car for City Hall (take a transfer), change to any east side car, all of which pass the church. THE STORY OF THE REUNION August 3rd, 1904, in East Hartford, Conn., was an ideal day and the auditorium of the East Hartford Congregational Church was well filled at the opening of the morning meeting, representatives from sixteen states being present. The meeting was promptly called to order by Edwin H. Risley of Utica, N. Y., the President of the Risley association. Rev. Francis P. Bachelor, pastor of the Hockanum Congregational church, opened the meeting by invoking the Divine Blessing. C. Henry Olmsted of East Hartford delivered an address of welcome on behalf of the citizens of East Hartford and of the members of the Congregational church. He referred in his remarks to his ancester, James Olmsted, who left England and sailed to America in 1633 in company with Richard Risley, and extended the hospitality of the occasion in the name of his ancestor and his descendants. Edwin H. Risley responded to the address of welcome. He referred to the feeling of kinship which should bind together the descendants of the noble band that sailed from England for America in the "Good Ship Griffin" in the summer of 1633. Included among the number were such eminent divines as Rev. John Cotton, Rev. Thomas Hooker and Hon. John Haynes, afterward Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the first Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. He stated that he felt at home in this church where his father and mother were married in 1833 and where hundreds of his kinsmen had been baptized, who had lived and died in the faith of the Gospel here proclaimed. From this church many of his ancestors have been borne to their last resting places. He expressed the hearty thanks of the members of the association to the generous people who had extended their hospitality to the gathering. The musical program, in charge of Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Cornish of Naubuc, Mrs. Holt and Mrs. E. Bowdin of Hartford, was greatly enjoyed by all. Hon. John E. Risley of New York, former United States minister to the Court of Denmark from 1893 to 1898, delivered a short address on "Our Kinsmen in England." He referred to a personal acquaintance with Halford C. Risley, the present head of the Risley family in England, and the pleasant visit he had at his home in Didington, Oxfordshire. He is about 69 years of age and is a fellow of New College, Oxford University. The speaker described his visit to the old "Risley " chapel or church at Chetwood erected in the eleventh century-with the "Risley" coat of arms emblazoned on the walls of the building. He stated that the Risley family came into England from Normandy and that it was probable that they came into Normandy from the Juteland. He called attention to the structure of the Risley name. The word "Risle" in Norse language means creek or stream, and the English added the final "y" which formed our name. He referred in an interesting manner to the honorable history of the family in England during a period of more than eight hundred years and said we could be proud of our complete genealogy. ADDRESS OF EDWIN H. RISLEY Kinsmen and Friends: In the early days of June, 1636, the pioneers, less than one hundred in number, of different ages and of both sexes, rested at the end of a toilsome journey through a trackless wilderness on the elevated tongue of land formed by the junction of Little River with the Great River on the westerly bank of the Connecticut at a point which later bore the name of "Sentinel Hill" in the central portion of what is now the city of Hartford. Isolated from danger of attack by Indians, they lighted their camp-fires, pitched their tents, erected bark shanties, tethered their herds, posted sentinels and rested. This colony in the early days of May, 1636, sold their landed possessions in Newtown (now Cambridge) in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to a new colony of settlers under the leadership of Rev. Mr. Shepard, and determined to make the journey into the Valley of Connecticut and to establish their future homes outside of the territory embraced within royal grants. They turned their backs on the old homes which had sheltered them for three or four years and turned their faces resolutely toward the Connecticut Valley, leaving behind them nothing to be desired, looking forward with high hopes to the establishment of new homes, a new church and new civil government. On this journey of over a hundred miles the sturdy men guarded their wives and families from the hostile attacks of the Indians, clearing a track in the forest for their passage, floundering through marshes and streams and crossing the Great River upon rafts. The obstacles and perplexities encountered were known only to the pioneers and totally unknown to the present generations. It is not easy for us to understand all of the causes that operated upon the minds of the men and women composing this company, which prompted them to leave their native land three thousand miles away and seek new homes in this Valley of the |