USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 4
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The Pioneer River Settlements
to enter the "Lords and Gentlemen's" service for a hun- dred pounds per annum; and he had been despatched in the " norsey " just after Winthrop the younger had sailed. The energetic soldier tarried in Boston only long enough to report to the company's governor. Arriving at Say- brook Point he proceeded at once to plan and erect the English fort, taking for its site the spot where two years before Hans den Sluys had affixed the Dutch arms to a tree. In March of the following spring, Winthrop the younger himself arrived, and the formal occupation was completed.
At these strenuous proceedings above and below their post the Dutchmen were looking out doubtless with aston- ished eyes and flushed faces. While the Saybrook fort was building an attempt was made to dislodge the English, but it met inglorious failure. The ship sent out from Manhat- tan for this purpose found two pieces of cannon already mounted on the unfinished structure and ready for action. Confronted by these guns, the Dutch craft, without a dem- onstration, tacked about and silently sailed back whence she came.
Coincident with the beginnings at Saybrook Point, Sir Harry Vane, the younger Winthrop, and Hugh Peter were at Boston treating with the Bay Colony men, principally the Dorchester leaders, who were moving upon the River, in an endeavor to come to a mutual understanding. Their demands were made with studied courtesy, for they were evidently desirous not to antagonize the new settlements. They asked that the planters should either entirely give place to the Lords and Gentlemen upon full satisfaction for their outlay, or make sufficient room for the patentees. Putting these demands in writing they addressed them to "Our Loving and most respected Friends ... engaged in
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the business of Connecticut Plantation." They called for "punctual and plain answers " to these direct queries : "(1) Whether they do acknowledge the right and claims of the said persons of quality, and in testimony thereof will and do submit to the counsel and direction of their present governor, Mr. John Winthrop, the younger, established by commission from them to those parts. (2) Under what right and pretense they have lately taken up their plan- tations within the precinct before mentioned, and what government they intend to live under, because the said country is out of the Massachusetts patent." "Our truly respected brethren" were desired to take these propositions into their " serious and Christian consideration," that their "loving resolutions" might promptly be returned to England.
Their " loving resolutions" do not seem to have been forthcoming in documentary form. Nor is there record of any direct replies, formal or otherwise, to these definite queries. Perhaps they were adroitly evaded if not deliber- ately ignored. At all events the settlers went on as before, continuing their allegiance for the time to the Bay Colony government. In February, 1635-6, came Saltonstall's pro- test from England against the treatment of his Stiles party at Windsor, and this also was without result. The protest was couched with the same carefulness that characterized the demands of the company's representatives in Boston. It was conveyed in a letter to " good Mr. Winthrop," the younger, rather than as an official communication, lest it should "breed some jealousies in the people and so distaste them with our government." A desire to cultivate the new settlements as a nucleus of their proposed colony is evident in all the moves of the Lords and Gentlemen. After the receipt of Saltonstall's letter, Winthrop the younger went
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The Pioneer River Settlements
up to Windsor and endeavored unsuccessfully to adjust the differences. As Sir Richard had written, the Dorchester folk had " carved largely for themselves," and it was plain that they meant to hold what they had carved against all comers.
