USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 38
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 38
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
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only yourselves necessitating thereunto shall revive them, being willing to pursue truth and peace as much as may be with all men, especially with our dear brethren in the fellowship of the gospel, and fellow-members of the same civil corporation, accommodated with so many choice privileges, which we are willing, after all is · prepared to your hands, to confer upon you equal with ourselves ; which we wish may at last produce the long-desired effect of your free and cordial closure with us, not attributing any necessity im- posed by us further than the situation of those plantations in the heart of our colony, and therein the peace of posterity in these parts of the country is necessarily included, and that after so long liberty to present your plea where you have seen meet. Gentle- men, we desire a full answer as speedily as may be, whether those lately empowered, accept to govern according to their commission ; if not, other meet persons to govern, may by us be empowered in their room. Thus desiring the Lord to unite our hearts and spirits in ways well pleasing in his sight,
"Which is the prayer of your very loving friends, "THE COUNCIL OF THE COLONY OF CONNECTICUT.
" Signed by their order by me, JOHN ALLYN, Secretary."
New Haven made but one more effort to obtain con- cessions. The effort was neither vigorous nor effectual. The following letter ended its resistance to the will of Connecticut.
"NEW HAVEN, Jan. 5, 1665.
" HONORED GENTLEMEN, - Whereas, by yours, dated Dec. 21, 1664, you please to say that you did the same as we in not making any grievance known to the commissioners, &c .; unto that may be returned that you had not the same cause so to do, from any pre- tence of injury by our intermeddling with your colony or covenant interest : unto which we refer that passage. For our expressing desires to manage all our matters in consistency with the Confed- eration, we hope you will not blame us; how dissonant or con- sonant your actings with us have been, we leave to the confederates to judge, as their records may show. That article which allows two colonies to join, doth also with others assert the justness of
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each colony's distinct right until joined to mutual satisfaction, and the provision made in such case the last session we gainsay not, when the union is so completed, and a new settlement of the con- federation by the respective general courts accomplished. Their pathetical advice and counsel for an amicable union we wish may be so attended ; in order whereunto we gave you notice of a com- mittee prepared to treat with you for such an accommodation, unto which you give us no answer, but instead thereof, send forth your edict from authority upon us before our conviction for submis- sion was declared to you. The argument from our intermixt situa- tion is the same now as it was before our confederating and ever since, and affords no more ground now to disannul the covenant than before. We might marvel at your strange why we should think your success should be debtor to our silence, and that be- cause the news of our non-compliance was with the commissioners ; as if the mere news of such a thing contained the strength of all we had to say or plead. Gentlemen, we entreat you to consider that there is more in it than so, yea, that still we have to allege things of weight, and know where and how, if we chose not rather to abate and suffer, than by striving, to hazard the hurting your- selves or the common cause. We scope not at reflections, but conviction and conscience-satisfaction, that so brethren in the fel- lowship of the gospel might come to a cordial and regular closure, and so walk together in love and peace to advance Christ's interest among them, which is all our design ; but how those high and holy ends are like so to be promoved between us without a treaty for accommodation, we have cause to doubt, yet that we may not fail in the least to perform whatever we have said, we now signify, that having seen the copy of his Majesty's commissioners' determination (deciding the bounds betwixt his highness the Duke of York, and Connecticut's charter), we do declare submission thereunto accord- ing to the true intent of our vote, unto which we refer you. As to that part of yours concerning our magistrates' and officers' accept- ance, their answer is, that they having been chosen by the people here to such trust, and sworn thereunto for the year ensuing, and until new be orderly chosen, and being again desired to continue that trust, they shall go on in due observance thereof, according to the declaration left with us by Mr. John Allyn and Mr. Samuel
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Shearman, bearing date Nov. 19, 1664, in hope to find that in a loving treaty for accommodating matters to the ends professed by you, unto which our committee stands ready to attend, upon notice from you, truth and peace may be maintained. So shall we not give you further trouble, but remain, gentlemen, your very loving friends and neighbors,
" The committee appointed by the freemen and inhabitants of New Haven Colony, signed &p' their order, {' me, "JAMES BISHOP, Secretary."
