In 1700 Isaac Magune purchased several hundred acres of hilly terrain in the town of Windham and soon named it Scotland after his native land. By 1726 about eighty families of English Puritan, Scotch, and Huguenot descent had settled there. Society, or parish, privileges were granted by the General Assembly in 1732, and the first Society meeting was held at the home of Nathaniel Huntington. In the preceding year Samuel Huntington had been born there and devoted his entire life to Connecticut and to the young and emerging nation as a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a judge, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and third Governor of the state. In 1733 the first meetinghouse was erected, and in 1735 the parish secured a minister, the Reverend Ebenezer Devotion of Suffield. During the Revolutionary era, Scotland Parish gave strong support, with nearly every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty volunteering and going to war, and many becoming leaders in the struggle for freedom. After a thirty-seven year effort to free the parish from Windham, Scotland was incorporated and held its first town meeting on July 4th, 1857. Small industries once flourished along Merrick's Brook, whose water provided power, while agriculture has remained the predominant occupation since early settlement. From Isaac Magune's time onward, rugged individualism, personal industry, and independence have pervaded the hills and valleys of Scotland.