USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > The early history of the First church of Christ, New London, Conn. > Part 14
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New England currency. The money was applied to the use of the college."
The lines between Connecticut and New York on the west and Rhode Island on the east were not set- tled till after Governor Saltonstall's death. In the final adjustment this Colony lost considerable terri- · tory which belonged to it under the original charter. Trumbull says, "no colony perhaps had ever a better right to lands comprised in its original patent than Connecticut, yet none has been more unfortunate with respect to the loss of territory." Long Island, Fisher's Island, and others along the coast, were included in the original grant of Charles I to Robert, Earl of Warwick, and by him ceded to Sir Richard Saltonstall and ten others March 19, 1631. Out of deference to the Duke of York the Assembly gave up this and other territory to New York; for Charles II had "granted a great part of the lands contained within its (Connecticut's) original limits," to him ; and the Assembly did not dare oppose this disposi- tion of its territory "for fear of offending those royal personages and losing their charter." Trumbull says further, " considering the enemies and difficulties with which they had to combat, it is admirable that they retained so much territory, and so nobly defended their just rights and liberties." In all these trans- actions during his administration, the hand of Gov-
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ernor Saltonstall was seen, as a vote of the Assembly declares. For at the October session of 1720 this body resolved "that proper acknowledgements, be . made to the honorable Governor for his great pains, industry, wisdom and prudence improved in that affair concerning the line between this Colony and Rhode Island."
Another perplexing dispute which the Colony was forced into by Joseph Dudley, the sworn enemy of Connecticut, was the adjustment of claims made to lands by Owaneco and the Mohegans. The case, in 1705, went against the Colony. But it was reopened, upon petition of Connecticut, and the former decision was reversed, " by King George III in Council." It was further decided that the Indians had been dealt with fairly and justly, and with " much humanity."
Various attempts were made to compel Connect- icut to surrender her charter. One, already referred to, was the demand in the King's name, made upon Governor Treat by Sir Edmund Andros. The char- ter, which mysteriously disappeared during the dis- cussion concerning this demand was concealed by Captain Joseph Wadsworth in the hollow of an oak, which became known as the Charter Oak. At the May session of the Colonial Legislature, 1715, it was voted, " upon consideration of the faithful and good service of Captain Joseph Wadsworth, of Hartford,
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especially in securing the duplicate charter in a very troublesome season when our constitution was struck at, and in safely keeping and preserving the same ever since unto this day, this Assembly do, as a token of their grateful resentment of such, his faithful and good service, grant him out of the Colony treasury the sum of twenty shillings." This bill became law, and therefore must have received the signature. of Governor Saltonstall.
Another effort was made before Parliament, Octo- ber 27, 1712, to vacate the charter. Connecticut's rights were successfully defended by Sir Henry Ashurst, its agent in London. The Colony was in so sore financial straits that the council were constrained to accept the offer of the Governor to give the Col- ony credit in England upon his own account. Else the charter would not have been defended. These attempts to merge this Colony in some other, and to take away its charter, show the stubborn, and withal successful, fight for autonomous existence which Connecticut was making during the administration of Governor Saltonstall. At the October session, in 1718, the Assembly voted " that the secretary draw out a copy of the charter of this government and transmit the same, as soon as he can, to the printer, who is ordered to imprint the same, and take off at least two hundred copies thereof for the use of the
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inhabitants of this Colony." At the session of May, 1720, it was voted to pay Timothy Green, of New London, £4. 3s. 8d. for printing the charter. This charter which was so sturdily defended, and which the administration of Governor Saltonstall handed down to posterity in a printed form, continued in force, as the fundamental law of the State till 1818, and was the basis of the present constitution.
