USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 7
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Charter Oak, and the historical duplicate of which, in its frame of wood from the historic tree, is now displayed in the Hartford State House.
Fenwick maintained his independent state of Saybrook till the end of 1644. Then he ceded it to the up-river colony with the jurisdiction of the entire territory claimed under the Lords and Gentlemen's patent, and so finis was written to their scheme. Conditions of the transfer were the payment to Fenwick of certain duties on corn, biscuit, beaver skins, and live stock exported from the River's mouth, for a period of ten years. For the jurisdiction right, or the "Old Patent," the colony ultimately paid 1600 pounds sterling ; but they never received this patent. Mr. Fenwick stipulated to deliver it "if it come into his power." Its non-appearance is regarded by those who have questioned its existence as pretty fair evidence for their contention. Subsequently, when seeking the royal charter, the colony declared, in their letter to Lord Say and Sele, whose aid they desired, that they had been forced to this purchase through the threat of Mr. Fenwick, then the sole patentee, to impose duties on the people, or sell the patent to the Dutch unless they purchased it. After the sale Fenwick became one of the magistrates of the colony. About 1648, on returning to England, he was made a colonel in the Parliamentary army. He was chosen a member of Parliament, and named one of the " high court of justice " which condemned the king. In the latter body, however, he failed to serve. He died at Berwick, while governor there, in 1657.
Fenwick's home on Saybrook Point was described by Thomas Lechford in 1641 as a "faire house," well forti- fied. It must have been a gracious household in the
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wilderness, bestowing a refined hospitality. Lady Fen- wick was a gentlewoman, born Alice Apsley, daughter of Sir Edward Apsley. She was widow of Sir John Boteler when she married "Master Fenwicke," at the time a lawyer of Gray's Inn, and a man of means. With them here as chaplain was the then youthful John Higginson, who had come over in 1629 with his father, Francis Higginson, first minister of Salem in the Bay Colony, and ancestor of the Higginsons in America. He had been a teacher at Hartford, living with Mr. Hooker as " student, helper, and scribe." He was the minister afterward long settled at Salem, where he succeeded his father. His ministry there continued till his death at the great age of ninety-three, which inspired his rhyming eulogist to the elegant lines : -
. Young to the pulpit he did get And Seventy-Two Years in't did sweat.
After seven short years of pioneer life the gentle Lady Fenwick died, leaving with her husband two little daugh- ters, Elizabeth and Dorothy, both born in the fortified manor house on Saybrook Point. Her grave was made within the enclosure of the fort. For years after a mas- sive memorial of stone in an open field on the spot where the first settlers had lived marked the lonely tomb. When the iconoclasm of our age with its ruthless sweep threat- ened to scatter her dust, it was removed to a protected place in the old burying ground at the Point, near the graves of seven generations of her descendants. It is related that when the remains were disinterred for this removal " the skeleton was found to be nearly entire," and beneath the skull lay " a heavy braid of auburn hair, which was parcelled out among the villagers.
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The first Saybrook Fort stood till 1647, when, in the depth of winter, during a tempestuous night, it caught fire, and was destroyed with all the buildings inside the pali- sade, the commandant and his family barely escaping with their lives. The following year a new and stouter fortress was erected nearer the River's bank. This was the fort the surrender of which to the government of the Duke of York Andros demanded in July, 1675, when "Captain Robert Chapman and Captain Bull of Hartford so ingeni- ously defended the rights of the colony," that the enemy was undone without a shot. It is a pretty story, quite like a popular historical romance, in which the scenes move forward with dramatic precision, and the characters appear at the precise moment to produce a thrilling situation.
When the colony had word of the intended invasion, they hastened detachments of militia to Saybrook and New London, for both places were threatened. Captain Thomas Bull commanded the soldiery despatched down the River. While they are yet on their way, the Saybrook folk are surprised by the sudden appearance of Major Andros with an armed force in the Sound, "making directly for the fort." Without instructions from the government as to how they should act in such an emergency, they are for a while inert and gaze helpless upon the sight. But as their surprise abates, "the martial spirit begins to en- kindle." The fort is manned and the force within drawn up in battle array. At this critical moment, presto ! Captain Bull with his company arrives. Through the next two days the work of preparing fort and town for defence is vigorously pursued, while Andros's ships remain quietly off shore. Now Andros with several of the armed sloops draws up before the fort. The king's flag is
Lady Fenwick's Tomb, Old Saybrook.
