USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume I > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01149 3365
CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
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THOMAS HOOKER
CONNECTICUT 1 AS A COLONY AND AS A STATE, OR ONE OF THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN
BY FORREST MORGAN Editor in Chief
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
SAMUEL HART, D. D.
FRANK R. HOLMES
JONATHAN TRUMBULL
ELLEN STRONG BARTLETT
VOLUME ONE
U
The Publishing Society of Connecticut HARTFORD 1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE PUBLISHING SOCIETY OF CONNECTICUT All Rights Reserved
FRE
PUBLICATION OFFICE 194 BOYLSTON STREET BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
1448932
DEDICATED TO THOMAS HOOKER THE FOUNDER OF CONNECTICUT
Goodspeed's $22.50 5.24.68 4 Vols. fr. 1197 P.O.5534
INTRODUCTION
C ONNECTICUT is a small English industrial colony less than three centuries old, for more than half that period merged in a vast federa- tion covering half a continent. It never had a war of its own except one brief campaign against the savages on its own soil, which practically exter- minated them. The great war which formed the federation only grazed its borders : thanks to the blood of the Ironsides, no memorable battlefields or sieges draw pilgrims to it, no hostile force ever slept a night on its soil. The very spirit of its defenders has robbed its memories of glow. None of the later wars of the United States have come near it. Its oppres- sions were potential rather than heavily actual; its one tyrant was a dutiful and humane English gentleman who menaced no one's life or limb, nor to any alarming extent his property, and out of whom to extract materials for a sufficiency of patriotic abhorrence demands the obedient imagination of childhood. It furnishes neither the throb of dramatic achievement nor that of romantic suffering, neither of the story of Napoleon nor the story of Ossian. The history of such a body cannot have the picturesqueness, the brilliancy, the charm that clings about an aged state whose roots are lost in antiquity, whose early progress must be guessed out of legend, whose existence is the prize of centuries of buffeting on the world's chief stage, whose soil has been trodden by scores of armies and drenched with the blood of fighters and martyrs age after age.
None the less, it has an interest, a value, and an individu- ality all its own. It is not a mere profitless record of the gath- ering and material progress of a chance collection of human
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CONNECTICUT AS COLONY AND STATE
beings, nowise different from other such collections, with no common soul and no special problem. Every one who has studied the history of American commonwealths is aware that each has a moral physiognomy and a definite personality, as recognizable as that of single human faces and human char- acters; traceable in all its common actions, calculable in almost every contingency. That of Connecticut will appear in the following pages; and it will require little perspicacity to note the lineaments which differentiate it not alone from New York or Pennsylvania, but almost more sharply from its Puritan brethren in the rest of New England. The causes of this unlikeness, as Sir Thomas Browne says of the Sirens' songs and Achilles' pseudonym, though difficult, are not per- haps impossible to trace; but they would need a history writ- ten with that sole object steadily in view, and all the details marshaled and subordinated thereto. This history cannot be such a monograph; but it may furnish some materials for one, and a word may be given to it here.
What the distinctive merits and influence of Connecticut have been, the most acute intellect which has yet illuminated American history has set forth with unsurpassable clearness. Alexander Johnston has called attention to its thorough devel- opment of democracy, not only in its general government but its local independence, and its happy union of popular control and municipal federation; to the wonderful elasticity of its system, which not only enabled it to expand into a con- tinental one, but to form an ideal framework for orderly civilized colonization; and to the energetic personal initia- tive bred by its form of life and polity. But this is not quite all. Its circumstances have molded the action and feeling of its leaders. It is not probable that its founders or their suc- cessors were radically different from other Puritans: their
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CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
peculiarities must be largely due to the silent influences of environment and policy. The cool, shrewd, and politic states- manship, always avoiding a cul de sac when possible, and showing almost miraculous genius in evading it; rarely allow- ing itself to be driven into a corner, watching its chance with tireless patience to choose its own battle-ground, and then striking with full force and in general victoriously; never acknowledging defeat and never boasting of victory, hating self-advertisement above all things because enjoying more rights unnoticed than might have been permitted on deliber- ation ; giving even submission to law the aspect of submission to force, in order at the first opportunity to deny any decision of law; leaving the victor to claim such victory as he would, but silently reaping the fruits itself ; not often Quixotic, just as little abject ; practicing the wily diplomacy of the "under dog," but not safe to trample on, and ready in the last resort to die for its rights ;- these were no special creation or special seelction, but the result of necessity and circumstances acting on a sensible, stubborn, educable race. Virginians in Con- necticut would have become Connecticut men ; it is of course patent that many of them never would have come to Connec- ticut.