This reiterated appeal for a "loving treaty " brought forth no response, and the people of the late colony of New Haven found that they were not to be allowed to retain any of the peculiarities they had so highly prized under the old jurisdiction. Deputies from the plantation of New Haven appeared and sat in the Gen- eral Assembly of Connecticut in the following April. An act of indemnity was at that time passed as follows : " This Court doth hereby declare that all former actings that have passed by the former power at New Haven, so far as they have concerned this colony (whilst they stood as a distinct colony), though they in their own nature have seemed uncomfortable to us, yet they are hereby buried in perpetual oblivion, never to be called to account." At the election in May four gentlemen who had been magistrates under the New Haven juris- diction were appointed magistrates of Connecticut.
A very large majority of the people formerly under the jurisdiction of New Haven. soon became satisfied with their new relation. Branford, however, was an exception. In the words of Trumbull, " Mr. Pierson and almost his whole church and congregation were so displeased that they soon removed into Newark in
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New Jersey. They carried off the records of the church and town, and, after the latter had been settled about five and twenty years, left it almost without inhabit- ants. For more than twenty years from that time there was not a church formed in the town. People from various parts of the colony gradually moved into it, and purchased the lands of the first planters, so that in about twenty years it became resettled. In 1685 it was re-invested with town privileges."
Most of all, Davenport, who, on the other side of the sea, had devised the peculiar constitution of New Haven, who had seen the establishment of successive plantations according to the pattern he had set, and the combination of them under a colonial government, was distressed at the ruin of his plans and his hopes. In April, 1666, Winthrop wrote requesting him to preach the election sermon in May, and suggesting that he would have been asked to preach the preceding year, but that the union was not then complete. Daven- port, who had just entered his seventieth year, and was suffering with malaria, writes of his "unfitness for such a journey," mentions the intention of his colleague to visit Boston as a reason why he himself must remain at home, and adds, "I have sundry other weighty rea- sons whereby I am strongly and necessarily hindered from that service, which may more conveniently be given by word of mouth to your honored self, than expressed by writing." Retaining the letter in his hand two days, he writes in a postscript : "The rea- son which it pleased you to give why I was not for- merly desired to preach at the election, holdeth as strong against my being invited thereunto now. For
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we are not yet fully joined, by the Court's refusal of our freemen to vote in the last election, when they came thither to that end, in obedience to their absolute summons, and about twenty of ours were sent home as repudiated after they had suffered the difficulties and hazards of an uncomfortable and unsafe journey in that wet season." I Writing his reply the same day he received Winthrop's invitation, he ruled his spirit ; but, after two days of musing, he gives vent to his disappointment in the complaint that the free- men of New Haven were not, as such, received and treated under the expected treaty of accommodation, as freemen of Connecticut. A year later he writes to Winthrop with something of his former cordiality and abandon, as if time had softened his resentment. But he never recovered from the disappointment which fell upon him like a blow at the extinction of the little sov- ereignty whose foundations he had laid. New Haven, as Palfrey rightly says, "ceased to be attractive to him. It was rather the monument of a great defeat and sorrow." He speaks in a letter to a friend in Massachusetts of "Christ's interest in New Haven Colony as miserably lost." In this state of mind he received an invitation to the pastorate of the First Church in Boston, there to champion the cause of ortho- doxy against the half-way covenant. Contrary to the wishes of his church and congregation, he determined to accept the invitation. Mr. John Hull of Boston
I These freemen of New Haven Colony doubtless presented themselves as voters in response to a public summons directed to freemen of Con- necticut. As they had not taken the oath of allegiance to that colony, they were repudiated.
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writes in his diary, under date of May 2, 1668: "At three or four in the afternoon came Mr. John Daven- port to town, with his wife, son, and son's family, and were met by many of the town. A great shower of extraordinary drops of rain fell as they entered the town ; but Mr. Davenport and his wife were sheltered in a coach of Mr. Searl, who went to meet them."
Mr. Davenport's ministry in Boston was of short duration. He died in less than two years after the date given above. His removal from New Haven doubtless helped to obliterate the bitter feelings produced by the .controversy between Connecticut and New Haven. The union of the two colonies was in itself so desir- able, that resentment against what was wrong in the means of accomplishing it yielded to the stronger feeling of satisfaction with the result. After two cen- turies, New Haven scarcely remembers that she was once a distinct colony.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX I.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH.