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hoisted, and formal call for surrender of fort and town is made. Instantly up rises His Majesty's flag on the fort, and Captain Bull's men are seen arranged in warlike order, "with a good countenance, determined and eager for action." Andros dare not fire on the king's colors. So he lies by awaiting reply to his summons. All this day and part of the next his fleet are held off against the fort.
Meantime the Assembly at Hartford, called into session by the critical state of the colony, have been acting. A protest against the invasion has been drawn up with in- structions to Captain Bull. He is authorized to propose a reference of the matter in controversy to commissioners who shall meet in any place in the colony that Andros may choose. The instructions have been entrusted to an "express " who is hurrying down the River to deliver them. On the morning of the second day Andros requests admittance on shore and an interview with "the minis- ters and chief officer." The request is granted, and he comes ashore with his glittering suite. Presto! again : at this very moment the "express " appears. Captain Bull, supported by his own officers and by the officers and gen- tlemen of the town, meets the major and his officers, at the landing, and salutations are exchanged. Captain Bull announces his receipt that moment of instructions to ten- der a treaty, with the proposal to refer the dispute to commissioners " capable of determining it according to law and justice." Major Andros rejects the proposal, and forthwith commands "in His Majesty's name, that the duke's patent and the commission which he had received from his royal highness" be read. Captain Bull com- mands also in the king's name, that he "forbear reading." Andros's clerk attempts to read, when the captain repeats his command, "with such energy and voice and meaning
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in his countenance " that the major is convinced "it is not safe to proceed." The reading stayed, the captain informs the major of the address of the Assembly and forthwith reads this document. At its conclusion the major, pleased with the captain's " bold and soldier-like appearance," asks his name.
" My name is Bull, sir."
"Bull ? It is a pity that your horns are not tipped with silver."
So ends the parley. The major gives up his design of seizing the fort, and is escorted to his boat by the full body of the militia in the town. Soon after his fleet sails away.
The original palisade extended across the long neck of Saybrook Point and protected the land approaches from in- cursions of the Indians. Westward of the original fort a generous square was laid out, in which were to be placed the houses of those " gentlemen of distinction and figure," Hazelrig, Cromwell, Hampden, and the others who failed to come out. Some seventy years after, midway between the palisade and the fort, was erected a house of greater note. This was the home of the collegiate school, in which Yale College had its beginning. In this long, low, one- story structure, the embryo university spent its first sixteen years. Although the preliminary steps were elsewhere taken, here in 1701 its corporate life began, and here its functions were exercised till the removal to New Haven was accomplished.
So Yale College was of Connecticut River birth, and the pioneer of the noble line of higher institutions that now occupy its banks through three states, in their number and variety giving the Connecticut a unique
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distinction among American rivers as a seat of American colleges.
It was no fault of Saybrook that Yale was not retained on the Connecticut. The decision for removal stirred Say- brook to the core, and roused some of her people even to open resistance. When in December, 1718, three months after the first commencement at New Haven had been held, a majority of the trustees attempted to remove the college library, which was still retained in Saybrook, such opposi- tion was encountered that the aid of the governor and coun- cil was invoked. This body came down from Hartford and issued a warrant to the sheriff to seize the books. The officer proceeded to his duty, but found the house where they were kept barred by resolute men prepared to resist him. Summoning assistance, he at length forced an en- trance. Then a guard was placed over the property for the night, and its removal to New Haven was set for the following day. In the morning it was discovered that the carts engaged for the transportation had been disabled and their horses turned adrift. New provisions were made, and the new teams started off under the escort of the major of the county. The trials of the movers, however, were not yet over. Along the roads their progress was hindered through the absence of several bridges which had been broken up. They finally reached New Haven, only to find on counting the books that the number was short by more than two hundred and fifty. The missing volumes, says the chronicler, had been " disposed of by persons unknown, together with some valuable papers, in the confusion which arose at the taking of the library, and no discovery of them was made afterward."
