USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume I > Part 20
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When complaints against the bills mounted, the government be- came fearful they would adversely affect the credit of the colony, and/or endanger the charter. A special session of the Assembly was called in February, 1733. The denial by the company of the jurisdiction of the court was waived. The Court determined that the bills were similar in nature to those issued by the colony and prohibited the issue of bills of credit by any person or society "to be used and improved as a general currency, or a medium of trade and in lieu of money."48 The Society was to refund to the possessors of its bills an amount in current money equivalent to the bills held. The General Assembly made available 15,000 pounds against which the Society could borrow at six percent interest to meet its responsibilities. When refunds had not been made by the time the General Assembly next met. it was decided that a court of chancery should arbitrate the claims against the Society.49 At the
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THE FRONTIER, 1690-1739
time of the settlement, an additional 15,000 pounds was issued for the use of the government, making a total of 30,000 pounds of "new money" in circulation. The litigations between the holders of the bills and the Society were numerous, but the difficulties among the members of the company were almost as great. In 1636, the Society appealed to the General Assembly to appoint a commission to divide the common stock of the Company in order to prevent discord among its members and to prevent certain proprietors from claiming exemption from loss in the stock.50
The economic unrest and a spirit of defection, particularly in the eastern part of the colony continued for years. The steady increase in currency decreased its value, but increased its circulation. One could borrow money and pay it off with a new loan, at a higher rate to be sure, but, then, the process could be repeated. Scholars may judge the period after 1715 as one of unsound economy, but it had all the outward appearances of an era of prosperity. The cheap money system made the acquisition of land easier.51
The impulse for the occupation of the western territory seems to be found less in an increased density of population than in the relation of this increase to the exhaustion of soil in the older settlements. Ex- tensive agriculture had been pursued as if it were solely an extractive industry: corn lands had been poorly tilled and meadows unim- proved.52 The remedy for the resultant soil exhaustion was thought to be transference to more productive lands. Although exact, comparative statistics are not available, it is doubtful that Connecticut was keeping pace in population with some of the neighboring colonies. Despite the strain in religious affairs derived from growing differences in opinion among the settlers,53 strangers were not readily welcomed in the Con- gregational communities. Such inhospitality was not the only deterrent to an influx of inhabitants: the absence of towns large enough to pro- vide a market adequate to the support of a non-agricultural population meant that emigrant artisans were attracted to other colonies rather than to Connecticut.54 The natural increase of population among the inhabitants cannot, however, be completely discounted as a factor in the occupation of lands to the west. It is estimated that the number of persons in Connecticut increased from twenty to sixty thousand from
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
1690 to 1730. An additional forty thousand were added to the total by mid-century,55 evidencing, it was said, "the blessing of the Almighty on the fruit of our bodies and the fruit of our lands." Early marriages furthered population increase; and notable industriousness, to which the younger children were motivated by their rights to share in the in- heritance, hastened exploitation. The relation between the produc- tivity of the land in the old settlements and the increased population had considerably worsened.56
Land hungry settlers, after the treaty of Utrecht, moved into the unsettled lands, laid claim to them, and sold the land as if it were their own. The government, however, refused to countenance squatter rights. When, as it was alleged, the settlers quarreled and fought over their rights at great expense to the government, the government promptly denied the right of any claim which it had not conveyed and assessed a fine of ten pounds for each offense. The next year, in 1719. the Assembly declared the western area to be colonial domain reserved for the benefit of the colony. When the squatters persisted, a committee was named, in 1722, and empowered to arrest the violators.57
