USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 6
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 6
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On the west side of this plain were broad salt meadows, bordering the West River on either bank, and extending inland almost to the Red Hill which the planters called the West Rock. On the east side of the plain were
I N. H. Col. Rec. I. 143.
,
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THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC.
still more extensive salt meadows spread out on both sides of the Quinnipiac, or East River, and also on both sides of a stream flowing into it a short distance above its outlet, which the settlers named Mill River as soon as they were able to erect a mill. The meadows on the Quinnipiac extended northward much farther than those on West River. These salt meadows on both sides of the plain, yielding abundant provender without delay and without labor, had greatly influenced the company in choosing this place for their plantation. Invisible from the deck of the pinnace, they were doubtless eagerly inquired for by those who had not been of the exploring party. But, though rendered invisible by the intervention of higher ground, they so much widened the view, that on one side the eye could reach the hills beyond the West River, and, on the other, the highlands beyond the Quinnipiac.
The temporary shelters, which the first planters of New England provided for their families till they could erect permanent dwellings, were of different kinds. Some planters carried tents with them to the place chosen for a new home ; some built wigwams like those of the natives. Either species would suffice in summer ; but for winter they usually built huts, as they called them, similar to the modern log-cabins in the forests of the West, though in some instances if not in most, they were roofed, after the English fashion, with thatch. It was perhaps a peculiarity of New Haven, that cellars were used for temporary habitations. They were, as the name suggests, partially under ground, and perhaps in most cases on a hill-side. If built on the bank be- tween the West Creek and George Street, with aper-
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tures opening to the south, they would be open to the sun and sheltered from the northern winds. Rev. Michael Wigglesworth,' who came to Quinnipiac with his parents in October, 1638, when he was about seven years old, describes the cellar in which the family spent the first winter, as covered with earth on the roof. Such a covering might be effectual to exclude the cold winds of winter, but, as the boy's experience proves, it was a poor protection from a heavy rain. When he was an old man he remembered how he had been, while asleep, drenched with water permeating the muddy roof, and had been afflicted in consequence with a dangerous illness. Doubtless the party which had wintered at the place had made ready not only a public storehouse, but several huts or cellars in which their friends who were to arrive might temporarily shelter their families. These would be visible to the new-comers as they approached the shore and ascended the creek.
The pinnace in which they had made the voyage was perhaps the property of some of the company, for such a vessel would be constantly in requisition for various ser- vices to the inhabitants of a new plantation. But, even if owned in Boston, she would remain for some days till accommodations on shore could be provided for all.
It was Friday when they left Boston ; and, as they are said to have spent about a fortnight on the voyage, it was the latter part of the week when they arrived. On the sabbath they worshipped under an oak-tree near the landing ; and Mr. Davenport, in a sermon on Matt. iv. I, "insisted on the temptations of the wilderness, made such observations, and gave such directions and
1 See his autobiographical paper in Appendix I.
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exhortations, as were pertinent to the then present con- dition of his hearers." He left this remark, that he "enjoyed a good day." I Lambert says that Mr. Prud- den preached in the afternoon, but does not give his authority. It was perhaps a Milford tradition, and it has inherent probability.
In the valedictory letter of Davenport and Eaton to the General Court of Massachusetts they say, "We have sent letters to Connecticut for a speedy transact- ing the purchase of the parts about Quinnipiac from the natives." The purchase had probably been effected before their arrival in April, though no written deed was signed till the following November. The natives, therefore, were expecting the large re-enforcement re- ceived by the six Englishmen with whom they were now well acquainted. They welcomed the new-comers, and were pleased to have in their neighborhood a planta- tion of Englishmen, to which they might retreat when molested by their enemies, and where they might bar- ter their venison, pelts, and furs, for the much-admired tools and trinkets of the English. They now for the first time saw English women and children ; and their curiosity, which, in respect to the little company left by Eaton in the preceding autumn, had waned, again drew them to the border of the West Creek. The medal
' Trumbull, i. 96. It is apparent that Trumbull had access to some diary or other written statement of Davenport. The oak-tree was about twenty feet north of George Street, and about forty-five feet east of Col- lege Street. It is said that a section of the tree afterward supported the anvil on which two stalwart generations of Beechers hammered, before Lyman Beecher transferred the role of the family from the anvil to the pulpit. Their shop was in College Street, near the place where the tree bad stood.
