James Chaugham, a Native American who was, according to his granddaughter, a member of the Narragansett Tribe, and his wife Molly, of European descent, lived in a village here for fifty years in what became Peoples State Forest. Their descendants remained until the village was abandoned by 1860. James and Molly had eight children, seven of whom lived to adulthood, and six of whom married and had children of their own, who also remained here as the village grew. People of African and European origin, as well as Native Americans, moved into what became a thriving multiethnic and multicultural village on the side of Ragged Mountain in Barkhamsted. Til Ellwell, born in 1849, was James and Molly’s great, great granddaughter. She lived in the village until the mid-1850’s. The Barkhamsted town clerk recorded the birth of a baby girl on May 14, 1858, and listed her place of residence as Barkhamsted Light House.