Occasional notes in the town records refer to repairing the fence by setting newposts &c, until 1802, the careof it was madeoverto the Presbyterian Society; this continued three years, when the town voted to raise by subscription money to build a stone wall about the ground 5 afterwards it was the practice to rent it "for the pasture of sheep and calves only."6

The ground contains many curious memorials.

The Sacred W. W.

Decea to the memory of here lies the

sed Col. Lewis McDonald Esy. body of Thomas

Thomas and Sarah his wife Woolsey

Woolsey being a native of North Britain also

born in borne at Strathspey 1709 Jacob Brian

the year and departed this life 2i July, 1777. sou of Thomas A. D., 16G5. bom Sept. 1773 ob. 1760.

The first religious society organized at Bedford in 16S0-1 wasCongregregational, at that time the established religion of the Colony of Connecticut-- so that it was a kind of Church and State affair, for the town at regular meetings transacted all the business of a religious nature.6

The proprietors of the Hop Ground appear to have made early provision for the erection and support of a church, for, on the 2 2d of March, 1680, the "proprietors agree that what the committee had done in laying out ye town plot and the house lots shall stand, and the place they reserved for the town common, and the town lot to be as they laid it out and the meeting-house sh-dl be set upon the common so laved out, namely, the rock called Bates his Hill."