USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 1
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 1
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سي قيم
Gc 974.6 At9hi 1771697
M. D.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01067 6887
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historyofcolonyo00atwa_1
HISTORY
OF
THE COLONY OF NEW HAVEN
TO ITS ABSORPTION INTO
CONNECTICUT ..
BY EDWARD E. ATWATER.
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY CHICAGO
NEW HAVEN : PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 18SI.
563
Herefordshire Quarter.
Ah Gregson's Quarter.
Edmund Japp.
Wid Baldwin.
Thomas
Grevne
Thornas yale.
Thornas Hugill.
Kinderson.
Jahn
John Johnson
james Rudderu
An &der
Edward
Rtor Budden
Richard Hatt-
Fowler.
William
Osborne.
Thomas
Zacharvuh Whulman.
Joshua
Mrs Constable
Mr. Mayres.
John Evans
Mr: Lucas
Dearmer.
David Aturitas:
When Gaffinch.
Francis Newmani
Henry Browning.
Suburbs Quarter.
Thomas Welche
Hailey. Samuel
William Hawkins
en: Whit nell
Richard Miles
Suplen Sorrycar.
Nathanul Axtell.
Mr. Marshall
Beckley.
Richard
William Andrews.
Henry Monhill.
Thomas Gregson
1
1
1
Richard Berry Wathamel 27 acres. Jurner
Chewer.
Exekuel
Same
Roger Alling
John Brackett.
Ma: Hrchooka
John Budd.
Jeanes
William
Kuttheur Gilbert.
Owen Roue
Jasper Grante
Band Yalı
Koophilus Eaton.
Samuel Eaton.
William Juttic
Quarter.
Ho teumans
NEW HAVEN IN 1641.
James Russell.
:
Mr. Davenport's Quarter.
Oystersholli Ficht
George Wird!
Lawrence Wara
Moses Wharton:
106724 Freta xx.8
Mr. Jench's Quarter
Ha: Lamberto ni Quarter
Andiam Jus.
Sing: Smith.
Wider Sherman.
Anthony Thomann.
Mert bounogle
Jançı Ralh Richard Outune William, Hogy.
igmes clark
durfallsin
Clark
Thomas Monterey.
Richard Full.
feelor
George
Lamborton
The year Jeffrey.
Wh: Mansfield.
Mentor. William
Chanxan Denham
John John
Thomas iist.
Richard Malton.
John L'avenport.
Ford.
Jinnothy
William John
Kich Beach Henry
Thomas
Widow
Livermets
Rutherford
John that's howbridge
mother
Rick.
Hardbride
John
Fixy
Frances Brewster.
zo porches.
aure
Boykun.
jarvis
Ling.
Benjamin
Hrs Eldred
Robert Newman.
John Cooper.
Will Thorp.
Dixon.
journich
Edw. Xinch.
Kol+ Hill.
Hid. William
Andr. Low
Am Bell
Lockerell.
-
An Ålder:
The Governor Quarter:
Yorkshire Quarter.
1771697
F 84648 .055
Atwater, Edward Elias, 1816-1887.
History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut. By Edward E. Atwater ... New Haven, Print- ed for the author, 1881.
Ix, 611 p. illus., ports., 2 fold. maps (incl. front.) 223em.
BHELF CARI
1. Connecticut-Ilist .- Colonial period.
Rc-3183
Library of Congress
₣98.A8 [a35b1]
2917
.
!
F 84648. 0:S
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, BY EDWARD E. ATWATER, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
2917 ne
Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, & Co., Boston.
8
PREFACE.
T HE author cannot better express the feelings which have prompted him to study and write the history of the Colony of New Haven, than by appropriating the following words of Dr. Trumbull : -
"No man of genius and curiosity can read accounts of the origin of nations, the discovery, settlement, and progress of new countries, without a high degree of entertainment. But in the settlement of his own country, in the lives of his ancestors, in their adventures, morals, jurisprudence, and heroism, he feels himself particularly interested. He at once becomes a party in their affairs, and travels and converses with them with a kind of filial delight. While he beholds them braving the horrors of the desert, the terrors of the savage, the distresses of famine and war, he admires their courage, and is pleased with all their escapes from danger, and all their progress in settlement, popu- lation, opulence, literature, and happiness."
Deeply interested in the early history of New Haven, he thought that by imparting the information which many desire, but few have leisure to glean from the wide field over which it is scattered, he might do some service to the community in which he lives. He feels assured that many descendants of the
iii
-
iv
PREFACE.
