USA > Connecticut > The governors of Connecticut : biographies of the chief executives of the commonwealth that gave to the world the first written constitution known to history > Part 2
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and continued in office every other year from 1640 to 1654. In the alternate years he was usually deputy governor and very often a delegate from the colony. His mercantile habits followed Governor Hopkins to his new home, for we are told he carried on a trading business in Hartford and established trading-posts far up the Connecticut river. Although a man of extensive business affairs and very active all his life, the governor never enjoyed good health and constantly suffered from disease. His wife also suffered from mental derangement, which was a source of constant anxiety to the governor.
In 1654 Governor Hopkins sailed for England on a business trip and with the full intention of returning to his adopted coun- try; but circumstances prevented him from following out his plan. Soon after his arrival in England he inherited from his brother the position of "Keeper of the Fleet Prison," on Farringdon street, London, and his title was Warden of the Fleet. This was the King's prison as far back as the twelfth century, and obtained a high historical interest from its having been the place of confine- ment of religious martyrs during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth.
Hopkins afterward became a commissioner of the admiralty and navy and a member of Parliament. Governor Hopkins died in London in either March or April, 1657. He was characterized afterward by a writer as being "eminent for piety, kindly nature and patient endurance of suffering and affliction."
8
The Governors of Connecticut
About a year previous to his death Governor Hopkins received a letter from his friend Davenport, of New Haven, sug- gesting the pressing need of a collegiate school in that town. He was requested to aid the enterprise; and in replying the governor wrote, April 30, 1656: "If I understand that a college is begun and like to be carried on at New Haven for the good of posterity, I shall give some encouragement thereunto." When he died one year later and the contents of his will became known, it was found that "New England was his chief heir," as Dr. Bacon aptly remarked in recent years.
This will, dated March 7, 1657, set aside one thousand pounds of his estate for grammar schools in Hartford, New Haven, and Hadley, divided as follows: Hartford 400 pounds, New Haven 312 pounds, Hadley 308 pounds, and Harvard College 100 pounds. He also left five hundred pounds to be given "for upholding and promoting the Kingdom of the Lord in those parts of the earth." This sum was, somewhat peculiarly, given to Har- vard by a decree of chancery in 1710, and the trustees invested it in a township purchased from the "praying Indians," and called the place Hopkinton, in honor of the donor. The school founded by the bequest in Hadley opened in 1667, and afterward became the Hopkins Academy. In 1889 the property was valued at $57,325. The 400 pounds for Hartford were invested in local real estate, and a school erected in 1665. In 1778 it was named
9
The Governors of Connecticut
the Hartford Grammar School. For the last fifty years this school and the Hartford High School have been practically the same thing. The Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven has always been in a flourishing condition. It was founded in 1660 and the building is on the corner of High and Wall streets. It has long been a prominent preparatory school for Yale University.
Governor Hopkins was thus one of our earliest American philanthropists and his gifts to education set a precedent that has since become one of the greatest factors in American progress.
IO
The THIRD GOVERNOR of
CONNECTICUT
was GEORGE WYLLYS
A distinguished Englishman of rank and means who received a university education and left the life of a country gentleman to assist in founding a government of civil and religious liberty
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GEORGE
WYLLYS
G EORGE Wyllys was an Englishman of means and rank who became an ardent advocate of the Puritan movement and decided to live among the men and women who held opinions similar to his own.
He was born about 1570 in the town of Fenny Compton, County of Warwick, England. His father was a man of wealth and position, who gave his son as good an education as could be obtained at an English university of that period. Settling on a fine estate in Warwickshire, he lived the life of a country gentleman, and had plenty of time to watch the course of events in England.
Becoming interested in the cause of the Puritans, Wyllys, rather late in life, found his native land uncongenial to him and planned to settle in this country. In 1636 he sent his steward, William Gibbons, to America, accompanied by twenty men, to purchase for him in Hartford, "an estate suitable to his rank." Gibbons was also instructed to have a dwelling-house erected on the estate, and to put everything in readiness for the advent of the Wyllys family. Considerable time was spent in pre- paration for the reception, for Wyllys did not arrive until 1638- two years after his steward.
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The Governors of Connecticut
His estate embraced the square now between Main, Charter Oak, Governor, and Wyllys streets in Hartford, and was apparently a pretentious establishment for the sparsely settled colony.