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struck two centuries afterward, in commemoration of the settlement of the town, very properly represents some of them sitting near the company assembled on Sunday under the oak-tree. Here they witnessed the worship which the English rendered to the Great Spirit. Here they began to be acquainted with the preacher whom afterward they characterized as " so-big- study man."
IPIAC
QUIN
1638.
THE
REJOICE
DESERT
SHALL
MEDAL.
The English soon after their arrival at Quinnipiac observed a day of extraordinary humiliation, when they formed a social compact, mutually promising "that as in matters that concern the gathering and ordering of a church, so likewise in all public offices, which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing of laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature," they would all of them be ordered by those rules which the Scripture holds forth. For more than a year they had no other civil or eccle-
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THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC.
siastical organization. There were doubtless frequent meetings for the transaction of business, and, if we may judge of that year by the years that followed, there were penalties inflicted on evil-doers. But, if any individuals were authorized to act as magistrates, the record of their appointment has not been preserved. The plantation covenant, like the compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower, was a provisional arrangement of men, who, finding themselves beyond the actual jurisdiction of any earthly government, attempted to govern themselves according to the law of God.
The first care of the planters was to choose a site for their future town; the next to lay out streets and house-lots, so that each family might as soon as possible make preparations for gardening and building. Tradi- tion reports that they would have chosen Oyster Point but for the difficulty of digging wells, water being ob- tained in that neighborhood only at great depth. They decided, however, to locate the principal part of their town on the north side of the West Creek, rather than on the south side, and to make a line parallel with that stream and near its border, the base-line of the town- plot.
Accordingly George Street was laid out half a mile in length and upon it as a base, a square was described. The half-mile square not being sufficient, two suburbs were added. One consisted of a four-sided piece whose shape and dimensions were determined by the two creeks as the water ran when nearing the harbor. It was bounded by George, Water, Meadow, and State Streets. The other was on the west side of the West Creek. Changes since made in the highways render
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difficult the task of defining it; but Hill Street was its eastern, or more properly north-eastern, boundary.
The square described on George Street was divided by two parallel streets running east and west, and by two parallel streets running north and south, into nine equal squares ; of which the square in the centre was sequestered as a market-place. The remaining eight squares and the suburbs were divided into house-lots, and assigned to the planters severally, who seem to have grouped themselves, to some extent, according to personal acquaintance and friendship in the old country. The Herefordshire men, for example, had their lots on the south-west and south-centre squares, or quarters, as they were then called. The eight squares were for a long time distinguished one from another by the names of some prominent persons who lived on the quarters to which their names were respectively applied. The north-east square was called Mr. Eaton's quarter, or in later years the Governor's quarter. The north-centre
was Mr. Robert Newman's quarter.
The north-west
was Mr. Tench's quarter. The west-centre was Mr. Evance's quarter, or, for a reason which will be ex- plained hereafter, the Yorkshire quarter. The south- west was Mr. Fowler's, or the Herefordshire quarter. Mr. Gregson's name was applied to the south-centre, Mr. Lamberton's to the south-east, and Mr. Daven- port's to the east-centre. The suburbs were sufficiently . indicated by that appellation without attaching the name of an inhabitant. In the division of out-lands the two suburbs were united together as one society or quarter. Four lots situated on East Water Street were included with Mr. Davenport's quarter, as one of the nine quar-
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ters or societies into which the town was divided for the allotment of out-lands.
John Brockett seems to have been the chief sur- veyor ; and he doubtless is responsible for the accuracy of angles, and the equality of the nine equal sections into which he was required to cut the larger square first laid out. The dimensions of the town plot may have been determined by the course of the creeks ; for George Street, if it had been continued a few rods farther west, would have crossed the West Creek, which in its course made an angle of about ninety degrees near that point.