Christian Englishmen who first brought the light of civilization to these shores will be interested in his work. He hopes that some whose ancestors came hither at a later period, and others who though born in foreign lands have chosen New Haven as their home, and learned to love it, will gladly acquaint them- selves with the men by whose toil and heroism this goodly heritage was cut out of a wilderness.
The fulness of the records, both of the town and of the colony of New Haven, makes it possible to present the first planters as, in large measure, the narrators of their own history. The author, preferring that they should speak for themselves, has made large extracts from their records and from other con- temporary writings. The town records of New Haven for the first ten years are in print, and the manuscript records of the next sixteen years have been carefully read. The records of other towns within the colony, being less accessible to the author, have not been so thoroughly examined : they are, how- ever, but meagre as compared with those of New Haven. Ralph D. Smith diligently searched those of Guilford, and Lambert those of Milford ; and their histories have been freely used.
Introducing the fathers of the New Haven Colony, and for- bearing for the most part both eulogy and censure, the author has left them to make, with their own words, such impression as they may. He does not conceal his admiration of them ; he does not claim that they were faultless : he desires to present them just as they were.
His first thought was to allow every person to appear in his own orthography ; but on further reflection, he concluded to give
V
PREFACE.
a few specimens of the phonetic spelling of the seventeenth century, and then, by reducing all quotations to present usage, to deliver his readers from the difficulty of interpreting incident to the ancient lawlessness. Accordingly the certificate of conformity which Davenport received the first Sunday after his induction at St. Stephen's is printed on page 30 as it was written ; as are also the first two documents in the Appendix.
In recording an event which took place between the first day of January and the twenty-fifth day of March, the year has been written according to New Style, or else both styles are given ; but the days in a month are in all cases numbered according to the ancient computation. The use of Old Style as applied to days will occasion little if any trouble to the reader. Even if he forgets that, according to our way of reckoning, the event took place ten days later, his misconception will not be very important. But to record in Old Style an event which hap- pened in the early part of the modern year, without intimating that the year needed correction, might seriously mislead.
Reference has not always been made to the original author- ity, in confirmation of a particular statement. Such references may be useful to the specialist, but when frequent are annoying to most readers. Public records have been sufficiently indi- cated as authority for information derived from that source, and any item acquired by gleaning from the collections of Historical Societies is definitely referred to the volume from which it was taken. But references to Winthrop's Journal, Hubbard's His- tory of New England, Mather's Magnalia, and Hutchinson's History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, have been for the most part omitted, for the reason that the specialist can readily
vi
PREFACE.
find whatever these writers have transmitted to us concerning any particular event.
To all who in answer to his inquiries have aided the author in the compilation of this history, he presents his grateful acknowledgments. A special tribute is due to one who has passed suddenly and peacefully into the invisible world since this preface was begun. Henry White was, of all men, the most learned in antiquarian lore pertaining to New Haven. Other occupations obliged him to relinquish his long-cherished design of writing a topographical history of his native town ; but his- torical inquiries were to the last his recreation and delight. He took a deep interest in the author's work as soon as he knew that it had been undertaken, encouraged him to believe that it would be a pleasure to converse frequently concerning it, and on one occasion spent days in such a search of the land-records as only he was competent to make. In the last interview which the author had with him, he gave vocal expression to a desire already evident, exclaiming with animation, "I wish I could help you more."
NEW HAVEN, October, 1880.
ஜாம்ப்ப
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE.
CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, AS IT AFFECTED THE PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL ·
.
I
. CHAPTER II.
EVENTS WHICH INFLUENCED SOME OF THE FIRST PLANTERS OF
NEW HAVEN TO REMOVE FROM THEIR NATIVE LAND TO
NEW ENGLAND .
.
.
28
CHAPTER III.
THE VOYAGE OF THE HECTOR.
45
CHAPTER IV.
THE WINTER SPENT IN MASSACHUSETTS
·
.
58
CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC
.
.
69
CHAPTER VI.
FOUNDATIONS LAID IN CHURCH AND STATE
·
93
CHAPTER VII.
DIVISION OF LAND
.
· 104
CHAPTER VIII.
PERSONNEL OF THE PLANTATION
· I12
CHAPTER IX.
MILFORD. - GUILFORD. - SOUTHOLD. - STAMFORD
·
vii
· 155
1
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
PAGE.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A COLONIAL GOVERNMENT · 177
CHAPTER XI.
INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS
.
.
189
CHAPTER XII.
RELIGION AND MORALS
.