Wyllys was one of the original planters of Hartford. On his farm stood the famous Charter Oak, in which the Connecticut charter was secreted. There was a legend current for many years that Governor Wyllys' steward, Gibbons, gave orders to have the ancient oak cut down, but that a party of Indians dissuaded him from his plan to remove it from the estate.
After settling in Hartford, Wyllys took a leading part in the transacting of public business, and was one of the framers of the Constitution of 1639. On April 11, 1639, he was chosen as one of the six magistrates of Connecticut, and held the office until his death.
In 1641 he was elected deputy governor, and the next year governor of the colony. He was also commissioner of the United Colonies. Holding the office of governor one year, Wyllys did not appear prominently after his retirement from office, and he died in Hartford, March 9, 1644-45.
He left four children, one of whom, Samuel Wyllys, was graduated at Harvard College in 1653 and was magistrate in Connecticut for thirty years.
A grandson of Governor Wyllys was secretary of the colony from 1712 to 1735; his son and successor, from 1735 to 1796; and
14
The Governors of Connecticut
his son and successor from 1796 to 1810; so that the office remained in the Wyllys family for the unusually long period of ninety-eight years. This record was never outdone in Connecticut. The next best record was the Whiting family, members of which held the office of treasurer for seventy years.
Governor Wyllys was not a great man, like some of his con- temporaries, but, as a biographer has said, "He was famed for his social and domestic virtues, his simplicity of manners and his love for civil and religious liberty."
15
The FOURTH GOVERNOR of
CONNECTICUT
was
THOMAS WELLES
An Englishman believed to have been connected with nobility but whose antecedents across the water still remain a mystery and even his burial place is unknown but is said by genealogists to be either in Wethersfield or Hartford
THOM A S
WELLES
T HOMAS Welles, the fourth governor of Connecticut colony, was born in England in 1598, but where he came from has not yet been determined. Absolutely nothing is known of his antecedents across the water.
One of Governor Welles' descendants, Hon. Gideon Welles of Hartford, wrote of his ancestor, the governor, in 1843: "My father, who died in 1834, aged eighty years, used to tell me that our English ancestors were once of the nobility; that amongst his earli- est recollections were the strong injunctions of his grandfather and his great uncle, Samuel Welles of Boston, never to omit the letter "e" in his name; that the family had once great estates of which they were wrongfully deprived and that in due time they would return. These were the remarks of the old men to him, born about thirty years after the death of Governor Welles, and who in childhood imbibed impressions brought from the parent land."
A tradition, long believed to be true, connected Welles with the service of Lord Say-and-Sele, and made him one of the first settlers of Saybrook in 1636. This has been quite thoroughly disproven in the light of more recent investigation, and all state-
19
The Governors of Connecticut
ments of this sort concerning the governor's early career in America are purely conjectural.
There is absolutely nothing to show that Governor Welles was ever secretary to Lord Say-and-Sele, but on the other hand it is more than probable that Governor Welles came to Hartford in 1636 from Boston. A copy of a grant in which he figures tends to confirm this statement. The first appearance of Governor Welles in Hartford was on March 28, 1637, according to the Colonial Records. He was one of the magistrates in 1637 and he held the office for many years. He rose rapidly in the councils of state, for at the election in 1639 he was chosen the first treasurer of the infant colony, holding the office until 1641 when he asked to be relieved. He was next secretary of the commissioners of the United Colonies. In 1649 he became one of the commissioners and served for some years.
He was chosen governor in 1655 and 1656; the next year he was deputy governor and in 1658 was re-elected governor of the colony. The following year he was deputy governor again, and that ended his eminently successful and honorable public career. Governor Welles went to Wethersfield to live in 1643 and he died in that town on January 14, 1660, (1657, o. s.).
Concerning the exact spot where the governor's remains lie buried, there has been considerable controversy among the historians.
20
The Governors of Connecticut
Albert Welles, a biographer of the governor, says that his remains were buried "on the top of the hill near the fence on the south side of the old yard, in the rear of the meeting-house, where the remains of the Welles family for many generations now lie grouped."