Even after the institution had become fully fixed at New Haven the instruction of students was for some time dog-
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gedly continued at Saybrook, the youths appearing in New Haven only to receive their degrees. Others obtained their tuition at Hartford; and more at Wethersfield (both of which towns had competed for the college) ; so that at first more than half of the students of the new Yale were in- structed outside of New Haven, and in the River towns, meeting at the official seat of the college only on com- mencement for their degrees. Indeed, at Wethersfield a commencement was held and degrees conferred on the very day that the first commencement took place at New Haven. The Wethersfield degrees, however, were subsequently rati- fied at New Haven, and peace succeeded the unhappy dis- cord. As President Clap, in his "The Annals or History of Yale College " (1766), quaintly records : " .... the Spirits of Men began by Degrees to subside ; and a general Harmony was gradually introduced among the Trustees, and the Colony in general. The Rev. Mr. Woodbridge [of Hartford] and Mr. Buckingham [the Saybrook minis- ter : the two chief opponents among the trustees of the New Haven seat] became very friendly to the college and New Haven, and forward to promote all its Interests. The Trustees in Testimony of their Friendship and Regard to Mr. Woodbridge chose him for Rector pro Tempore; and he accordingly moderated and gave Degrees at the commencement Anno 1723."
In the Saybrook College house also met, it is supposed, the synod of 1708 which formed the Saybrook Platform, that strict ecclesiastical code the adoption of which by the Legislature fixed upon Connecticut an established church. Thus Congregationalism, as defined in this document, be- came the religion of the state by legislative enactment, and held for seventy-six years, making " dissenters " of all not
-
First Site of Yale College, Old Saybrook.
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conforming to it. The synod was composed of sixteen members, twelve ministers and four laymen. Eight or nine of the ministers were at the time trustees of the col- lege ; and the assembly convened on the occasion of the annual commencement. Thus the association of synod and college was intimate. But although the corporation adopt- ed the code, and theological instruction predominated for some time in the institution, its scope gradually broadened as the years advanced, more in conformity with the plan de- fined in its charter, - for " instructing youth in the arts and sciences who may be fitted for public employment both in church and civil state." This synod was the third council, probably, that sat at Saybrook, to attempt the union of church and state, the first assembling in 1668, well before the foundation of the college. Its Saybrook Platform was constructed, formidably, of a Confession of Faith, Heads of Agreement, and Fifteen Articles for the administration of church discipline. The discussions, controversies, and hard- ships to which it gave rise through the years of its legal establishment have faded into oblivion, and to-day the Saybrook Platform is chiefly interesting as the first book printed in Connecticut, run off in 1710 at New London, on the printing press which was given to the Colony by Gov- ernor Gurdon Saltonstall, great grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall of the Lords and Gentlemen's project.
A vestige of Saybrook Fort remained till the seventies of the nineteenth century, the dominant note in the quiet landscape at this point of the River. Then all was swept away, together with the old contours of the site, and mod- ern structures, useful but unpicturesque, occupied the place.
VII Early Perils of Colonial Life
The River Settlements of the Colonial Period - Confined to the Lower Valley for a Century -The First Settlers completely environed by Savages-The Various Tribes and their Seats - The Dominating Pequots-Covert Attacks upon the Settlers - Massacre of Captains Stone and Norton with their Ship's Crew .- The Killing of John Oldham off Block Island .- Avenged by Captain John Gallop -The " Earliest Sea-Fight of the Nation " - A Graphic Colo- nial Sea-Story.
