USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. I > Part 12
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The Charter Oak Place, where he lived and died, with all its thrilling historical associations, has none that should tempt the lover of the heroic past more eagerly to visit its shades, than that it was the home of Wyllys.
In the summer of 1645, the Narragansett Indians again violated their treaty with the English, in commencing hostil- ities against Uncas .* They went into the heart of the Mo- hegan country, and attacked Uncas at his fort. They killed his men and threatened to annihilate both him and his tribe. So bent were they on the destruction of their old enemies, that Connecticut and New Haven were obliged to send each a detachment of soldiers, to keep the Mohegan country from being overrun by the invaders.
Governor Winthrop, in alarm, called a meeting of the commissioners to convene at Boston, on the 28th of June. As soon as that body had assembled, they sent couriers into
* See Bancroft, i. 211, who claims that the "temporary truce " had ex- pired when the Narragansetts marched after Uncas. The action of the commis- sioners, however, seems to forbid such a conclusion.
139
GIBBONS' EXPEDITION.
[1645.]
the territories of the contending tribes, proposing that their sachems should repair to Boston, and refer their causes of quarrel to the decision of the commissioners, as had been done before. The sachems at first seemed disposed to listen favorably to the proposal, but at last declared they would neither go nor send. The Narragansett chiefs were highly excited. They insulted the messengers, and said very rough things of the English. One of them said " he would kill their cattle and pile them in heaps, and that an Englishman should no sooner step beyond his door than the Indians would kill him; that whoever began war he would continue it, and nothing would satisfy him but the head of Uncas."
Affairs now assumed such a threatening attitude, that Roger Williams, who was usually the apologist of the Indians and especially of the Narragansetts," wrote to the commis- sioners, that an Indian war was impending. After a careful consultation, the commissioners made a formal proclama- tion of war, and ordered that three hundred men should be forthwith levied, and placed under the command of Maj. Edward Gibbons. Capt. Mason had the immediate com- mand of the Connecticut and New Haven forces. Hum- phrey Atherton, with forty men, was sent forward with all haste to meet Mason at Mohegan, and place himself under his direction, the better to defend Uncas until the whole army should unite their strength under Maj. Gibbons.
Gibbons was ordered not only to protect Uncas, but to in- vade the country of the Narragansetts and Nihanticks, and cut off their supplies. He was authorized, however, to offer them peace, and to make a treaty with them, should they be disposed to fall in with any reasonable proposals. If they were disposed to fight, he was to give them battle. If they would neither fight nor come to any amicable terms, but on the other hand fled before him, he was ordered to build forts in the territory of both these hostile tribes, and there ac- cumulate the corn belonging to them gathered from far and near .*
* Records of the Commissioners.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Before hostilities had been decided upon by the English, the Narragansetts had sent a present to governor Win- throp at Boston, asking for peace with the colonies, but begging the privilege of fighting with Uncas, and avenging the death of Miantinomoh. The governor did not accept this present, but allowed it to be left in his keeping. The commissioners sent it back with a message to Canonicus, Pessacus, and the other sachems of the Narragansetts and Nihanticks, that they would not accept their gift, nor permit them to be at peace until they had atoned for their past of- fenses, and given pledges for their future good behavior. The messengers who were entrusted with this delicate com- mission soon returned to Boston, with tidings that Pessacus, the great war-chief of the Narragansetts, and other sachems, were coming to treat with the commissioners for a peace.
The Indian ambassadors, with Pessacus at their head, soon arrived at Boston, in great state, attended by a large retinue, and presented themselves before the commmissioners. They denied that they had been guilty of violating their faith in breaking the most solemn treaties, and urged their old claim of the ransom alleged to have been taken by Uncas, with astonishing pertinacity, if it was indeed a false claim. They offered to bind themselves again, to refrain from waging war with their hated enemy, until the next planting-time.
The commissioners assured them that it was idle to talk of such a thing-that they would be trifled with no longer- that the time had come for an ultimate decision, either for lasting peace or bloody war, and it was better that they should at once understand each other. They said it was useless for the Indians to pretend that they had kept faith with the col- onies, as proofs of their perfidy were too glaring and abund- ant to be truthfully met, and that falsehoods could stand them in stead no longer.