The times were stirring and tumultuous when Gur- don Saltonstall assumed the chair of office. It was during the French and Indian war. There was a running fight with the Indians, breaking out some- times into such open violence as the Pequot war in the last half of the 17th century. The colonists were kept in a state of continual unrest. French vessels frequently appeared in the Sound and threatened the coast. At one time at least New London was fired upon. Two or three times between 1690 and 1713 Connecticut was called upon to furnish troops for expeditions against Canada, which formed a marked feature of the Colonial history of New England. On one occasion this Colony furnished 350 men. In May, 1709, Governor Saltonstall , wrote to Sir Henry Ashurst that the Queen's (Anne) order had been re- ceived, to join Massachusetts with 400 men, and pro- ceed against Canada, and that these men had been raised according to Her Majesty's instructions. These
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enterprises were of frequent occurrence, and con- sumed the resources of the country without compensa- tion. During the year 1711 French vessels kept the people in a state of constant apprehension. During the same year French ambassadors visited Governor .Saltonstall at his home in New London; for what pur- pose does not appear. In 1712 he carried out the suggestion which he had made to Fitz-John Win- throp in 1690, and erected a beacon on the west end of Fisher's Island, and placed a guard there to prevent surprise by the French privateers which infested the coast, and did considerable damage to the shipping of New London, and threatened New York.
The following is a copy of the Governor's procla- mation, signed by his own hand, during the Queen Anne's and Indian war. It is interesting as showing the inducements offered to volunteers in those days :
By the Honourable Gurdon Saltonstall, Eqr , Gouernour and Commander in Chief of Her Majestie's Colony of Connecticut in New England.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas, The General Assembly of this Colony have grant- ed 300 men, to Serne in the Expedition Her Majestie hath appointed for the Reduction of Port Royal and Nova Scotia, under the Comand of the Honble Colo Francis Nicholson, as General of all the forces in the said Expedition, and the Honble William Whiting, Esq., as Colonell of the Regiment to be Raised in this Colony for the said Service-
For the incouragement of able body'd Persons to inlist
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themselves Voluntiers in the Same, I do hereby, by & with the advice of the Councill and at the desire and with the Con- sent of the Representatives in General Court assembled, assure all such persons who shal voluntarily inlist themselves for the said Service with the Captain or other Chief Officer of the Respective Companies to which they belong, or the Major of the County in which they reside, that they shall each of them have a Coat of the Vallue of thirty Shillings, a fire lock of the vallue of forty Shillings, three years freedom fromm all Impresses to serve out of this Colony, & one months pay in hand before they go out of the Colony, go under our own officers & return home as soon as Port Royal and Nova Scotia are reduced, or the Expedicon otherwise determined. Given under my hand in Newhaven the 9th day of August, in the 9th year of her Majestie's Reigne, Anno Dom. 1710.
G. SALTONSTALL.
God save the Queen.
Thus for the first five years of his administration Governor Saltonstall was as truly a war Governor as was Governor Buckingham during the War of the Rebellion. Taxes were high, rating at twenty-seven or twenty-eight pence a pound. October 8, 1713, there were only thirty-eight taxable towns in the Colony, and forty sent delegates. Forty-five towns were under the exclusive jurisdiction of Connecticut. The grand list of the Colony was £281,083. Its militia amounted to about 4,000 effective men. Its population was about 17,000. [Trumbull, vol. i, p. 476.] The tax of war upon so small a population of slender means must have been heavy. It there- fore must have been a day of rejoicing when, August
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22, 1713, the Governor and Council were able to proclaim to the Colony the peace of Utrecht, which had been signed by the plenipotentiaries of England and France March 30 of that year.
There were good reasons why Governor Saltonstall did not find the gubernatorial chair an easy one. The oppositions of jealousy, which a strong man is almost certain to awaken, added to the difficulties he had to encounter. One Mr. Witherell writes of " evil minded persons," who were doing their best to hinder the prosperity of the Colony. This op- position was such that he seriously contemplated refusing to continue in the office. For a letter from Sir Henry Ashurst, written June 27, 1709, says, "I pray let no discouragements suffer you to entertain a thought of leaving the government God hath called you to. By what I have heard, there are none to supply your room." At the May session of 1715, the General Assembly passed a vote which shows that the enemies of this great and good man were still awake and active. The vote, as recorded in the Colonial Records, is as follows, "This Assembly, having made enquiry after, and considered the repre- sentation which the honorable Governor made of some slanderous report, very grievous, supposed to be industriously scattered among the people by some ill minded and seditious persons, cannot understand
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the least ground for any such reports-do therefore desire the judges and justices would take utmost care for the suppressing of such ill practice; and do further signify their earnest desire that his honor would continue the service of God and his country in the office whereunto he is elected." This was com- plete and triumphant vindication of his honor, his purity, his integrity. But the most triumphant vin- dication against every slander was the fact of his yearly re-election by his fellow citizens from 1708 till he died in 1724. And it is to be remembered that, while Governors were appointed for other Colonies by the Crown, Connecticut from the first elected hers from among her own citizens.