The town-plot having been laid out, the sections into which it was cut by its streets were assigned to groups of families drawn together by social affinity, and were severally divided among those families in house-lots dif- fering in dimensions according to a ratio depending partly on the number of persons in the family, and partly on the amount the family had invested in the common stock of the proprietors. Among the minor benefits secured by this elective grouping, was delay in building division fences. Each quarter, being immedi- ately enclosed by a fence separating it from the high- way, was ready for tillage. These fences were sometimes of pickets and sometimes of rails. In June, 1640, prices for both kinds were established by law. Fencing with pales must be "not above two shillings a rod for felling and cleaving posts and rails, cross-cutting, hewing, mortising, digging holes, setting up and nailing on the pales, the work being in all the parts well wrought and finished ; but, in this price, pales and carting of the stuff not included." "Fencing with five rails, substan- tial posts, good rails, well wrought, set up, and rammed,
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that pigs, swine, goats, and other cattle may be kept out, not above two shillings a rod." A year later these rates were reduced twenty-five per cent, the reduction being probably due to the ebbing of that tide of emigra- tion which, till the civil war in the mother-country com- menced, had constantly supplied New England with money, and a market for labor as well as for cattle and other products of husbandry.
There was time for building all these fences before the season had sufficiently advanced to justify the col- onists in planting gardens or driving cattle across the country from Massachusetts. The cold, which had been unusually severe during the winter, was protracted into the months of spring. Winthrop records on the twenty- third day of April, "This was a very hard winter. The snow lay, from November 4th to March 23d, half a yard deep about the Massachusetts, and a yard deep beyond the Merrimack, and so the more north, the deeper ; and the spring was very backward. This day it did snow two hours together (after much rain from the north-east) with flakes as great as shillings." Again he writes on the 2d of May, "The spring was so cold, that men were forced to plant their corn two or three times, for it rotted in the ground." But notwithstanding this un- propitious beginning, which threatened a dearth through all New England, warm weather afterward brought on corn beyond expectation ; and Quinnipiac seems to have shared in the blessing of a good harvest, so that there was no such scarcity of bread as there had been at Hart- ford the preceding winter, when the price of Indian corn rose to twelve shillings per bushel, which was five or six times its usual value.
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THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC.
While some were planting and fencing, others were preparing lumber for the erection of permanent dwell- ings. Having no mill for sawing, they were obliged to slit the logs by hand ; and the tariff of prices prescribes how much more the "top-man, or he that guides the work and perhaps finds the tools," shall receive than "the pit-man, whose skill and charge is less." The log was first hewn square, and then placed on a frame over a pit, so that a man could stand beneath and assist in moving the saw. This department of industry de- manded their earliest attention ; so that the boards, being exposed to the winds of spring and the heat of summer, might be ready for the carpenter as soon as possible. The price of inch boards must not exceed five shillings and ninepence per hundred feet if sold in the woods, or seven shillings and ninepence if sold in the town. But, as this tariff was established in 1640, prices may have been somewhat less in 1638, when the town-plot furnished all the lumber required for immediate use. Indeed, the price of lumber had fallen considerably in 1641, when inch boards must not be sold above four shillings and eightpence per hundred in the woods, or above six shillings in the town.