The demand for land was revealed in conflicts in the old settle- ments as well as on the frontier. Difficulties varied from small matters, such as attempts to include, within fenced parcels, land that had been set aside for highways or was still reserved as commons,58 to major prin- ciples of land distribution. Although, in practice, in the earlier settle- ments, the distribution of land was frequently determined in town meeting. the legal right remained with the proprietors of the settle- ment. As the number of inhabitants increased in proportion to the number of proprietors, there developed a movement to distinguish the proprietors from the inhabitants and to transfer land distribution de- terminations to proprietors' meetings. At the beginning of the 18th century, there remained large amounts of undivided land within the settlements. The descendants of the original proprietors were fearful that newcomers would benefit from the earlier efforts and wished to exclude recent arrivals from distributions. The newer inhabitants ob- jected and the incipient contest between the older and newer elements still has overtones in contemporary Connecticut.59
The contest was characteristic of all New England. although the
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extent of bitterness varied from town to town. The General Court con- sistently upheld, it seemed, the rights of proprietors. In Milford, it ap- pears that the differences were settled amicably. In 1713, at a town meeting, the rights of the proprietors were upheld and these were con- firmed in the same year by the General Court. Shortly thereafter, such distribution of additional lands as was judged "Reasonable" was made to inhabitants who had been admitted after 1688.60 On the appeal of New London, the Court decreed that "no person, by becoming an in- habitant" after the original patent had been confirmed "could have any right to dispose of any land in said town by voting in town meet- ing."61 As the new inhabitants continued to challenge the position of the proprietors in several towns, a general law was passed in 1723 which provided that the rights of the proprietors would be held valid unless there was a vote of record in the towns indicating that the proprietors had at some previous date voluntarily surrendered their privileges. A second act in October 1723 ordered the time and place of proprietors' meetings to be announced in advance by an Assistant or a Justice of Peace. Such a requirement, perhaps, enabled inhabitants to exert a timely pressure on proprietors, but no more. By the end of the first quarter of the 18th century, the inhabitants were demanding a greater share of the undivided lands. If their expectations were not realized in the established communities, there were some who would look to western Connecticut and later to lands beyond the boundaries of the colony.62
The settlers of Connecticut had from the beginning demonstrated their willingness to press claims in territory where they held only the most tenuous rights and their competency to hold their own in title disputes. The boundary disputes which had originated in the loosely worded colonial charters of the 17th century had continued into the 18th. The intervening years were filled with interminable petitions, correspondence, bickering, and threats which several times carried the disputes to England where they invariably became involved in the attempts of various parties to void Connecticut's charter. In fear that British intervention would result in disaster for all, Connecticut and the other contestants grudgingly worked out avowedly final agree- ments in the early years of the century. Connecticut's treaty of 1683
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
with New York was confirmed by the Crown in 1700. The threat of the Board of Trade to withdraw the charters of both Connecticut and Rhode Island was sufficient to cause them to agree in 1703 on a boundary between the two colonies. In 1713, when it appeared that the separate memorials by Connecticut and Massachusetts might cause both to be made royal colonies, they agreed to 42°38' as a bound- ary, except that Massachusetts was permitted to retain the border towns. This agreement, however, failed to reckon with the persistence of Connecticut settlers.63
Connecticut had long since proved the efficacy of effective settle- ment in boundary determinations, and illustrated it again in the con- test for the Massachusetts border towns. Connecticut settlers continued to move to these towns and soon movements for secession had begun. Their affinity for Connecticut may have been increased by the lower taxes of the colony to the south. In spite of the opposition of Massa- chusetts, the towns of Enfield. Somers, Suffield, and Woodstock were eventually permitted to join Connecticut. There was a Yankee over- tone in the final settlement, for Massachusetts had granted Connecticut about 100,000 acres in New Hampshire to compensate for her reten- tion of the towns in 1713, yet Connecticut did not think it necessary to return to Massachusetts the approximately £683 for which these lands had been sold.64 It was possible to consider that sum as due from Mas- sachusetts for the use of lands which had always rightly belonged to Connecticut.