For sixteen and a half years Mr. Saltonstall was Governor by the will of the people. He was elected seventeen times to the office. He was present at thirty-six sessions of the General Court, and at two hundred and thirty-seven meetings of the Governor and Council, which were held at Hartford, New Haven, Saybrook and New London. He was ap- pointed commander-in-chief of the Colony's forces ; was appointed in 1709 to represent the Colony in England; was made judge of the superior court by vote of the General Assembly; assisted at the request of the same body in the revision of the laws of the State. In short, he discharged the duties of his high
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office in most critical times, with the most signal ability, insomuch that his rare executive qualities were recognized abroad as well as at home. He was easily the first man of his times in Connect- icut, and the encomiums pronounced upon him after his death cease to seem extravagant when the facts. of his life are studied. He was Governor in times which demanded a strong hand and an unflinching will at the head of affairs. His yearly re-election to office, till death took him away, shows that in the view of his peers, he was the man for the times. He was born to rule. There was the ring of command in his voice, and an aspect of authority in his mien. It must have been an imposing sight to see His Excel- lency, when invested with the authority of the State, proceeding at the head of his household to the house of God, to engage in devout worship. It does not require a very vivid imagination to hear the tramp of battalions in his majestic step, and to see the movement of armies in his dignified bearing. He was by far the ablest Governor which Connecticut had had, and easily commanded the place of honor. A care- ful review of his life must impress one with the justice and probity with which he discharged all public trusts committed to him.
Before we close this review of his public life, a few facts concerning him may be added, illustrative of
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his strong personality, and pointing out his relations to the town and to private life.
By an act of the Colonial Legislature, May 13, 1703, an addition was made to the bounds of New London, and the Governor was made one of its pa- tentees. There was a tract known as the junior com- mons, embracing the land lying along Bank street, and between it and the water. These commons be- came a source of contention. One party maintained that they belonged equally to the whole body of voters, and that they had power to dispose of them in town meeting. Another party, led by the Governor, con- tended that these lands were solely the property of the patentees. A town meeting was called April 23, 1722, to consider what disposition the voters wished to make of them. The Governor wrote a vig- orous letter on that date, addressed " To the inhabi- tants of New London, assembled in Town Meeting April 23, 1722, Friends and Neighbors." In it he gave the town to understand that these undivided lands did not " still remain in the town's hands to dis- pose of as town meeting shall cause." He supported his statements by quoting the act of the General Assembly declaring "that those lands which had not been before settled and disposed of did belong to sd proprietors of them," of which he was one. He closed his communication with the hope that the town
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would consider his protest "and not be tempted fur- ther into any such discords." However, lest the voters should disregard his warning, he added I " do therefore hereby as one of the said Patentees and Proprietors of sª Patent, as also in the name of all the proprietors aforsª, * declare and protest against those and all such votes, acts, and doings of or in any town-meeting, and the recording of them as illegal, and contrary to sd resolve and just rights of sª proprietors." The town had no difficulty in under- standing what His Excellency meant to say. His warning and protest had the desired effect, and proved the strength of his influence among his fellow townsmen.