It was fortunate for them, however, and also for the other scattered colonists, that the agents of the Lords and Gentlemen had started in thus early. For the first winter was a cruel one and the Saybrook fortress was a veritable house of refuge for many of the settlers. As early as the fifteenth of November the River was frozen over, and soon heavy snows came. The late autumn arrivals, some from Cambridge, but the most from Dorchester, had not com- pleted their huts and the shelters for their live stock when severe weather was upon them. Some of the cattle could not be got across the River, and were left to subsist with- out hay in the woods then on the east side. Provisions early became scarce in the settlements. The ships which had started with supplies from Boston were either wrecked or held back by tempestuous storms. So forlorn and wretched became their condition that several bands at- tempted the perilous journey back to Massachusetts Bay. A party of six who sailed for Boston about the middle of November were wrecked off the coast near Plymouth. Mak- ing the shore they wandered for ten days in the wastes of snow. At length, "spent with cold and fatigue," they reached Plymouth, where the kind Pilgrims gave them suc- cor. Another, a party of thirteen (ominous number !), made their way back overland. One of this party was drowned in attempting to cross a frozen stream. The others got through after a painful journey of ten days. But all would have perished had not friendly Indians given them
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food and shelter along the trail. By early December a com- pany of seventy, women and children among them, came down the River in the desperate hope of meeting their delayed provision-ship. About twenty miles above the mouth they came upon the " Rebecca," a ship of sixty tons, frozen in the ice, and embarked on her. Soon afterward a warm rain fell which broke the ice and let the ship loose. She set sail with her passengers and proceeded as far as the bar, where she stuck and had to be unladen. The half- starved colonists were received into Saybrook fort and fed and comforted. At length the ship was afloat and reloaded ; and again setting sail she finally reached Boston in safety. Of those who remained in the up River settlements many were obliged to live on acorns, malt, and grain through the winter.
With the advance of spring, however, the hardships of the winter were forgotten. As the summer opened, when all was again fair and blooming in the genial Valley, immi- gration was renewed with greater vigor. Many of the disheartened colonists of the winter returned. Then came larger bands and more important personages from the Bay Colony. On the last day of radiant June, Thomas Hooker and his congregation of a hundred started out from Cam- bridge (still New Town), almost depopulating that village when they left. Theirs was the pilgrimage through the wilderness which Trumbull, Palfrey, Bancroft and the rest. have depicted in their familiar passages,- all drawn from the same source, - the record in the elder Winthrop's Jour- nal, simple, yet effective, and furnishing full outline for the picture : -
"June 30, 1636. Mr. Hooker, pastor of the church of New Town and the [most] of his congregation, went to Connecticut. His wife was carried in a horse-litter ; and they drove one hundred and sixty cattle, and fed of their milk by the way."
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The Pioneer River Settlements
They were a goodly company of fine English stock, splendid material for colonization. Many of them were "persons of figure who had lived in England in honor, affluence, and delicacy, and were entire strangers to fatigue and danger." Yet "the people generally carried their packs, arms, and some utensils," with the cheerful spirit of the true pioneer. With Hooker as leader was Samuel Stone, his worthy associate pastor, or the " teacher " of the church. A fortnight was consumed in their toilsome jour- ney of more than a hundred miles. The way lay along the Indian trail " over mountains, through swamps and thick- ets," and across rivers "which were not passable save with great difficulty." 1180259
This was the Old Connecticut Path, first made known to the Bay Colonists by Indians bringing corn from the Connecticut Valley to Boston. It was the same that the first pioneer, John Oldham, had travelled, that the Water- town band and the Dorchester company had followed. We can trace it to-day through populous cities and towns and rural villages. We may travel parts of it in the sumptuous drawing-room car over the smooth tracks of the modern railroad ; parts by trolley lines on highways and by-ways; and the greater part by automobile, or in the more pleasurable carriage with the companionship of horses. Starting from Cambridge, it followed the northerly bank of the Charles River to the centre of Waltham; thence passed through Weston to South Framingham ; thence ran southwesterly to Hopkinton; then westerly to Grafton ; southerly to Dudley ; across the Connecticut state line to Woodstock, and so on, southwesterly, through the wilder- ness where now are clusters of Connecticut towns, to the River's east bank opposite Hartford. It is not to be con- founded with the historic Bay Path, or with the second
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Connecticut Trail. The latter was found some years later. Winthrop notes it in his Journal in 1648 as avoiding much of the hill way. It was an upper trail lying all in Massa- chusetts. Starting from Cambridge or Watertown by the Charles River, it left the Old Connecticut Path at Weston, and ran through Sudbury Centre and Stowe to Lancaster, thence through Princeton, the south part of Barre and the north part of New Braintree to West Brookfield, and thence through Warren and Brimfield to Springfield, - traversed now in small parts by the Massachusetts Central, the old Boston and Fitchburg, and the Boston and Albany Rail- roads, as a good railroad map of Massachusetts will show. This trail came early to be called the Bay Path. But the colonial highway thus officially designated was not marked out till a quarter of a century afterward-in 1673. It began at Watertown and ran through South Framingham, Marlborough, and Lancaster to Brookfield, where it struck the old trail to Springfield. Three years before the elder Winthrop makes note of the second Connecticut Trail, Winthrop the younger had travelled most of the course of the Bay Path beyond Sudbury. His was a winter's journey in 1645 from Boston to Springfield, Hartford, Saybrook and New London, and he was accompanied only by a ser- vant.
