USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Windsor > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > East Windsor > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > South Windsor > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bloomfield > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Windsor Locks > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Tolland County > Ellington > The history and genealogies of ancient Windsor, Connecticut : including East Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, and Ellington, 1635-1891 > Part 8
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' HI. S. Sheldon.
2 Dexter's Congregationalist, 72.
' Ibid, 65, 66.
៛ Ibid., 70.
HISTORY OF ANCIENT WINDSOR.
that " his arrogant spirit of reproof was something to be marvelled at ; the man being also to be feared. Iest if he were at liberty he should seduce the vulgar sort of people .. who greatly depended on him, assembling themselves together to the number of one hundred at a time in private houses and coeventiche's to hear him, not without danger of evil intent.". Through the intervention of the Lord Treasurer he was again release ! but a few months later the Bishop once more addressed the Lord Treasurer " in regard to the troublesome young man," declaring that he had lately been preaching " strange and dangerous doctrine in his diverse in a disordered manner, bad greatly troubled the whole country, and brought many to great disobedience af all law and magistrates." He thought all others could have been managed if Browne had not come back, "con- trary to his expectation and greatly prejudiced these their good proceedings, and hav- ing private meetings in such close and secret manner that he knew not possibly how to suppress the same."
Burleigh's interposition availed to get his irrepressible relative first into, then out of, the hands of the Bishop of Canterbury. and this general experience with that of others of the company [Browne's church] brought them all. at last, to " the full persuasion that the Loud did call them out of England." and, apparently, in the autumn of 1681. the little church and its pastor emigrated in a body to Middlebury, in Zealand, Where they received permission from the magistrates to abide in freedom of faith and worship." $
But Browne still continued to trouble the English government after reaching Zen- land. He wrote several treatises, which he sent in sheets into England, on the corrup- tions of the church. and wherein he also insisted on the present accepted doctrine of the relations of the Magistrate to the Church. He says, the magistrates " have no ceclesi- astieall authoritie at all, but onely as anie other Christian."+ . . The Queen issue.l
a special prochimation against the circulation of these treatises in ber realnis. "The . Queen's most excellent Majesty, being given to understand that there are sent from partes beyond the seas sundry seditious, seismaticall and erronions printed Bookes and libelles tending to the depraving of the Ecclesiasticall government established within the Realme, set fourth by Robert Browne and Richard Harrison [an associate] fled out of the Realme as seditious persons fearing due punishment for their sundry offences, and remaining presently iu Zealand," . . ordering "all persons who should have any of the same books to deliver them up to the Ordinary, to the intent that they should be burned," and forbilding any one to " he so hardy as to put in print, or writing, sell. set forth, receive. give out any more of the same, or such like seditions books or libelles." The result was that "two men were hanged for dispensing, and another nearly hanged for binding the same."5
Within two year- the little church at Middlebury fell into a divided state, and Browne with a few families, removed to Scotland, where he soon quarreled with Pres- byterianism; went back to England. and, in 1591, was instituted rector of the little par- ish of Cum Thorpe. Here he abode and wrought more than forty years, until between June, 1631, and November, 1633, he died, 80 years old or more. in Northampton jail.5 llis course bad alienated, by turns, all his friends, and evil reports were raised against him personally, and woe betide the Puritan suspected of Brownism.
Nearly forty years after we find the Pilgrims at Leyden, considering the question of removal to one of the provinces of their native land. In 1617, Carver and Cushman were sent to England to ask from the King freedom of worship for their colony in the new world. Bradford says: " Thus far they prevailed in sounding His Majestie's mind, that he would connive at them and not molest them, provided they carried themselves
1 Derter & Congregationalist, 70. 2 Ibid., 71. ' Ibid., 72. + Ibid., 101. 6 Ibid., 83.
6 [bid .. 74. 75.
61
ADDENDA- ... BROWNISMY A FACTOR IN THE CONTROVERSY.
pewrably. But. to allow or tolerate them by public authority under his seal, they found it would not be granted."1
When, three years after, pastor Robinson gave his parting address to the Pilgrim Fathers, on their setting forth from Holland to New England, he charged them to shake off the name of Brownists, which her termed a " mere nick-name and brand to make religion odious and the professors of it [odious] to the Christian world."