A time lag of several years between the initial agreements by Con- necticut and her neighbors and the confirmation by the Crown and further delay between this confirmation and the execution of official surveys led to additional bitterness. The Rhode Island agreement of 1703 was not confirmed until 1725-26 and not surveyed until the fol- lowing year. Although the Crown confirmed the agreement with New York in 1700, the survey was delayed until 1725 and not completed until 1731. The Oblong or equivalency land, given to New York as compensation for Connecticut's retention of land on the shore, was formally transferred to New York only at this time.65
There were difficulties, too, within the colony over land titles based upon Connecticut's own grants, because of the colony's in-
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THE FRONTIER, 1690-1739
testacy law. Since 1639, Connecticut had distributed land in accord- ance with an adaptation of the Mosaic Code, allotting one third of an estate to the wife and the remainder in equal proportion to the chil- dren, except that the oldest son was to have a double share.66 In 1699, the custom was enacted into formal law. The British practice of primo- geniture was clearly not adaptable to the needs of a frontier based upon agriculture and faced with a scarcity of labor. To intensify develop- ment of settled areas, to discourage a broad and superficial engross- ment, and to be fair and treat every man fairly, the colony had departed from the English custom.67 In 1717, when his father died, John Win- throp denied the validity of the intestacy law, and appealed a colonial ruling against him in England. In 1729, the intestacy law was disallowed by order in council as contrary to the laws of England and unwarranted by the charter. The decision was a point of issue for more than a decade, during which contradictory legal opinions were issued and the con- stitutional question of the relation of Connecticut to the Crown was fully explored. In 1745, the Privy Council dismissed a similar case on the grounds that the appeal had not been prosecuted within the pre- scribed time. Connecticut placed the best possible interpretation upon this and the question never came up again.68 Had the principle of primogeniture been enforced, most of the land titles in the colony would have been voided, and the entire economic system, especially in those cases where creditors had taken lands in payments for debts, would have been disturbed. Also, in the opinion of Andrews, the ap- plication of the British principle would have resulted in a desertion of the lands and in a lessening of the population.69
The problem of land titles within the colony stemmed, too, from its attempt to place the lands securely out of the reach of Andros in 1687, by ratifying all grants made by town proprietors and by issuing title to the lands in the western part of the colony. This had established a legal barrier against Andros' conferring the land to people of his selection, but it presented all the land presently included in Litchfield County to the proprietors of Hartford and Windsor. So long as there was not a great demand for this land there was no serious problem, but as land hunger grew more avid the whole extent of area involved came to be re- garded as too large a share of the colony's estate to pass to two towns.70
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
The Assembly sought to recover a share of the territory. All the forces at play are not clear, but it seems that many in Windsor were eager to de- velop the region71 and agreed to a compromise rather than risk a delay that would attend a contest. It was agreed that the colony should dispose of all land west of Litchfield and west of a line running north to the Mas- sachusetts line from the northwest corner of the Litchfield township. The towns of Hartford and Windsor were to dispose of all land to the east of that line. The line running north was subsequently moved east to a point four miles west of the Naugatuck to secure a more equal divi- sion of the territory.72
An immediate allocation was made of the eastern half establishing the division between Windsor and Hartford. Approximately 69,000 acres were turned over to those inhabitants of Windsor who were on the tax list in 1720 and slightly more than 70,000 acres to the 405 in- habitants of Hartford. Each taxpayer was to receive an undivided share in one of the new townships. The extent of this share was determined by the taxpayer's rateable estate at a ratio of three acres to the pound. Harwinton, New Hartford, and Stonington were the first of the new townships to be settled. Barkhamsted, Hartland, Winchester, and Cole- brook were settled more slowly.73
With the opening of these lands, speculation reached a new high. Three hundred acres in each township were reserved for Yale College and one share each for the ministry and schools. The remaining land in Salisbury was divided into twenty-five shares and in the other towns into fifty shares, all of which were sold at public auction.74 The stipulated. minimum bids were from £30 to £60 per share. The price paid for the shares varied from town to town. Those of Sharon sold for £200 for 700 acres in 1738. Some effort was made to control the influx of non-resident proprietors, but in Cornwall, in 1739, approximately half of the 23,000 acres of the town were owned by sixty persons living elsewhere in the colony, in Boston, or in New York. When agents of Canaan, Goshen, Kent, and Cornwall wrote the Assembly for relief because of the severe winter of 1740-41, they complained bitterly of the first purchasers who had made "merchandise" of their property and asked for the privilege of imposing a double tax upon the lands of non-residents. This re- quest, however, was refused.75
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THE FRONTIER, 1690-1739
NOTES-CHAPTER IX
1 Lawrence Henry Gipson, "The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for Empire, 1754-1763," Political Science Quarterly, LXV, No. 1, March, 1950, pp. 89-102; Gerald Stourzh, Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy (Chi- cago, c. 1954), pp. 35-40.
2 Max Savelle, The Foundations of American Civilization, A History of Colonial America (New York, c. 1942), p. 291.
3 Adams, Founding of New England, pp. 436-37; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, P. 318.
4 Conn. Col. Rec., IV, pp. 14-32. The vulnerability of the colonies invited first the attack of Indians in Massachusetts. With guns and ammunition previously sold them by Bos- ton merchants, the Indians captured the fort at Pemaquid and fell upon the settlers of the surrounding territory. Neighboring colonies, including Connecticut, dispatched troops to quell the uprising. This Indian outbreak and the underlying enmity which it indicated made the French danger more ominous. See Adams, Founding of New England, pp. 436-437.
5 Adams, Founding of New England, p. 438; James Truslow Adams, Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776 (Boston, 1927), p. 43; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, pp. 321- 22, 329-30.
