USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 10
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" I am exceedingly glad of your beginnings at Pwokatock."
It was about this time that Winthrop, assisted by Thomas Stanton, held a conference with Ninigret, the Narragansett sachem at We- quatucket, with a view to conciliate his Indian neighbors, and have a fair understanding in regard to bounds. Probably at the same period, or very soon afterward, William Chesebrough, encouraged by Winthrop, and under a pledge from him of assistance and accom- modation, erected his first lodge in the wilderness, on the borders of the Wickutequock1 Creek. Winthrop was then acting under a com- mission from Massachusetts, and Chesebrough regarded himself as under the jurisdiction of that colony. But in November, 1649, the magistrates of Connecticut took cognizance of the proceedings of Chesebrough, who had engaged in trade with the Indians of Long Island, and sent a warrant to the constable of Pequot, ordering him to desist. This order was disregarded, on the plea that he belonged to another jurisdiction. Subsequently a greater degree of severity was manifested toward him, and he was commanded to leave the territory, or appear before the court and make good his defense.
Mr. Chesebrough was by trade a smith, and the magistrates were apprehensive that he might aid the Indians in obtaining those tools
1 A cove and creek, east of Stonington Point; perhaps the same as Wequatucket, before mentioned.
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and fire-arms which would render them more dangerous as enemies. He appeared at Hartford in March, 1650-51, and made a statement of the facts in his case. He had sold, he said, house and lands at Re- hoboth, and all the appurtenances of his trade, not reserving tools even to repair a gun-lock or make a screw pin, and had come with his farming stock to Pequot, with the expectation of settling among the planters there ; but not finding accommodations that suited him, he had established himself upon the salt marsh at Pawkatuck, which could be mowed immediately, and would furnish provision for his cattle. In so doing he had been encouraged by Mr. Winthrop, whose commission from Massachusetts was supposed to extend over Pawkatuck. He had not wandered, he said, into the wilderness to enjoy in savage solitude any strange heretical opinions, for his reli- gious belief was in entire harmony with the churches of Christ estab- lished in the colonies : moreover, he did not expect to remain long alone, as he had grounds to hope that others would settle around him, if permission from the court might be obtained.1
The court were undoubtedly right in disapproving of the lonely life he led at Wickutequock. The tendency of man among savages, without the watch of his equals and the check of society, is to de- generate ; to decline from the standard of morals, and gradually to relinquish all Christian observances. Yet under the circumstances of the case, they were certainly rigorous in their censure of Chese- brough. The record says, "they expressed themselves altogether unsatisfied." They were no further conciliated than to decree that if he would enter into a bond of £100 not to prosecute any unlawful trade with the Indians, and before the next court would give in the names of " a considerable company" of acceptable persons, who would engage to settle at Pawkatuck before the next winter, "they would not compel him to remove."
In September, 1651, Mr. Chesebrough was again at Hartford, en- deavoring to obtain a legal title to the land he occupied. Mr. Win- throp and the deputies from Pequot engaged that if he would place himself on the footing of an inhabitant of Pequot, he should have his land confirmed to him by grant of the town. To this he acceded. In November, a house-lot was given him, which, however, he never occupied. His other lands were confirmed to him by the town, January 8th, 1651-2. The grant is recorded with the following preamble :
1 Col. Rec., vol. 1, pp. 200, 216.
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" Whereas Hugh Calkin and Thomas Minor were appointed by the towns- men of Pequot to view and agree with, and bound out unto William Chese- brough and his two sons, Samuel and Nathaniel, according to a covenant for- merly made by Mr. Winthrop, Hugh Calkin and Thomas Minor, with William Chesebrough, at Hartford, to allow them a comfortable, convenient subsistence of land, we do all agree as followeth :-- We Hugh Calkin and Thomas Minor have bounded out 300 acres more or less," &c.
After describing the bounds of the tract, which lay on the salt 1 water, covering what is now Stonington Borough, it is added, "the said land doth fully satisfy William Chesebrough and his sons." This grant was, nevertheless, liberally enlarged afterward. In the town book is a memorandum of the full amount given him before the separation of the towns-" uplands, 2,299 acres ;- meadows, 634.'
