A person doing research in Windham cemeteries recently noticed that there were few veterans’ markers or flags in the Friends cemetery. The Friends, or Quakers, were historically known as pacifists and did not go to war. One of the Quakers’ most prominent families in Windham’s early years, however, had their beginning here with a “retired” Revolutionary soldier.

Read Road is a short little road, between Webb Road and Route 202. Probably it was first of all a driveway but like so many other long driveways, it became a road, as it was developed. At least six generations of the Read family lived here.

The first “Read” in Windham was Noah, who came here in 1790, married a local girl who was a Quaker, and he joined the Friends Society (Quakers).

Prior to changing his religion, he had served in the Revolutionary War – something he did not share with his descendants. His military record shows he served in six different commands beginning in 1776 and ending in 1785.

The war days being over, Noah Read continued his life as a schoolteacher in Windham. He had 10 children, most of whom also settled here. One of them, Nathan, married Ruth Horton, and raised five children. Nathan settled on his father’s property and was a successful farmer.

A descendant of these Reads used to run a small lending library and sold peanuts, out of a South Windham store on the corner of Depot Street and Route 202. Lizzie Read was well known to early residents of the village.

Ruth Horton Read was a genteel Quaker woman from Windham who lived on the Read Road and died in Windham in 1886 at the age of 89. Her father-in-law had fought in the Revolutionary War.