Enough has been quoted to show why " Brownism " became specially obnoxious to the authorities in England, and why it bchooved all parties to follow Robinson's advice and shake off the name, and the taint pertaining to it. Yet the fact remains that the Plymouth Char th, organized on the pattern of Browne's at Middlebury, was not quite alle to shake it off. The adventures, who remained in England and aided the colo nists in reaching New England, would not hazard their own perunaity interests (which depended on the colonists' success) by any act of their own, or of their colonists, which would bring upon them the odium of being esteemed " Brownists," and thus placing themselves under the ban of the Home Government. And when the Salem people came to New England, in 1629, and the Governor and Council of the Company under whose auspices it came learned that Ralph Smith, who had engaged passage with them. was inclined to Separatism (then esteemed another name for Brownism) they at first thought to forbid his coming, but afterwards consented, with an order to the colonists that " unless hee will be conformable to or governm' you suffer him not to remain wein the limits of o' grant." ?
When Winthrop's company (the future settlers of Connecticut among them) were leaving England in the spring of 1630, they took the pains to publish in London. " The humble request of his Majestic's logall subjects the Governeur and the Company late gone for New England. to the rest of their Brethren in and of the Church of England: for the obtaining of their Prayers and the removal of suspicions and misconstructions of their intentions. We esteem it our honour to call the Church of England from whence we ri-t . our deare inother. We leave it not therefore as loathing the milk where with we were nourished there." They ask her prayers ~ for a church springing out of your own bowels," reciprocally promising their's for the church at home, when they shall be in their " poor cottages in the wilderness " 3
The Salem people, whose company in England had been so careful to shield them from the charge of Brownismi, had been preceded by an advance guard of settlers, under Gov. Endicott, who having suffered severely from iliness, sent for Dr. Fuller of Ply- mouth, who went to his relief, and was of great service to the Governor and colony. Ile was one of the two Leyden deacons of the Plymouth Church, and improved his op- portunities to satisfy Endicott in regard to whatever was distinctive in the Plymouth views, and led him to acknowledge their general principles as a church, as " farr from ye commone reporte that hath been spread of you, touching that particular ; " and, when the Salem Church was organized. the Plymouth Church gave the right hand of fellowship.
It is known that the Dorchester Church was organized in England on the eve of their departure from Plymouth to New England, and it is almost certain that the organ- ization took place a' the instigation of friends there, lest they should fall under the in- fluence of the Plymouth Church, as the Salem people had. They would not have been permitted to organize as an independent Congregational Church, and remain in Eng- land. (The Southwark (Cong.) Church in London, which bad met with closed doors, was discovered by the authorities in 1632, and Mr. Lathrop, its pastor, and his congregation imprisoned.) The Rev. Mr. White of Dorchester, England, rector of a church there, assisted at this organization; after which the church chose Messrs. Warham and Mav- erick for their pastor and teacher + (both of whom had been ordained by a Bishop of the
1 IliJ., Landmarks of Plymouth, 5, 6. 2 Derter, 414.
3 Ibid., 416.
4 Roger Clapp.
62
HISTORY OF ANCIENT WINDSOR.