On the Pawkatuck River the first white inhabitant was Thomas Stanton. His trading establishment was probably coeval with the farming operations of Chesebrough, but as a fixed resident, with a fireside and a family, he was later upon the ground. He him- self appears to have been always upon the wing, yet always within call. As interpreter to the colony, wherever a court, a conference or a treaty was to be held, or a sale made, in which the Indians were a party, he was required to be present. Never, perhaps, did the acquisition of a barbarous language give to a man such immediate, wide-spread and lasting importance. From the year 1636, when he was Winthrop's interpreter with the Nahantick sachem, to 1670, when Uncas visited him with a train of warriors and captains to get him to write his will, his name is connected with almost every Indian transaction on record.
.
In February, 1649-50, the General Court gave permission to Stanton to erect a trading-house at Pawkatuck and to have “six acres of planting ground and liberty of feed and mowing according to his present occasions ;" adding to these grants a monopoly of the Indian trade of the river for three years. These privileges probably induced him to bring his family to Pequot, where he established himself in 1651 and continued to reside, taking part in the various business of the town, until he sold out to George Tongue in 1656. His first town grant at Pawkatuck was in March, 1652-three hundred acres in quantity, laid out in a square upon the river, next to his grant from the Court. The whole of Pawkatuck Neck and the Hommocks (i. e., small islands) that lay near to it were subse- quently given him. Other farms were also granted on the Pawka- tuck, in the neighborhood of Stanton ; and April 4th, 1653, a liberal
9*
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grant was made to Mr. Winthrop of the water-course of the river, with liberty to erect dams and mills on any part of it or on any of its branches, and to cut timber on any common land near it, together with a landing-place, and a clause of general privilege annexed, viz.
" Liberty to dig up and make use of any Iron-stone or other stone or earth in any place within the land of this town."
Thomas Minor, one of the first settlers of Pequot, was one of the first to remove to that part of the plantation called Pawkatuck. His homestead, at the head of Close Cove, was one of the best tene- ments in the place. The bill of sale mentions house, barn, fences, orchard, garden, yards, apple and pear-trees, and gooseberry-trees. Minor reserved the privilege of removing a part of the fruit-trees. Price £50 and possession given the 15th of October, 1652.1
The next year we find Thomas Minor east of the Mystic, where he bought Latham's Neck, and in December had a town grant,
"Joining his father's land [father-in law, Walter Palmer] at Pockatuck upon the norward side of the path that goes to Mr. Stanton's."2
Of his subsequent grants, the following are the most considerable.
" June 19, 1655. Thomas Mynor hath given him by consent of the Court held at Pequot and by the townsmen of Pequot 200 acres in a place called Tagwourcke bounded on the south with the foot-path that runs from the head of Mistick river to Pockatuck wading place, and by Chesebrough's land."
" 1657-Granted to Thomas Miner, and his son Clement-from Stony brook easterly, 108 pole joining his former grant,-thence north one mile and 60 pole, thence east 108 pole to his son Clement's grant,-Clement's land to run on an easterly line from this to Walter Palmer's land, whose land bounds it south," &c.
April 5th, 1652, the townsmen made a grant of three hundred acres at Pawkatuck, lying east and south-east of Chesebrough's land, to Hon. John Haynes, then governor of the colony. The grantee sold it to Walter Palmer, of Rehoboth. The contract was witnessed by Thomas Minor and his son John: possession given July 15th, 1653. The price, one hundred pounds "in such cattle, mares, oxen, and cowes," as Mr. Haynes should select out of Palmer's stock, and ten pounds to be paid the next year.
This transaction indicates with sufficient accuracy the period of Palmer's settlement on the Sound. His first grant from the town
1 It went into the occupation first of Thomas Parke and next of Richard Haughton. The latter bought it in November, 1655.
2 Referring, probably, to Stanton's trading-house.
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was in February, 1653-4-one hundred acres " near to the land he bought of . Mr. Haines." The next year he had five hundred acres, and so on to May, 1655, when a note is made --
" All his land bought and given, 1190 acres : 56 meadow."
These were the first and most considerable planters at Pawka- tuck, but numerous other grants were made coincident with these. The farms laid out by the townsmen of Pequot were not, indeed, numerous, but the marsh or meadow was allotted in small parcels to some twenty-five or thirty individuals, to supply deficiencies in ear- lier grants nearer home.
