"After the year 1784 the settlements advanced very rapidly, so that when the town was organized, on the 12th day of December, 1787, there were between seventy and eighty families here. From the record of the meeting for the organization it appears that the following persons were present and took the freeman's oath and the oath of allegiance: Colonel Samuel Brewer, Captain Ebenezer Wilson, Lieutenant William Smith, Lieutenant Jonas Rice, Shadrach Hathaway, Amos Spafford, John Charter, William Culver, Thomas Davenport, Archibald Brewer, Cyrus Clark, Joshua Tracy, Peter Hall, Smith Clark, Jabez Warren, Nathan Warren, Ebenezer Griswold, Robert Oliver, William Fisher, Isaiah Abel, Azel Abel, Ephraim Fisher, David Cutting, Ruggles Ward, Thomas Stearns, Elijah Cutting, Amos Palmer, Ebenezer Babcock, Samuel Torry, Heman Wilson, Stephen Spaulding, Simeon Spaulding, John Thompson, John McManus, Sampson Spaulding, Thomas Scovell, Ebenezer Spencer, Micah Wilson, Elezar Mallany, Samuel Griswold, Adoniram Hinman, Gershom Hale, jr., Elijah Wentworth, Pliny Smith, Nehemiah Royce, Joseph Sanford, Eliphalet Smith, Simeon Young, Gideon Tower, Timothy Hibbard, Sterling Stearns, Paul Gates, Dyer Williams, Elisha Clark, Beniah Stevens, Reuben Smith, Gershom Hail, Elias Wilcox, Samuel Cook, Jacob Royce, Abijah Smith, William Allen, Uriah Hibbard, Brisley Peters, Asa Story, Jessee Brown, Clark Sanford, Jessee Bottum, Ichabod Sparrow Paine, Solomon Savery, Ebenezer Gleason. These seventy-one citizens, taken collectively, in point of industry, enterprise, perseverance, honesty, morality, and firmness of purpose, cannot probably be excelled, nor perhaps equaled, by any like number of first settlers in Vermont or any other country. They were mostly emigrants from Massachusetts and Connecticut. As early as 1852 only three of this venerable band were left -- Clark Sanford, Samuel Griswold, and Reuben Smith -- and even these passed away soon after."