Church of England. an I had continned to officiate therein), after which Mr. White 1 turned to his home and continued his ministrations as before. In recognition of 1- sympathy and helpfulness, the colony gave to their new settlement beyond the seas, the name of his residence. Dorchester. Theirs was the first ship of Gov. Wir. throp's fleet, which brought over nearly 2.000 emigrants in 1690. Other parties of Win throp's company settled at Boston. Charlestown. Newtown, etc., and soon after orga- ized Congregational churches. When the report of what they had done reached England, their friends there were much alarmed at " some innovacions attempted by you," with the intimation that they " utterly disallowe any such passages, " and entreat them to look back upon their " miscarriage with repentance "; while they add that they take "leave to think that it is possible some undigested councells have too soudainily bin put in execution web may have ill construction with the State heere, and make us ob- noxious to any adversary." The plain Engrish of all which was, that the Patentees in England were surprised and offended that the colonists should so suddenly and so widely have separated from the Church as by law established, and were apprehensive of the royal displeasure, and of consequent harm to the secular interests which they were seeking to promote. 1 This solicitude on the part of the adventurers and friends in England, lest their "alver aries " should take advantage of their church relations to represent them as Brownists, with all the disloyalty to the authorities in England which had been associated with that name, soon proved to be well-founded. for, we learn from Winthrop's Journal (i. 102. 103), that, two years after, in 1633. " Certain parties who had been punished here for misdemeanors, had petitioned the King and Council . . . accusing us to intend rebellion, to have east off our allegiance, and to be wholly sepa- rate from the church and laws of England; that our ministers and people did continually rail against the State. Church and Bishops, such of our company as were there in England, Sir Richard Saltonstall. Mr. Humphrey, and Mr. Craddock were called he- fore the committee of the Council, to whom they delivered an answer in writing. upon reacting whereof it pleased the Lord so to work with the Lords, and after with the King's Majesty when the whole matter was reported to him . . that the defendant, were dismissed with a favorable order for their encouragement, being assured from sonwe of the Council, that his Majesty did not intend to impose the ceremonies of the Church of England upon us." Prince's Chronicle (4), gives us this passage, from a letter sent by Winthrop to Gov. Brailford: "The conclusion was against man's expectation. an order for an encouragentent, and much blame and disgrace upon the adversaries, which calls for much thank fulness from us all, which we propose (the Lord willing) to express in a day of thanksgiving to our merciful God. I doubt not but you will consider if it be not fit for you to join in it." Winthrop enters in his Joursdl (1. 103, 194), under date of 26 March. 1633, an extract from a letter from a friend in England, written at this time to the younger Winthrop : " Your friends here [Saltonstall and others] who are members of your plantation have had much to do to disprove the unjust complaints made to the King and Council, of your government there. I understand that you are an Assistant, and so have a voice in the weighty affairs of that commonwealth. I know I shall not need to advise you that the prayers for the King be not neglected in any of your public meetings, and I advise that you differ no more from us in church govern- ment, than you shall find that we differ from the prescript rule of God's Word, and farther I meddle not."
It will be remembered, that it was immediately after this that Plymouth proposed to Massachusetts to join them in accepting the invitation of the Indians to settle on the Connecticut River. Bradford says (311), that the Plymouth people had already been there " divers times, not without profit." "Those Indians seeing them [us] not very forward to build there, solicited those of Massachusetts in like sort." This was April i. 1631, and "they of the Bay, but lately come, were not fit [not ready] for the same; but
1 Dexter, 418, 419.
ADDENDA- " BROWNISM" A FACTOR IN THE CONTROVERSY.
Stere of their chief oven made a motion to join with the partners here to tra le jointly [c.e. " put up equal stock together"] with them in that river, which they were willing to embrace." But when Winslow and Bradford went up to the Bay to confer about the matter, July, 16.3, the Massachusetts men hal barely escaped the pains and penalties usually meted out to " Brownists," and were very careful to avoid everything which the English government could construe into an offense against " the powers that be." It is pretty evident, that this was the principal reason why they declined the liberal offer of the Plymouth men. Brodjord says (312) " they cast many fears of danger and los; they had no suitable goods for trade, but those here offered to put in sufficient for beth proviled they would be engaged for the halt, and prepare for them the next year. They confessed more could not be offered, but thanked them and told them they had no mind to it."
Then follow's an important admission on the part of Plymouth, showing that she claimed no prescriptive title on the Connecticut, superior to that of Massachusetts; " They [Plymouth] then answered, they hoped it could be no offense unto them [of Mass.] if themselves ment or without them [of Mass ] if they sur merte? They [of Mass. ] said there was no reason why they should | take offense] and thus the treaty break off."
Two years later, when the Massachusetts men went up to Connecticut to settle, the sumue barrier stood in the way of their fraternizing, which had prevented the proposed partnership of 1838. Pending the negotiations which followed (Max. Ist. Soc. Coll., vi. 102) appears a letter from Gov. Winslow of Plymouth to Gov. Winthrop, Jr , of Connecticut, in which, referring to the controversy, he says, "But were it not for Christ's cause in that our profession may come to suffer by it, we would not be satisfied with a tenth of our demand . . . 'tis pitty religion should be made a cloak for such spirits." From Bradford (341) we learn that the Dorchester people brought counter charge that they of Plymouth have more sympathy with the Lords and Gentlemen, whose pioneers the Dorchester men had displaced, then with " the Dorchester Church."
5
CHAPTER HI. 1036-1650.