. The Governor was a considerable land holder, not only in New London, but elsewhere. He inherited from Sir Richard Saltonstall a tract of about two thousand acres at Warehouse Point in the town of Windsor. Through his second wife, Elizabeth Ros- well, he came into possession of the "Furnace Farms" in Branford with certain other property. He also possessed a manor at Killingly in Yorkshire, England. This, with the Roswell estate he be- queathed to his son Roswell, who lived in the town of Branford. His will reads, " as it is the appointment of law, so it is also my will that my children," " Ros- well, Nathaniel, Gurdon, and Katherine should have
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all the real estate which I had by their mother de- ceased, and that my eldest son Roswell shall have a double portion thereof. To my son Ros- well, as his double portion of the said ' maternal estate, the farm in Branford,' by the Iron Works." This was the "Furnace Farms " mentioned above. Roswell settled in Branford, upon this estate, and lived on it till he died in 1738. The will is a long document, and goes into details in the distribution of his property. The only other item pertinent to this history is the following : "I give to my son Gurdon and his heirs forever my house-lot with the dwelling- house thereon where I now live." This was the house which he built, and which was destroyed by Arnold when he burned New London.
An impression prevails in some quarters that Mr. Saltonstall, after becoming Governor of the Colony, took up his residence by Lake Saltonstall, near New Haven. Mr. Thomas Trowbridge, in a paper read before the New Haven Colony Historical Society, February 21, 1876, advocated this view. Referring to the property known as the Furnace Farms, into whose possession the Governor came through his sec- ond wife, Mr. Trowbridge says, "the proximity of the land to New Haven and Hartford, the two capi- tals of the Colony, the facility of access to both cities at once determined the Governor to make it his resi-
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dence." He refers to the mansion which, it is said, Mr. Saltonstall built by the lake, and which still stands. Mr. Trowbridge continues, " the Governor continued to reside alternately here and in New Lon- don till his death in 1724."' Doubtless he built the house in question. But that he made it his perma- nent residence, or resided alternately between Lake Saltonstall and New London, till his death, is true only in the sense that a resident of New York who spends his summers in New London, or in Newport, can be said to reside alternately between the two places. Mr. William Kingsley, in his history of Yale College, says that Mr. Saltonstall, soon after his choice as chief magistrate of the Colony, took "up his residence near New Haven in an elegant mansion which he built for himself on the banks of the beau- tiful lake which has since been known by his name."
There is abundant evidence to show that this view is wrong; that Mr. Saltonstall never ceased to be a resident of New London, and that, with the exception of one summer, he stayed in New Haven only during the sessions of the Colonial Legislature. Let us examine the evidence. Robert Hallam, in his Annals, 1725 to 1875, says that Mr. Saltonstall, on being appointed Governor, "resigned his pastorate in New London, and filled prominent positions in civil life till his death in 1724, retaining his residence in New
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London." Mr. Hallam's statement is borne out by certain facts upon the records of the town. April 27, 1714, Governor Saltonstall served a notice on the citizens of New London, in town meeting there assembled, warning them that none but the original patentees or grantees and their heirs and assigns could vote for the disposition of the public lands. A more extended communication upon the same subject was sent to the town July 4, 1715. Both these, as well as the letter referred to on a previous page [252] were written at New London. He addressed the citizens as "friends and neighbors," and wrote as a local proprietor, and not as the resident of an- other town.
But a stronger evidence is to be found in the rec- ords of the meetings of the Governor and Council during all the years of his official life. Of 230 such sessions 156 were held in New London, 41 in Hart- ford, and 33 in New Haven. But none were held in New Haven till July, 1711, while in 1708 two were held in Hartford, and in 1710 nine were held in New London. A significant fact about these meetings is that, with a few exceptions, which will be noted, those held at Hartford and New Haven were held during the sessions of the Colonial Legislature, while immediately on the adjournment of the General Assembly the Governor and Council met at New
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London through the remainder of the year save in a very few instances. Why were they held in New London so uniformly during the periods between the sittings of the legislature if the Governor's residence was near New Haven? For example, September 28, 1711, the Governor and Council met at New London to provide for the fall session of the Colonial Assem- bly at New Haven. October 15, 25, 26, while that body was sitting the Council met at New Haven. The Assembly adjourned October 26. October 30 there was a meeting of the Governor and Council at New London. Does not this point out that when his official duties connected with the session of the legis- lature were ended he returned to his residence, there to take up the routine of official duty ? A special session of the legislature was held in June, 1711, in New London, called by the Governor and Council to consider the matter of filling the quota of the Col- ony in the expedition against Canada, and to provide bills of credit for fitting them out. This seems to point to New London as the Governor's residence.
