USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 30
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 30
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After more than a year of resistance, the people of Greenwich signed the following engagement : -
" At Greenwich, the 6th of October, 1656. We, the inhabitants of Greenwich, whose names are underwritten, do from this day forward freely yield ourselves, place, and estate, to the government of New Haven, subjecting ourselves to the order and dispose of that general court, both in respect of relation and government, promising to yield due subjection unto the lawful authority and wholesome laws of the jurisdiction aforesaid, to wit, of New Haven." The Court, receiving this written engagement, ordered that " they are to fall in with Stamford, and be accepted a part
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thereof, and, from the time of their submission, they are freed from rates for one whole year."
The submission of Greenwich, signed in the next pre- ceding October, was presented to the court May 27, 1657. This was the last general court in which Eaton presided, and only twice afterward did he hold a court of magistrates. He died suddenly in the following Jan- uary. "Having worshipped God with his family after his usual manner, and upon some occasion with much solemnity charged all the family to carry it well unto their mistress who was now confined by sickness, he supped, and then took a turn or two abroad for his meditations. After that, he came in to bid his wife good night, before he left her with her watchers ; which, when he did, she said, "Methinks you look sad.' Whereto he replied, 'The differences risen in the church of Hartford make me so.' She then added, 'Let us even go back to our native country again.' To which he answered, 'You may, but I shall die here.' This was the last word that ever she heard him speak ; for, now retiring unto his lodging in another chamber, he was overheard about midnight fetching a groan ; and unto one sent in presently to inquire how he did, he answered the inquiry with only saying, 'Very ill,' and, without saying any more, he fell asleep in Jesus." "This man," says Hubbard, "had in him great gifts and as many excellencies as are usually found in any one man. He had an excellent princely face and port, commanding respect from all others ; he was a good scholar, a traveller, a great reader, of an exceeding steady and even spirit, not easily moved to passion, and
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standing unshaken in his principles when once fixed upon, of a profound judgment, full of majesty and authority in his judicatures so that it was a vain thing to offer to brave him out."
As Eaton had been elected to the chief magistracy annually from the institution of the colonial govern- ment, so Stephen Goodyear had been with equal regu- larity chosen deputy-governor. Naturally he would have succeeded to the place vacated by the death of Eaton ; but his absence on a visit to England obliged the freemen to look elsewhere for a chief magistrate. At the court of election in the following May, Francis Newman, who had for some years been secretary of the jurisdiction, was chosen governor, and William Leete, deputy-governor. Mr. Davenport writes to his friend the younger Winthrop : -
" The last election day was the saddest to me that ever I saw in New Haven, by our want of him whose presence was wont to make it a day of no less contentment than solemnity. Being weary after my sermon, I was absent from the court. The first news that I heard from thence added to my sorrow, for I heard that Mr. Goodyear was wholly left out in the choice of magistrates ; whereas I had been secure, thinking they purposed to choose him governor. But the day following, upon inquiry into the cause of it, I received such answer as cleared unto me that it came to pass, not by any plot of men, but by the overruling providence of God. For the proxies generally voted for Mr. Goodyear to be governor and Mr. Leete deputy, and none of them gave their votes for Mr. Goodyear to be deputy-governor if the former failed, nor to be magistrate, but put in blanks to both, taking it for granted that he would be chosen governor. But before they proceeded to election, some of the deputies of the court propounded and urged the necessity of great expediency, in respect of our condition at present, of having the governor present among us. Hereunto
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the freemen generally consented ; and hereby the election fell upon Mr. Newman to be governor, and Mr. Leete deputy-gov- · ernor, for this year. To this latter the proxies for the most part . concurred, and most of the present freemen. The votes of the present freemen and some few proxies carried the election for gov- ernor to Mr. Newman by plurality of votes, which he strongly refused; but importunity of many in the court at last overcame him to accept it ; and some of Mr. Goodyear's friends spake ear- nestly, when these two were chosen, to hinder his being chosen to magistracy, alleging such reasons as they had."
