to own real property, a dwelling house, in his name. It is presumed that Hawley built his house before becoming a freeman in 1687. The path or road connecting the Curtiss and Hawley farms on the south side of Mischa Hill to Stratford Village, located -miles to the south, became known as the Farm Highway, present-day Connecticut Route 108. The highway was completed and surveyed to the south side of Mischa Hill, at "Zachariah Curtiss, his land" and at Captain's Farm, in 1696, making it one of the oldest documented English highways in Connecticut. American Revolution In 1773, Robert Hawley was named Captain of the North Stratford or Second Train Band established in 1706. His grandfather, Captain John Hawley, was its first captain. At a special meeting held at the North Stratford meeting house on November 10, 1777, Hawley was also appointed to a committee to provide immediately all those necessaries for the Continental soldiers. On March 12, 1778, the parish of North Stratford raised money and over of cheese and gammon for those residents, including two slaves, Nero Hawley and Caesar Edwards, and thirteen other residents serving in the southern army in Captain Beebe's Company, Huntington's Brigade, 2nd Connecticut Regiment, stationed at Valley Forge under the command of General George Washington. Huldah Hawley was born in 1755 and died in 1856 at the age of 101. The widow of Chauncey Beardsley, Huldah took pleasure in talking of the exciting times of the Revolution and related during her lifetime about the time that two companies of French soldiers, under the command of French General Rochambeau, encamped a whole winter during the war on what is now known as Mountain Hill, a high rocky bluff in the central part of the village of Nichol's Farms. This high rocky bluff, at the time, commanded a view of Long Island Sound for , and was used to spy on British ships. Hawley said the soldiers ordered her to cook for them, and she furnished them with provisions for fear that they would kill her. French coins have since been found near the site of their camp in Abraham Nichols Park. In December 1780, two dozen Hussar horsemen deserted and discharged themselves from their winter quarters in Lebanon and fled into the Connecticut woods. From June 28 until June 30, 1781, during the American Revolutionary War, units of the French army, called Lauzun's Legion