The family, of English origin, first settled in the Connecticut valley in 1636.

In 1846 William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868) performed the first publicly-witnessed surgery to use ether as an anesthetic when he removed a neck tumor from a patient at Massacusetts General Hospital. News of the dramatic event quickly spread and Morton was erroneously credited with discovering the procedure. Few people at the time knew that Crawford W. Long (1815-1878), a physician from Danielsville, Georgia, was the true pioneer of this important medical advancement. In 1950 Frank Kells Boland published The First Anesthetic, tracing the history of Long's first discoveries and uses of anesthesia and calling for wider recognition of his achievements.