Mr. Goodyear was so generally regarded as second only to Gov. Eaton in all qualifications requisite for the chief magistracy, that, if he had lived to return, he would probably have been called, as soon as an election occurred, to the high position for which his only dis- qualification in May, 1653, was absence from the col- ony. His death occurred in London, not long after- ward ; the melancholy tidings of it having been received before the 20th of October, at which date proceedings were commenced for the settlement of his estate.
Mr. Newman and Mr. Leete were re-elected in 1659 and 1660. On the 17th of October of the latter year a court of magistrates was held, at which the following record was made, the governor being absent : -
"By reason of the afflicting hand of God on New Haven by much sickness, the Court could not pitch upon a day for public thanksgiving through the colony for the mercies of the year past, and did therefore leave it to the elders of the church at New Haven, as God may be pleased to remove his hand from the gov- ernor and others, to give notice to the rest of the plantations what day they judge fit for that duty, that we may give thanks and re- joice before the Lord together."
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Gov. Newman died Nov. 18, 1660. Mr. Davenport, in a letter to his friend Winthrop, thus communicates the particulars of his decease : -
" We hoped he was in a good way of recovery from his former sickness, and were comforted with his presence in the assembly two Lord's days, and at one meeting of the church on a week day, without sensible inconvenience. And on the morning of the day of public thanksgiving, he found himself encouraged to come to the public assembly. But after the morning sermon he told me that he found himself exceedingly cold from head to toe; yet having dined, he was refreshed, and came to the meeting again in the afternoon, the day continuing very cold. That night he was very ill ; yet he did not complain of any relapse into his former disease, but of inward cold, which he and we hoped might be removed by his keeping warm and using other suitable means. I believe he did not think that the time of his departure was so near, or that he should die of this distemper, though he was always prepared for his great change. The last day of the week he desired my son to come to him the next morning to write a bill for him to be prayed for, according to his direction. My son went to him after the beating of the first drum; but finding himself not fit to speak much, he prayed him to write for him what he thought fit. When the second drum beat, I was sent for to him. But before I came, though I made haste, his precious immortal soul was departed from its house of clay unto the souls of just men made perfect. We were not worthy of him, a true Nathanael, an Israelite indeed, who served God in Christ in sincerity and truth. He honored God in his personal conversation, and in his adminis- tration of chief magistracy in this colony; and God hath given him honor in the hearts of his people."
On the 27th of July, 1660, about four months pre- vious to the death of Gov. Newman, the ship Prudent Mary, commanded by Capt. Pierce, a noted shipmas- ter in the trade between New England and the mother
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country, arrived at Boston, bringing intelligence that the Stuarts had been restored to the throne in the person of Charles II. In the vessel which brought these tidings came Edward Whalley and William Goffe, both members of the High Court which had con- demned to death the father of the reigning monarch.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STUARTS AND THE REGICIDES.
T T HE tidings which came to Boston on the 27th of July, 1660, were not entirely unexpected. A new parliament had been summoned to meet in April ; and the result of the elections had shown that it was to consist chiefly of persons friendly to a government by king, lords, and commons. So much as this must have been already known in New England by earlier ships than that of Mr. Pierce. His arrival was anx- iously expected. Mr. Davenport writes to Winthrop just one week before Pierce cast anchor at Boston, "Sir, I humbly thank you for the intelligences I received in your letters, and for the two weekly intelligences which Brother Miles brought me, I think from your- self, and which I return enclosed, by this bearer, with many thanks. I did hope that we might have received our letters by Capt. Pierce before this time. But we have no news lately from the Bay. Brother Rutherford and Brother Alsop are both there, so also is our teacher Mr. Street. The two former, I hope, will return next week. Then, probably, we shall have some further news. The Lord fit us to receive it as we ought, what- ever it may be."
The restoration of the Stuarts was not received in
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New England joyfully. The change from a kingdom to a commonwealth twenty years before had injured New England in its material interests by checking the emigration which was pouring into it population and wealth. But this disadvantage had been outweighed, in the judgment of the Puritan colonists, by the eleva- tion of men in sympathy with themselves to supreme power and authority in what they called the State of England. They were more earnest to secure "the ends for which they had come hither" than to obtain a larger price for their corn and cattle, and they were confident that these ends would not be frustrated by any action of the home government so long as Puritans were in power in England. But what effect upon the colonies the restoration of the Stuarts might produce, it was impossible to foresee.