The Indians finally acknowledged their treachery in refer- ence to the treaties, and one of the principal chiefs took a stick, and humbly presented it to the commissioners, as a symbol of submission, and a token that he only waited for
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141
[1645.]
SETTLEMENT OF FARMINGTON.
the English to dictate the terms of a new treaty, at their own discretion.
The commissioners decided that the new treaty should be substantially upon the following terms : that the Indians should pay to them two hundred fathom of white wampum ; restore to Uncas all the captives and canoes that they had taken from him; that they would maintain perpetual peace with the English, and with all their allies, and that they would give hostages for the faithful performance of all these stipulations. With much reluctance the Indians finally signed the articles embracing these conditions .* But fear impelled them to do it, as they knew that English troops were now in the country, and ready to enforce even more stringent demands.
As early as 1640, some of the most enterprising citizens of Hartford commenced a settlement at a place about ten miles west of the city, upon the alluvial meadows of the Tunxis river. They gave to their little neighborhood the name of the brimming river, that swept past their log-houses, and enlivened the long summer days, as it wound through the meadows, where haymakers kept it company. It was not incorporated until 1645, when it was called Farmington. Almost all the inhabitants were planters. The township was not far from fifteen miles square.t This territory has been, from time to time, divided between the mother town and its offshoots. Out of it have sprung the towns of South- ington, Berlin, Bristol, Burlington and Avon. The pioneers who purchased this tract of the original proprietors, the Tunxis Indians, and begun the plantation, were among the best families of Hartford, and their descendants have main- tained to an unusual degree their marked traits of character.
In 1646, when the commissioners of the united colonies met at New Haven, the old difficulties between the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut on the one part, and the Dutch at New Amsterdam on the other, were presented to their consideration. It appears that the Dutch governor,
* Bancroft, i. 313. + Pease and Niles' Gazetteer.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Kieft, had written a spirited letter to governor Eaton, of New Haven, in which he took occasion to reassert the claims of the States General to the coast of Connecticut in very positive terms. He charged the English with violating ancient treaties existing between the two nations, under which they respectively claimed, and with having acted in defiance as well of the law of nations as of natural justice. He called them "breakers of the peace, and disturbers of the public tranquillity," and threatened them with war if they did not give up the places belonging to his jurisdiction that they had usurped, and make amends for the losses that his government had sustained on account of their encroach- ments.
Governor Eaton made answer that the colony of New Haven had never dispossessed the Dutch of any of their lands, or disturbed them in the enjoyment of any of their rights. He ended by proposing to leave all differences to be arbitrated by unbiased men, either in Europe or America.
Connecticut also made complaint against the Dutch of Good Hope, charging them with acting in opposition to the authorities of the colony, and especially in harboring an In- dian woman, who was both a fugitive from justice and a run- away servant of one of the citizens of Hartford .*
The commissioners of the united colonies, in reference to these alleged wrongs, wrote a letter to governor Kieft, not much calculated I should think, to conciliate him. This letter recites at length all the claims of the two colonies, Connecti- cut and New Haven, and alludes in no very gentle terms, to the behavior of the dignitary to whom it was addressed. It is never pleasant to be told of one's faults, and the aver- sion that we all feel to it, is much enhanced when the censor
* For a more particular account of this controversy, the reader is referred to page 253, of that beautiful work entitled "Hartford in the Olden Time," by SCAEVA-an author who seems first to have entertained the thought that our local histories could be invested with some other interest than that of frigid details, and who never forgets what the Greeks taught the world, that a muse presides over history as well as song. His work is substantially a history of Connecticut, dur- ing the first few years of her existence.
143
GOVERNOR KIEFT.
[1646.]
is supposed to be our enemy. This epistle certainly lacked one characteristic of a modern diplomatic paper. It could not be said to say one thing and mean another.
Another letter was ordered to be written and sent to the same functionary, complaining that the Dutch traders were badly in arrears in their accounts with the English, and re- fused to pay, and that he had aided his subjects in withhold- ing payment.