The whole territory, from Nahantick east to Nahantick west, con- tinued to be regarded as one township, acting together in town meet- ings, in the choice of deputies and in voting for magistrates of the colony. They formed also but one ecclesiastical society, Mr. Blin- man's rates being levied over the whole tract until 1657.1
The early planters at Mystic continued to attend the Sabbath ser- vice at Pequot, and were as often consulted about the meeting-liouse and house for the minister, and other parish business, as before their removal. Occasionally, they were accommodated with lectures in their own neighborhood. After 1657, when Mr. William Thompson was appointed missionary to the Pequots, it is probable that many of the farmers attended the Indian meeting, and that the Minors and Stantons, who were noted proficients in the Indian language, acted as the preacher's interpreters with the Indians.
At a town meeting, August 28th, 1654, an interesting movement was made in regard to Pawcatuck.
" It was voated and agreed that three or foure men should be chosen unto three of Pockatucke and Misticke to debate, reason and conclude whether Misticke and Pockatucke shall be a town and upon what termes; and to de- termine the case in no other way, but in a way of love and reason, and not by voate : To which end these Seaven, Mr. Winthrop, Goodman Calkin, Cary Latham, Goodman Elderkin, Mr. Robert Parke, Goodman Cheesebrooke and Captain George Denison were chosen by the major part of the towne and soe to act."
No separation of these sister settlements from Pequot was at this time effected; but their struggles to break loose and form an inde- pendent township were henceforth unremitted. Many of the inhab-
1 " This Court doth order that the inhabitants of Mistick and Paucatuck shall pay to Mr. Blinman that which was due to him for the last yeare, scil: to March last." Order of General Court, May, 1657.
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itants west of the river likewise regarded a separation as desirable.1 It might tend to heal the distractions then existing among the set- tlers at Pawkatuck, who were experiencing the usual calamities of a border land and disputed title. Disunion and misrule were preva- lent : neighbor was at variance with neighbor, not only in regard to town rights, but with respect to colonial jurisdiction, the removal of the Indians and the territorial claims of Rhode Island.
In 1657 the call for a separation became too strong to be neglect- ed. The General Court appointed Messrs. Winthrop, Mason, Tal- cott and Allyn, (the secretary,) to meet at Pequot and compose the - differences between that plantation and the inhabitants of Mystic and Pawkatuck ; or if not able to effect this, to make a return of the situation of affairs to the next Court.
The contention between Massachusetts and Connecticut for the jurisdiction of Pawkatuck was adverse to her municipal interests. Massachusetts, notwithstanding her distance and the inconsiderable advantage that could accrue to her from the connection, was reluc- tant to yield her claim to a portion of the Pequot territory, and in September, 1658, the court of commissioners decided that the whole territory should be separated into two plantations ; all east of the Mystic to be under the direction of Massachusetts and all west of it to belong to Connecticut :
" Finding that the Pequot country, which extended from Naihantick to a place called Wetapauge about tenn myles eastward from Mistick river, may conveniently accommodate two plantations or townships, wee therefore (re- specting things as they now stand) doe conclude that Mistick river be the bounds betweene them as to propriety and jurisdiction," &c.
Pawkatuck by this decision being adjudged to Massachusetts, that colony without delay extended her sway over it and in October con- ferred upon the inhabitants the privileges of a town, with the name of Southerton. It was annexed to Suffolk county. Walter Palmer was appointed constable; Capt. Denison was to solemnize marriages, and the prudential affairs until a choice of townsmen should be made, were confided to Capt. Denison, Robert Parke, William Chesebrough and Thomas Minor.2
1 Mr. Blinman appears at this time to have supported the separation party, though he afterward gave his influence to the other side of the question. This accounts for an unguarded remark of Capt. Denison, " that Mr. Blinman did preach for Pawcatuck and Mystick being a town before he sold his land at Mystick ;" for which he afterward apologized before the General Court. Col. Rec., vol. 1, p. 299.
2 In R. I. Hist. Coll., pp. 53, 269, John Minor is substituted for Thomas Minor. This is an error.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
At the next session of the Court, Major Mason as the advocate of Connecticut, called for a review of the decision. He claimed the territory in question, in behalf of the colony, first, as compre- hended within the patent of the lord-proprietors of Saybrook fort, who had expended at least £6,000, not for that small tract alone, but expecting therewith the country round about, as other colonies had done. Second, from possession before the Pequot war-as by hold- ing Saybrook fort, none protesting against it, a right to the country was implied and understood. He also claimed that the tacit allow- ance of the commissioners for some ten years past confirmed the claim ; and finally he asserted that Connecticut had a full and indis -- putable right by conquest ; the overthrow of the Pequots having been achieved by her people, " God succeeding the undertaking," without any charge, assistance or advice from Massachusetts.