· 225
CHAPTER XIII.
LEARNING
.
. 261
CHAPTER XIV.
MILITARY AFFAIRS
.
293
CHAPTER XV.
THE ABORIGINES
.
.
· 316
CHAPTER XVI.
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE .
.
.
. 348
CHAPTER XVII.
HISTORY OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT TO THE RESTORATION
OF THE STUARTS
.
385
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STUARTS AND THE REGICIDES .
.
.
· 419
CHAPTER XIX.
CONNECTICUT PROCURES A CHARTER WHICH COVERS THE TER- RITORY OF NEW HAVEN .
445
CHAPTER XX.
CONTROVERSY WITH CONNECTICUT .
.
.
·
· 463
CHAPTER XXI.
NEW HAVEN SUBMITS
.
·
· 509
--
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
APPENDIX.
PAGE.
I. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH . 53I
II. NATHANIEL ROWE'S LETTER TO WINTHROP 535
III. LAMBERTON'S SHIP .
. 537
IV. NAMES OF PEOPLE AS THEY WERE SEATED IN THE NEW- HAVEN MEETING-HOUSE IN 1647, 1656, AND 1662 542
V. HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL .
555
VI. NEW HAVEN'S REMONSTRANCE . 561
VII. NEW HAVEN'S CASE STATED . 566 ·
ILLUSTRATIONS.
I. NEW HAVEN IN 1641 . . Faces title-page.
2. A BARQUE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 55
3. AUTOGRAPHS OF DAVENPORT AND EATON 67
4. MEDAL COMMEMORATING THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW HAVEN, 74
5. AUTOGRAPHS OF MOMAUGIN AND HIS COUNCIL 88
6. AUTOGRAPHS OF MONTOWESE AND SAWSEUNCK . 89
7. A PORTRAIT WHICH BELONGED TO THE EATON FAMILY .
115
8. PORTRAIT OF JOHN DAVENPORT 123
9. MILFORD IN 1646
Faces page 155
IO. TOWN SEAL OF MILFORD . I 57
II. A MEETING-HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 246
12. GROUND PLAN OF A MEETING-HOUSE . 249
13. WHITFIELD'S HOUSE AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTH 349
14. WHITFIELD'S HOUSE AS SEEN FROM THE WEST 349
15. FIRST FLOOR OF WHITFIELD'S HOUSE 351
16. SECOND FLOOR OF WHITFIELD'S HOUSE 351
17. ATTIC FLOOR OF WHITFIELD'S HOUSE · 351
HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
CHAPTER I.
CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH CEN- TURY, AS IT AFFECTED THE PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL.
E MIGRATION to New England in the seventeenth century is to be attributed to the discomfort ex- perienced by the English Puritans in their native land, rather than to any attractiveness in this transatlantic wilderness. It is difficult for those who from their earliest remembrance have been surrounded with the security, beauty, and plenty enjoyed by the posterity of these colonists, to conceive of the same territory as it was seen by their ancestors when they arrived, or as it presented itself to the eye of imagination when they decided to emigrate. New England is to its present inhabitants their pleasant home ; but the Englishmen, who in the seventeenth century were uncomfortable in England, loved England as their dear native land, and thought of America as a foreign country, and as such,
.
I
.
2
HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
destitute of the attraction and charm which appertain to the idea of home.
Moreover, emigration to the New World was not merely exile from a land they were reluctant to leave : it was exposure to suffering by cold and hunger, to peril of death by shipwreck, by wild beasts, and by treacherous savages. Such liabilities are, indeed, not unattractive to men in whom the love of adventure predominates ; but the English Puritans were in gen- eral as free from that restlessness of mind which seeks relief in excitement as any people in the world. Their theology furnishing a central Being whom they acknowledged as infinitely their superior, they were content to rest in him, and so had inward peace. Re- ligion, inclining them to sobriety and industry, fostered the love of home, of security, and of comfort. Individ- uals among them may have been susceptible to the love of adventure ; but, as a class, the planters of New Eng- land were not men naturally inclined to desert their homes, and expose themselves to hardships and perils. on the ocean and in the wilderness. On the contrary, their training had been such as inclined them to remain in their native land. This is true, even of the unmar- ried men ; but the reluctance to emigrate was, of course, far greater when one must expose wife and children to hardships they were less able than himself to endure.