[From the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. xvii.]
WAS born of Godly Parents, that feared ye Lord greatly, I
even from their youth, but in an ungodly Place, where ye gen- erality of ye people rather derided then imitated their piety, in a place where, to my knowledge, their children had Learnt wickedness betimes, In a place that was consumed wth fire in a great part of it, after God had brought them out of it.1 These godly parents of mine meeting with opposition & persecution for Religion, because they went from their own Parish Church to hear ye word & Receiv ye Ls supper &c took up resolutions to pluck up their stakes & remove themselves to New Eng- land, and accordingly they did so, Leaving dear Relations friends & acquaintace, their native Land, a new built house, a flour- ishing Trade, to expose themselves to ye hazzard of ye seas, and to ye Distressing difficulties of a howling wilderness, that they might enjoy Liberty of Conscience & Christ in his ordi- nances. And the Lord brought them hither & Landed them at Charlestown, after many difficulties and hazzards, and me along with them being then a child not full seven years old.
' In the copy of the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register which belongs to the N. H. Col. Hist. Society is this manuscript note : -
" Hedon, a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the river Hum- ber, three miles from Hull, was almost entirely consumed by fire in the year 1656. H. D."
The initials are those of Mr. Horace Day, a former secretary of the Society.
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After about 7 weeks stay at Charls Town, my parents removed again by sea to New-Haven in ye month of October. In or pas- sage thither we were in great Danger by a storm which drove us upon a Beach of sand where we lay beating til another Tide fetcht us off ; but God carried us to or port in safety. Winter approaching we dwelt in a cellar partly under ground covered with earth the first winter. But I remember that one great rain brake in upon us & drencht me so in my bed being asleep that I fell sick upon it; but ye Lord in mercy spar'd my life & re- stored my health. When ye next summer was come I was sent to school to Mr. Ezekiel Cheever who at that time taught school in his own house, and under him in a year or two I profited so much through ye blessing of God, that I began to make Latin & to get forward apace. But God who is infinitely wise and absolutely soverain, and gives no account concerning any of his proceedings, was pleased about this time to visit my father with Lameness which grew upon him more & more to his dying Day, though he liv'd under it 13 yeers. He wanting help was fain to take me off from school to follow other employ- ments for ye space of 3 or 4 yeers until I had lost all that I had gained in the Latine Tongue. But when I was now in my fourteenth yeer, my Father, who I suppose was not wel satis- fied in keeping me from Learning whereto I had been designed from my infancy, & not judging me fit for husbandry, sent me to school again, though at that time I had little or no dispo- sition to it, but I was willing to submit to his authority therein . and accordingly I went to school under no small disadvantage & discouragement seing those that were far inferior to me, by my discontinuance now gotten far before me. But in a little time it appeared to be of God, who was pleased to facilitate my work & bless my studies that I soon recovered what I had lost & gained a great deal more, so that in 2 yeers and 3 quarters I was judged fit for ye Colledge and thither I was sent, far from my parents & acquaintace among strangers. But when father
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and mother both forsook me, then the Lord took care of . me. It was an act of great self Denial in my father that not- withstanding his own Lameness and great weakness of Body wch required the service & helpfulness of a son, and having but one son to be ye staff of his age & supporter of his weakness he would yet for my good be content to deny himself of that comfort and Assistace I might have Lent him. It was also an evident proof of a strong Faith in him, in that he durst adven- ture to send me to ye Colledge, though his Estate was but small & little enough to maintain himself & small family left at home. And God Let him Live to see how acceptable to himself this service was in giving up his only son to ye Lord and bringing him up to Learning ; especially ye Lively actings of his faith & self denial herein. For first, notwithstanding his great weakness of body, yet he Lived til I was so far brought up as that I was called to be a fellow of ye Colledge and improved in Publick service there, and until I had preached several Times ; yea and more then so, he Lived to see & hear what God had done for my soul in turning me from Darkness to light & fro the power of Sathan unto God, wch filled his heart ful of joy and thankfulness