USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stamford > History of Stamford, Connecticut : from its settlement in 1641, to the present time, including Darien, which was one of its parishes until 1820 > Part 7
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On the seventh of March, the day before the general court was to hold its session, Stamford held its town meeting, to choose its deputies. Not many less than three score substantial citizens constituted that body. How many of them were voters we do not know. That there were men present who deeply resented the eivil disabilities which rested upon them, and who were ready for revolutionary proceedings to seenre what they
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deemed, and what we have conceded to have been their rights, will appear from the spicy discussion which then took place.
Immediately after the meeting had been opened, Basset, the readiest speaker of the disaffected party, springs to the floor, and with great excitement demands to know what this meeting means. "To choose deputies for the general court at New IIaven," answers the constitutional law officer of the town.
" We acknowledge no New Haven court, here," quickly re- torted the unintimidated revolutionist.
" We took our title from the New Haven jurisdiction, and are here to make proof of our loyalty," was the ready answer.
" But we know no laws but England's, and shall heed no authority but hers," exelaimed a sharp keyed voice, which had been pitched in the tone of thoroughly radical excitement.
" My authority," coolly replied the law officer, "is from England."
" Give us then English law," shouted the heated and now elamorous partizans for reform. "Let us have our votes. There is no justice in your New Haven tyranny."
" But we cannot violate the fundamentals of the government to which we owe allegiance," solidly replies our right worthy deputy, Francis Bell. "Mr. Moderator, will you proceed to call the vote," continues, as if finally, the law-abiding minister of the government.
But not yet had the radical and revolutionary leader ex- hausted his resources against the hated power. Rising to his ut- most height, wielding his most significant menaces in tone and looks and gestures, he bursts forth in an uncontrolled and un- controllable torrent of passionate abuse.
" We have no English laws or rights ; we have no votes ; we have no liberties ; we have no justice here; we are mere asses for fools to ride, and our backs are well nigh broken. Yon make laws when you please and what you please; you execute them as you please; you lay what rates you please, and give what reasons you please. We are bond-men and slaves, and
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there will be no better times for us till our task-masters are well out of the way."
Such were the testimonies brought against Basset in the New Haven court by the deputies from Stamford. In his defense, which consisted mainly of humble apologies, he implicated as his ineiters and encouragers at Stamford-John Chapman, Jere- miah Jagger, Old Newman and William Newman.
The court remanded Basset to the eare of the Marshall until the writings which had been left at Richard Webb's in Stam- ford, and which were thought to prove other and more treason- able offenses against him, should be produced. He was also to be put into irons.
At the next sitting of the court in two weeks, three of the above-named offenders appeared in court and acknowledged they had taken the oath of allegiance to the New Haven government. Chapman is first put on trial, the others having been removed from the court room. He is charged with aggravated guilt, because he had onee been a deputy from Stamford in the gen- eral court. It is proved against him that he had engaged in soliciting aid to make war upon the Dutch without approbation ; he had resisted the legal anthority established at Stamford; he had gone with Basset to Norwalk to stir up sedition there, and would have continued on to disturb all the towns towards New Haven, had not the New Haven commissioners met them on the way to Fairfield; and that his real aim was to overthrow the churches and subvert the civil government of the jurisdie- tion.
Jagger was next put on trial. Similar charges are made against him as against Chapman. He had been even more bit- ter in his invectives against the magistrates and against the general government. He had spoken with great contempt of the commissioners sent from New Haven to check the turbu- lenee of the Stamford radicals. He had rated the magistrates as so many Indians, and had threatened the rate gatherers that the votes should do them no good. On being allowed to plead,
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against the charges, he made a beginning but soon cooled down and confessed his folly and sin, and expressed his sorrow for them. "He sees now more in these things than ever he did be- fore, and were they to do again, he should not do them, and hopes it will be a warning to him hereafter."
