Last Updated on September 1, 2012 by
James Barbour, from Worcester, Mass., located in Bridport in 1782. He made the first thanksgiving party ever held in the town, and to which the whole population were invited, the said population then consisting of six families. Mr Barbour and wife were Christians of the pure old Puritan stock, and consequently very staid and sober. On one occasion Thomas Ormsbee, a lawyer of Shoreham, Vt., reported that he saw Mr. Barbour and his wife out in their yard “pulling hair with all their might, and the old man had a butcher’s knife in his hand.” The church concluded that for so grave an offense they should be called to account. Accordingly they were arraigned before a meeting of the dignitaries, when the testimony developed the fact that it was the hair of a butchered hog they were pulling. Several of Mr. Barbour’s descendants now reside in the town, among whom are M. K. and D. C. Barbour.