The agents of Massachusetts were as positive and explicit. They claimed at least an equal right by conquest, as having had their forces two or three months in the field, at an expense treble that of Connecticut : they were partners and confederates, and. ought to share as such. In point of possession they claimed as having first occupied the country, by building houses in Mr. Stoughton's time, and then by Mr. Winthrop's settling on the west side of the river, with a commission from their Court, " himself being most desirous to continue under that government."
Major Mason rejoined : " you mention a possession house ; which house was not in the Pequot country, being on the west side of the river and again deserted and most of it carried away by yourselves before any English again possessed it."
In the warmth of his argument he here denies that the Pequots had any right to the territory west of the river. As the guardian and advocate of the Mohegans, he probably challenged it all for them.
The claim of Massachusetts from partnership in the Pequot war, he disposes of in the following manner :
" If the English should have beaten the Flemings out of Flanders and they fly into another domain :- if the French should there meet the English and join with them to pursue the Flemings, would that give the French a right to Flanders ?"
There is fallacy in this comparison. There can be no doubt but that the two colonies were joint conquerors and as far as conquest gives right, joint proprietors of the Pequot territory. The argument from possession also was nearly equal. Connecticut had in a man-
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ner possessed the country by publicly challenging it, by ordering a commission to survey it, and granting lands there to Mason and his soldiers soon after the war. On the other side, Mr. Stoughton, by order of the magistrates of Boston, had selected the place for a plan- tation, and Mr. Winthrop had commenced his operations under a commission from that colony. One side of the river was as truly conquered country as the other ; for the Nameaugs, if not Pequots proper, were virtual members of the confederacy.
The commissioners refused to vary the decision they had made in 1658, and the new township was regarded as an appendage of the Bay colony some four or five years longer. The charter of Connecticut, obtained in 1662, extended the jurisdiction of the colony to the Pawkatuck River. Measures were then taken by the General Court to establish its authority over the premises. The title of Connecticut could not now be fairly disputed, but it was not recog- nized by all parties and quiet and harmony established, until about 1665.
In October, 1664, the General Court passed an act of oblivion for all past offenses implying a contempt of their authority, to all inhab- itants of Mystic and Pawkatuck, "Capt. Denison only except." His offense was more aggravated than that of others, for he had con- tinued to exercise his office as a magistrate commissioned by Massa- chusetts, after the charter was in operation and he had been warned by the authorities to desist.
The records of the town are extant from 1664. John Stanton was the first recorder ; Mr. James Noyes the first minister. A. country rate was first collected in 1666. All grants made by the town of Pequot before the separation, were received as legitimate and confirmed by the new authorities.
Orders of the General Court.
" October, 1665.
" Southerton is by this Court named Mistick in memory of that victory God was pleased to give this people of Connecticut over the Pequot Indians." " May, 1666.
" The town of Mistick is by this Court named Stonington. The court doth grant to the plantation to extend the bounds thereof ten miles from the sea up into the country northward : and eastwards to the river called Paukatuck.
" This Court doth pass an act of indemnity to Capt. George Denison upon the same grounds as was formerly granted to other inhabitants of Stonington."
Notwithstanding this act of grace Capt. Denison and the author- ities at Hartford were not on terms of mutual good-will until the
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path of reconciliation was made smooth by the gallant conduct of Denison in the Indian war of 1676.
Another serious cause of disturbance in this young town arose from the unsettled state of the eastern boundary. The plantation had been designed to extend as far east as Wekapaug, the limit of the Pequot country ; and this included Sqummacutt, or Westerly, now in Rhode Island. Charles' charter extended the colony to " Narragansett River." No such river being known, Connecticut claimed that Narragansett Bay and the river flowing into it from the north-west were the boundary assigned. Rhode Island, on the other hand, asserted that Westerly had belonged to the Nahanticks, not to the Pequots, and that Pawkatuck River was the true Narra- gansett of the Connecticut charter. Moreover, the country between Narragansett Bay and the Pawkatuck had been included in both her charters, that obtained by Roger Williams in 1644 and that granted by Charles II. in 1663. Mr. Williams observes :
" From Pawkatuck river hitherward being but a patch of ground, full of troublesome inhabitants, I did, as I judge inoffensively, draw our poor and in- considerable line."