At the purport of these two letters, his excellency of New Netherlands was greatly incensed. He met all the charges contained in them with a flat denial, couched in the very strongest terms that he could frame, which he embraced in two corresponding documents, and sent to New Haven by the messenger who had been employed by the commissioners. The affair of the Indian woman appeared to inflame him most, for he honored that with a special traverse. With re- gard to the other allegations, he contented himself with say- ing that they were untrue, and that he would submit them to the arbitrament of nobody in Europe or America. The mildest thing that he would do, unless he met with better treatment from the English, was to avenge himself by an ap- peal to arms. In his excited state of mind, he used a very bold figure of speech, likening the commissioners to "eagles that soar aloft and despise the little fly." He denied the right of the English to any part of the coast of Connecticut, and especially to New Haven, the very name of which he ignored, adhering to the old Dutch name of "Red Mount." " We protest," he said in conclusion, "against all your commis- sioners met at Red Mount, as against breakers of the common league, and also infringers of the rights of the lords, the states, our superiors, in that you have dared without our ex- press and special consent, to hold your general meeting within the limits of New Netherlands."*
To these letters the commissioners made a very curt reply, the substance of which was, that the exaggerated strain of his correspondence was no more than was to be expected from him.
* Letter of Kieft on the Records of the United Colonies.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
The Connecticut river Indians, this year, were unusually troublesome. Sequasson, one of their chiefs, conceived the design of murdering governor Haynes, governor Hopkins, and Mr. Whiting, one of the magistrates. He hired a Wa- ranoke Indian to execute the plot. The consideration to be paid was a number of wampum-girdles. But after he had received the price of blood, he went deliberately to Hartford, and betrayed his employer. The Windsor Indians at about the same time did the inhabitants of Windsor much damage, by burning up large quantities of their personal property. The magistrates issued a warrant, and arrested the Indian whom they supposed to be the author of this mischief, but the Indians rescued him from the hands of the officers with violence .*
The commissioners in session at New Haven, sent a mes- sage to Sequasson, citing him to appear before them, and make answer to the charges against him. But the cunning savage thought it best to keep out of harm's way. The Indians were subject to strange paroxysms of mischief, that would break out suddenly and take possession of them like physical diseases. In reading the best authen- ticated accounts of their behavior, the descriptions that we meet with in the New Testament of those who were under the influence of devils, are constantly forced upon the mind. On such occasions, their passions led them whithersoever they would.
The Mohawks, now that the Pequots were exterminated, had the field to themselves, and spent their time in waging war with the eastern tribes, and collecting tribute from them. They had sagacity enough to keep on friendly terms with the English, and confined their depredations to the Indians. Their tax-gatherers were so punctual in their annual visita- tions, that those who paid them tribute knew when to expect them. They knew, too, that an armed force usually followed these leeches, to see that none of the subjects departed from their allegiance.
* Trumbull, i. 158, 159.
145
THE PHANTOM SHIP.
Some years after Milford was settled by the English, a company of Mohawks came within the borders of the town, and secreted themselves in a swamp, where they awaited an opportunity of making an attack upon the Milford Indians. Some Englishmen saw the Mohawks, and were friendly enough to inform their swarthy neighbors of their danger. They immediately rallied in great numbers, raised the war- whoop, and rushing suddenly upon the Mohawks, gained a complete victory. Among the prisoners was a stout Mo- hawk warrior, whom the conquerors decided to kill by fam- ine and torture. They stripped him naked, and having tied him to a stake, left him in the tall grass of the salt meadows, to be eaten up by the mosquitoes. An Englishman, named Hine, who found the poor wretch in this deplorable condition, shocked at this barbarous mode of torture, cut the thongs from his limbs, and set him at liberty. He then invited him to his house, gave him food, and helped him to escape. This kind act was never forgotten by the Mohawks. They treated the English of Milford ever after with marked civility, and did many kind and friendly acts, that testified their gratitude towards their deliverer and his family .*
It has been said that the principal inhabitants of New Ha- ven were originally engaged in commerce and merchandise. They soon found that the unpeopled wastes of New Eng- land offered little opportunity for them to pursue their old occupations. The estates that they had brought with them, declined in value, and left them disappointed and compara- tively helpless. Their settlement at Delaware had proved a heavy burden to them. Besides, they had long waited in vain for the arrival of certain wealthy gentlemen, who had given them assurance that they would soon join them and share their enterprise. At length, despairing of any such re- lief, and conscious that some new steps must be taken to re- trieve their sinking fortunes, some of their most enterprising merchants united their resources to build a ship, of one hun- dred and fifty tons burden, and fit her out for England. They
* Lambert.