Benjamin Trumbull, the eminent historian, wrote regarding this: "Though Governor Welles was first buried at Wethersfield his remains were afterward removed to Hartford. Four of the first governors of Connecticut, Haynes, Wyllys, Welles and Webster, lie buried at Hartford without a monument. Considering their many and important public services this is remarkable. But their virtues have embalmed their names and will render their names venerable to the latest posterity.'
One of the very best authorities on this question contends that the governor was buried at Wethersfield and was never removed from that town. This seems to be the general belief.
A writer says of the governor : "Governor Welles possessed the full confidence of the people, and many of the most important of the early laws and papers pertaining to the founding of the colony were drafted by him. The successful issue of Connecticut from her difficulty concerning the fort erected at Saybrook on one side and the Dutch encroachments on the other was largely due to his skill and wisdom."
2I
The FIFTH GOVERNOR of CONNECTICUT
was JOHN WEBSTER
-
His early life is shrouded in mystery but family tradition locates his boyhood in Warwick, England, and he emigrated to America with the first settlers. becoming prominent in the early controversies in the colony
-
1
JOH N
WE B STER
T HE early life of John Webster is shrouded in mystery. Family tradition said that he was from the County of Warwick, England, but even this is indefinite. The date of his birth is unknown and there is nothing handed down to us regarding his ancestry.
His name first appears in history when he became one of the original proprietors of Hartford.
Webster must have been one of the first settlers, for it is recorded in 1639 that he owned a lot on the east side of the thoroughfare now called Governor street. His prominence in the town is demonstrated by the fact that in 1637-8 he sat with the Court of Magistrates, and was a magistrate himself from the year 1639 to 1655. In the latter year Webster was chosen to the office of deputy governor of the colony, and in 1656 was advanced to governor. He held the office one year. During the year 1642 Governor Webster was a member of the commission that framed the code of criminal laws for the colony. In 1654 he was one of the commissioners of the United Colonies. Governor Webster took a prominent part in the famous church controversy at Hartford. Professor Johnston, in his scholarly book, "Connecticut," says the
25
The Governors of Connecticut
nominal beginning of this trouble was after the death of Rev. Thomas Hooker in 1647. " Goodwin, the ruling elder," writes Johnston, "wanted Michael Wigglesworth as Hooker's successor; and Stone the surviving minister, refused to allow the proposition to be put to a vote. The Goodwin party-twenty-one in number, including Deputy Governor Webster-withdrew from the church; the Stone party undertook to discipline them; a council of Connecticut and New Haven churches failed to reconcile the parties; the General Court kindly assumed the office of mediator and succeeded in making both parties furious; and finally a coun- cil at Boston in 1659 induced the Goodwin minority, now some sixty in number, to remove to Hadley, Massachusetts."
The year following his removal to Hadley, Governor Webster was admitted as a freeman in that colony. His career in Hadley was destined to be brief, however, for he died on April 5, 1661- nearly two years after his arrival. He was survived by his widow and seven children.
The historian, Hollister, speaks of Webster as an "honored name," and "whose virtues are still perpetuated in those who inherit his blood." Probably the most distinguished descendant of Governor Webster was Noah Webster, the famous lexicographer, who was born in Hartford in 1758 and died at New Haven, May 28, 1843.
26
The SIXTH GOVERNOR of CONNECTICUT was JOHN WINTHROP
An English scholar who was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied law in the Inner Temple, later enter- ing the English naval service and finally coming to the New World where he became the first brilliant diplomat
1
Joen Winthrop
JOHN
NTHROP
T HE brilliant career of John Winthrop, as governor of Connecticut, led the historian, Brancroft, to write that "the New World was full of his praises." He is generally con- .ceded to have been the most distinguished and scholarly of the early governors of the colony. His father, John Winthrop, commonly called the older, was governor of Massachusetts, and the founder of the famous Winthrop family in America-a family that has produced many able men and women.
John Winthrop, the younger, was born in Groton Manor, England, February 12, 1606. He received a careful education at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterward entered the Inner Temple, where he studied law. Finding this distasteful, he entered the English naval service, sailing with George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. He took part in the unsuccessful expedition for the relief of the Protestants at La Rochelle. After a tour on the Continent, Winthrop returned to England in 1629 and found that his father and closest friends were preparing to sail for Massachu- setts.