Both colonies extended their jurisdiction over this disputed tract and made grants of the land : the inhabitants consequently adhered some to one side and some to the other. The contest was long and arduous, and had all the incidents usually attendant upon border hos- tilities, such as overlapping deeds, disputed claims, suits at law, ar- rests, distrains, imprisonments, scuffles and violent ejectments. The warfare was bloodless, but well seasoned with blows, bruises and abu- sive language. It was natural that New London should take a lively interest in these struggles. United in their origin; not rivals, but members of the same family ; the two plantations, though separated in municipal government, remained bound in fraternal amity. Most of the original inhabitants of Stonington had first been inhabitants of New London, and their names are as familiar to the records of the one place as of the other.
In June, 1670, commissioners appointed by the two colonies to adjust the difficulties between them, met in New London, at the inn of George Tongue; but no compromise could be effected. Capt. Fitz John Winthrop was a member of this committee, and also of another court of commissioners appointed on the same business in 1672.
CHAPTER VII.
The Barn Meeting-house .-- First regular Meeting-house .-- The Sabbath drum. Burial-place .-- Some account of Mr. Blinman and his removals .- The Welsh party .-- Mr. Blinman's return to England.
THE first house of worship in the plantation was a large barn, which stood in a noble and conspicuous situation, on what was then called Meeting-house Hill. On all sides the planters with their fam- ilies ascended to the Sabbath service ; and the armed watchmen that guarded their worship, might be so placed as to overlook all their habitations. The rude simplicity of these accommodations gives a peculiar interest to the sublimity of the scene. The barn was on the house-lot of Robert Parke, (Hempstead Street, south corner of Granite Street.1) The watch was probably stationed a little north, on the still higher ground, above the burial-place.2
" August 29, 1651.
" For Mr. Parke's barn ethe towne doe agree for the use of it until midsummer next, to give him a day's work a peece for a meeting-house, -- to be redy by the Saboth come a moneth.
" Mem. Mr. Parke is willing to accept of 3l."
" [Same date.] Goodman Elderkin doth undertake to build a meeting-house about the same demention of Mr. Parke's his barne, and clapboard it for the sum of eight pounds, provided the towne cary the tymber to the place and find nales. And for his pay le requires a cow and 50s. in peage."
In 1652, Mr. Parke sold his house-lot to William Rogers, from Boston. The barn had been fitted up for comfortable worship, and is spoken of as the meeting-house in the following item.
1 On or near the spot where is now the house of Mr. William Albertson. After the decay of these first old tenements built by Mr. Parke, no dwelling-house was erected on this lot till Mr. Albertson built in 1845.
2 Where is now the house of Capt. John Rice, which stands at the south-east cor- ner of the Blinman lot, and on higher ground than any other habitation in the com- pact part of New London.
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" 30 June, '52. Wee the townsmen of Pequot have agreed with Goodman Rogers for the meeting-house for two years from the date hereof, for the summe of 3l. per annum. If we build a leantoo he is to allow for it in the rent, and if it come to more he is to allow it, and for flooring and what charges the town is at, he is willing to allow when the time is expired."
In the meantime a rate of £14 was levied to build a new meeting- house, and the site fixed by a town vote, December 16th, 1652, which Mr. Bruen thus records :
" The place for the new meeting-house was concluded on by the meeting to be in the highwaie, taking a corner of my lot to supply the highwaie."
The highway here referred to, with the north part of Mr. Bruen's lot relinquished for the purpose, formed the area now known as the Town Square, and this first meeting-house is supposed to have stood precisely upon the site of the present alms-house.1 It was undoubt- edly a building of the simplest and plainest style of construction, yet full three years were consumed in its erection. Capt. Denison and Lieutenant Smith were the building committee, and collected the rate for it. They were discharged from duty in February, 1655, at which time we may suppose it to have been in a fit condition for service. The inhabitants had so much to do-each on his own homestead- the struggle to obtain the comforts and conveniences of life was so continual and earnest, that public works were long in completion. No man worked at a trade or profession except at intervals ; John Elderkin, the meeting-house contractor and mill-wright, had other irons in the fire; a considerable proportion of the work was per- formed by the inhabitants themselves, in turn, and in this way the progress must be slow. The house was perhaps raised and covered the first year, floored and glazed the next, pulpit and seats made the third-a gallery, it may be, the fourth, and by that time it needed a new covering, or the bounds were too straight, and a lean-to must be added.
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