Eight families from Norwalk settled this area in 1685, where the Indians called it Pahquioque. They built their first homes a half mile south of here and used this green as their common. In October 1687, the General Court decreed the name Danbury, although the settlers had chosen Swampfield. By 1750, beans and other crops had helped make Danbury an inland trading center with a population of two thousand. At the start of the American Revolution, the town became a hospital and supply base. On April 26–27, 1777, General Tyron led a British force of two thousand in a raid on Danbury. Three young men, one a Negro, died defending the town near the north end of the green. The British burned nineteen houses, a church, twenty-two barns, and many supplies. General David Wooster, commanding the American forces that attacked the British, was wounded at Ridgefield, then died and was buried here. The street to the west bears his name. After independence, hat making became Danbury’s foremost industry, and until the 1950s Danbury was known as the Hat City of the World. Charles Ives, the famed American composer, was born here in 1874, and his birthplace has been preserved by the Danbury Scott-Fanton Museum and Historical Society.