LOOKING BACKWARD
In 1671, the Wepawaug fort of the Indians, which had escaped the attack of the Mohawks in 1648, was set on fire in the middle of the night by eleven young men from the settler's colony. Their motives were unknown; but it is probable that, like many lads of these less staid and sober days, they had a more acute appreciation of fun than of justice. The Indians complained, and the culprits being discovered, they were sentenced by the General Court of New Haven County, to pay a fine of ten pounds each. The Indians were appeased, and afterwards rebuilt their fort. However, they appealed to the settlers for protection. A committee, composed of Ephraim Strong, Esq., Joseph Woodruff, Esq., and Colonel Benjamin Fenn, was appointed to look after the land which had been allotted to the Indians, and see that it was not encroached upon by outsiders. This committee was ''to prosecute in due form any person who had or shall cut timber or wood, or carry off any timber, or should fence in any of said land or any way trespass upon it."
The man who acquired the land where the old burying ground was treated it with great respect, and would never allow a plow to disturb the rude grave markers. Some said that medical students from Yale did not have as deep a degree of sentiment. When the railroad between New Haven and Derby was built, about 1870, in the cut near what was known as ''Tynan's Crossing," they went right through the old Indian cemetery. The bones and relics which were unearthed were sent to the Indian museum in upper New York City. Even to the present day, arrow-heads, bones, and relics have been found near the Wepawaug River, or at Turkey Hill. At the top of the ledge in the section of the old New Haven and Derby railroad, known as the Turkey Hill cut, there was found an old Indian mortar and pounding stone, where the Indians pounded their corn.
The families who lived in the Indian Hill section, on Chestnut Ridge, belonged to the Scatacook tribe, who settled in the town of Kent. Their chief was Gideon Wauwehu. A son of Gideon lived in Seymour, as the chief of