FILE town records of Windsor, or Dorchester, as it was first called, prior to 1650, not being in existence, we have undoubtedly lost much which it would be both pleasant and profitable to know. Yet from the Colonial Documents, and such fragmentary manuscripts as have escaped the ravages of time and neglect, we are enabled to trace, in outline at least, the growth and development of the infant town during the first fifteen eventful years of its existence.
The first item we have is from a record of the first court held at Newtown ( Hartford ). April 26, 1636, by the commissioners appointed by Massachusetts for the colonies on the Connecticut. At this court complaint was made " that Henry Stiles [of Dorchester], or some of the ser [vants] had traded a piece with the Indians for corn." Situated as they were in a new country, and surrounded by Indians, with whom their intercourse was necessarily guarded, this act was justly deemed a grave offense, and one that imperiled the general safety. It was there- fore " ordered that [the] said Henry Stiles shall, between and the next court, regain [the] said piece from the said Indians in a fair and legal way. or else this court will take it into further consideration." An order was also promulgated - that from henceforth none that are within the jurisdiction of this court shall trade with the natives or Indians any piece. or pistol, or gun, or powder, or shot." At the next court, held at Dorchester (Windsor), Henry Stiles, not having complied with the order of the previous court, was ordered to do so by the next one, and to appear personally and answer his neglect. It was also "ordered, that there shall be a sufficient watch maintained in every town," under the direction of the constable; and that "every soldier in each plantation " should have on hand, before the end of August following, 2 lbs. of pow- der and 20 bullets of lead, ready to show it to the constable upon demand. Non-compliance was to be met with a tine of 10 shillings for each failure, " which is presently to be levied by the said constable without resistance." It was further ordered at the next court. held at Watertown ( Wethers- field ), that " every plantation shall train once a month ; " and if there
65
FIRST COURT IN THE COLONY.
were any "very unskillful" in such exercises. " the plantation may appoint the officer to train oftener the said unskillful." Every absence from training, without lawful exeuse tendered within two days, was to be punished by a fine of two shillings. Any neglect to mend or keep their weapons in repair was fined in the same amount, and if arms were " wholly wanting," the delinquent was to be bound over to answer for it at the next court.
In these regulations we find evidence of the prudence and constant watchfulness necessarily imposed upon settlers in a new country. They built their humble cabins amid the wilds of Matiannek, as the prophet Jeremiah and his friends rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, with their arms in their hands. "In no part of New England were the Indians so numerous. in proportion to the territory, as in this valley, and traditions of the horrors of the Indian wars are linked with almost every village throughout its whole extent. For ninety years after the first settlement there was scarcely an hour in which the inhabitants, especially of the frontier towns. could travel in the forests, work in the fields, worship God in their churches, or lie down in their beds at night, without appre- hension of attack from their stealthy and remorseless foe. The fact. that the attacks of the Indians were preceded by no note of preparation · gave a sense of insecurity to the members of the family at home, or the heads of the family abroad, which made the real danger. great as it was. spem more formidable. The blow fell where and when it was least expected. When the Indian seemed most intent on his avocation of hanting and fishing, or in planning some distant expedition -- then the farmer in the field would be surprised by an ambiseade, or on his return home find his house in ashes, his wife and children butchered or hurried away into captivity; or the quiet of his slumbers would be broken by the war-whoop, and the darkness of midnight illumined by the glare of the village on fire. Those were trials of which the present generation can know nothing."1
They were trials, however, to which the settlers of Windsor were fidly exposed, and from which a merciful Providence, in a remarkable degree. preserved them. The Indians who resided in their neighborhood always exhibited a friendly feeling, and seem to have regarded the pres- Price of the whites as a protection against the exactions and attacks of the Pequots and Mohawks, both of which tribes assumed the rights of rongnest over these Valley Indians! Yet the character of the Indian was always uncertain, and experience dictated the necessity of constant care and jealous watchfulness in all their dealings with them.
Added to the constant dread of Indian treachery was no small
1 Introduction to the Firete Genealogy, by Nathaniel Goodwin. VOL. I .- 9
-
66
HISTORY OF ANCIENT WINDFOR.
amount of loss and trouble among their cattle, who had suffered so much from exposure during the previous winter.