The above may be thought a rhetorical extravaganza. Those will hardly take that view who recall how the men of Connecticut, under a monarch whose councillors thought democracy the one evil from which all others arise, exchanged a worthless quitclaim based on a non-existent grant for a char- ter of utter democracy, with another colony thrown in for good measure ; how, having beyond expectation led his mar- tinet successor to drop the suit for vacating it, they balked the king's agent from canceling it, and thus, leaving the whole business hanging in air, waited firmly intrenched till
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CONNECTICUT AS COLONY AND STATE
the storm blew over; how they saw their whole property system legally overturned and feudalism introduced, kept the latter from gaining a foot of ground by settling all cases out of court for a generation, and finally secured its repeal : how they managed the navigation laws with the most anxiously careful and candid explanations why their solicitude to obey produced no fruits ;- on the other hand, how they forbade the landing of Andros' soldiers at Saybrook, and took their representatives to task for not resisting more sternly; how they cowed Fletcher into giving up the attempt to make the king's commission effective; how they colonized their charter lands hundreds of miles away in the teeth of powerful claimants close at hand, lost their hold only by a frightful Indian massacre and scattering of the colonists, and even then made a substantial salvage from the wreck; how they acted under the Stamp Act, in the Revolution, in the Civil War. Their stage was small, the stake was not life or death, their minor size gave them good cards in the game as well as weak ones; but they played the hand with consum- mate skill to turn their very weakness into strength, their stake was the future growth and individual career which is the most jealously prized possession of each, they set the stage so perfectly that the properties proved fit for a continent, and the qualities they displayed were not dwarfed into meanness on the larger field.
Other elements are less explicable, and some of them it shares at least with its New England fellows. Connecticut can claim no monopoly of mechanical ingenuity or mercantile capacity. Yet contemporaries are the best judges of those traits which do not appear in statistics; and it is not likely that his neighbors made the "Connecticut Yankee" the synonym for manual dexterity and inventiveness even among
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CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
a dexterous and inventive people, and for crafty playing upon human weakness and vanity to gain a business advantage, without some colorable reason for the choice. The latter, indeed, has a not remote affinity to Connecticut colonial poli- tics which forbids us to term it a libel without versimilitude. But it is well to remember that while a caricature presupposes a likeness in feature or expression, it also presupposes a gross exaggeration. If it is not blind invention, neither is it a por- trait. As to the further insinuation-perpetuated in the jovial acceptance by Connecticut men themselves of the lum- bering witticisms concerning wooden nutmegs and their like- that their wares were worthless if not fraudulent, this is not even a tradition, but the half-envious fling of men cajoled into unmeant purchases, and has been kept alive by the sub- jects and not the makers. Great businesses are not built up on small tricks; and people did not buy Connecticut wares one year because their friends had found them unserviceable or counterfeit the year before. That these wares have spread all over the world, that little villages with a few hundred or few score of people monopolized the product of important articles for half the globe, that other manufactures have built up sections crowded with considerable industrial cities, is evi- dence of persistent quality which outweighs any number of clumsy jests; jests which would have died with their makers had not the victims been too conscious of their absurdity even to be annoyed. It is not the first nor perhaps the hundredth time in history that a nickname of opprobrium has been accepted either as a badge of honor, or of genial derision for a futile dart ; and the American's readiness to appreciate and adopt a joke upon himself is based upon a serene confidence in his own net worth and capacity.
