Soon after their deaths in 1973 and 1972 respectively, the property was deeded from the Woods to the Nichols Methodist Church from whom the town of Trumbull purchased it in 1974. The Woods homestead was renamed Abraham Nichols Park and is now the home of the Trumbull Historical Society. Agricultural era The first farmers of Stratford resided in the village and went out to their farms, located one to three miles away, to do the work of the farm. The Nichols and White Plains areas were the first to be cultivated and settled within the present-day bounds of Trumbull, due to the fertile soil, spring-fed ponds and natural meadows found there and their proximity to the main village located less than three miles away. In the mid-seventeenth century in the Colony of Connecticut, it was very common for freemen to establish a farm or several farms in the fertile upland or countryside while maintaining a substantial townhouse in the village or even back in England. Early farmers The first individuals to own land in Trumbull were among the original founders of the Stratford settlement, namely Benjamin Beach, Zachariah Bostick (Bostwick), Richard Booth, Ephraim Booth, Paul Brinsmaid, John Curtiss, Benjamin Curtiss, Mr. Joseph Curtiss, Captain William Curtiss (Curtice), Ebenezer Curtiss, Israel Curtiss, Zachariah Curtiss, Joseph Fairchild, Elder Philip Groves (Graves, Grouse), Joseph Hawley, Ephraim Hawley, Captain John Hawley, Samuel Hawley, Edward Hinman, Lt. Joseph Judson, Sgt. Jeremiah Judson, Isaac Judson, John Judson, Thomas Lake, Isaac Nichols, Caleb Nichols, Abraham Nichols, Samuel Ufford (Uffoot) and Reverend Zechariah Walker. The first families to reside permanently in Trumbull were the Beach, Beardsley, Blakeman, Booth, Bostick, Brinsmade, Clarke, Curtiss, Edwards, Fairchild, Hawley, Hinman, Hubbell, Judson, Lake, Lewis, Middlebrook, Nichols, Peet, Plumb, Seeley, Sherwood, Thompson, Uffoot, Walker and Wildman families. Before becoming a freeman in 1686, Zachariah Curtiss built a center-chimney farmhouse on the south side of Mischa Hill. His farm was located on land granted to him as a part of the "three-mile division" and part on land gifted to him by his father, Captain William Curtiss, which was described as "lying at Old Farm". Ephraim Hawley, a slave owner, built his farmhouse immediately south of Zachariah Curtiss, on the south side of Mischa Hill, on the eastern portion of the Hawley land grant, commonly called "ye springs and white plains". To be elected a freeman in the Connecticut Colony at this time, one had