The Hookerites, planting themselves close by the Dutch fort where the first comers from Cambridge were settled, began Hartford, calling it at first Newtown. A month before their arrival William Pynchon, founder of the Mas- sachusetts Roxbury, coming overland with eight compan- ions, had occupied the " Agawam meadows " farther up the River, and begun Springfield, the first east-side settle- ment.
A Typical River Road.
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The Pioneer River Settlements
Now, or by the close of 1636, the English plantations on the fertile River banks numbered five (if the Plymouth Trading House and the Saybrook military seat may be counted), and embraced an English population approaching a thousand in number. The Dutch were a small com- munity, narrowed to their "House of Hope" and the " bouwerie " about it. In scarcely more than two years three of the settlements from the Bay Colony - Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, - had seceded from Massachu- setts, and had established the first genuine democracy in America.
IV A Significant Chapter of Colonial History.
The Political Motive that Inspired the dispersion from the Bay Colony to the Valley - Democracy versus Theocracy - Thomas Hooker and John Cotton, Spokesmen for the Differing Parties - The Hookerites' Petition in the Bay General Court - Winthrop's Report of the Unrecorded Proceedings - Al- leged and Real Reasons for Removal-Provisional Government for the Valley Plantations - The Independent Establishment - Hooker's epoch- making Sermon - The first Written Constitution - "True Birth of Amer- ican Democracy " - Hooker's Illuminating Letter : a Colonial Classic.
THE story of the remarkable dispersion from the infant Bay Colony to the Connecticut Valley, with its causes and consequences, has come to be recognized as one of the most significant chapters of the formative period of Ameri- can history. John Fiske counted the secession of the three Connecticut River towns an event "no less memorable than the voyage of the ' Mayflower,' or the arrival of Winthrop's great colony in Massachusetts Bay."
The story has been variously told, the versions varying according to the narrator's point of view. Fiske restates with cleanest cut directness the controlling motive, above the commercial one, that inspired the immigration. This motive arose from a desire of the minority party in the Bay Colony to secularize and broaden the political power of the community, which power the majority or theocratic party would have the monopoly of the few. The commer- cial aims of the chief founders of the Bay Colony were but "a cloak to cover the purpose they had most at heart." Says Fiske :
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A Significant Chapter of Colonial History
" Their purpose was to found a theocratic commonwealth, like that of the children of Israel in the good old days before their fro- ward hearts conceived the desire for a king. There was no thought of throwing off allegiance to the British crown; but saving such alle- giance, their purpose was to build up a theocratic society according to their own notions. . .. In the theocratic state which these leaders were attempting to found, one of the corner-stones, perhaps the chiefest corner-stone, was the restriction of the right of voting and holding civil office to members of the Congregational Church qualified for participation in the Lord's Supper. The ruling party in Massa- chusetts Bay believed that this restriction was necessary in order to guard against hidden foes and to assure sufficient power to the clergy ; but there were some who felt that the restriction would give to the clergy more power than was likely to be wisely used, and that its tendency was strictly aristocratic. The minority which held these democratic views was more strongly represented in Dorchester, Watertown, and the New Towne than elsewhere. Here, too, the jealousy of encroachments upon local self-government was especially strong. ... It is also a significant fact that in 1633 Watertown and Dorchester led the way in instituting town government by selectmen."
Thomas Hooker, that "rich pearl which Europe gave to America," and John Cotton, "the father and glory of Boston," perhaps, as Fiske says, the two most powerful intellects to be found in Massachusetts Bay, became the chief spokesmen for these differing parties.
