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The history of the early settlement of Redding differs from that of the neighboring towns. A new settlement was generally formed by a company of men, who purchased of the Indians a tract of land in the wilderness, had it secured to them by a charter from the General Assembly, and also surveyed and regularly laid out, and then removed to it with their wives and families.
Danbury, Newtown and Ridgefield were settled in this manner; but Redding at the time of its first settlement was not a part of any town--a fact which makes it much more difficult to collect the fragments of its early history and to accurately define its original metes and bounds.
At the time of initial settlement, between the Fairfield long lot's northern boundary (Cross Highway) and Danbury (Bethel) was an oblong tract of unoccupied land, whose bounds where about the same as those that now exist between Redding, Ridgefield, Bethel and Newtown; in the early records, this tract was called, the "oblong. and the “peculiar"
[To imagine the northern boundary in the present day: Old Redding Rd., Diamond Hill Rd., Great Pasture Rd., Cross Highway, and Church Hill Rd. would be the approximate northern boundary of the Fairfield long lots. Land north of these roads was the "country lands between Fairfield and Danbury" or oblong.]
This area of unoccupied land (or Vacant Land) is where initial settlers would build their homes and from where settlers would eventually petition the General Assembly to become a "Parish". It is not until the settlers of Redding were awarded "Parish Status" that Fairfield's long lots were added to the settlement. Land from Cross Highway north to the border of Danbury and Bethel was not owned by any town prior to 1729. Colonial Records simply call it the "country lands between Fairfield and Danbury".
Charles Burr Todd states that before settlers arrived the unoccupied lands were: "claimed by a petty tribe of Indians, whose fortified village was on the high ridge a short distance southwest of the residence of Mr. John Read (where Lonetown Rd. meets Putnam Park Rd.). This tribe consisted of disaffected members of the Potatucks of Newtown and the Paugussetts of Milford, with a few stragglers from the Mohawks on the west.
[By "disaffected" I take it that Charles Burr Todd was saying the "tribe of indians" residing in what we call the "Lonetown" section of Redding was made up of Native Americans from multiple tribes displaced from their homelands by English settlers making their way into the interior of Connecticut. The "oblong" or vacant lands between the northern boundary of the Fairfield Long Lots (Cross Highway) and what is now Bethel was one of the few available tracts of open space available in the area to Native Americans at this timeframe. B.Colley2007]
"Their chief was Chickens Warrups or Sam Mohawk, as he was sometimes called. Describing "Chickens", President Stiles says in his "Itinerary" that he was a Mohawk sagamore, or under-chief, who fled from his tribe and settled at Greenfield Hill, but having killed an Indian there he was again obliged to flee, and then settled in Redding. *All the Indian deeds to the early settlers were given by Chickens, and Naseco, who seems to have been a sort of sub-chief. The chief, Chickens, figures quite prominently in the early history of Redding; he seems to have been a strange mixture of Indian shrewdness, rascality, and cunning, and was in continual difficulty with the settlers concerning the deeds which he gave them."
Early Settlers
The earliest settlers located their houses on the three fertile ridges that now form the most striking as well as beautiful features of our landscape. The valleys were avoided, as being literally in the shadow of death from the miasms (diseases, insects) which they engendered; the hills, according to the early writers, were open, dry, and fertile, land, being comparatively healthful, were in almost all cases selected as sites for the infant settlements.
At that day the hills, like the valleys, were covered with continuous forests of oak, chestnut, hickory, and other native woods, from which every autumn the Indians removed the underbrush by burning so that they assumed the appearance of natural parks: Indian paths wound through the forest, often selected with so much engineering skill as to be followed later by the Highways of the settlers. There were "long-drawn aisles and fretted vaults" in these verdant temples, nooks of outlook, and open, sunny glades, which were covered with tufts of long coarse grass; groves of chestnut and hickory afforded shelter to whole colonies of squirrels--black, Grey, and red. Other game was abundant. Deer, wild turkeys, water fowl, quail, partridges, an occasional bear, and, in the autumn, immense hocks of wild pigeons darkened the air with their numbers. Panthers were seen rarely; wolves were' abundant, and the otter and beaver fished and built in the rivers. Both tradition and the written accounts agree in ascribing to the rivers an abundance of fish: Little River is especially mentioned as being the favorite home of the trout, and tradition asserts that scarcely four generations ago they were so abundant in that stream that the Indian boys would scoop them up in the shallows with their hands according to tradition.
John Read (Lonetown), Isaac Hall, Jr. (Redding Ridge), Samuel Hall (Redding Ridge), Moses Knapp (Redding Ridge) are the settlers known prior to 1720.
Between 1720 and 1725 more settlers flocked from Stratford, Fairfield, Westport and Norwalk; several families moved here from Ridgefield and Danbury too. It is not, however, until 1723 that we get any authentic record of the names of the inhabitants or of their entire number.
Nathan Picket, Gershom Morehouse, John Hall, Francis Hill, Robert Chauncey, Wolcott Chauncey, Daniel -(Illegible), William Hill, Jr., Phillip Judd, Nathan Adams, Stephen Morehouse, Benjamin Fayerweather, Thomas Bailey, Thomas Williams, Asa Hall, Joshua Hull, David Crofut, Jno. Read, Isaiah Hull, Moses Knapp, Benjamin Sturges, Sam’l Hall, John Read, 2d, Burgess Hall, Isaac Hall.
In 1725 petition we have the names of settlers above the Long Lots:
John Read, Thomas Williams, Stephen Morehouse, Benjamin Hambleton, Benjamin Franklin, Moses Knapp, Nathan Lyon, Benajah Hall, Will'm Hill, Dan'll Crofoot, Ebenezer Hull, Asa Hall, Joseph Meeker, Dan'l Lyon, Thomas Hill, George Hull.
And the long lot owners/settlers:
Moses Dimon, John Hide, Tho. Hill, Cornelius Hull, Elizabeth Burr, Jona Sturgis, John Smith, Thad's Burr, Andrew Burr, Samuel Wakeman, Samuel Squires, Ezekiel Sanford, Robert Turney, Jr., Joseph Wilson, John Wheeler, John Sturges, Joseph Wheeler, Thomas Sanford, John Morehouse, Joseph Rowland, William Hill, Nathan Gold, John Gold, Robert Silliman, Daniel Morehouse.
sources: [http://historyofredding.net/HRearlysettlers.htm]
[https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-90100-109053312/the-hist...]