USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. I > Part 16
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
boldened by the pacific demeanor of the English towards him, that he continued to follow up the interdicted hostilities against the Long Island Indians, with renewed vigor. These Indians were allies of Connecticut, and he well knew that the faith of the colony was pledged to defend them.
Connecticut now sent Major Mason with a small number of men, and with a supply of ammunition, as a present to the sachem of Montauket, which he was not to use to injure Ninigret, but simply to defend himself .* New Haven, also, sent Lieutenant Seely with men to join Mason at Saybrook, and aid him in encouraging and defending the Montauket Indians.t
In September, the Congress met at Hartford and soon sent messengers to Ninigret, commanding him forthwith to ap- pear before them. Ninigret sent back a very argumenta- tive and elaborate answer, the purport of which was, "that he would neither go to Hartford nor send an ambassador there to treat with the Congress, and that he owed no tribute on account of the Pequots."} The commissioners ordered forty horsemen and two hundred and fifty foot soldiers, § to be raised and sent into his country to bring him to a better frame of mind. The Congress nominated three gentlemen, Major Gibbons, Major Denison, and Ninigret's old acquaintance,
It is now a very poor country, a great portion of the old yeomanry, (provincially called statesmen,) has been swept away. Most of the family estates (some of which had descended from father to son for two or three hundred years,) have been sold to strangers. The evil has, I hope, reached its crisis, and the country may improve, but it seems morally impossible that it should ever again assume the happy Arcadian character which it had before the changes that undermined its whole social system.
I have now told you all I can compress into one sheet, of the land of your fathers' fathers, of the ancestors of that pilgrim from whom my transatlantic cousins are descended. A few families have survived the shock ; mine among the rest. And I have a brother in the valley of Dent, who now enjoys a property which our family has had ever since the Reformation. I fear you will think this information very trifling-such as it is, it is very much at your service. Believe me, Sir, your very faithful servant, A. SEDGWICK."
* J. H. Trumbull, i. 295. + New Haven Colonial Records.
# See Holmes' Annals, i. 301.
§ Records United Colonies ; Hutchinson i. 172 ; Trumbull, i. 223.
187
WILLARD'S EXPEDITION.
[1654.]
Captain Humphrey Atherton, leaving it to the discretion of Massachusetts to select any one of them to take the chief command. All these nominees were gallant and skillful offi- cers, who would soon have brought the refractory chief to terms. But for reasons best known to the General Court of Massachusetts, they were all rejected, and Major Willard was appointed. Willard had orders from the Congress to move forward by the 13th of October, march directly to Ninigret's quarters, and demand of him the Pequots who had been entrusted to his care, and the unpaid tribute. In case of a refusal, he was to take both Pequots and tribute by vio- lent means. He was farther instructed to demand of the Ni- hantick sachem to desist from waging the war with the Montauket Indians. Should Ninigret fail to comply with this order, force was to be employed to bring him to subjec- tion. Willard either acted under secret instructions from Massachusetts, or he was not possessed of the courage be- coming the leader of such an enterprise. On arriving at the principal village of the Nihanticks, he found it deserted. The corn and other valuables had been left in the care of a few old men, squaws and children, and Ninigret had taken refuge in a swamp about fifteen miles distant from the vil- lage. Without going in search of the fugitive chief, or so much as making known to him the object of this apparently friendly visit, the heroic Willard brought back his army without any awkward accident of bloodshed or harsh words to qualify the pleasure that he must have felt in the wearing of laurels so innocently won. About one hundred Pequots, who had suffered every thing but death from the cruelties practiced upon them by Ninigret, took advantage of his absence and followed the army to Connecticut, where they put themselves under the protection of the English .*
The Congress did not receive Major Willard with much cordiality. It was in vain that he attempted to excuse his inertness by professing not to understand his instructions. The disappointed commissioners coldly replied-"while the
* Holmes, i. 301, 302; Hutchinson, i. 172.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
army was in the Narragansett country, Ninigret had his mouth in the dust." If Willard acted under private instruc- tions from Massachusetts, as governor Hutchinson would seem to intimate, that colony departed for once from her usual frank and open manner, to do what was wholly un- worthy of her.