They came out to America on the same ship. Hooker, slipping off from Holland and avoiding the watchmen of the English High Court of Commission who would stop him, boarded the vessel at the Downs. Perhaps their dis- cussion of the great principles of government began during the long summer voyage of seven weeks. Such philosophic debates may have constituted their sober pastime, in the intervals between sermons or expositions, - three a day, morning, afternoon, and in the twilight after supper, - with which they and the other minister aboard, Samuel
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Stone, Hooker's associate, beguiled the two hundred pas- sengers. Maybe John Haynes, a conspicuous figure among the company, soon to become governor of the Bay Colony, then of Connecticut, may have had part in these discus- sions. The ship was the " Griffin," that " noble vessel of three hundred tons burthen," the arrival of which at Boston in September, 1633, with this " glorious triumvirate of ministers," and the choicest freight of emigrants since the coming of Winthrop's fleet, so cheered the colonists here, and " made them to say," as Cotton Mather, the erudite punster, put it in his " Magnolia," that "the God of Heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities, Cotton for their Clothing, Hooker for their Fishing, and Stone for their Building."
Perhaps Hooker thus early in the controversy intimated his conviction, which afterward at Hartford he so tersely expressed in that memorable phrase, "the foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of the people." And Cotton may have advanced his thesis, later laid down in his letter of 1636 to Lord Say and Sele, "Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit govern- ment either for church or commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be the governed ?" However this may be, these great minds were marshalled against each other in the contentions which after their landing almost immediately arose. But it was most decorously conducted. It was a gentlemanly contest, not a wrangle between poli- ticians for ignoble ends. Both were animated by the lof- tiest motives. It is a sorry mistake to assume that there was rivalry between them. Their souls soared above all rivalries. The presumption that Hooker coveted the pas- torate of the Boston church which went to Cotton is far
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A Significant Chapter of Colonial History
from the mark. His congregation was already here before him, awaiting his coming at Cambridge, or "New Towne." When he landed from the " Griffin " they " crowded about him with their welcome," and " with open arms he em- braced them," answering, " now I live if ye stand fast in the Lord."
Hooker and Stone had been settled with their congre- gation at "New Towne " a few months before the agitation for removal was begun. It took on at first a plea for more room for farms. In the spring of 1634 the New Towne folk were complaining of " straitness," especially for want of meadow. In May the General Court granted them leave to seek out a new place and promised to confirm it to them, provided their choice were not prejudicial to a plantation already established. Then men were sent out by them to view various sites in regions not remote from Boston. But it was soon apparent that their eyes were fixed on the banks of the distant Connecticut, not surely within the bounds of the Massachusetts patent. In July they des- patched a party of six on Governor Winthrop's " Blessing of the Bay," bound for Manhattan, their avowed object being " to discover Connecticut River, intending to remove their town thither." In September their petition for leave to make this removal was before the General Court at a sitting in New Towne.
There is no mention of this matter in the Court records, notwithstanding that it was the main business of the sitting and occupied several days in debate; that it occasioned an adjournment of the court for " a day of humiliation, to seek the Lord," the assistants and deputies being divided on the vote, the magistrates opposing, and the deputies favoring and refusing to yield to the magistrates; that it inspired a great sermon from John Cotton for the magistrates' side at
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the reopening of the sitting; and that it resulted finally in the submission of the deputies, and the apparent acquies- cence of the Hookerites in the decision against them. Fortunately Winthrop's invaluable Journal supplies the Court reporter's omission with a succinct account of the proceedings, in which between the lines we read the real motives of the petitioners, and the recognition of them by the magistrates. Many reasons were alleged pro and con :
" The principal reasons for this removal were : (1) Their want of accommodation for their cattle, so as they were not able to maintain their ministers, nor could receive any more of their friends to help them ; and here it was alleged by Mr. Hooker as a fundamental error that towns were set so near to each other. (2) The fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecticut and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch or English. (3) The strong bent of their spirits to remove thither.