It would be even more fatuous to claim precedence for
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CONNECTICUT AS COLONY AND STATE
Connecticut in the moral elements of society, which furnish after all the largest satisfactions, the solidest hopes, the most enduring guaranties, not less for societies than for their com- ponents. The moral compensation-balance of the world leaves less room for arrogance than many suppose; and one's underestimate of his own deficiencies will not lack at least sufficient correction from others' overestimate of them. But the permanent acceptance of the title "Land of Steady Hab- its," as a fair characterization, implies a moral as well as intellectual estimate which must be acknowledged as just, and which has its admirable as well as deprecable side. Con- necticut has certainly not been an emotional community ; not easy to sweep off its feet by new doctrines, nor to enlist in new social or political experiments; slow to give up ways which at least enable it to do its work with the least possible waste of time in studying the machinery. But conservatism of life may imply conservatism of mind or the exact reverse. In societies as in men, tenacious personal habits often accompany the most alert intellectual receptivity, because they are the conditions of having time for it. The body travels in a rut that the mind may not travel in a rut; the spirit searching for truth, and ready to welcome each new avatar, is glad to have its fashions of material life fixed with the minimum of fluctuation, to be quit of their importunity. In this regard, Connecticut need not be ashamed of comparisons. Not alone has it been among the foremost in hospitality to new prac- tical inventions, and aptness at devising them, but it has been as ready to give open hearing and just weighing to new ideas in science, sociology, or theology. If its pulpit has broken away less utterly than some others from the ancient moorings, it is partly because that Puritan pulpit itself has left little need of secession to preserve intellectual veracity, has
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CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
broadened and liberalized under great leaders till the rank and file have felt small desire to seek strange gods. Connec- ticut has produced noble and influential philanthropists; it has had great literary offspring, has borrowed others and given them opportunity, and has furnished other States with its own. The steadiest of all its habits has been that of produc- ing or developing men and women whose fame belongs to the nation or the world. F. M.
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SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS
ERRATA
Page 122, line 15, for "prosperity" read "posterity." Page 271, line 11, for "palmer" read "palmnes." Page 316, line 4. ior "section" read "action."
Page 335. line 31, for "asked" read "a bid." Page 337, line 15. for "nevertheless" read "doubtless."
Page 337. line 19, for "his" read "their." Page 338, line 15. for "that" read "there."
Page 338. line 16. for "in" read "on."
Page 338, line 16, for "that" read "this."
Page 415, line 7, before "music," add "instrumental."
Page 436, line 29. for "his" read "the." Page 444. line 3. for "represented" read "presented."
CHAPTER I
FORERUNNERS OF CIVILIZATION
33-44
Vikings of the North-Vineland-Edict of Pope Alexander VI-Explorations of the Cabots-Discoveries of Verrazzani and Cartier-Gosnold's Arrival on the Massachusetts Coast -Hudson Sails into New York Bay-Martin Pring and Cap- tain Waymouth Despatched to verify Gosnold's Descrip- tions-Second Colony of Virginia-Settlement at Sagada- hock River-Captain John Smith's Arrival on the New Eng- land Coast-Naming of the Country-Dutch East India Company claims Manhattan Island-Remonstrances of the English-Pilgrims decide to Emigrate to the New World- Sailing of the Mayflower and Speedwell-Arrival on the Coast of Massachusetts-Colony of New Plymouth-James I grants a patent to the Grand Council of Plymouth-Arrival of the Puritans-Incorporation of the Governor and Com- pany of Massachusetts Bay-Influences on Connecticut Set- tlements.
