Waterbury, Connecticut
New Haven county. The Indian Mattatuck, a territory comprising this and some of the neighboring towns, being 18 miles in length and 10 miles in width, was sold by the red men to the whites in the year 1684, "for divers good causes and thirty-nine pounds." This piece of ground was supposed by the white men, to afford sufficient room and accommodations for thirty families. The territory now contains 8,000 people; and if its population was as dense as that of England, in 1831, it would contain no less than 20,610, or of Belgium, 35,370 souls.
There are some good lands on the borders of the streams, within the present limits of Waterbury; but the surface of the town is generally rough, and the soil difficult of cultivation.
This town lies 28 miles S.W. from Hartford and 20 N. by W. from New Haven. Population, 1830, 3,070.
Samuel Hopkins, D.D., the founder of a religious sect, denominated Hopkinsians, was born in this town in 1721. He died at Newport, R.I., in 1803.
Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, a poet, and an eminent physician, was born in Waterbury, in 1750. He died at Hartford, in 1801.
