not side with more easterly tribes such as the Narragansett and the Wampanoag in King Philip's War (1675–1678), which devastated the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Providence Plantation and Rhode Island. The Potatuck in northwest Connecticut had even less incentive than other Paugussett groups to become embroiled in the war because European presence in their territory was so limited—and would be for almost another half century. European Settlement Europeans began to settle the region in 1715 after John Marsh came from Hartford to what was known as the Greenwoods, the thickly forested part of the colony that corresponded roughly to today's Litchfield County. Having explored and found friendly inhabitants, Marsh and a partner, John Buell of Lebanon, Connecticut, petitioned the General Assembly for the right to establish a town at "a place called Bantam"—the name possibly a corruption of the Algonquian word Peantum, the Potatuck group who lived in the area. Representatives from Hartford and Windsor negotiated with the Potatuck for land, creating the town of Litchfield, which included the area later known as the South Farms, in 1720. The Potatuck reserved rights to a hunting lodge near today's Mount Tom and Mt. Tom Pond, both of which became part of a state park on the northwest side of Morris in 1915. While some natives welcomed, or at least tolerated, the newcomers, others did not. The region was subject to periodic Mohawk incursions from the north and west. Some years later, Zebulon Gibbs recalled a 1722 raid in which a settler was killed and scalped. "I was the first who found him dead," Gibbs said. When colonists first lived in South Farms is unclear. Land deeds on the east side date to 1723, when local surveyors laid out the area's first east–west road. Also on the east end, and perhaps even earlier, a north–south road from Litchfield's Chestnut Hill ran down through the section that became known as The Pitch (so-called because the settlers "pitched", or drew lots, for land there). In 1724, the Connecticut Colony required settlers to build a fort, a log bulwark, on a hillside near the intersection of the old Woodbury (now Higbie) Road and present-day Benton Road. The work took them away from planting, diminished the year's harvest, and was consequently unpopular. The structure fell fairly rapidly into disrepair. Colonial government policies and military action reduced the likelihood of conflict with native groups by 1726,