CHAPTER II
THE CONNECTICUT INDIANS
45-62
Origin of the American Indians-Members of the Algon- kian family-Adrian Block sails up the Connecticut River- Tributes paid by resident Indians to the Iroquois Nation- Population of the Indians-Nipmucks-Western Nehantics -Hammonassetts-Guilford Indians-Quinnipiacs-Paugus- setts and Wepawagus-Potatucks-Unkowas-Sepores or Tunxis Indians-Podunks and Poquonocs-Sicaoggs- Naiogs and Hoccanums-Pequots-Manners and Customs of the Indians-Hunting and Agricultural Pursuits-Garments and Currency-Dwelling places of the Red Men-Amuse- ments-Language-Criminal Punishments-Social Distinc- tions-Civil Government-Preparations for War-Religion and Marriages-Sterility of their Women-Funeral Cere- monies-Moral and General Character of the Connecticut Indians-Discussion of their Dispossession from the Soil.
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CHAPTER III
THE WARWICK PATENT .63-77
The Second Patent to Connecticut Territory-Membership of the Council of Plymouth-President Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick-Feoffment Deed to Lord Say and Seele, Lord Brook and others-Text of the Warwick Patent-Legality of the Document-No Rights of Government, or Power to Create a Corporation conveyed-Original Grantees-Arrival from England of Emigrants to Settle the Territory-Ap- pointment of Winthrop as Governor of the Connecticut Riv- er-His Arrival at Boston-Erection of a Fort at the Mouth of the River-Dutch Ship appears before the Fort-Lion Gardener engaged as Engineer-Arrival of George Fen- wick with a party of English Gentlemen-Duke of Hamil- ton's claim-House of Hamilton-Power of Attorney given to Edward Randolph-Claim barred by the Statute of Lim- itations.
CHAPTER IV
DUTCH AND ENGLISH
79-97
Causes for the Settlement of New Netherlands by the Dutch -Formation of the New Netherlands Company-Its Succes- sor the Dutch West India Company-Peter Minuit ap- pointed Director General-Attempts of the Pilgrims to Ob- tain a Share of the Trade with the Indians-Visit of the Di- rector General's Secretary to Plymouth-Van Twiller Ap- pointed to succeed Minuit-Purchases of Connecticut Ter- ritory by the Dutch-House of Good Hope-Arrival of Wil- liam Holmes and Company-Evacuation of the Territory demanded by the Dutch Authorities-Unsuccessful Hostile Campaign-Transfer of Land Purchases to the Massachu- setts Bay Company, by the Plymouth Colony-Encroach- ments of the English on Dutch Territory-Hugh Peters ap- pointed Agent to the States-General-His Mission Unsuc- cessful-His Dutch Excellency Kieft succeeded by Peter Stuyvesant-Seizure of a Vessel in New Haven Harbor- Stuyvesant's Visit to Hartford-Commissioners appointed to Settle Boundary Lines-New Haven Colony attempts to make Settlements on Delaware Bay-Opposition by the Dutch-Stuyvesant accused of Inciting Indians to Exterm- inate the English-He Demands an Investigation-War Threatened between the English and Dutch Colonists- Cessation of Hostilities-Declaration of Peace between England and Holland-Dutch Land and Properties in Con- necticut. sold under an Act of Sequestration.
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CONNECTICUT AS A COLONY
CHAPTER V
FIRST SETTLEMENTS
.99-109
Wah-qui-ma-cut's visit to the Massachusetts Colonies-Ed- ward Winslow views the Connecticut Valley-John Oldham and Companions among the Early Pioneers-Dissolution of the Council of Plymouth-Great increase in the Population of Massachusetts Colonies-Arrival of Nonconformist Di- vines and their Congregations-Thomas Hooker, John Haynes and others join the Massachusetts Bay Colony- The Patriarch of New England-Hooker's endeavors to Re- move to the Connecticut Valley-Deadlock on the Petition in the General Court-Settlement of Wethersfield by Parties from Watertown, Massachusetts-Settlement at Agawam- Severe Winter of 1635-6-Arrival of Mr. Hooker and Com- pany-Colonists of the English Farming Class.