When the time arrived for the next election in New Haven jurisdiction, it was difficult to find suitable per- sons willing to accept office. John Wakeman and William Gibbard were nominated for the magistracy in the plantation court of New Haven, notwithstanding their protest; Mr. Wakeman, who had had some thought of removing to Hartford, saying, when ques- tioned if he intended to stay at New Haven, that "he was not resolved whether to go or stay, but rather than he would accept of the place, he would remove." In the court of elections for the jurisdiction they were both elected magistrates, "but neither of them took the oath." Mr. Benjamin Fenn of Milford being elected magistrate, took the oath "with this explanation before the oath was administered, that he would take the oath to act in his place, according to the laws of this juris-
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diction ; but in case any business from without should present, he conceived he should give no offence if he did not attend to it, who desired that it might be so understood." Mr. William Leete was chosen governor, Mr. Matthew Gilbert deputy-governor, and Mr. Robert Treat and Mr. Jasper Crane, magistrates. It does not appear that any of these four hesitated to take the oath proper to their place.
By the terms of his restoration, Charles II. had left to Parliament to determine who should be excepted from an act of general amnesty. The act, when passed, excepted all who had been directly concerned in the death of the former king. But because Whalley and Goffe had left England before they had been marked for punishment, the people of Massachusetts felt no embarrassment in receiving and entertaining them. Major Daniel Gookin, one of their fellow-passengers in the Prudent Mary, offered them the hospitality of his house in Cambridge; and in Cambridge they re- mained till the following February, often visiting Bos- ton and other towns in the neighborhood. They came, it is said, under the assumed names of Edward Rich- ardson and William Stephenson ; but their secret, not- withstanding this disguise, was known to many; so that when intelligence came that they had been ex- cepted in the act of amnesty, some of the magistrates were alarmed, and the more because it was known that they had been seen and recognized by Capt. Thomas Breedon, a royalist who had since sailed for England. The governor therefore convened his council to consider and determine whether the proscribed regicides should be apprehended. The council considered, but came to
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no determination. Four days afterward Whalley and Goffe relieved their friends in Massachusetts by depart- ing for New Haven.
Only a fortnight after their arrival at Boston, Mr. Davenport had mentioned them in a letter to the younger Winthrop, and declared his purpose of inviting them to his house after the meeting of the commis- sioners in September, alleging, as a reason for delay, his desire to keep the guest-chamber ready for an expected visit from Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop during the meeting of the commissioners. His interest in them at that time seems to have been that of a person in sympathy with them in politics and religion, who had heard a good report of their quality and godliness, but was unacquainted with their personal history and connec- tions. On a little piece of paper wafered to the side of the letter, he adds this postscript : "Sir, I mistook, in my letter, when I said Col. Whalley was one of the gentlemen, &c. It is Commissary-Gen. Whalley, sis- ter Hooke's brother, and his son-in-law who is with him is Col. Goffe ; both godly men, and escaped pur- suit in England narrowly." He had doubtless received this information from Mr. William Jones and his wife,1
' William Jones, having married as his second wife Hannah, youngest daughter of Theophilus Eaton, July 4, 1659, came in the following year from London to New Haven, where, on the 23d of May, 1662, he took the oath of fidelity with the following qualification: "That whereas the king hath been proclaimed in this colony to be our sovereign, and we his loyal subjects, I do take the said oath with subordination to his majesty, hoping his majesty will confirm the said government for the advancement of Christ's gospel, kingdom, and ends, in this colony, upon the founda- tions already laid; but in case of the alteration of the government in the fundamentals thereof, then to be free from the said oath." The same day he was admitted a freeman ; and five days afterward, at a court of election for the jurisdiction, he was chosen a magistrate.
