was resorted to in the war with the Pequots, and again in the war with King Philip."
    To understand the story of Toby, it is first necessary to know the background of his owner, Col. Ebenezer Johnson, who, as one of the leading men in the old Town of Derby, had much influence upon its history. He is believed to have been born in Fairfield, Connecticut, and to have moved to Derby around 19 years of age, in or about the year 1667. One of the earliest records of Johnson in his role as public servant was his part in a purchase of Indian lands in 1678. He purchased land of the Indians east and southward from Rock Rimmon, and this land was later divided between Johnson and Samuel Riggs. This area of land included Rimmon Road and the Skokorat Road vicinity of Seymour.
    It was the custom of the English settlers to purchase the land of the Indians, and in numerous cases the land would be purchased from several different Indians at various times, in order that the colony had a clear legal title to the lands which they settled. It remains questionable whether or not the Indians had a true concept of the sale of lands. Their nomadic life had not prepared them for the idea of intensive cultivation on the lands. Some of the Indians, when they signed documents of sale, apparently believed they retained the right to hunt on those lands. Here historians express wide varieties of opinion. Beardsley wrote as follows:
    "A careful perusal of the Indian deeds will reveal the masterly ability of the red man to sell land over and over without ever buying it, and the wonderful depth of the white man's pocket to pay for Indian lands. The price paid at first being apparently worth every dollar and cent, and button and bead, that the land was worth, or that they were able to pay. Whatever the treatment of the Indians in America, Derby has paid them for all she ever had of them, caring for them as citizens and neighbors, and burying as brothers. The early settlers of Connecticut, either from a sense of justice or in regard to expediency, made it a rule to extinguish the titles of the natives by actual purchase, and when the value of money of that day is taken into consideration, the unimproved condition of the land, and the fact that the Indians reserved either large sections as hunting grounds, or else the right to hunt and fish everywhere just as before they sold it, it can hardly be said they were unjustly treated."