CHAPTER VI
THE PEQUOT WAR
III-137
Indians' distrust of the Early English Navigators-Conspir- acy of 1630-Dissensions between Sassacus and Uncas- Locations of the Pequots-Rebellion of Uncas-Sassacus' distrust of the Whites-Murder of Captain Stone and his Crew-Sassacus' Overtures to the English-English demand the Surrender of Stone's Murderers-Treaty consummated by the English between the Pequots and Narragansetts-Mur- der of John Oldham-Captain Gallop's Revenge-Massa- chusetts despatches Expedition under John Endicott-They land upon Block Island-Endicott Arrives at Saybrook- Reinforced by Soldiers under Gardener-Expedition an- chors at the Mouth of the Thames River-Both Banks of the River ravaged by Endicott's Army-Pequots attempt to Strengthen their Alliance with Neighboring Indians-Roger Williams forms a League between Narragansetts and Eng- lish-Depredations by the Pequots at Saybrook and Weth- ersfield-Connecticut General Court raises Ninety Men- Captain John Mason in Command-Sailing of the Expedi- tion-Arrival at Saybrook-Action taken by Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies-Connecticut Troops set Sail for Narragansett Bay-Attack on the Pequot's Fort-Mason's Command Victorious-Return Home of the Little Army- Flight of the Pequots-Massachusett's Army of Extermina- tion-Their Arrival in the Pequot's Country-Massacre at the Swamp-Stoughton joined by Captain Mason with Forty Men-Pequots surrounded in a Swamp-Sassacus' Flight to the Mohawks-Pequots entirely Annihilated-Beheading of Sassacus-Division of the Spoils of War-Justification of the War.
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CHAPTER VII
CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND THE FUNDAMENTAL OR-
DERS 139-155 Establishment by Law of the Church of England-The Sep- aratists-English Reformers called Puritans-Disciples of these beliefs Emigrate to America-Political Privileges of the first Connecticut Settlers derived from Massachusetts- Their Allegiance to Massachusetts Bay Colony renounced- First General Court of the River Plantations-Agawam rep- resented-Change in Name of the Three Settlements-The defection of Agawam-Fundamental Orders adopted-Sev- erance of Church and State-Authorship of the Orders at- tributed to Roger Ludlow-First Constitution of Connecti- cut
CHAPTER VIII
EARLY CONNECTICUT GOVERNORS 157-163
Governor Haynes the First Governor-His Birthplace-The Second Governor-George Wyllys the Third Governor- First Election of Thomas Welles to fill the Office-His Suc- cessor John Webster-John Winthrop's first Term-The Fundamental Orders Amended-Purchase of the Saybrook Fort by the Colony-Attempts of Connecticut to extend her Limits.
CHAPTER IX
THE NEW HAVEN COLONY 165-180
Quinnipiac-The Red Hills-Arrival of John Davenport with his congregation at Boston-Massachusetts Colony attempt to Retain the Emigrants-Explorations of Theo- philus Eaton and Members of the Party, of the Connecticut Coast-Winter spent at Quinnipiac-Arrival of John Daven- port with balance of Congregation-The First Sunday-Pre- liminary Agreement Adopted-Purchases of Lands from the Indians-Arrival of Yorkshire Emigrants-Settlement of Milford and Guilford-Preliminary Work of laying the foundation of Church and State-The House of Wisdom- Settlement of Stamford-Southold comes under the Juris- diction of New Haven-Formation of an Embryo Repub- lic-General Assembly to consist of Two Branches-Con- currence of both Branches required to Make an Act Public Law-Court of Magistracy-Settlement of Branford-Com- mercial Enterprises of the Colony-Governors and Deputy Governors-The Regicides-Their Arrival at New Haven -Providence Hill-Their Removal to Massachusetts-Trou- ble in Greenwich.