If the settlement of New England had been the result of mere adventure, its history would have had so little connection with that of the mother-country, that its relation might properly commence with the first arrival of colonists; but actually there is such a con- tinuity of history between the emigration and the
عافظ
3
PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL.
influences which led to it as requires the historian of a New England colony to discourse of England more than the mere title of his work would seem to jus- tify. To relate the history of New Haven, therefore, one must go back to an earlier date than its actual settlement.
The contest between arbitrary and constitutional government, which had never ceased in England after King John signed the Magna Charta, raged with un- usual violence while the throne was occupied by the Stuarts. The reign of the Tudors had been a period of comparative rest ; the Wars of the Roses having so weakened the great barons, who in earlier times made and deposed kings at their pleasure, and the introduc- tion of artillery having so strengthened the monarch against an enemy destitute of these engines of destruc- tion, that, from Henry the Seventh to Elizabeth, there was but faint resistance to the will of the sovereign by the hereditary lords who sat in the upper house of Parliament. By the transfer of the supremacy of the Church, another check on the royal prerogative had been removed ; so that the lords spiritual, who in the olden time had been as little dependent on the king as the lords temporal, were now subservient to the power which placed them in office. The Tudors, therefore, transmitted to their successors a more arbitrary sceptre than had been wielded by carlier kings.
But the time of the Stuarts was less favorable than that of the Tudors for maintaining a theory and prac- tice of government which contravened the rights of the subject. Formerly the great barons had come to Par-
4
HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
liament followed by hundreds of archers and spearmen ready to back their lords in any contest which might occur ; but the barons only, and not their retainers, had presumed to put to question the conduct of the over- lord. Out of the decay of this feudal baronage, there had gradually grown up a new antagonist to despotism, which, exhibiting considerable power in the reign of Elizabeth, vigorously encountered the house of Stuart at its accession, and suffered no permanent defeat till it had brought a king of England to the scaffold.
The change in the tenure of land whereby the vassal had become a farmer and in some instances a freeholder ; the growth of towns by the increase of manufactures and of commerce ; the intellectual activity awakened by the revival of learning, by the new art of printing, by the reform in theology, and by the revolutionary trans- fer of the supremacy of the Church, - had conspired to lift the common people into a higher position. With this elevation of the common people, the House of Com- mons rose in importance. The shires and towns, which originally were invited to send representatives to Par- liament, that through them they might give consent to taxes which the king wished to levy not only upon the greater lords, but upon the whole population, at first sent men, who, having no ambition to figure as legis- lators, gladly retired to their homes as soon as they had voted the supplies required. But consent to taxa- tion was sometimes accompanied with a statement of grievances ; and afterward, when the Commons had grown in power and courage, was withholden till a promise of redress had been obtained. At first the Commons were content if laws were enacted by the
5
PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL.
royal authority in accordance with their petitions, but afterward required that the order of proceeding should be reversed, so that all legislation must originate and receive its final shape in Parliament.
Whatever resistance had been offered to arbitrary government during the reign of the Tudors, had pro- ceeded, not chiefly, as in earlier times, from the House of Lords, but chiefly from the House of Commons, rep- resenting a power already great and constantly increas- ing. There had been a change, moreover, in the mode in which acts of despotism were resisted ; for the king no longer found his subjects arrayed in arms against him, but meeting him, whenever he asked for another supply of money, with a demand for further restriction on his prerogative. Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors, found this disposition of the Commons so annoying, that she avoided, as much as possible, giving occasion for such conflicts ; well knowing that the Crown, if de- pendent on Parliament for supplies, could obtain them only by concession. By avoiding as much as possible the waste of war, by conducting into her exchequer every stream of tribute which could be controlled with- out the aid of the Commons, she hoped to render herself independent of Parliaments, and would probably have succeeded but for the wars forced upon her, in the last half of her reign, by Mary of Scotland and Philip of Spain.
This new antagonist to arbitrary government, which had become somewhat formidable to the last of the Tudors, continued to increase in courage and strength under her successor. But not only was the age in which the Stuarts reigned less favorable than that of the
6
HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
Tudors to the theory and practice of arbitrary govern- ment, but the two families differed in their ability to cope with this new antagonist as much as their re- spective eras differed in the kind of ability required. If the two families could have changed places, the Stuarts might perhaps have been competent to deal with such Parliaments as assembled in the reign of Henry the Seventh; and the Tudors would certainly have shown more tact than the Stuarts did in contend- ing against the English people of the seventeenth century.
This contest between the Stuarts and the English people, on account of its bearing on emigration to New England and the commencement of a new colony at New Haven, we shall briefly review.