6 Hoadly's Introduction to "Will and Doom," Collections, Conn. Hist. Soc., III, p. 74.
7 George M. Wrong, The Rise and Fall of New France (New York, 1928), II, p. 522.
8 Adams, Founding of New England, p. 438; Adams, Revolutionary New England, p. 43; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, Vol. I, pp. 321-22.
9 Ibid., pp. 322-23; Adams, Founding of New England, p. 438; Adams, Revolutionary New England, p. 43.
10 Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, pp. 323-34; Conn. Col. Rec., IV, pp. 38-39.
11 Adams, Founding of New England, pp. 437-38; Adams, Revolutionary New England, P. 43.
12 Conn. Col. Rec., IV, p. 111.
13 Hoadly's Introduction to Buckeley's "Will and Doom," Collections, Conn. Hist. Soc., III, pp. 75-76.
14 Ibid., p. 75, and note.
15 Ibid., p. 76; Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, pp. 329-33.
16 Ibid., Conn. Col. Rec., IV, p. 190.
17 Ibid., p. 234, incl. note, 238, note 251.
18 Ibid., p. 321, incl. note.
19 Savelle, Foundations of American Civilization, p. 292.
20 Ibid., pp. 293-97.
21 Hoadly, ed., Introduction to "Will and Doom," Collections, Conn. Hist. Soc., III, p. 76; G. H. Hollister, History of Connecticut, I, pp. 352-53.
22 Ibid., pp. 354-55, note.
23 Ibid .; Conn. Col. Rec., IV, pp. 271-72.
24 Edith Anna Bailey, Influences Toward Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775, Smith College Studies in History, IV, no. 4 (Northampton, 1920), pp. 188-89.
25 Adams, Revolutionary New England, pp. 62-67.
26 Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, pp. 352-53.
27 Ibid., I, p. 342; Conn. Col. Rec., IV, p. 464.
28 Ibid., pp. 442, 455-56, 462, 506, 517.
29 Wrong, Rise and Fall of New France, II, pp. 550-70; V, pp. 17-18, 91-92.
30 Ibid., pp. 163-168.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
31 Ibid., pp. 245-47.
32 Wrong, Rise and Fall of New France, II, pp. 570-76.
33 Ibid., p. 576.
34 Gipson, "The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for Empire," pp. 86-104; Savelle, Foundations of American Civilization, pp. 297-300.
35 Louis Kimball Mathews, The Expansion of New England (Boston, 1909), pp. 43-64. 36 Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, p. 381.
37 In some instances permanent settlement was delayed because of conflicts over titles to land. When the territory, upon which the settlement of Plainfield was begun, be- came a subject of litigation between James Fitch and Wait and FitzJohn Winthrop, disorder reigned. The proprietors did little to improve the land, and population and town improvements developed slowly although a division of the area into the towns of Plainfield and Canterbury was made. Not until a highway was built to join Plain- field and Providence did the settlements begin to overcome the effects of the dispute. It seems probable that the Winthrops were behind the charge that Fitch was a "land pirate" and "very pernicious," yet, as late as 1714, he was still widely re- garded as the greatest obstacle to rapid settlement, as he controlled the best land in Canterbury. Lisbon was similarly retarded by the difficulty in securing a title. Here, although purchases were made in 1694-95 and settlements begun almost immedi- ately, there were only sixteen on the roll of accepted inhabitants by 1718. See Deming, "Settlement of Connecticut Towns," Conn. Ter. Comm. Publ., pp. 56-59; and Mathews, Expansion of New England, pp. 65-66.
38 Deming, "Litchfield County," Conn. Ter. Comm. Publ., p. 15.
39 Deming, "Settlement of Connecticut Towns," pp. 52-53.
40 Labaree, "Milford," p. 13-22.
+1 Boyd, The Susquehannah Company Papers, 4 Vols. (Wilkes-Barre, Penna., 1930-34), I, p. xliii.
42 Nettels, Money Supply, pp. 250-58.
43 Conn. Col. Rec., V, pp. 111-13, 127-28.
4+ Nettels, Money Supply, pp. 258-59 inc. note.
45 Ibid., p. 261.
46 Bronson, Connecticut Money, pp. 36-37.
+7 Oscar Zeichner, Connecticut's Years of Controversy (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1949), pp. 39-40; Conn. Col. Rec., VII, pp. 420-22; Talcott, Papers, I, p. 266, note.