" Against these it was said : (1) That in point of conscience they ought not to depart from us being knit to us in one body and bound by oath to seek the welfare of the commonwealth. (2) That in point of state and civil policy we ought not to give them leave to depart, -1, being we were now weak and in danger to be assailed ; 2, the departure of Mr. Hooker would not only draw many from us, but also divert other friends that would come to us; 3, we should ex- pose them to evident peril both from the Dutch (who made claim to the same river and had already built a fort there), and from the In- dians, and also from our own state at home who could not endure they should sit down without a patent in any place which our King lays claim unto. (3) They might be accommodated at home by some enlargement which other towns offered. They might remove to Merrimack or any other place within our patent. (4) The removing of a candlestick is a great judgment which is to be avoided.
" Upon these and other arguments, the court being divided, it was put to vote : and of the deputies, fifteen were for their departure and ten against it. The governor and two assistants were for it, and the deputy [governor] and all the rest of the assistants were against it (except the secretary who gave no vote), whereupon no record was
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A Significant Chapter of Colonial History
entered, because there were not six assistants in the vote, as the patent requires. Upon this grew a great difference between the gov- ernor and assistants, and the deputies. They would not yield the assistants a negative voice, and the others (considering how dangerous it might be to the commonwealth if they should not keep their strength to balance the greater number of the deputies) thought it safe to stand upon it.
" So when they could proceed no farther, the whole court agreed to keep a day of humiliation to seek the Lord, which accordingly was done, in all the congregations, the 18th day of this month ; and the 24th the court again met. Before they began Mr. Cotton preached (being desired by all the court upon Mr. Hooker's instant excuse of his unfitness for that occasion). He took his text out of Hag. ii, 4 etc., out of which he' laid down the nature and strength (as he termed it) of the magistracy, ministry, and people, viz. - the strength of the magistracy to be their authority; of the people, their liberty ; and of the ministry, their purity ; and showed how all of these had a negative voice etc., and that yet the ultimate resolution etc. ought to be in the whole body of the people etc. with answer to all objections, and a declaration of the people's duty and right to main- tain their true liberties against any unjust violence etc., which gave great satisfaction to the company.
" And it pleased the Lord so to assist him, and to bless his own ordinance, that the affairs of the court went on cheerfully ; and al- though all were not satisfied about the negative voice to be left to the magistrates, yet no man moved aught about it, and the congre- gation of New Towne came and accepted of such enlargement as had formerly been offered them by Boston and Waltham; and so the fear of their removal to Connecticut was removed."
The governor this year was Thomas Dudley, Winthrop serving as assistant in company with Hooker's friend, John Haynes, William Pynchon of Roxbury, and the younger John Winthrop. Simon Bradstreet was the secretary, who withheld his vote. These constituted the magistrates. Haynes and Pynchon were presumably the two assistants who voted with the governor for the petition. Ludlow,
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the deputy governor, is supposed to have led the opposing vote of the magistrates.
Over the reasons alleged for removal in place of the weighty ones held back, John Fiske makes merry. The men who put forward the plea that they hadn't room enough to pasture their cattle, "must have had to hold their sides to keep from bursting with laughter!" he ex- claims. "Not room enough in Cambridge for five hundred people to feed their cattle ! Why then did they not simply send a swarm into the adjacent territory - into what was by and by to be parcelled out as Lexington and Concord and Acton ? Why flit a hundred miles through the wil- derness and seek an isolated position open to attack from every quarter ?"
The expression of the " strong bent of their spirits to move thither," with their practical appreciation of the " fruitfulness and the commodiousness " of the River coun- try, more nearly than the other pretexts voiced the real reasons.
By the following summer (1635) the aspect of affairs had changed, and it soon had to be acknowledged that the Connecticut move was inevitable, although the light-giving " candlestick " had not yet joined the exodus. At the May election, also held at New Towne, John Haynes of the secular party was chosen governor, with the two Winthrops, Dudley, Pynchon, and Bradstreet among the assistants. Immediately, at the same sitting of the General Court, orders were adopted granting liberty to the inhabitants of Roxbury and Watertown to remove themselves "to any place they shall think meet," not prejudicial to any existing plantation ; with the proviso, however, that they continue still under the Bay government. At the next sitting, in June, similar leave was granted to the Dorchester folk.
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