James the First ascended the throne of Elizabeth in the belief that by the ordinance of God he was entitled to govern without regard to the will of his subjects. He had already declared, in his work on " The True Law of Free Monarchy," that, "although a good king will frame his actions to be according to law, yet he is not bound thereto but of his own will and for example- giving to his subjects." At a later date, he said in a speech in the Star-Chamber, "As it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do, so it is pre- sumption and a high contempt in a subject, to dispute what a king can do, or to say that a king cannot do this or that." Some writers attribute to him, and some to his son Charles, the saying, " I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will." If James did not originate, he would doubtless have been willing to adopt, this form of words.
7
PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL.
But, though the new king was known to entertain such a theory of kingship, he was received by those of his subjects who held the opposite sentiments with joy and hope; for he was no more objectionable in this respect than Elizabeth, and they confidently expected that he would so exercise his prerogative as to relieve them from one of the most galling of their burdens. The Tudors had transferred the supremacy of the Church from the pope to the king, but had shown themselves as arbitrary in their ecclesiastical as in their civil supremacy, legislating without the concur- rence of clergy or laity, and enforcing the strictest conformity to the established ritual. The spirit in which Elizabeth ruled the Church may be inferred from the note she sent to the Bishop of Ely, when he de- murred to a proposal that he should surrender a portion of his garden because a favorite of the queen desired that site for a new palace. "Proud prelate," she wrote, "you know what you were before I made you what you are. If you do not immediately comply with my request, by God, I will unfrock you." With similar tyranny she had refused every application for the relief of persons who had scruples in regard to some of the ceremonies prescribed in the ritual of the Church. These Puritans hoped, that as James had been educated in Scotland, where the Church itself had controlled its own reformation, and had carried the reform farther than the Tudors had been willing to carry it in the Church of England, they should find the new king friendly to their wish for further progress in the work of amendment. Possibly, if they had been of the same political principles with the king, they might have ob- tained some concessions.
1
8
HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
But he well knew that the Puritans were to a man of the popular party, and constituted its strength, and that on the other hand the opponents of further reform in the Church were supporters of the royal prerogative. His choice between the parties was soon made, and at the Hampton Court Conference, in the first year of his reign, was fully declared. In his journey from Scotland, a petition signed by eight hundred and twenty-five English clergymen from twenty-five counties had been presented to him, asking for a conference in regard to ecclesiastical abuses. In response to this petition, four of the leading Puritan divines, selected by the king, were invited to meet some dignitaries of the Church opposed to all change, in a conference before the king as moderator. But the conference was so conducted as to show that the king had already decided the matter adversely to the Puritans. The first day they were not admitted to his presence, the time being spent in pre- liminary consultation between the king and the bishops. On the second day, after the Puritans had stated their case, and their opponents had replied, the king, for- . getting his position as moderator, took up the argument for conformity, and so "peppered " the Puritans, to use his own expression, that they were dismayed and put to silence.
All that the petitioners could obtain, as the result of this conference, was that candidates for confirmation should be previously instructed by means of a cate- chism to be prepared for that purpose, that a new trans- lation of the Scriptures should be provided, that the Apocrypha should be distinguished from the canonical Scriptures, that a few explanatory words should be in-
9
PURITAN EMIGRATION IN GENERAL.
serted in the Articles of Religion, and that the enforce- ment of uniformity might be delayed to give time for the resolution of doubt and the settlement of convic- tion.
In his interview with the bishops, previous to the admission of the Puritan clergymen, the king had pro- pounded the prejudice he himself entertained against private baptism by persons not in orders, and the Churchmen had consented that it should be restricted to cases of necessity. His own objection to conformity to the Church of England being thus taken away, he had no regard to the scruples of others. As between the two Churches of England and of Scotland, he avowed his preference for the former, naïvely admitting that the preference issued from his political principles, rather than from his religious convictions. "No bishop," said he, "no king." "A Scottish presbytery agreeth as well with monarchy as God with the devil."
But James had no occasion for instituting such a comparison in reply to the petitioners ; for the petition expressly disavowed a wish for "parity," and asked only for changes not affecting the constitution of the Church. The Puritans had not yet become disaffected toward episcopacy ; and, if James had granted them re- lief from the grievances mentioned in their petition, there would have been less of extravagance in the flattery of the courtiers who styled him the Scottish Solomon. As it was, he resembled Rehoboam rather than Solomon ; driving the Puritans into such hostility to prerogative, both royal and episcopal, that nothing less would content them than "a church without a bishop, and a state without a king." It appears from
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