In 1631 he followed his father to New England and was soon elected an assistant in Massachusetts colony. He was one of the
29
The Governors of Connecticut
settlers of the town of Ipswich, where he owned a large estate. Winthrop returned to England in 1634. On July 7, 1635, articles of agreement were drawn up between Winthrop and Lord Say-and-' Sele, with several others, empowering Winthrop to erect a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut river and creating him governor of the territory for one year. His commission was sealed and de- livered on July 15, 1635, and he arrived at the mouth of the river about November 24th of the same year. After his term of office expired Winthrop went to Massachusetts where he busied himself with scientific investigation. He is spoken of as one of the best " chymists" of his age.
In 1640 he procured a grant of Fisher's Island, and on Au- gust 3, 1641, left for England where he spent the next two years. Returning to Massachusetts in 1643, he undertook to develop the iron industry in the vicinity of Braintree.
Soon after he acquired considerable property where New Lon -. don now stands, and removed to that place, which he made his future home. Miss Caulkins, the historian of New London, calls him the founder of the town, and adds that Winthrop's home on Fisher's Island was the first English residence in that territory. He brought thither the first company of settlers, planned the town, founded the government, fixed the bounds, and conciliated the Indians. In 1650 he transferred his residence to New London, and from then on took a leading part in the government of the
30
The Governors of Connecticut
town and colony. Rising rapidly from a magistrate in 1650, Winthrop was elected governor of the colony in 1657. He was re-elected to the same office in 1659. Originally no man was to be chosen to the office of governor two years in succession; but in 1660 the General Court, in their anxiety to retain Winthrop as governor, requested the freemen of the colony to abolish the the restriction of re-election. This was done immediately and then John Winthrop began his career as governor, which covered a longer period than was ever reached by any chief executive in Connecticut. Gurdon Saltonstall and Joseph Talcott in the next century, however, were each governor for seventeen years. Governor Winthrop was in England for a year and a half, from 1661 to 1663, when he was elected a member of the Royal Society. Possessing much tact and having a thorough knowledge of court procedure, as well as considerable influence with Charles the Second, Winthrop obtained from the king the famous charter which consolidated the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven. In this charter of 1662 Winthrop was named the first governor of the United Colonies, and in this office he passed the remaining por- tion of his life. Governor Winthrop died at Boston, April 5, 1676, while attending a meeting of the commissioners of the colonies.
Winthrop endeared himself to the people of Connecticut, and historial writers all agree that his Puritanism was of the finest type ; that he had the good will of even those who differed widely from
31
The Governors of Connecticut
him. In the kindred sciences of chemistry and medicine he was one of the best authorities of his time. Trumbull called him "one of the most distinguished characters in New England." Hollister wrote: " It is difficult to consider him as an individual character so inseparably is his bright image blended with that of the colony herself during the most doubtful, and at the same time, most glori- ous period of her existence."
Bancroft paid him a glowing tribute when he wrote: "Puri- tans and Quakers and the freemen of Rhode Island were alike his eulogists. The Dutch at New York had confidence in his integ- rity, and it is the beautiful testimony of his father that 'God gave him favor in the eyes of all with whom he had to do.'"
Such careers shine as a brilliant light in the hazy horizon of the past.
32
The SEVENTH GOVERNOR of CONNECTICUT 4
was
WILLIAM LEETE
A sturdy English lawyer who as a clerk in the Bishop's Court at Cambridge witnessed the oppression and cruelties imposed on unoffend- ing Puritans and became their counselor and guide in the New Land of Liberty and Justice
WILLIAM
LEETE
W ILLIAM Leete is generally known in history as the sturdy governor who sheltered and defended the regicides when they were in Guilford. This was one of the unim- portant incidents of a particularly busy life, yet it has found a place in various local histories and in more pretentious biographical works. His ancestors were members of an ancient family. Gerard Letie, or Leete, owned lands in 1209, during the reign of King John, in Morden, Cambridgeshire. Matthew Lety, John Leet, Henry Leete, were all Englishmen of prominence and their names appear in the public records previous to the year 1550. 21517
William Leete was the son of John Leete, of Dodington, and Anna Shute, daughter of one of the justices of the King's Court. He was born in Dodington, Huntingdonshire, England, in 1612 or 1613. Educated as a lawyer, Leete was for a time clerk of a Bishop's Court at Cambridge, where he witnessed the oppression and cruelties imposed on the unoffending Puritans.