C YOLONIAL life on the River was confined for a cen- tury to the Lower Valley in Connecticut and Massa- chusetts. Till the middle of the seventeenth century it was narrowed to Windsor, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Say- brook of the Connecticut Colony and Springfield alone in the Massachusetts jurisdiction. Springfield was then the uppermost Valley settlement, at the frontier of the Wilder- ness. By the close of the seventeenth century only four River towns had been added to the Connecticut Colony, and eight had been formed in the Massachusetts limits. These were Middletown, East Haddam, Haddam, and Lyme in Connecticut, and Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Deer- field, Northfield, Westfield, Suffield, and Enfield in Massa- chusetts. Middletown, when established in 1653, was the first connecting link between the up-river towns and Say- brook. East Haddam, below, on the east side of the River, was begun a decade later; Haddam, on the west side, in 1668 ; and Lyme the previous year, cut in part from Say- brook. Of the added Massachusetts group, Northampton
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was the chief settlement and was nearly as old as the Con- necticut Middletown, having been founded in 1653. Had- ley, on the east side, was begun in 1661; Hatfield and Deerfield, on the west side, in 1670 and 1671; and North- field, at the northern frontier, in 1673. But Deerfield and Northfield were both destroyed in King Philip's War of 1675-76, and Deerfield was not permanently resettled till 1682, while Northfield remained unoccupied till after the opening of the eighteenth century, an attempt at re- settlement in 1685 having failed. Westfield, Enfield and Suffield were taken from Springfield's original domain extending over both sides of the River. The first was or- ganized in 1669, the others in 1680 and 1681 respectively, though laid out a decade earlier. Enfield and Suffield passed from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts to the Con- necticut Colony in 1752, upon the settlement of years of dispute between the two colonies over the boundary line.
Till well toward the middle of the eighteenth century the Valley above the north Massachusetts line, through New Hampshire and Vermont, for the most part remained the Wilderness. Only the hunter and the trapper, the sol- dier and the Indian captive borne off to far away Canada, had penetrated its vast solitudes, bringing back - they who did get back - entrancing tales of its beauty and riches. Till 1723 Northfield, embracing its present neigh- bor Vernon, of Vermont, and part of Hinsdale, New Hamp- shire, was the outmost English post.
The earliest records of the River are of encounters with the aborigines. Very soon after the English establishment in the lower Valley, tragic conflicts with them arose. When the English first came the Indians of Connecticut were more numerous in proportion to the extent of the territory than in any other part of New England. Neither
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wars nor pestilence had so depopulated this region as some other parts of the Eastern country. How completely the savages environed the early River settlers appears when the tribes and their seats are enumerated.
Scattered on both sides between the River's mouth and Windsor were the various native tribes whom the Pequot invaders had vanquished some time about 1630, and whose domains they were holding as conquered territory. These tribes, before their vanquishment, are presumed to have been confederated under Altarbaenhoot, or Netawanute, the banished sachem whom the Plymouth Colony's expedition restored to his seat at Windsor in 1633. They embraced the bands that Block in 1614 described as the "nation called Sequins," with their lodges on both sides of the River at or above the great bend at Middletown ; and the Nawaas with their fortified town at South Windsor. When the first English colonists came the Sequins were occupying " neutral ground " in the immediate neighborhood of the Dutch House of Hope. This ground was so called in accordance with the agreement when the Dutch made their purchase from the Pequot sachem, four years before the restoration of Netawanute, that these lands should be exempt from Indian warfare. According to J. Hammond Trumbull, the Sequins were the Indians subsequently called by the English the Wongunks, from their principal seat about the River's bend between Middletown and Port- land. Their territory, Mr. Trumbull believes, extended from the north part of Haddam, northerly, on both sides of the River, to some distance above Windsor. The Se- qeen chief, probably he who was known to the English as Sowheag, variously designated as " sachem of the Matta- beseck," which became Middletown, and "sachem of Pyquang," where Wethersfield was planted, had his
High Street, Middletown.
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" castle " at Mattabeseck, overlooking the broad domain over which in his time he had been lord. At Machemoodus, which became East Haddam, dwelt a numerous sub-tribe " famous for pawaws," or powwows, and "worshipping evil spirits."