" William Newman is then called. He is informed by the court of the charges against his loyalty. He is told, also, that his father had been specially offensive to the town and to the court, but that they had excused his arrest from his great age. To all this Newman offers the excuse that he had done only as others in Stamford had done, in elaiming and insisting on more liberty in votes. Yet he confesses his fault and testifies that his father also "wished him to inform the court that he is sorry for what he hath done, and hopes he shall aet so. no more."
The trial here ends, and the court proceeded to sentence the parties. Chapman and Jagger are solemnly admonished by the court of their grave offenses. By the law of the jurisdiction they had brought themselves "in question for their lives ;" yet the court were inclined to a lenient treatment even of so serions an offense. They accordingly fine Jagger twenty pounds, putting him under a hundred pound bond to maintain his loy- alty hereafter; and Chapman ten pounds, under a bond of fifty pounds for his future loyalty. Newman is to give his bond of twenty pounds, "to attend his oath of fidelity hereafter, and maintain the foundations laid for government here and the laws of this jurisdiction, to the utmost of his ability, avoiding all ways of disturbance in this kind which he hath formerly gone on in."
The court proceed to instruct the Stamford deputies that if others in their town give similar offenses, "they are to bind them to answer it at the next court of magistrates, in the latter end of May, and particularly, Tuckec, Theale, Webb and Finch who hath carried it ill as the court is informed."
It appears that Basset, in view of his sincere penitence, was
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allowed to return to Stamford, where he atoned for his past ir- regularities, by his straight forward loyalty. Two months later, in May 1664, he was called before the court again, and informed that he was expected to make some acknowledgment for his offenses and give some pledge for his future good eonduet.
IIe makes a full and humble confession of his sin, and aseribes to God's timely interposition his deliverance from the toils of sedition into which he had been drawn. He sees the evil of his course and is ready to acknowledge that the government is all right, "and settled according to God." As to those " uneom- fortable words in the town meeting which have tended much to disturb the peace of the place and much grieve the heart of God's people," he testified to his deep sorrow for them, and ex- presses the earnest wish that he may do so no more. The court express to him their confidence in his reformation, and re- mit his offense, but require from him a bond of a hundred pounds, that his future course shall be one of unwavering loyalty.
At the May session of the general court, in 1655, the Stam- ford deputies enter their complaint against the people of Green wieh for sundry irregularities, and ask for protection. The grievances were such as could not be tolerated. The greedy Greenwichers had made use of the Stamford commons for pas- turing their cattle; they were disorderly in their daily walk ; they allowed both the English and Indians in drunkenness, and so brought on mueh mischief; they protected disorderly and vagrant children and servants who ran away from their proper guardians ; and they had converted their town into a notorious Gretna Green for all sorts of elandestine and illegal marriages. To avoid these irregularities in future, the deputies ask that the men at Greenwich be required to unite under this jurisdiction.
On hearing the complaint the court drew up a formal order for the immediate submission of the Greenwichers to their authority, and forward it by the Stamford deputies. To this a reply is prepared and forwarded the next year to the court.
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This reply provoked the court. They get the governor to answer it in the name of the court. They stoutly assert their elaim to Greenwich, and commission the two Stamford deputies, Law and Bell, to go over to Greenwich, deliver the letter, and "demand in the name of the court the number of their males from sixteen to sixty years of age, to be delivered with the other males of the jurisdiction to the commissioners the next year at Plymouth."
If the Greenwichers denied their authority or delayed to fur- nish the names, they were to be warned to attend the next meeting of the court of magistrates at New Haven. If they should fail of appearing in court, "Richard Crabb and some other of the more stubborn and disorderly ones were to be seized at Stamford or thereabout and sent to New Haven to answer for their contempt of authority."
The court of Magistrates came off in June, but none of the men who had been summoned from Greenwich appeared. The Stamford deputies report them as positively refusing to submit. The court decide to wait a month longer, as the people of Greenwich had appealed to England, to see if a new patent should not reach them from England, then a summary seizure must be made of the contumacious and rebellions subjects and the supremacy of the New Haven government vindicated.
No further notice seems to have been taken of the Greenwich men until June 1657. At the general court then assembled in New Haven, the deputies of Stamford, Richard Law, John Waterbury, and George Slawson presented the following paper from the men at Greenwich :
" At Greenwich ye 16th of October, 1656.