48 Conn. Col. Rec., VII, pp. 420-23.
49 Ibid., pp. 421-22, 442-56.
50 Ibid., pp. 449-50, 478, 502, 507-508 note, 560; VIII, 24, 69, 73-74, note, 234-35, note 471-72; IX, 438-39, 445.
51 Glenn Weaver, Jonathan Trumbull, Connecticut's Merchant-Magistrate 1710-1785 (Hartford, Conn. 1956), p. 11.
52 Boyd, Susquehannah Company Papers, I, p. XLVI; Bidwell and Falconer, History of Agriculture, pp. 311-33; Albert Laverne Olson, "Agricultural Economy and the Popu- lation in Eighteenth-Century Connecticut," Conn. Ter. Comm. Publ., pp. 10-13.
53 See below Ch. X.
54 Boyd, Susquehannah Company Papers, I, pp. ix-xi.
55 Olson, Agricultural Economy and Population, p. 21.
56 Ibid., p. 11.
57 Conn. Col. Rec., VI, pp. 78, 355-56.
58 Ibid., p. 449.
59 Labaree, "Milford," pp. 18-21.
60 Ibid., p. 21.
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THE FRONTIER, 1690-1739
61 Conn. Col. Rec., VI, pp. 131, 161-62, 189.
62 Ibid., pp. 394-97, 424.
63 Hooker, "Boundaries of Connecticut," pp. 9-18.
64 Yale was the beneficiary of this sale. See ibid., pp. 19-24.
65 The town of Ridgefield expected to lose some of its land in consequence of the survey of the New York-Connecticut line and petitioned the Connecticut Assembly for a compensatory grant. The Assembly deferred action on this petition until the survey had been made. The residents of Ridgefield immediately requested permis- sion of the Governor of New York to settle in the equivalency lands. Without awaiting his approval, so he charged, they moved into the territory, "in a riotous and tumultous manner, pulled down and burned a dwelling house and cut down and destroyed timber and fences," and threatened to continue this course. Con- necticut compensated the town for its lost territory with a grant claimed, as soon as he could dispatch a letter, by the Governor of New York in the name of his Majesty. The contest was prolonged, too, because the Crown on the very day of the transfer of the equivalency lands, had granted the territory to a group of English- men who recognized in the confusion an opportunity for quick profits. Whether the land still belonged to previous proprietors under a patent from Connecticut or whether it was open for new grants was questionable. Conn. Col. Rec., VII, pp. 101, 337; "Talcott Papers," I, in Collections, Conn. Hist. Soc., IV (Hartford, 1892), pp. 224, 270-71, note; Boyd, Susquehannah Company Papers, I, p. xxxix. 66 See above, Ch. V.
67 Charles M. Andrews, "The Connecticut Intestacy Law," pp. 1-6, Conn. Col. Rec., IV, PP. 306-12.
68 Andrews, "Intestacy Law," pp. 16-28. 69 Ibid., pp. 14-15.
70 Conn. Col. Rec., VI, p. 504.
71 Deming, "Litchfield County," p. 2.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid., pp. 3-4.
74 Ibid., pp. 6-8.
75 Ibid., pp. 8-14; Conn. Col. Rec., VIII, pp. 472-73.
Chapter X Religious Dissent, 1730-1750
T HERE DEVELOPED during the first half of the eighteenth century, not only the issues of an expanding frontier, but also challenges to the established religious order. Together these laid a basis for subsequent dissent in the land of steady habits.
The challenge to religious orthodoxy which had developed after 1680 had made attempts to enforce religious discipline fruitless: refor- mation laws to curb vice and corruption failed. As control over the ministers had gradually shifted from small groups of church communi- cants to the town, there had developed a widening of the basis for baptism.1 The strongest early protest against established Congrega- tionalism had come from Northampton in the person of Solomon Stod- dard, who, perhaps, had greater influence in the Connecticut Valley than any other minister.2 Although Stoddard emphasized the absolutism and arbitrariness of God who "exercises grace freely from His Sovereign Will and Pleasure,"3 he discontinued the distinction of half member- ship, and, as a practical measure for meeting the needs of the frontier. admitted all who had been baptized to the Lord's Supper.+ In his treatise, "The Safety of Appearing at the Day of Judgment," published in 1687, he argued that all men should feel safe in partaking of the Lord's Supper, and concluded that one need not worry that he does not know the subtleties of theology if he knows what will satisfy his heart." This Stoddardeanism was not approved in Boston, but it enabled Stod- dard to increase the membership of his church greatly and to increase his influence in the Connecticut Valley.
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