Above Windsor were the Pocumtucks, the leading tribe, according to George Sheldon, historian of Deerfield, of a powerful confederation occupying and dominating the Val- ley and its tributaries as far north as Brattleborough, Vermont. Sub-tribes or allies of the Pocumtucks from the region of Windsor up the River were : the Tunxis on the Farmington River, at and near its confluence with the Con- necticut; the Podunks, seated near Windsor; the Aga- wams, whose principal seat was at Springfield, and who claimed the territory on both sides of the River between Enfield Falls and South Hadley Falls; the Warranokes, . west of Springfield, with their chief village at the present Westfield on the Agawam, now Westfield, River; and the Naunawatucks, or Nonatucks, situated on both sides of the River at Northampton and Hadley, with their village and their forts, the principal forts being near the mouth of Half-Way Brook, between Northampton and Hadley, and on a ridge between Hadley meadows. The Pocumtucks centered in the Deerfield Valley, and were most thickly settled about the mouth of the Deerfield River in Deerfield, where was their principal fort on what is yet called Fort Hill. Northward were the Squakheags, occupying jointly with the Pocumtucks the territory now of Northfield, Ver- non, Vermont, and Hinsdale, New Hampshire, - a fugitive band from the Hudson River, Sheldon is led to believe. They were probably, he says, a fragment of the Mahicans, driven away from their original homes by the Mohawks of the Five Nations in 1610.
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The Valley in what are now New Hampshire and Ver- mont was unoccupied as the seat of any considerable body of natives. It was rather a thoroughfare between con- tending powerful tribes. Vermont was a beaver hunting ground of the Iroquois, the confederated Five Nations.
The warring Pequots were seated east of the River's mouth, on the coast, chiefly between the Thames and the Mystic Rivers. They were also a branch of the Hudson- River Mahicans, driven out by the Mohawks. Fighting their way to the coast before the coming of Block, they had taken possession of part of the territory of the Niantic tribe on both sides of the Mystic. By the time the English had come these Pequots had subdued and held tributary besides the Niantics and the lower Connecticut Valley tribes, the Block Island Indians, and several tribes upon Long Island. ' West of the Thames River and north of the Pequots dwelt the Mohegans (as they came to be known after the settlement of the English), an offshoot of the Pequots. Their sagamore was that Uncas who became the staunch ally of the English, and attained great power in colonial Indian affairs which lasted for more than forty years. He was heir apparent to the Pequot sachemdom through the female line, his mother being aunt to Wapeg- woot, the reigning sachem at the time of the first Eng- lish move to the River. Having grown proud, and, it was said, treacherous to the reigning sachem, he had suffered repeated humblings at the chief's hands. Again and again he had been driven from his country, and per- mitted to return only upon promise of submission. Dur- ing one of his seasons of banishment, according to J. Hammond Trumbull, he, or some of his people, became connected with the Nawaas up the River. Such was the situation at the beginning of the English settlements.
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After Wapegwoot was slain, Uncas had made claim to the Pequot sachemdom, but the " ambitious, cruel, and agres- sive " Sassacus (significant name), son of Wapegwoot, was elevated to the place. Under Sassacus were twenty-six minor sachems, or war captains. The Pequot and Mohe- gan country covered a tract of nearly thirty square miles.
East of the Pequots were the Narragansetts, occupying what became Rhode Island, and then the largest tribe in New England. They were the only Indians in the vicin- ity whom the Pequots had not subdued, and perpetual war existed between the two tribes. Of the Narragansetts, Miantonomo, a wily fellow, nephew of Canonicus, the chief sachem, was the ruling spirit. In the northeast part of Connecticut and in central Massachusetts were the Nip- mucks, scattered in small clans. At Brookfield, Massa- chusetts, through which the "Bay Path " subsequently . ran, were the Quabaugs, classed, Sheldon says, as sub- jects both of Uncas and the Deerfield Pocumtucks, but finally absorbed by the Nipmucks. The inland Connecti- cut tribes west of the River were tributary to the Mohawks who had brought their conquests thus far eastward.
While the River tribes generally welcomed the English colonists as possible allies against the Pequots, and, to fortify their friendship, performed at first many acts of kindness to- ward the newcomers, the dominating Pequots were hostile from the outset. These imperious princes of the soil viewed the English as interlopers whose advance must be checked in a region which had become their own by the right above all others to the savage mind - the right of con- quest. Moreover, the Englishmen had defied them by re- storing River sachems whom they had conquered to the authority which they had overthrown and the territory which they had made their own. Their hostility was dis-
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