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CHAPTER X
THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND ..
.... .181-201
Object of Consolidation-Population of the Colonies-Fran- chise extended to the Freemen-The Union agitated in 1638 -Constitution of New Netherlands taken as a Model- Massachusetts' Objections-First Meeting of Delegates- Rhode Island not recognized as an Independent Colony-Pre- amble adopted-Twelve Articles of Agreements ratified- Representation from each Colony-The Law of Extradition exemplified-New England Congress possessed no Execu- tive Power-First Regular Meeting-Claim for Precedence made by the Massachusetts Representatives-Establishment of American National Highways-Calling of Extra Sessions -- John Winthrop, Jr., with other Petition to be placed under the Jurisdiction of Massachusetts-Massachusetts Complains of Equal Representation in the Body-The Commissioners visited by Ambassadors from the French Governor-Debate on the Consolidation of the Connecticut Colonies-Last An- nual Meeting held at Hartford-Advisability of Re-organiza- tion considered-The Adoption of New Articles of Agree- ment-Continuous Session of Ten Weeks-Death of John Winthrop-Last Meeting held at Hartford-Robert Treat presiding Officer.
CHAPTER XI
WITCHCRAFT IN CONNECTICUT
..
. 203-229
Number of Lives taken-Twenty-eight Persons indicted in Connecticut and New Haven-Judge instead of Jury Trials in New Haven-Treatment of the Quakers-Citations from the Mosaic Code-The Connecticut Law of 1642-The New Haven Statue of 1655-The First Capital Case-Statement from Winthrop's Journal-First Execution-Uncas' Peti- tion-Indictment found against John Carrington and Wife- Their Execution-Goodwives Basset and Knapp-Ludlow accuses Mrs. Staples of Witchcraft-Defamation Suit brought against Ludlow-The Case brought in New Haven General Court-Witch Tests-The Case of Elizabeth God- man-Nicholas Bayly and Wife apprehended-William Meaker charged with Bewitching Pigs-Governor Win- throp's decision on Goodwife Garlicke's Case-Witchcraft Cases at Saybrook-Cases of 1662-Ann Cole the Religious Melancholiac-Mrs. Seager indicted Three Times-Her removal to Rhode Island-Nathaniel Greensmith and his Wife Rebecca-The Indictment of the Hartford Particular Court-Execution of the Greenmans-Mary Barnes found Guilty and Executed-Accusations against Catharine Har- rison-Salem Craze of 1692-Special Court held in Fairfield -Indictment of Mercy Disborough, Elizabeth Clawson, Mrs. Staples and Goody Miller-Mercy Disborough found Guilty-Pardoned by the Governor-Witchcraft Case at Wallingford-A Case as late as 1724-Comparisons drawn between England and New England.
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CONNECTICUT AS COLONY AND STATE
CHAPTER XII
INDIAN TROUBLES FROM 1640 to 1675. 231-244
Troubles between the Sowheag and Wethersfield Planters- Pequots build a Village on Paucatuck River-Expedition under Captain John Mason drives them from the Territory- Uncas ferments Continual Warfare-Alliance between Un- cas and the English-Sequassen, the Rival of Uncas-Un- cas invades Sequassen's Territory-Narragansetts declare War against the Mohegans-Battles at Great Plain-Capture of Miantonomo-Uncas delivers him to the Authorities at Hartford-Miantonomo's Death Sentence-His Death-In- dian Warfare at New Netherlands-Dutch Governor Kieft's dastardly Massacre of Indians-Confederacy formed by Hud- son River Indians-Death of Anne Hutchinson-Captain John Underhill in command of the Dutch Forces-The War ended-Hostilities again Break out between the Narragan- setts and Mohegans-War declared against the Narragan- setts by the United Colonies of New England-New Treaty of Peace signed-Plot of Sequassen to Murder the Execu- tives of Connecticut-Termination of the Indian Warfare- Code of Laws for Pequot Indians.
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