividing and distributing their land into large (averaging 42 acres) lots along modern Route 87 roughly from Waterman Road to Mack Road and up modern Route 289 to the Village (now called Village Hill).  Many of the new settlers came from Norwich and from the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts.  Almost a third of these new property owners (Proprietors) did not settle in Lebanon.

 

1697 – A 30 rod (495 foot) wide road was authorized by the property owners (Proprietors) to run between homelots.

 

May 1698 – a meeting of the English inhabitants chose three selectmen, a constable and a town clerk to conduct business between town meetings.  Town Clerk William Clarke served in this role and town treasurer for 25 years

 

September 25, 1699 – William Clarke & Josiah Dewey, Sr. of Northampton & Westfield, Massachusetts purchased a large tract of land from Thomas Buckingham & John Clark of Saybrook who were acting on behalf of Ablimech, son of Joshua and grandson of Uncas.

May 2, 1700 – Clarke & Dewey (who had already both settled in Lebanon) had the same tract of land they had previously purchased, conveyed to them by Oweneco who had disputed his nephew’s claim to and right to sell the land. This tract was often called Lebanon Crank and in 1804 became the town of Columbia.

 

October 10, 1700 – the Connecticut General Assembly incorporated Lebanon as a town.  Permission was granted to organize a church, which formally took place November 27, 1700 with the organization of the Ecclesiastical Society (later identified as the First or South Society).  Joseph Parson called as minister and served until 1708.

 

1702 – Lebanon’s first train band (local militia) formed.

 

1704 – Joseph Trumble (father of Governor Jonathan Trumbull who was born in 1710) moved to Lebanon.

 

May 1705 – Indian deeds and grants, which had been in dispute since 1692, where confirmed by the General Assembly which had previously expressed dislike for land grants and a preference that actual settlers own the land.

 

1706 – The first meeting house was built.  Records suggest that it was located in the roadway at the intersection of the modern West Town Street and Route 207/Exeter Road

 

1709 – Lebanon men served during the campaign against the French during “Queen Anne’s War”

1711 – Samuel Welles was called to serve as minister for the First Ecclesiastical Society and served until 1722.

 

1706 – The first meeting house was built.  (Services were held in Reverend Parson’s barn until completion of the meeting house.)

 

1709 – Lebanon’s population was an estimated 450 people in an area that included modern Lebanon, Columbia and a small part of Andover.

 

1715 – Residents north of the Ten Mile River in what had been the Clarke and Dewey grant, petitioned the General Assembly.  Citing the distance to the meeting house, they asked to form a separate ecclesiastical society.

 

1716 – The northerly residents received permission to form a second ecclesiastical society in 1716, but the new church was not organized until 1720 when Samuel Smith was called to serve as minister.  Before the meeting house was completed in 1724, meetings were held outdoors or in private homes.

 

1717 – Town voted to set up two schools, a series of district schools was in place by 1750.

 

1722 – Solomon Williams called as minister for the First Society and served until his death in 1776.

 

By 1725 – Lebanon was a thriving agricultural community with sawmills, gristmills, cider mills, roads, dams, bridges, tradesmen like blacksmiths, tanners, coopers and a mine for extracting bog iron in Village Hill.

 

1729 – The General Assembly approved a petition from residents in the southern part of town to form a third society, build a meeting house and call a minister.  The first minister of this Goshen Society was Jared Elliott who served for 36 years.  The first meeting house was built in 1730-1 on Goshen Hill Road.

 

1730-1750 – Lebanon’s ministers led their congregations through the religious tumult of the Great Awakening

 

1732 – A new meeting house was constructed in the First Society probably in about the same location as the current Brick Meeting House.

 

1735 – Eleazar Wheelock was called to the Second Society as minister replacing William Gager who had served from 1725 to 1734.  Wheelock served until 1770 when he moved to Hanover, New Hampshire to open Dartmouth College based on the school for church members’ sons and Native American children which he had operated in Lebanon Crank.

 

1738/9 – Formation of the Philogrammatican Library, a Lebanon-based subscription library formed by regional clergy and other educated men.

 

1743 – Jonathan Trumbull and other leading families established a subscription school for boys and girls usually named after its long-time instruction Nathan Tisdale.

 

September 15, 1755 – A company of men commanded by Captain John Terry left Lebanon to fight in the French & Indian War (1754-1763).

 

1756 – Lebanon’s population was 3,274, making it the sixth largest town in the colony and larger than Hartford.

 

1765 – Lebanon men, including members of the Trumbull participated in the protests against the Stamp Act and were active in the Sons of Liberty.

 

1769 – Jonathan Trumbull elected governor of the colony of Connecticut. he continued to be reelected until 1783 making him the only colonial governor to also serve as his state’s first governor.

 

1774 – Lebanon’s population reached 3,960

 

To learn about Lebanon’s role in the American Revolution click here

Link to transcription of Alicia Wayland’s “Lebanon in the Revolution from Remembering Lebanon 1700-200 A commemorative Album