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who, having crossed the Atlantic in the ship with these distinguished strangers, had come to New Haven to occupy the mansion which Mrs. Jones, the daughter of Gov. Eaton, had inherited from her father. The identification of Whalley as Mrs. Hooke's brother must in time have recalled to memory many things he had learned from his colleague in reference to Goffe, who was the husband of Mrs. Hooke's niece. If he had not already heard that the latter, when a major-general in the army, with his headquarters at Winchester, had resided in the family of Mr. Whitfield, formerly pastor of the church in Guilford, he may have learned it from the same persons who had assisted him to identify the brother-in-law of his former colleague.
The greater ease of escaping from New Haven into New Netherlands, may have influenced Whalley and Goffe to go thither rather than remain in Hartford, where they tarried awhile, and were hospitably enter- tained by Gov. Winthrop. But the presence at New Haven of persons intimately acquainted with the friends in England on whom they were dependent for remit- tances of money, may also have had some weight in their minds in determining where to hide themselves.
A journey of nine days from Cambridge brought them by way of Hartford and Guilford to New Haven, March 7, 1661, where they appeared openly as Mr. Davenport's guests. But intelligence having reached Boston, while they were on their journey, that a royal proclamation for their arrest had been issued in Janu- ary, on information supplied by Capt. Breedon, it soon followed them to New Haven, and rendered it unsafe for them to be seen in public. Accordingly, on the
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27th of March, they went to Milford, as if on a journey to New Netherlands ; but in the night they returned to Mr. Davenport's, where they remained in conceal- ment till the 30th of April.
Further reports of their residence at Cambridge hav- ing reached England, another royal order for their arrest was issued in March, and reached Boston on the 28th of April. It was blunderingly addressed, " To our trusty and well-beloved, the present Governor or other magistrate or magistrates of our plantation of New England." The governor of Massachusetts, having delayed till sufficient time had elapsed for the news to be forwarded to New Haven, gave two young men, recently come from England, Thomas Kellond, mer- chant, and Thomas Kirk, shipmaster, a commission to prosecute the search in Massachusetts, with letters of commendation from himself to the governors of Plym- outh, Connecticut, New Haven, and New Nether- lands. On Tuesday, May 7, about six P.M., Kellond and Kirk, with John Chapin as guide, left Boston. On Friday they had an interview with Gov. Winthrop at Hartford. They say in their report, "The honorable governor carried himself very nobly to us, and was very diligent to supply us with all manner of conven- iences for the prosecution of them, and promised all diligent search should be made after them in that jurisdiction, which was afterward performed." Learn- ing from Winthrop that the "colonels," as Whalley and Goffe were called, had gone from Hartford toward New Haven, the pursuivants rode on Saturday to Guil- ford, where resided Deputy-Gov. Leete, chief magis- trate of New Haven colony since the death of Gov. Newman.
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Leete received them in the presence of several other persons. Looking over their papers, "he began to read them audibly ; whereupon we told him (says their report) it was convenient to be more private in such concernments as that was." Retiring with them to another room, and thus giving opportunity for the rest of the company to disperse, Leete assured them that he had not seen the colonels for nine weeks ; that is, since the time when they passed through Guilford on the way from Hartford to New Haven. The pursui- vants replied that they had information that the per- sons they were in pursuit of had been in New Haven since then, and desired him to furnish them with horses for their further journey. The horses were "prepared with some delays." Coming out from the governor's house, they were told on their way to the inn by one Dennis Scranton (Crampton ?) that the colonels were secreted at Mr. Davenport's, "and that, without all question, Deputy Leete knew as much." Other per- sons reported that they had very lately been seen between the houses of Mr. Davenport and Mr. Jones.
Confirmed by these tidings in the belief that they were upon the track of the fugitives, the pursuivants returned to Leete, and demanded military aid and "a power to search and apprehend." But he "said he could do nothing until he had spoken with one Mr. Gilbert and the rest of his magistrates." He offered, however, to give them a letter to Mr. Gilbert. By the time the governor had made ready his letter, the sun was too far on its way toward the western horizon to justify any expectation that they could conclude a conference with magistrate Gilbert before the going
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down of the sun should put an end to all secular trans- actions. They seem to have come to the conclusion, that, in the circumstances, it was better to stay in Guilford than to go on to New Haven, and, by their presence there on the sabbath, notify the friends of the regicides that search would be made for them on the morrow. But their presence in Guilford was already known in New Haven, for some one who heard the governor read their commission had occasion soon after to send an Indian runner on an errand to New Haven.