Before winter most of the colonists who had arrived in April were living on their house-lots, leaving their cellars or other temporary shelters for new-comers. Some of the houses, being occupied by persons of small estates, were presumably such as a Dutch traveller saw at Plymouth, and describes as block-houses built of hewn logs. Such a presumption explains an item in a bill of sale by which one of the first planters alienated his
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house and house-lot and "two loads of clay brought home." The clay was doubtless to be "daubed " be- tween the logs. From the mention of thatchers, and the precautions taken against fire, it may be inferred that these humbler tenements were roofed with thatch. Many of the houses, however, were of framed timber, and were covered with shingles or clapboards on the sides, and with shingles on the roof. Quinnipiac had a larger proportion of wealthy men than any other of the New England colonies. Some of them, having been accustomed to live in large and elegant houses in London, expended liberally in providing new homes. It was but natural that they should wish to maintain a style not much inferior to the style in which they had formerly lived ; and as they confidently thought they were founding a commercial town in a country so rich in resources that on a single cargo exported to England they could afford to pay duties to the amount of three thousand pounds, they justified themselves in a liberal expenditure in building their houses. If they had fore- seen the political changes in England which after a few years turned the flow of emigration backward toward the mother-country, - even if they had known that their plantation must depend on husbandry more than on com- merce, -they might have been content with less ex- pensive dwellings. As it was, they drew upon them- selves the criticism of brethren in the other colonies. Hubbard the historian, who in .1638 was seventeen years old, speaks of their " error in great buildings," and after- ward says, "They laid out too much of their stocks and estates in building of fair and stately houses, wherein they at the first outdid the rest of the country." Tradi-
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tion reports that the house of Theophilus Eaton was so large as to have nineteen fireplaces, and that it was lofty as well as large. Davenport's house, on the op- posite side of the street, is said to have had thirteen fireplaces.I
It is not necessary to believe that any of the "fair and stately" houses in Quinnipiac were finished in 1638. If the frame were set up and covered, and a few rooms were made ready to be occupied by the family, the remainder of the work might be postponed till the next summer.
In October the planters welcomed an accession to their number which they regarded as an earnest of still greater enlargement. Ezekiel Rogers, a minister of high standing in Yorkshire, having embarked at Hull on the Humber, with a company who personally knew him and desired to enjoy his ministry, arrived in Bos- ton late in the summer. Such representations were made to him by Davenport and Eaton or their agents, that he engaged to come with his followers to Quinni- piac; and within eight weeks after his arrival in Massa- chusetts a portion of his people came by water to the new settlement, encountering on the voyage a storm which drove them upon a beach of sand where they lay rocking till another tide floated them off. Rogers, ex- pecting to be joined in a year or two by some persons of rank and wealth who had been providentially thwarted in their desire to embark with him, had inserted in his engagement to take stock in the Quinnipiac company,
' Stiles' History of the Judges. President Stiles had been, when a boy, personally familiar with the interior of the Davenport house.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
certain stipulations referring to these friends for whom he was authorized to act. The nature of the stipu- lations cannot now be known; but, whatever they were, Rogers, who did not come to Quinnipiac with the first instalment of his company, became convinced that they would not be fulfilled to his satisfaction, and laid the matter as a case of conscience before the Massachusetts elders, who advised him that he was re- leased from his engagement. He thereupon decided to remain in Massachusetts, and sent a pinnace to bring back those of his company who had left him in October.
Davenport and Eaton, being less willing than the Massachusetts elders to release Rogers from his en- gagement, detained the pinnace, and by a special mes- senger despatched letters of remonstrance which seem to have staggered him, till the elders again assembling and examining all the correspondence between the par- ties, confirmed their former judgment. He accordingly began a plantation in Massachusetts, which received the name of Rowley, from the place where he had exercised his ministry in the mother-country. But some of his Yorkshire friends, who had gone to Quin- nipiac expecting that he would follow, did not return in the pinnace he sent for them. It was now winter, and perhaps the inclemency of the season disinclined them to leave the cellars in which they were sheltered. Perhaps the storm they encountered in coming, in- spired them with dread of the sea. Perhaps they were pleased with the new plantation, admiring its leaders, enjoying intercourse with its people, and participating with them in sanguine expectation of its future. For
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THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC.
some reason several of the Yorkshire families re- mained, and became permanently incorporated in the new community.
Rogers in the course of the next two years mentions several times, in letters to Gov. Winthrop, the losses sustained by the people of Rowley in consequence of coming back to Massachusetts. He says, "None do know (or few) what we are impoverished by this pur- chase, and Quinnipiac, and the failing of some expected friends." Again, "I suppose you hear of a new sad cross from Quinnipiac in Jo. Hardy's pinnace, wherein may be much of my estate for aught I know." And still later : " It hath been a trouble of late to my poor neighbors to hear of this " (that a part of Rowley was claimed by others) "after their purchase, and building, and return from Quinnipiac." These hints were pre- paratory to a claim which he formally made in the autumn of 1640, that this land claimed by another party as previously granted, should be confirmed to Rowley. Appearing before the court over which Winthrop was presiding, he "pleaded justice, upon some promises of large accommodations, &c., when we desired his sitting down with us." The scene that ensued when the re- quest was refused on the ground that the land had already been granted, is in several respects instructive. The elder lost his temper, and by that means gained his cause ; for the court, after disciplining him for contempt, "freely granted what he formerly desired." I
" In one of the letters from Rogers to Winthrop cited above, he speaks of one of the New Haven planters as follows: "Sir: Mr. Lamberton did us much wrong. I expected his coming to the Bay : but it seems he sits down at Quinnipiac : yet he hath a house in Boston : I would humbly crave
.