The attempt on the part of Connecticut to defend the Long Island Indians, was honorable and necessary to the preservation of her faith. Besides, it was both impolitic and unjust, irrespective of the existing treaty, to allow Ninigret, upon false pretexts, to wage a war with those defenseless In- dians. The fact that he had drawn over to his interests the Wampanoags, was of itself, as Massachusetts learned to her cost at a later day, no inconsiderable cause for alarm. But it is quite time that this old quarrel was forgotten, and I feel no disposition to revive any discussion in relation to it.
The refugee Pequots begged so earnestly to be taken under the protection of the English, that their prayer was at last granted, and they had lands assigned them on the Paw- catuck and Mistick rivers. They were allowed the privilege of hunting on that tract of wild forest land lying west of the Mistick, and were placed under the direction of an Indian governor, who ruled them according to a code specially pro- vided for them.
Ninigret was now more haughty than ever, and kept the whole eastern portion of Long Island in commotion by his boisterous manner of prosecuting the war against the Mon- taukets. The inhabitants of East Hampton and SouthHamp- ton especially complained to the Congress of his reckless be- havior towards them. The Rev. Mr. James, minister of the former place, and Captain Tapping of the latter, both wrote urgent letters, calling for interference. In obedience to this call, an armed vessel, under the command of Captain John Youngs, was stationed in the road between Neanticut and Long Island to watch the movements of Ninigret .* Youngs was authorized to draft men from Saybrook and New Lon-
* Trumbull, i. 225.
189
DEATH OF HENRY WOLCOTT.
[1655.]
don, if he needed them. Should Ninigret attempt to cross the Sound, Youngs was ordered to stave in his canoes, and to kill him, and as many of his warriors as he could. The most thorough measures were taken at the same time to protect both the Indians and the English upon Long Island.
This sanguinary order resulted in no harm to Ninigret, except that he was obliged to stay at home, and abide his time for falling upon his enemies. This he did not soon find an opportunity to do, as Connecticut and New Haven at their own expense continued to keep the armed vessel for still another year cruising along his coast. It was a very unpleasant constraint upon his movements and power to do mischief, but he was obliged to submit with as good grace as he could.
It is a very trite observation, and has been found true in human experience, with nations as with individ- uals, that calamities journey not alone ; but by some subtle law of affinity, are grouped together, and sustain each to the other a mournful yet instructive relationship. So was it with Connecticut during this interesting period of her history.
Scarcely had she brushed from her cheek the tear-drops that betokened her sorrow at the death of Haynes, when again her eye was dimmed with the signs of a new bereave- ment. In the 78th year of his age, but with a judgment un- clouded, and his usefulness unimpaired, the venerable Henry Wolcott, one of the principal magistrates and advisers of the colony, quickly followed his friend and comrade to the grave. I cannot help making a brief mention of him, and yet were I to speak at any considerable length of all the bright examples of patriotism and exalted worth that have borne the name of Wolcott in Connecticut, I should find this work extending itself beyond the limits that I had marked out for it.
Henry Wolcott, Esquire, the ancestor of all the Wolcotts of this state, was of a very ancient family, and the owner
190
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
of a large estate in Somersetshire .* He was born in Tol- land on the 6th of December 1578, and was the son and heir of John Wolcott of Golden Manor. The manor-house is still standing, and is of very great antiquity and extent. It was originally a splendid mansion, designed, as well for the purposes of defense against the excesses of a lawless age, as for a permanent family residence. It is still richly orna- mented with carved-work, and if left to itself unassailed by the hand of violence, it will stand for ages. The familiar motto of the family arms, borrowed from the Roman poet, is still to be seen upon the walls of the manor-house, its bold words informing us that the family who have adopted it as their text of life were " accustomed to swear in the words of
Through the researches of Mr. Somerby, of Boston, in the herald's office, among the subsidy rolls, wills, and parish records of England, the genealogy of Henry Wolcott, Esquire, (the emigrant,) has been traced, through fifteen gener- ations, back to Sir John Wolcott, knight, as follows :