In 1643 Leete and Samuel Desborough met the Court at New Haven, when New Haven colony was planned and organ- ized. He was one of the deputies from Guilford to the General Court of New Haven colony until 1650; and from 1651 to 1658
35
The Governors of Connecticut
was magistrate of the town. During the latter year he was elected deputy governor of the colony, and continued in the office until he was chosen governor in 1661. He held this position until the union of the colony with Connecticut in 1664. After the consoli- dation of the colonies Leete was an assistant until 1669 when he was chosen deputy governor of Connecticut colony. He was re- elected to this office annually until 1676, when he became governor of the colony.
Shortly after his election as governor, Leete moved to Hart- ford from Guilford, and he resided in that town until his death in 1683. His remains were buried in the old cemetery at Hart- ford ; and Treasurer John Talcott made an entry in his account book that it cost the colony eleven pounds of powder for firing the " Great Gun at Gov'r leetes funerall."
Governor Leete was a popular official; his administration abounded with good results through a particularly difficult period, and his great integrity won the approbation of friends and enemies. Dr. Trumbull wrote of him: "He died full of years and good works." Palfrey summed up his public life in these words: "Leete was an intelligent and virtuous ruler and Connecticut prospered under his care."
The story of Governor Leete's experience with the regicides- Goffe and Whalley-when they fled to New England, upon the restoration of Charles I., is as follows :
36
The Governors of Connecticut
Ezra Stiles in that curious little volume, "The Judges," states that Goffe and Whalley were in Guilford twice. The first time was when they were flying from Boston to New Haven. The second visit has been the foundation of a story, which, according to Dr. Bernard C. Steiner, the brilliant historian of Guilford, is much disputed as some of the details are clearly wrong. Goffe and Whalley probably went to Governor Leete's home and were secreted there several days and nights. Finally the judges returned to their place of concealment in New Haven. There is a tradition given credence in several histories that the governor's daughter, Anna, who afterward became the wife of John Trowbridge of New Haven, fed the regicides from the governor's table. Dr. Steiner, an eminent authority, says these men were hidden in Guilford, if at all, in June, 1661. President Stiles relates the story thus :
"It is an anecdote still preserved in that family that she ( the governor's daughter Anna) used often to say that when she was a little girl these good men lay concealed some time in the cellar of her father's store, but she did not know it until afterward; that she well remembered that at the time of it she and the rest of the child- ren were strictly prohibited from going near that store for some days, and that she and the children wondered at it and could not perceive the reason of it at that time, though they knew afterward."
"Tradition says that they were, however, constantly supplied with victuals from the governor's table, sent to them by the maid
37
The Governors of Connecticut
who long after was wont to glory in it-that she had fed those heavenly men." As the governor's daughter, Anna, referred to in this anecdote, was born on March 10, 1661, and the regicides were there in June of the same year, the error is obvious.
38
The EIGHTH GOVERNOR of CONNECTICUT was ROBERT TREAT
An English planter who at the age of eighteen years began his official services in the New World and dur- ing a critical period led the state to victory through legislative coun- cil and battle, dying honored and beloved at the age of eighty-nine
ROB E R T
T REAT
T HE priceless services of Robert Treat rendered to the colony during a critical period, have always been appreciatively recorded by the historians of the state. Born in England in 1622, Treat came to America with his father, Richard Treat, early in the century and settled in Wethersfield. The elder Treat owned a farm of nine hundred acres, which is now comprised in the town of Glastonbury; was a patentee of the charter, a man of high character and great worth. Robert Treat lived in Wethersfield only a short time, as he removed to the town of Milford in 1639. At the first meeting of the planters Treat, then a lad of eighteen, was appointed as one of a commission of nine to aid in surveying and laying out the lands of the town. He was elected a deputy in 1653, and served until 1659. He also held the office again in 1665. Treat served as an assistant from 1659 to 1664, and was strongly opposed to the union of New Haven and Connecticut colonies. When the consolidation was finally effected he was one of a party who remov- ed to New Jersey and founded the present city of Newark. The settlers elected him the first town clerk of the settlement and granted him a lot of eight acres. In 1673 Treat was appointed a major of Connecticut troops and he returned to this state two years later. Three years after his return Connecticut thought enough of Treat's
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