Wee the inhabitants of Greenwich whose names are under written doe from this day forward freely yield ourselves, place and estate, to the government of Newhaven, subjecting our- selves to the order and dispose of that general court, both in respect of relation and government, promising to yield due sub-
11
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jection unto the lawfull authoritie and wholesome lawes of the jurisdiction aforesaid, to witt of Newhaven, &e.
Angell Husted, Peter Ferris,
Lawrane Turner,
Joseph Ferris,
John Austin,
Jonathan Reanolds,
Richard Crab,
Hane Peterson,
Thomas Steedwell,
Henry Nicholson,
Henry Accorley,
Jan, a Duehman,
commonly called Varllier."
The court accept the submission and order that they " fall in with Stamford and be accepted a part thereof."
From this date, until both Greenwich and Stamford were re- ceived under the jurisdiction of Connecticut colony in 1664, Greenwich seems to have had no town organization distinct from Stamford. The Stamford deputies in the general court spoke for Greenwich. The constable of Stamford had juris- dietion also in Greenwich. And the townsmen appointed for Stamford, served also for " town occasions" of Greenwich. We find, therefore, such orders as the following on the records of the general court :
"The Court orders that those who are in public trust for Stamford shall require of the inhabitants of Greenwich a list of their ratable estate, and send it to the treasurer at New Haven." Nor did there seem to be any serious jealousy on the part of the Greenwich people at this exercise of supervision from the Stamford authorities. Indeed, the most of the English at Greenwich had probably come originally with the Stamford colony, and in their exposure to the Indian and the Dutchman, had in some sort, relied upon their elose union with Stamford for their safety and defense.
The boundaries, indeed, between the two settlements appears not to have been determined. Several times in the records of those days, a person mentioned, is spoken of as living about Stamford and Greenwich. One such record oceurs immediately after the above submission of Greenwich; and as it reveals the
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continued exposure of those days to savage incursions, we will insert it :
" Abraham Frost, who at present lives about Stamford or Greenwich, presented a petition to the court, desiring some re- lief from them because he is very poor, having lost all by the Indians about a year and a half ago, his wife and children taken captives, but after brought to this jurisdiction, where they have lived since in a poor and mean way. The court considered the case, and ordered that ten bushels of Indian corn, or the value thereof in other corn, be paid him from Stamford, which to be allowed them in their rates."
We have already seen that the limitation of the franchise to church members, by the New Haven Government, was the oeca- sion of much dissatisfaction among the Stamford colonists. There were also other prohibitions in the fundamental laws of the colony which we shall see were not to be borne. In the chapter on "Ecclesiastical Provisions," every man was forbid- den to use any discourteous language toward the minister, or regarding his preaching, and every person was to attend meet- ing on the Lord's days, at least, and on days of public fasting or thanksgiving. No person was allowed to broach or maintain any dangerous error or heresy. No sinful or servile work, no unlawful sport or recreation was to be allowed on the Sabbath.
Besides these strict fundamental laws, in 1657 a special order had been passed to guard the faith of these puritan churches, and to meet an evil which was beginning to show itself :
"It is ordered that no Quaker, ranter or other heretic of that nature, be suffered to come into, nor abide in this jurisdiction, and that if any rise up among ourselves that they be speedily suppressed and secured, for the better prevention of such dan- gerous errors;" and the next year in May a lengthy act is passed to secure the churches against harm from "the cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world which are commonly called quakers."
While this latter enactment was under discussion before the general court, the heresy which it would punish was being
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secretly spread through the jurisdiction. It found its way into Stamford. Zealous disciples of the new faith sought to propa- gate their creed, and found some who were ready to entertain and embrace them. Members of the church became tainted with the subtle heresy, and still more who owed the church a spite, were glad to find in the fiery apostles of this anti-church creed the heartiest sympathy and support.
