Editing Colchester, Connecticut (section)

=== Pre-Township and Becoming a Township ===
On March 31, 1661, the original settlement of Colchester was founded by [[Jeremy Adams]] on a 340-acre area of land, then known as "Jeremiah's Farme."  The land was given to Jeremy by [[Uncas]], [[Sachem]] of the [[Mohegan]] tribe.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Arthur |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/66465301 |title=Arthur Adams collection |last2=Clement |first2=John B |last3=Satterhwaite |first3=Elizabeth B |last4=Adams |first4=James L |date=1896 |language=English |oclc=66465301}}</ref>

When Connecticut's first counties were created in 1666, Colchester stayed under Adams' ownership and was not incorporated into any new county,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=December 9, 2017 |title=Old Historical City, County and State Maps of Connecticut |url=https://mapgeeks.org/connecticut/ |access-date=May 5, 2022 |website=Mapgeeks |language=en-US}}</ref> possibly because of its proximity to both [[Hartford County|Hartford]] and [[New London County]]. It would not formally join a county until 1698. At this time, Colchester was mainly a farming community. In 2009, Colchester adopted a right-to-farm ordinance, recognizing the "significant role" that agriculture played in Colchester's "heritage and future."<ref>Town of Colchester, Municipal Code, Section 55 (2023).</ref>

On October 13, 1698, Michael Taintor II, Samuel Northam and [[Nathaniel Foote|Nathaniel Foote III]] applied to officially settle Colchester.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Colchester, Connecticut Genealogy and History USGenWeb Project |url=http://www.ctgenweb.org/county/conewlondon/towns/colchester.html |access-date=May 5, 2022 |website=www.ctgenweb.org}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=An Historical Address; Delivered at the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary, of the First Church of Christ, in Colchester, Connecticut |url=https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/readbook/AnHistoricalAddressDeliveredattheCelebrationoftheTwoHundredthAnniversaryoftheFir_10289673#2 |access-date=May 5, 2022 |website=www.forgottenbooks.com}}</ref> Jeremiah's Farme was selected as the main point of reference for the town, with its north boundary as the Twenty Mile River. The southern side is bordered by [[Lyme, Connecticut|Lyme]], and the west boundary meets the east bounds of [[Middletown, Connecticut|Middletown]] and [[Haddam, Connecticut|Haddam]]. The east and northeast boundary runs to the bounds of [[Lebanon, Connecticut|Lebanon]] and [[Norwich, Connecticut|Norwich]]. During the initial settlement, the area was also referred to as the Plantation of the Twenty-mile River.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Marshall |first=Benjamin Tinkham |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YqsrAAAAYAAJ&dq=Michael+Taintor+II%2C+Samuel+Northam+and+Nathaniel+Foote+III&pg=PA177 |title=A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut |date=1922 |publisher=Lewis Historical Publishing Company |language=en}}</ref>

On May 11, 1699, the town's principal founders asked the general court of Hartford for assistance, alleging that several persons had hindered the advancement of the settlement by claiming ownership of "considerable tracts of land" within the grant.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> They also asked to be transferred under the jurisdiction of the New London colony and for the town to be recognized as Colchester. On May 11, 1699, the court approved their request, officially establishing Colchester as a town of New London.<ref name=":1" /> The town is said to be named after [[Colchester]], a borough and port in [[Essex, England]], where many colonists had emigrated from and from which Foote's grandfather, [[Nathaniel Foote]], was born.<ref>{{cite book |author=Gannett, Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ |title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States |publisher=Govt. Print. Off. |year=1905 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n85 87]}}</ref>