beyond what can be expressed. And for his outward estate, that was so far from being sunk by what he spent from yeer to yeer upon my education, that in 6 yeers time it was plainly doubled, wch himself took great notice of, and spake of it to my self and others to ye praise of God, wth Admiration and thankfulness. And after he had lived under great & sore affliction for ye space of 13 yeers a pat- tern of faith, patience, humility & heavenly mindedness, having done his work in my education and receivd an answer to his prayers God took him to his Heavenly Rest where he is now reaping ye fruit of his Labo's. When I came first to ye Col- ledge, I had indeed enjoyed ye benefit of religious & strict edu- cation, and God in his mercy and pitty kept me from scandalous sins before I came thither & after I came there, but alas I had
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a naughty vile heart and was acted by corrupt nature & there- fore could propound no Right and noble ends to my self, but acted from self and for self. I was indeed studious and strove to outdoe my compeers, but it was for honor & applause & prefermt & such poor Beggarly ends. Thus I had my Ends and God had his Ends far differing from mine, yet it pleased him to Bless my studies, & to make me grow in knowledge both in ye tongues & Inferior Arts & also in Divinity. But when I had been there about three yeers and a half; God in his Love & Pitty to my soul wrought a great change in me both in heart & Life, and from that time forward I learnt to study with God and for God. And whereas before that, I had thoughts of ap- plying my self to ye study & Practice of Physick, I wholly laid aside those thoughts, and did chuse to serve Christ in ye work of ye ministry if he would please to fit me for it & to accept of my service in that great work.
APPENDIX II.
LETTER OF NATHANAEL ROWE TO JOHN WINTHROP.
To the worshipfull & much respected Friende Mr. Winthrop, Magistrate liveing att Boston in New Ing :
MOST LOVING & KINDE SIR, - My humblest service remem- bered to you, I now wth much consideratione (and thinkinge of all things & businesses) doe now write to you. First of all my father sent mee to this countrie verie hastelie, (& overmuch inconsideraely) indeed it is a sore griefe to mee yt I should charge my prudent & most deare father wth the evill of rash doeinge of thinges ; but yet being compelled in this time of straighteness, I must say itt. My father sent with mee pvtiones enough for to serve mee a yeare or towe ; as meale, flower, buttar, beefe. I, haveinge lost my meale and flower, was com- pelled to sell the rest of my pvicon, & indeed, being counselled soe to doe, I immediately did itt. Then Mr. Eaton and Mr. Davenport haveinge noe direct order wt to doe, wished me & sent me unto Mr. Eaton, the marchant's brother, to be instructed in the rudiments of the Lattine tongue (in wch wth practise, I shalbe prettie skilfull. I lived with him about a month, & verily in yt space he spake not one word to mee, scilicet, about my learninge, & after he went awaie, I lived an idle life, because I had noe instructor. After all this, I was sent (by Mr. Bel- linghas order) unto Mr. Willis of Linne, the school-maister : and theire I liveing privately gott the best part of my Lattine- tongue, but yet not by his instructiones, butt indeed onelie by seeinge his manner of teachinge, & gatheringe thinges of my
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selfe, & also by bribeinge (or giveing gifts to) his sonnes for patternes ; of which Mr Willis never knew as yett. This last half yeare hath binne spent in receiveing instructiones frome Mr. Dunster, whoe (blessed be God for it) hath binne a guide to leade mee onne in the waie of hummane litterature, & alsoe in divine. Thus much for my cors in this lande : seeing, sir, you · out of your fountaine of wisdome, doe adjudge that it is my father's will & pleasure that I should betake myselfe to one thinge or other, whereby I mighte gett my liveinge (O TEMPORA, O MORES !) why for my part I shall be willinge to doe anie thinge for my father (God assistinge mee) att Quille-piacke, as to help to cleare grownde, or hough upp grounde, quia enim, qui humiliatur, is vero tempestivô exaltabitur. But, I pray you, sir, to make the waie cleare for mee to goe to England, so that I may speake more fullie to my father & wth my friends, soe that if my father hath caste his affections off frome mee (which, if I had but one serious thought that waie, it would be the dis- tractinge of my spirite all the daies I have to live. The curse of the parent is the greatest heviness & burden to [the] soule of a childe yt is ; my father never made anie such thing knowne to mee) that I might not loose those opportunities that are offerred to mee by one of my uncles, whome I am certain will doe mee anie good, & if my father be offended wth mee, then, if I be att London, I feare not but tha [t] my uncle will pacifie my father's wrathe. Thus I end.