1. Jeran Wolcott, (son of Sir John,) of Wolcott, who married Anna, daughter of John Mynde, of Shropshire.
2. Roger Wolcott, of Wolcott, who married Edith, daughter of Sir Wm. Donnes, knight.
3. Sir Philip Wolcott, of Wolcott, knight, who married Julian, daughter of John Herle.
4. John Wolcott, of Wolcott, who married Alice, daughter of David Lloyd, Esq.
5. Sir John Wolcott, of Wolcott, knight, A.D. 1382.
6. Thomas Wolcott.
7. John Wolcott.
8. John Wolcott, of Wolcott, who married Matilda, daughter of Sir Richard Cornwall, of Bereford, knight.
9. Roger Wolcott, of Wolcott, Esq., who married Margaret, daughter of David Lloyd, Esq.
10. William Wolcott, settled in Tolland, Somersetshire.
11. William Wolcott, who married Elizabeth. His will is dated A.D., 1500.
12. Thomas Wolcott, who was living in Tolland in 1552.
13. Thomas Wolcott, who married Alice. Will dated Nov. 4, 1572.
14. John Wolcott, of Golden Manor, in Tolland. Will proved, Nov. 10, 1623.
15. Henry Wolcott, (the emigrant,) who conveyed the manor house to his son Henry.
1
191
HENRY WOLCOTT.
no master." It is alike in keeping with the independent spirit of an English gentleman of the middle ages, and with that of a Puritan of the 17th century who spurned the dictation of ecclesiastical dominion.
In his early life Henry Wolcott lived after the manner of the landed gentry, at an era when the term " country squire " was synonymous with whatever was bold, athletic, and hardy in the steeple-chasing, hospitable days of "merry England." But as years stole on, and the principles of the Reformation, making little progress at first, began to invade not only the wrestling-ring of the yeoman, and the counting-room of the merchant, but the hall of the country gentleman, Wolcott, among others, was led to direct his thoughts to more serious topics, than the pastimes that had engrossed his earlier manhood. While meditations respecting a future state of being occupied his mind, a religious teacher, Mr. Edward Elton, became his guide, and led him to that clear under- standing of the doctrines of Christianity, and those firm con- victions of its truth that remained with him to the day of his death. Of an ardent temperament and lively sensibili- ties, and seeing much that needed to be reformed in the severities practiced upon so many of the best subjects of the realm, he soon became identified with the Puritan party, sold a large estate in lands, including the manor-house, for which he received about eight thousand pounds sterling, probably much less than its value, and made preparations to spend the remainder of his days in America. In 1628 he visited New England to examine the country, and returned.
* " Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri." In relation to the Wolcott coat of arms, the following anecdote may not be without interest to such as are curious in matters of heraldry. John Wolcott, of Wolcott, who lived in the reign of Henry the Fifth, and who married Matilda, daughter of Sir Richard Cornwall, of Bereford, knight, assumed for his arms, the three chess rooks, instead of the crow, with the "fleurs de lis," borne by his ancestors. It is re- corded of him in the old family pedigree, that " playinge at the chesse with Henry the Fifth, kinge of England, he gave hym (the king) the checke matte with the rourke ; whereupon the kinge changed his coate of arms, which was the crowe and fleur de leues, and gave him the rourke for a remembrance."
192
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
His sympathetic nature could not fail to attach itself insepa- rably to the self-accusing though charitable and delicate Wareham, and he sailed with him for the new world in the same ship, and arrived in Massachusetts in May, 1630. Roger Ludlow was of the same party. Wolcott remained in Dorchester until 1636, when he removed to Windsor upon the Connecticut river. He was, as most of our best early inhabitants were, a planter, and was the principal one in Windsor. He was a member of the General Court of Connecticut in 1639.
In 1643 he was chosen into the magistracy, and continued to be one of its most safe and immovable pillars till his death in 1655 .* His monument of imperishable sandstone, built by the same hands that fashioned the one that stands over the Fenwick tomb at Saybrook, has been always a shrine to tempt towards it the feet of his numerous descendants, who have piously guarded it, and lovingly adorned it, for two hundred years. Time has spared, and the gray moss has not obliterated, the quaint and simple epitaph, whose plain lettering tells us that it is the resting place of " Henry Wol- cott, some time a magistrate of this jurisdiction."
The colony of New Haven was regarded by Cromwell with singular favor. The Protector had brought Jamaica within the power of the British government, and entertained the hope that he should be able to people it with the inhabi- tants of New England, who, he thought, might be induced to leave a sterile region in exchange for the prodigal fruits and genial atmosphere of a more tropical clime. With this view, in 1656, he wrote letters to his friends in New Haven, wherein he adroitly appealed to their sense of religious duty, telling them, in the phraseology of the day, that they had "as clear a call " to remove to that island, as they formerly had for leaving their native land for New England. These letters were laid before the Court by Governor Eaton, and their contents made the subject of earnest debates. After a careful discussion, the court resolved that, much as they re
* Trumbull, i. 226, 227.