The exceptions alluded to, in which the Governor and Council met at New Haven during months when the legislature was not in session, are, July and August, 1711, February 4, 1712, March 11, 1718, and September, 14 and 15, 1720. That is only four- teen sessions, out of the thirty-three held in New
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Haven, were held during months when the General Assembly was not convened. He was unquestion- ably in New Haven during July and August, 1711. But no meetings of the Governor and Council, save those here noted, were held there, except when the legislature was in session. On the other hand from November 3, 1710, to August 31, 1724, a month before his death, the Governor and Council met every year, save 1718, at New London, and in the months when the legislature was not in session. This would seem to prove that Mr. Saltonstall continued to be a resident of New London.
A still stronger reason for this view is found in certain documents and deeds, in the records of New London, which show that Governor Saltonstall was certainly a resident of and a property holder in the town, during the following years, viz .: 1709, 1710, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1715, 1717, 1719, 1722, 1724. The missing years, save 1718, are supplied by the records of the meeting of the Governor and Council. So that we know that he was a resident of New London during his entire term of office. Thus there is an entry which reads as follows: "New London, July the first 1709 Matthew Jones, the above men- tioned grantor appeared before me, Gurdon Salton- stall Esqr., Governor of her Majesties Colony of Connecticut." A similar record is dated September
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25, 1709. May 10, 1710, a deed, signed by Owaneco, sachem of Mohegan, names as one of the grantees, " Gurdon Saltonstall of New London aforesaid." February 12, 1712, the Governor executed a deed which begins, "Know all men by these presents that I, Gurdon Saltonstall of New London" &c. Fur- ther, the Governor's will was dated at New London March 30, 1724, and begins : " I, Gurdon Saltonstall, of New London." And it will be remembered that in giving his house to his son Gurdon, he calls it "the house where I now live." Thus we have his own testimony to the fact that he continued to be a resident of the town after he became Governor of the Colony. It is significant that the only time when he can be located at New Haven, by Lake Sal- tonstall, for any considerable period, was the sum- mer of 1711, less than a year after the death of his second wife. As his son Roswell settled upon this estate, it is not impossible that the lake got its name from him rather than from his distinguished father.
After his death his son, Gen. Gurdon Saltonstall, continued to reside in his father's house in New London, which, as we have seen was bequeathed to him by the Governor's will. F. G. Saltonstall of New York writes, " the distruction of General Gur- don Saltonstall's house, when Arnold burnt the Town, was the occasion of irreparable loss; pictures,
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papers, all swept away." This was the house which the Governor built for himself when he came to New London. It was never the property of the town, or parish.
Governor Saltonstall was thrice married. His first wife was Jerusha, daughter of James Richards of Hartford, who died in Boston, July 25, 1697. His second wife was Elizabeth, only child of William Rosewell of Branford, Conn. She died September 12, 1710. His third wife was Mary, daughter of William Whittingham, and widow of William Clarke of Boston. She survived him and died in Boston in 1729. He had five children by his first wife, two of whom died in infancy. Elizabeth was born May 11, 1690. She married first Richard Christophers, and second Isaac Ledyard. Mary was born February 15, 1691-2. She was baptized February 21. She married Jeremiah Miller. Sarah was born in 1694, and was baptized April 2 of that year. She married John Gardiner for her first husband, Samuel Davis for her second husband, and Thomas Davis for her third hus- band. Jerusha and Gurdon died in infancy. He had five children by his second wife. Roswell was born January 19, 1702, and was baptized January 25. He settled in Branford, his mother's native town. His wife was Mary Haynes. He died Oct. 1, 1738. Kath- erine was born June 19, 1704. Mr. Saltonstall made
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