Farming was the main occupation in this section since the beginning, very early in the 17th century. The farmer raised most of what he required to eat. Coffee, tea, sugar, spices, cloth and the like, he got in exchange for the vegetables and meat he took to the village from Waterbury to Shelton.
    Wheat, Rye and Buckwheat was raised in abundance. Grinding the grain was done in Oxford Center and Quaker farms. The whole process was in which the grain grew on your land to bread in your own kitchen. What a difference today.
    According to history, this place called Quakers Farm, came into existence about the year 1683. There were many disagreements on this section, but finally the transfer of Quakers Farm to one John Butler was settled on. Who the Quaker was, no one seemed to know. The record of the first child born in this place, carries the date of 1725 of John Griffin, born presumably in the old Griffin House, where Dytko now lives, at the corner of Park Road and Moose Hill Road.
    In 1798, Oxford became a town, but previously, for over a hundred years, it was a part of Derby, and it seems odd to say now that to begin with Quakers Farm was the center of business in Oxford.
    Before I forget, I will mention the severity of our winters from 1880 to 1902. Winter often began with snow on the ground and ice on the ponds before Thanksgiving and continued severe until around the first of March, when Spring was in the air. There was one exception.
    The winter of '88 went along as it usually had until the second week of March. It snowed lightly for about two days, but on the third day it snowed harder and toward night the wind changed to the northeast and the Blizzard of March in 1888 was upon us. Never before, or since, has a winter storm been so severe to man and beast. Roads, bridges, fences and streams were obliterated from view. It was just one broad plane of solid white. Late May came and the drifts still showed on the north side of stone walls and buildings. The snow plough would have had a great time in this.
    You all are, I am sure, familiar with the rains that came two thirds of a century later, washing away the bridges on Little River and the Eight Mile, with a loss of life and devastation unparalleled taking place on the Naugatuck River from Winsted to the Sound. Old man river has told us in the only way he knew "don't fence me in."
    Many modes of life have passed away and new ones have taken their place. Railroads that ran close by are dwindling from the scene; the Trolleys have disappeared; the Horse and Buggy are no longer here and the sturdy Ox, that beast of burden so indispensable throughout all New England's history for the tasks he has performed, has gone. There was an animal well deserving of a statute to his memory.
    The automobile, the truck, and the tractor, and huge monsters of iron and steel have changed the face of our world. Now we see man out in a plane, looking for a place to live on the Moon?