At daybreak on Monday they left Guilford for New Haven, bearing the letter of Gov. Leete, advising Mr. Gilbert to call the town court together, and, by their advice and concurrence, to cause a search to be made. But, early as they started, a messenger had been sent before them to warn Gilbert that they were coming. "To our certain knowledge (they say) one John Meigs was sent a horseback before us, and by his speedy and unexpected going so early before day, was to give them an information ; and the rather because by the delays which were used it was break of day before we got to horse ; so he got there before us." Leete arrived, the pursuivants say in their report, "within two hours or thereabouts after us, and came to us to the court- chamber, where we again acquainted him with the information we had received, and that we had cause to believe they were concealed in New Haven, and there- upon we required his assistance and aid for their appre- hension ; to which he answered, that he did not believe they were. Whereupon we desired him to empower us, or order others for it; to which he gave us this an- swer, that he could not, nor would not, make us magis- trates."
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Magistrate Crane, of Branford, had arrived in com- . pany with Leete. Gilbert, who was not at home when the pursuivants inquired for him, having at last made his appearance, and Mr. Fenn having been summoned from Milford, - perhaps by Mr. Gilbert in person, - the magistrates and the deputies for New Haven held a consultation which lasted five or six hours. The issue of it, as communicated to Kellond and Kirk, was that "they would not nor could not do any thing until they had called a general court of the freemen." The pursuivants protested against the delay, and threatened the magistrates and the colony with the resentment of his Majesty. The reply was "we honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences." The magistrates then held a second consultation of two or three hours ; after which, being further pressed "to their duty and loyalty to his Majesty, and whether they would own his Majesty or no, it was answered, they would first know whether his Majesty would own them."
New Haven was a government formed by the people without any charter or commission of any kind from England; and its magistrates feared that by acting under a mandate directed to the Governor of New England they might be acknowledging a governor- general, and thus betray the trust committed to them under oath by the freemen of the colony. They would do nothing, therefore, without a general court.
Evening coming on before the magistrates made their last reply to the pursuivants, it was too late to send forth on that day a warrant for convening the court. On Tuesday it was sent to the several planta- tions, and the court was held on Friday. The pursui-
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vants, however, could not wait so long for a meeting which promised so little. Offering "great rewards to English and Indians who should give information that they might be taken," they departed on Tuesday for New Amsterdam, not without hope of finding, and, with the help of the Dutch governor, apprehending the fugitives. From New Amsterdam they returned by sea to Boston, where, on the 30th of May, they made oath to the truth of the written report which they delivered to Gov. Endicott.
On the Saturday when Kellond and Kirk were in Guilford, Whalley and Goffe, leaving the house of Mr. Jones, in which they had been secreted since the 30th of April, went to the mill I two miles north of the town, where they remained till Monday. We can easily con- jecture that they did not make themselves visible at the mill till the last customer had departed, and that they went away on Monday morning before the earli- est grist was brought. Beyond the mill all was an un-
I Dr. Bacon places the mill to which the regicides went for conceal- ment till the sabbath was past, at Westville; but I do not find on the records evidence that there was at that time any other mill than that on Mill River. This mill having become rotten, and new mill-stones being required for it, an unsuccessful attempt had been made not long before to bring the water from the Beaver Pond in a trench, so that an overshot mill might be set up in the town. On the first day of December, 1662, there was a general court, at which nothing was said about the mill, and on the third day of the same month a special meeting was held and "the occasion of coming together " was "the sad providence of God that was fallen out in the burning of the mill." Doubtless it was burned after the meeting, two days before. It was regarded as a calamity, not only because of the loss of property, but because of the inconvenience of going to Milford for meal. The mill was soon after rebuilt in the same place. The mill-house, which was consumed by fire in 1662, was doubtless the same which in 1661 sheltered the regicides.
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