193
TROUBLES AT GREENWICH.
[1656.]
garded the love that his highness bore them, "yet for divers reasons they could not conclude that God called them at present to remove thither."*
This year, from representations previously made at New Haven, that the people of Greenwich lived in a disorderly and riotous way, sold intoxicating liquors to the Indians, received and harbored servants who had fled from their masters, and joined persons unlawfully in marriage, the General Court of that colony resolved to assert their jurisdiction over the town and bring its citizens to a more orderly manner of demeaning themselves. In May, the General Court sent a letter, calling upon those living at Greenwich to submit to its authority. They returned an answer couched in very spirited language, declaring that New Haven had no right to set up such a claim, and that they never would submit to it unless compelled to do so by parliament. But when the spirit of such men as Eaton and Davenport pervades a legislative body, it is not easily driven from any position that has been deliberately taken. The General Court passed a resolve, that unless the recusants should appear in open court, and make a formal submission by the 25th of June, Richard Crabbe and some others who were most stubborn in their opposition, should be arrested and punished according to law. This had the effect intend- ed; Crabbe and others, who were not ready for martyrdom, yielded with as good grace as they could. t
The Indians in Connecticut, who had been kept in check for some time, now found it impossible any longer to restrain their bad passions. With the exception of an occasional outbreak of malice, and the constant flow of falsehood and subtlety that could hardly be expected to rest even during the hours of sleep, Uncas had been very exemplary in his conduct for a long time. But as one extreme is said to lead to another, he suddenly made amends for his good behavior by an outrageous and unprovoked attack upon the Podunk Indians at Hartford. He embroiled the whole Indian popu-
New Haven Colonial Records.
13 t Trumbull, i. 229.
194
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
lation wherever he could exert any influence, setting one tribe in opposition to another, by circulating every kind of scandal and gossip, and representing the different sachems as speaking such haughty and impious words concerning their neighbors, as best suited his plans. He taunted the Narragansetts with the loss of Miantinomoh, whom he had himself murdered, and challenged them to fight. He even proved false to the interests of the Montauket sachem, and espoused the cause of his old enemy, Ninigret. The Con- gress had enough to do to quench the flames of discontent lighted up in so many places at once by this Indian. They obliged him to make restitution to the tribes that he had wronged, so far as they were able to follow the sly trail of his mischief. There was nothing that Uncas disliked so much as to make an honorable restitution. It humbled his pride ; and what was worse, it made an appeal to the most grasping and confirmed avarice. The English knew his weak points of character almost as well as he knew theirs, and were generally able to bring him to a temporary state of quiesence-but keep him quiet they never could for any considerable period of time.
The colony of New Haven, on the 7th of January 1657, sustained an irreparable loss in the death of Theophilus Eaton, who had been its principal patron, and who had held the place of governor from the first establishment of the colonial government until he died. He was the son of an English clergyman, and was born at Stony Stratford, in Oxfordshire. He was bred a merchant, and was carefully educated. He was for several years the agent of the East Land or Baltic Company, and discharged his trust with such ability that he received from that corporation the highest expressions of confidence, and many rich presents. He was also for some time an ambassador of the king, at the court of Denmark. On his return home, he established himself as a merchant in the metropolis, where he continued to add to his wealth, until his removal to America in 1637.
At New Haven he attempted to carry on his old pursuits,
195
DEATH OF GOVERNOR EATON.
[1657.]
but soon abandoned them for agriculture. His public duties occupied a large portion of his time. As a judge he was impartial, clear-sighted, and inflexible. His magisterial presence was calm and majestic, as well from an easy and graceful bearing, the result of a native manliness, and an extended acquaintance with the world, as from a command- ing figure, and a very handsome, open countenance. He possessed the qualities of a good statesman, and, ingenuous as he was, he was still eminently fitted to be a diplomatist. In private life, strict and severe in the discharge of all his religious duties, he was yet a model of affability and gentle- manly courtesy. He managed his large household with sys- tematic regularity. He cared for the moral and religious culture of the humblest servants beneath his roof, and al- though he lost no suitable occasion to inculcate a lesson, he did it with such well-timed delicacy, that they re- garded it as an act of affectionate condescension, rather than as a rebuke, when he chid them for a fault. He was one of the few men who know how to employ an ample fortune munificently, and yet for the benefit of themselves, and of society.