Yor observant servant,
NATH. ROWE.
APPENDIX III. .
LAMBERTON'S SHIP.
O much interest is felt in Lamberton's ship that I have felt inclined to bring together what the early writers have recorded concerning the vessel herself and concerning the atmospheric phenomenon which the superstition of the times connected with her loss.
Winthrop mentions her thrice. When the news of her depar- ture had reached Boston, he records that "this was the earliest and sharpest winter we had since we arrived in the country, and it was as vehement cold to the southward as here," adding, as one illustration, " At New Haven, a ship bound for England was forced to be cut out of the ice three miles." In the follow- ing June, when solicitude had nearly or quite given place to despair, he writes, "There fell a sad affliction upon the country this year, though it more particularly concerned New Haven and those parts. A small ship of about one hundred tons set out from New Haven in the middle of the eleventh month last, (the harbor being then so frozen as they were forced to hew her through the ice near three miles). She was laden with pease and some wheat, all in bulk, with about two hundred West India hides, and store of beaver and plate, so as it was estimated in all at five thousand pounds. There were in her about seventy persons, whereof divers were of very precious account, as Mr. Gregson, one of their magistrates, the wife of Mr. Goodyear, another of their magistrates (a right godly woman), Captain Turner, Mr. Lamberton, master of the ship,
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and some seven or eight others, members of the church there. The ship never went voyage before, and was very crank-sided, so as it was conceived she was overset in a great tempest which happened soon after she put to sea, for she was never heard of after." Two years afterward, that is, in June, 1648, he writes, as if the news had just reached him, " There appeared over the . harbor at New Haven, in the evening, the form of the keel of a ship with three masts, to which were suddenly added the tack- ling and sails, and presently after, upon the top of the poop, a man standing with one hand akimbo under his left side, and in his right hand a sword stretched out toward the sea. Then from the side of the ship which was from the town arose a great smoke which covered all the ship and in that smoke she van- ished away ; but some saw her keel sink into the water. This was seen by many, men and women, and it continued about a quarter of an hour."
Hubbard, who was born in 1649, says, "The main founders of New Haven were men of great estates, notably well versed in trading and merchandising, strongly bent for trade and to gain their subsistence that way, choosing their seat on purpose in order thereunto, so that if the providence of God had gone along with an answerable blessing, they had stood fair for the first born of that employment. But that mercy, as hath since appeared, was provided for another place, and a meaner con- dition for them ; for they quickly began to meet with insuper -. able difficulties, and though they built some shipping and sent abroad their provisions into foreign parts, and purchased lands at Delaware and other places to set up trading-houses for beaver, yet all would not help; they sank apace, and their stock wasted, so that in five or six years they were very near the bottom : yet, being not willing to give over, they did, as it were, gather together all their remaining strength, to the building and load- ing out one ship for England, to try if any better success might befall them for their retrievement. Into this ship they put, in a
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manner, all their tradable estates, much corn, large quantities of plate, and sundry considerable persons also went, amongst whom was Mr. Gregson forementioned, who, besides his own private occasions, carried with him some estate in order to the procuring of a patent : but all this, though done by very wise men, yet hath since been thought to be carried by a kind of infatuation ; for the ship was ill-built, very walt-sided, and, to increase the inconveniency thereof, ill-laden, the lighter goods at the bottom : so that understanding men did even beforehand conclude in their deliberate thoughts a calamitous issue, espe- cially being a winter voyage, and so in the dead of winter that they were necessitated with saws to cut open the ice, for the passage of the ship frozen in for a large way together ; yet were all these things overlooked, and men went on in a hurry till it was too late, when such circumstances as these were called to mind. The issue was, the ship was never heard of, foundered in the sea, as is most probable, and with the loss of it their hope of trade gave up the ghost, which was gasping for life before in New Haven. But this was not all the loss ; besides the goods, there were sundry precious Christians lost, not less than ten belonging to the church there, who, as Mr. Cotton's expression upon it was, went to heaven in a chariot of water, as Elijah long before in a chariot of fire. There were also some writings of Mr. Hooker's and Mr. Davenport's lost, that never were at all or not fully repaired."
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