10
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
freighted her with furs, corn, and plate, almost all their little stock of merchantable wealth. She had also seventy souls on board, including Gregson, Lamberton, and some other men of note in the colony.
It was in the stark month of January, and the harbor was frozen over so firmly that the citizens were obliged to cut a way for her through the ice, with saws, for three miles, before she was free to float in the water. Mr. Davenport, and many others who were to stay behind, went out upon the ice and bade her adieu. As he stretched his hands to- wards heaven in prayer, the reverend man said, doubtingly, " Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these our friends, in the bottom of the sea, they are thine-save them !"
They watched her gallant sails and trembling keel, till their eyes were blinded with tears. Ships arrived one after another from England, but they brought no tidings to the people of New Haven, of the bark that bore from their sight so much that was dear to them. Months passed, each dropping its heavy plummet deeper than its predecessor, into the abyss of mystery and gloom that shrouded the fate of the ship. At last inquiries ceased to be whispered by the wife, the father, the friend ; and the heart spoke its agonized meaning only in the quivering lip and the fixed eye. Still they waited for tidings, and perhaps beneath the calm exterior of despair, there trembled a pulse of hope, but this too, died. Then succeeded another long period of silence.
In November, 1647, those who embarked in the ill-starred vessel were treated as deceased persons, and their estates went through the due course of administration. Not quite two years and a half after the missing ship sailed, one pleas- ant afternoon in June, as the sumbeams lit up the clouds that still lingered-the lurid curtains of a thunder storm that had spent its volleys in the heavens-there was seen on the level line of the horizon, hovering over the harbor, the figure of a three-masted ship. Shadowy at first, and without shroud or tackle, but gradually taking on a fearful distinctness, until her full sails swelled in the summer breeze; and on her up-
147
THE PHANTOM SHIP.
[1649.]
per deck there stood the semblance of a man, a solitary form. Though the wind blew from the north, she made her course bravely against it for a full half hour, until the little children ran and cried as she drew near, "There's a brave ship." The weird bark was the exact counterpart of the lost one. For many minutes she remained, until the anxious and the curious were assembled, to welcome her home. And there upon her deck, its left hand pressed against its side, and its right hand grasping a sword, stood the mournful shape, point- ing silently towards the sea. Finally, a cloud of smoke arose, faint at first, but darkening as it wreathed its sombre folds around the Phantom Ship and the armed spectre, till both were swallowed up from mortal sight !
It has not come down to us what was the name of the ves- sel. It is a wild legend, and is not without a strange interest. The reader must settle for himself the question, whether it is fabulous or true .*
During the year 1649, the chiefs of the Narragansetts and Nihanticks were again cited to appear before the commis- sioners at Boston, to answer for not having kept their last treaty with the English. Ninigret obeyed the summons, but Pessacus sent in an excuse. He would be very glad to go to Boston, but he was too unwell to undertake such a journey. He further pleaded the terms of the late treaty were very hard upon his tribe, and that they could not com- ply with them. He claimed that they were void, too, from having been obtained by duress, while he was in Boston, and an armed force of Englishmen marching against his defense- less country. However, he sent two deputies to represent him, and prepared to be bound by whatever Ninigret should stipulate. Ninigret pleaded the cause of the two nations with great dignity and eloquence, and the parties at last agreed upon terms of adjustment satisfactory to all concerned.
The tax levied upon the towns soon after the purchase of
The Rev. James Pierpont, of New Haven, who was a firm believer in the miraculous nature of the apparition, wrote an interesting account of it at the request of Cotton Mather, who published it in his Magnalia.
