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British realm. Furthermore, they felt the colonies had privileges enough without seeking a separation."10
One estimate had the number of Tories in Connecticut to be two thousand men.11 With the state having just under an estimated two hundred thousand people at the time,12 the Tory presence was not especially prominent. Even if the vast majority were found in the western counties (including New Haven Colony), the distribution throughout Connecticut is roughly ten to thirteen percent. With allegedly one quarter of Fairfield County's population said to be Tory,13 this would dilute the Tory "pool even more.
Where does Derby fit into this scheme? At the time of the Revolution, the Town of Derby included what is now Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Oxford, and parts of Beacon Falls and Naugatuck. The area of the "North Farms' is today generally defined by the town of Oxford (established in 1798), along with the above-mentioned odd pieces of Beacon Falls, the Gunntown section of Naugatuck, and a small piece of Southbury, now known as Southford. In 1766, when the whole Town of Derby was laid into school districts, there were 256 families reported. By 1775, this number was increased another twenty, giving a total of 276 families. This leaves the Congregationalists majority with one hundred and sixty-six families.14 Not a very big majority, indeed.
It is very difficult to segregate the number of Anglican families of St. James Church (in Derby proper) from St. Peter's Church15 (in what is now Oxford), just as it is to tally the members of the Oxford parish from the Congregationalists from Derby. (If comparisons based on land area is assumed, with Oxford being a little more than one-third of Derby, then the number of Anglican families in the North Farms is roughly thirty-six. It follows then that there would be
10 Edward E. Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1865) 313.
11 Litchfield, Oxford 55.
12 East, 14.
13 East, 16.
14 Orcutt, 196.
15 Oxford's other Episcopal church, Christ Church in the Quaker Farms section, was not established until 1827. Litchfield, Oxford 213.
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