Nor did the zealous disciples of the new faith cease with merely publishing the new gospel. They were hotter still with zeal to mend the old. They went mad for reform. They renounced the old ministry and meetings and worship; and at once assailed and wished to supplant the civil government which sustained them. So officious were they that the church felt called upon, in self defense, to enter an earnest protest ; and the central gov- ernment were obliged either to vacate or justify their authori- ty.
Daniel Scofield, then marshal for Stamford and vicinity, au- thorized by the governor's writ, took a posse of his neighbors and started for the western side of the town, now Greenwich, to arrest one Thomas Marshall, who for some time had been insult- ing and outraging the majesty of the government. They found him at the house of Richard Crabb, who was also lying under charge of serions misearriages.
The arrest was made, but not without an attempt at inter- ference by Mr. Crabb, and a torrent of abuse from his enraged wife. Both of these sympathizers with the vagrant heretic were put under arrest, and bound over to the next court of magistrates, to be held in New Haven in May 1658. At the appointed'time Mr. Crabb and his accusers appeared in court. The witnesses against him were the party who had assisted in the arrest of Marshall, and also Mr. Bishop, pastor of the church in Stamford. The court inform him that he must now answer for his several miscarriages; for his many elamorous and re- proachful speeches against the ministry, government and officers ; for neglecting the meetings of the Sabbath by himself and his
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wife, for whose offenses, as they were justified by himself, he must be responsible.
William Oliver, one of the arresting party, testified that when they came to Mr. Crabb's to arrest Marshall and seize the Quaker books which were supposed to be in Mr. Crabb's pos- session, Madam Crabb retreated to another room and closed the door against them. Nor would she yield until the door had been forced open by violence.
Then followed an exciting scene. The plucky woman who would not open the door of her castle, now could not shut her mouth ; nor could the utmost expostulations of her more placa- ble husband, united with the utmost array of governmental au- thority before her do it. Neither the one nor the other, nor both united, could intimidate the zealous defender of her per- sonal rights. We may never recover the entire speech which that andience were required to hear. It had not been written, and there was no time for the stenographer to be called. It had no formal exordium, fashioned after the calm rules of rhetoric ; there were probably but few of those well rounded periods which give so much dignity to discourse; and the peroration was doubtless as abrupt and pithy as the rest.
The door being opened, the way was clear for her, and she used it, apparently, without help or hindrance, and we may be assured that she had no listless or sleepy auditors to the very end.
" Is this your fasting and praying ?" breaks forth the im- passioned woman, as she fastens her searching glance upon the marshal and his attendants. " Do ye thus rob us and break into our houses ? How can you Stamford men expect the blessing of God? Will He bear with your mean hypocrisy ? You have taken away our lands, without right. You have basely wronged us, and let me tell you what I see without your hireling priests' help ; the vengeance of God Almighty will burst upon you. And when it comes, your priest can't help you. He is as Baal's priest, and is no better than the rest of you. Ye
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HISTORY OF STAMFORD.
are all the enemies of God and God's saints, and their blood shall be on your souls forever."
Fastening her sharp eye on goodman Bell, the same who from the first had been a pillar in the Stamford church, and who had now come over with the marshal, hoping by his fraternal inter- cession to win back the estranged and now perverse hearts of his erring brother and sister, she continued her bitter invective. " Thou arch traitor and hypocrite, thou villainous liar, God's wrath is on you and shall burn hotter and hotter on your god- less children. Out on you ! poor priest-ridden fool !"