148
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Saybrook fort, was not raised by the inhabitants of Spring- field. The General Court of Massachusetts denied the right of Connecticut to tax this town, as it was claimed to be within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The commis- sioners refused at first to make any order in the matter, as it was a very delicate one, and had not been particularly re- ferred to them by one of the claimants, but suggested that the money to be expended upon the fort was for the benefit of all the towns upon the river. After the action of the General Court of Massachusetts, and after the resolutions had been passed, the commissioners, upon a full hearing, de- cided the question as well as they could by ordering, that in- asmuch as Springfield enjoyed the benefit of the fort, she " should pay the impost of two pence per bushel for corn, and a penny on the pound for beaver ;" but that the parties dis- puting the right to lay the impost, might have the privilege afterwards to show reasons against it.
During this very session, John Winthrop, of Pequot, (now New London,) laid claim to the whole country of the West- ern Nihanticks, embracing a large part of the present town of Lyme, by virtue both of a deed of purchase and a deed of gift from the Indians. Mr. Winthrop did not pretend that he had any paper title, but offered abundant evidence of a fair transfer by parol. To these claims, the commissioners who represented Connecticut made answer, that Mr. Win- throp's pretended purchase was without date, had no fixed boundaries, and that, for aught that appeared, the grantor had himself no title to the granted premises ; that the con- tract was a parol one, and that at the best it was but a vague, loose way of transferring an estate in lands ; while on the other hand, Connecticut owned the territory by right of conquest. The decision was, at the request of Connecticut, postponed to a later day, and the claim was never afterwards presented by Mr. Winthrop.
Not far from this time-at what precise date is not known, but probably during the year 1648-died at Saybrook the Lady Alice Boteler, since and still known as Lady Fen-
149
LADY FENWICK.
wick .* She was a daughter of Sir Edward Apsley, and married, first, Sir John Boteler, and after his death became the wife of Col. George Fenwick, with whom she sailed for America. Not only is the date of her decease unknown, but not a circumstance alluding to so interesting a fact has come down to us. Near the remains of the old fort, proba- bly within its limits as it was first built, and close upon the river-bank, where the plaintive murmurs of the Connecticut blend with the heavy moanings of the sea-upon supporters that seem to stoop with the weight of their burden-rests a table of grey sandstone, bearing a scroll without an in- scription or a name. Yet to me, as I looked upon it, without a tree to droop over it in summer, or screen it from the fierce winter winds-without a flower to symbolize the beauty and loveliness of the high-born sleeper-no epitaph could have spoken with such eloquence as the silence of the monument and the desolation of the spot. It spoke to me, as it may have done to others, of the crowning excellence and glory of a woman's love, who could give up the attractions of her proud English home, the peerless circles wherein she moved and constituted a chief fascination, to follow her husband to this
* Lady Fenwick was a daughter of Sir Edward Apsley, of Thackham. Sir Edward married Eliza, daughter of Edward Elmes, of Lyford, in the county of Northampton, and had children, (1,) Elizabeth, who married Sir Albert Norton knight, and secretary of state; (2,) Edward, living at Thackham in 1634, men- tioned in Col. Fenwick's will as the " Uncle " of his daughters; (3,) Alice, who married, first, Sir John Boteler, and afterwards George Fenwick ; and (4,) Ann, who married Matthew Caldecott, of Sherington, in the county of Sussex. Sir John Boteler, Lady Fenwick's first husband, was the eldest son of Sir Oliver Boteler, of Teston, who was knighted by James 1st, in 1604. Sir John died in his father's life time. Sir John's younger brother, William, inherited Sir Oliver's estate, and was created a baronet by Charles 1st, in 1641. He espoused the cause of the king in the civil war, and was killed at Cropedy Bridge in June, 1644. The wife of Col. Fenwick appears always to have retained the name and title given her by her first husband. The receipt given for her monument in 1679, describes it as the "Tomb Stone of the Lady Alice Boteler, late of Saybrook." (See Saybrook Records.) I am indebted to the accomplished editor of the " Colonial Records of Connecticut " for the facts above recited, as I am for many other favors of a like character. I shall add nothing to his reputation, though I shall do myself a great pleasure, when I say, that I do not think there is a more accurate and at the same time philosophical antiquarian in New England.
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