Winthrop, under date of -9 [Decem ]ber, 1636," says, "Things went not well at Connecticut. Their cattle did many of them cast their young, as they had done the year before."
At the court of February 21, 1636-7, - It is ordered y' the plantacon called Dorchester shall bee called WINDSOR" (undoubtedly, although we know not with what partienlar reasons in honor of Windsor, the royal abode of England's sovereigns ), and a committee appointed for the purpose by a previous court brought in a report that the bounds thereof should "extend towards the Falls, on the same side the plantation stands,' to a brooke called Kittle Brooke and soe over the Greate River,2 uppon the same line that New Towne and Dorchester doth between them. And so it is ordered by the court." Also, " the boundes between Harteford & Windsor is agreed to be att the ypper end of the greate meadowe of the saide Harteford toward Windsor att the Pale [fence] that is nowe there sett up by the saide Harteford, was is abuttinge oppon the Great River, vppon a due east line, & into the Countrey from the saide Pale vppon a due west line, as paralell to the saide east line as farr as they have now paled, & afterward the boundes to goe into the Coun- trey vppon the same west line. But it is to be soe much shorter towards Windsor as the place where the Girte that comes along att th' end of the saide meadowe, & falls into the saide greate River is shorter then their Pale: & over the saide greate Riner the saide plantacon of Windsor is to come to the Riverrets" mouth, that falls into the saide greate River of Conretecott, and there the said Hartford is to runn due east into the Countrey, which is ordered accordingly."
This spring the contentions and negotiations between the Plymouth Company and the Dorchester People concerning the land at Matiamek. upon the which latter had so unceremoniously squatted at their first com- ing, were brought to a close. (See ante, Chapter I, where, for the pur- pose of making a continuous narrative, we have placed the details outside of the usual chronological order of our narrative. )
These negotiations with the Plymouth people, however, were not the weightiest or most important matters which occupied the attention of the Windsor people. They, together with their neighbors of Hart- ford and Wethersfield, were now involved in a contest, upon the event of which their lives and welfare and all that is most dear to the human heart were staked. We refer to the breaking out of the Pequot War. Since the first approach of the white man to the valley of the Connecti-
' The west side of the river.
3 Podunk River.
2 Connecticut River.
67
THE OUTBREAK OF THE PEQUOT WAR.
ent that tribe, whose seat was on the Mystic River. seemed to have imbibed a bitter hostility toward the English. As early as 1634 they began the work of murder and pillage, and in 1836 they conceived a design of extirpating and driving the whites from New England. The murders of Stone, Norton, and Oldham, and the garrison at Saybrook Fort. the horrible cruelties inflicted on Butterfield, Tilley, and others, greatly alarmed and exasperated the Colonists.
Winthrop's Journal (Vol. I. p. 200. Mition 1-25; p. 238. ed. 1858.) preserves this account of the cruel fate of Tilley, who was a Windsor man:
"About the middle of this month [October. 1636.] John Tilley, master of a bark, coming down Connecticut River, went on shore in a canoe, three miles above the fort [Saybrook], to kill fowl, and having shot off his piece nriny Indians arose out of the covert and took him, and killed another who was in the canoe. This Tilley was a very stout man, and of great understanding. They cut off his hands, and sent them before, and after cut off his feet. He lived three days after his hands were ent off ; and then- selves confessed that he was a stout man, because he cried not in his torture."
The murderous attack on Wethersfield, on the 23d of April, 1637. finally aroused the English to strike a blow, as sudden as it was success- ful and decisive. At the court, convened on the first of May following. the deliberations were doubtless weighty and important. The first line of the record of this court is sententions but energetic: " It is ordered that there shall be an offensive war against the Pequots." Mark well the words, "an offensive war." No longer would they stand on the defensive. they had now drawn the sword, and that sword could only " be sheathed in victory or death." And then follows in the same terse and energetic language. "There shall be 90 men levied out of the three plantations, Hartford, Wethersfield. and Windsor, in the following pro- portion : Hartford. 42: Windsor, 30: Wethersfield. 18." Hartford was to furnish fourteen, and Windsor six suits of armor. Each soldier was to carry one pound of powder, four pounds of shot, twenty bullets, and a light musket " if they can." They were also directed to take a barrel of powder from the- Saybrook Fort, and Capt. John Mason was entrusted with the command.
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