Springing next upon John Waterbury, who had also aceom- panied the marshal to aid in the dispensation of justice, she ad- ministers to him a similar castigation, Then she tries the force of her eutting reproaches and sharp retorts upon the marshal, for selling himself to do the dirty work of the God-forsaken government at New Haven, and of the over-reaching and heaven-defying, and priest-cursed erew in Stamford. Then she assailed George Slawson, that exemplary member of the church, a peace-maker, and one whom all delighted to honor, and poured upon him her heaviest abuse. He had hoped to quiet her irri. tability, and in his most winning way had most gently expostu- lated with her, reminding her of the former days in which she had walked joyfully and hopefully with God's people in Stam- ford, and in which she had counted the communion of saints there, the most precious of all her earthly blessings. He ven- tured to express the hope that they might again welcome her to their fellowship in the old church, and that she might again listen there to the same gospel in which she had once testified her great interest. This was carrying his persuasion too far. It seemed to kindle her intensest ire. She was now for once, put to it for words rapid enough, or hot enough to express her rage. Every possibility of indignant resentment in her soul was taxed to its utmost. Seorn and rage and defiance seemed struggling together in her utterance for the mastery over each other, and they seem to have ended the attempt at her recon-
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ciliation. It was a settler to that well-meant parley in which her womanly temper rejoiced in securing the last word. "Never, never, shall I or mine trouble your Stamford meeting more. 1 shall die first. My soul shall never be cast away to the devil so easily as that ;" and with uplifted hands, she invoked on their heads the most sudden and the direst vengeance which heaven could inflict. When she had exhausted herself in these rapid maledictions, she called for drink to revive her strength; and the ministers of the law could do no more than go through the ceremony of binding her, with her husband, over to the court.
On the narration of the case before the court as just stated, the governor, Francis Newman, informed Mr. Crabb that these were notorious doings, not to be allowed. Mr. Crabb, for his wife it appears had not obeyed the summons to attend the court, attempted an apology. He could not manage his wife. He did not justify her evil way, but he would have the court understand her case. She was a well-bred English woman, a zealous professor of religion from her childhood, "but when she is suddenly surprised she hath not power to restrain her passion,"
To all this the worshipful governor made answer ; " that what he had said did greatly aggravate her misearryings, for if she have been a great professsour it was certain she had been an ill practiser, in which you have countenanced her and borne her up, which may be accounted yours, as having falne into evills of the like nature yourself, revileling Mr. Bishopp as a priest of Baal and ye members as liars, and yt Mr. Bishopp preached for filthy luere."
Mr. Crabb vainly attempted to explain away or deny what abundant testimonies corroborated. Mr. Bishop, the pastor of the church had been so sorely tried, that he "could not continue at Stamford, unless some course be taken to remove and reform such grievances." Mr. Bell felt that an end of all government had come, if the ministers of justice were to be so opposed and insulted with impunity. The " citizens of Stamford wished the
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HISTORY OF STAMFORD.
court to preserve the peace among them, maintain the ordinances of religion and government, and encourage their minister. To all which Mr. Crabb made no further plea. The court sentenced him to pay a fine of 30 pounds, and give bonds to the amount of 100 pounds for his good behaviour, and that he make publie ae- knowledgements at Stamford, to the satisfaction of Francis Bell and others whom he had abused. The remainder of the sentence is missing, and so we shall probably never know what disposi- tion the court made of the sharp-tongued Madam Crabb who was really the chief offender in the case.
No other case of conflict with the Quakers, which was deem- ed worthy a public prosecution, seems to have occurred in Stam- ford or its vicinity. There was disturbance by them in other parts of the jurisdiction, especially in their settlement at South- old on Long Island ; but the majesty of the law was maintained and the churches defended.
That there were still occasions of disturbance at Stamford needing the strong arm of the law for their repression or control, the following special ordinance of the general court will attest. This provision for a permanent annual court, instead of the occasional courts which from the second year had been provided for, may also indicate the increasing importance of Stamford in the jurisdiction.
" At the general court in New Haven, May 30, 1660, upon weighty grounds presented, the court desired the gov- ernor and deputy governor, Francis Newman and Wil- liam Leete, to go to Stamford, there to keep court. Richard Laws and Francis Bell were chosen to assist in the said court ; which court hath power committed to them equal to any plan- tation court, assisted by two magistrates. It was further order- ed, while there is need, that two magistrates shall be yearly sent to Stamford to keep court, at the charge of the jurisdiction, the charge of entertainment at Stamford to be excepted, which is to be borne by themselves."
We now come to the beginning of the struggle between the two jurisdictions of Connecticut and New Haven, for the supre-
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macy over the territory thus far held by the New Haven juris- diction.
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