His death was very sudden and unexpected. He had not been known to be ill, when, on the evening of the 7th of January, he entered the apartment of his invalid wife to bid her a kindly good night ; "Methinks you look sad," said Mrs. Eaton, inquiringly. " The differences in the church at Hartford make me sad," replied the good man. Thinking it a fair opportunity to press upon his mind a topic that she had much at heart, this lady (who was a daughter of Bishop Morton, and was ill-satisfied with her husband's abode in a neighborhood so uncongenial to her,) resumed with much warmth, " Let us even go back to our native country." "I shall die here," said the governor, and immediately left the room. These were the last words he ever addressed to her. About midnight a deep groan was heard in his bed-chamber. A member of his household, who slept near by, rushed anx-
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
iously into the room to inquire the cause. " I am very ill," said the dying man, and instantly expired .*
His funeral was deferred until the 11th of the month, and took place, as the secretary tells us with a minuteness that evinces the keenness of the public sorrow, and the im- portance of the event, at "about two o'clock in the after- noon." His death was deeply felt in all the colonies, but the heaviest blow fell upon New Haven, where he had so long shed such a benign example. His great wealth, his un- bounded hospitality, his christian virtues, his honesty and his fearlessness, have still a traditionary fame in the city that was laid out under his eye, and beautified by his hand.
Almost at the same time, died Edward Hopkins, Esquire, son-in-law of Eaton, for several years governor of Connecti- cut. Like Eaton he also was a wealthy London merchant, and from the same causes of discontent left England under the guidance of the strong-willed, bold-hearted Davenport. Hopkins was not pleased with the mode of government es- stablished at New Haven, and soon took up his abode at Hartford, where he was chosen a magistrate in 1639. The next year he was elected governor of Connecticut, and continued to serve in that capacity every alternate year until 1654. Soon after this, he sailed for England, where his merits were acknowledged with equal readiness, for he was successively chosen warden of the English fleet, commissioner of the admiralty and navy, and a member of parliament. He was chiefly eminent for his solid under- standing, his integrity, and for the mild exercise of the Christian charities. Though he left Connecticut, and did not lay his bones in her soil, yet it is evident that his heart was never alienated from her, for in his will he gave nearly all that part of his property still remaining in New England to trustees, to dispose of it for the "breeding up of hopeful youths in a way of learning." The trustees very judiciously gave the legacy, amounting to about one thousand pounds
* Mather's Magnalia, ii. 29 ; Bacon's Hist. Dis., 110.
197
FIRST SETTLEMENT OF STONINGTON.
sterling, to aid in the support of two grammar schools, one at Hartford, and the other at New Haven. He also gave five hundred pounds out of his estate in England to charita- ble purposes, but in such equivocal language that it was finally made the subject of a decree in chancery. It was held to belong to Harvard College, and the Grammar School at Cambridge in Massachusetts .*
As early as 1649, William Chesebrough, of Rehoboth, commenced a settlement upon that tract of land lying be- tween the Mistick and Pawcatuck rivers. Thomas Stanton, the interpreter, also, about the same time went there, and was the first Englishman who settled upon the bank of the Pawcatuck. He did not remove his family to the place until some time after he had been himself established there as a trader with the Indians. This tract of land was called Pequot, and was considered as a part of New London. Chesebrough was a blacksmith, and went there under the authority of Massachusetts. The fear that this worker in metals would aid the savages in repairing their fire-arms, and provide them with other sharp and deadly weapons, added to the jealousy excited in the General Court of Con- necticut; and the fact that the stranger had come to take possession in the name of another jurisdiction, did not at all conduce to Chesebrough's peace of mind. Scarcely had he built his little hut on the bank of the cove that lies a little to the eastward of Stonington Point, and begun to engage in the traffic with the Indians of Long Island, and perhaps of the main-land, when his operations were interrupted by the constable of Pequot, ordering him in the name of the magis- trates of Connecticut to desist. Chesebrough refused to comply with the order, as he claimed to belong to the juris- diction of Massachusetts. Not long after this, he was com- manded to leave the territory or appear before the court and defend himself. The alarmed pioneer accordingly in March 1651, presented himself before the General Court at Hartford. He made a very able defense. He acknowledged
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