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HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
The next event after the arrival of the Yorkshire company, which deserves notice, is the formal purchase of land from the Indians. The terms had been agreed upon in the winter, but no written title had been given, formalities being postponed perhaps till a more com- petent interpreter than any of the planters could be obtained. Thomas Stanton, of high repute for knowl- edge of the Indian tongue, having been employed to come from Hartford and explain the written deed to the Indian sachem and his council, it was signed by them on the 24th of November.1 Its full text is as fol- lows, with the exception of two hiatuses where the record-book has been torn : -
" Articles of agreement between Theophilus Eaton and John Dav- enport and others. English planters at Quinnipiac on the one party, and Momaugin the Indian Sachem of Quinnipiac and Sugcogisin, Quesaquaush, Carroughood, Wesaucuck and others of his council on the other party, made and concluded the 24th of November 1638; Thomas Stanton being interpreter.
" That he the said sachem. his council, and company do jointly profess, affirm and covenant that he the said Momaugin is the sole sachem of Quinnipiac, and hath an absolute and independent power to give, alien, dispose or sell, all or any part of the lands in Quin- nipiac and that though he have a son now absent, yet neither his said son, nor any other person whatsoever hath any right, title or
your advice to Mr. Will Bellingham about it, whether we might not enter an action against him and upon proof get help by that house." This evi- dently refers to Rogers' disappointment in not receiving back those of his flock who staid in New Haven, and read's as if Lamberton were to be counted among them.
" In "New Haven's Case Stated" it is claimed that Stanton, at the request of the New Haven people, was sent by their friends in Connecti- cut to assist in this purchase, and that Connecticut had thus consented to the transaction.
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THE FIRST YEAR AT QUINNIPIAC.
interest in any part of the said lands, so that whatsoever he, the forenamed sachem, his council and the rest of the Indians present do and conclude, shall stand firm and inviolable against all claims and persons whatsoever.
"Secondly, the said sachem, his council, and company, amongst which there was a squaw sachem called Shaumpishuh, sister to the sachem, who either had or pretended some interest in some part of the land, remembering and acknowledging the heavy taxes and eminent dangers which they lately felt and feared from the Pequots, Mohawks, and other Indians, in regard of which they durst not stay in their country, but were forced to fly and to seek shelter under the English at Connecticut, and observing the safety and ease that other Indians enjoy near the English, of which benefit they have had a comfortable taste already, since the English began to build and plant at Quinnipiac, which with all thankfulness they now ac- knowledged, they jointly and freely gave and yielded up all their right, title and interest to all the land, rivers, ponds, and trees with all the liberties and appurtenances belonging unto the same in Quinnipiac to the utmost of their bounds east, west, north, south, unto Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport and others, the present English planters there and to their heirs and assigns forever, desir- ing from them the said English planters to receive such a portion of ground on the East side of the harbor, towards the fort at the mouth of the river of Connecticut as might be sufficient for them, being but few in number, to plant in ; and yet within these limits to be hereafter assigned to them, they did covenant and freely yield up unto the said English all the meadow ground lying therein, with full liberty to choose and cut down what timber they please, for any use whatsoever, without any question, license, or consent to be asked from them the said Indians, and if, after their portion and place be limited and set out by the English as above, they the said Indians shall desire to remove to any other place within Quinnipiac bounds, but without the limits assigned them, that they do it not without leave, neither setting up any wigwam, nor breaking up any ground to plant corn, till first it be set out and appointed by the forenamed English planters for them.
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