USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88
The year 1636 may be regarded as the special year of the going out of the children of Israel. By that time the plans for removal had been well matured. The incipient stages had been passed. The pioneers were already on the ground. The story of the journey of Thomas Hooker and his congregation from Newtowne to Hartford in the early summer of 1636 used to be (and we trust is now) well known to every intelligent boy and girl in Connecticut. There is something picturesque and romantic in the narrative, however simply it may be related. Art, too, has lent its aid to heighten the effect. The season of the year, the solitude and loneliness of the forests, the high aim and object of the journey, - these and other conspiring influences tend to invest that early cmigration westward with a genuine romance. Palfrey (vol. i. p. 453) tells the story thus : -
" The plan of removal being thus facilitated [by arrangements for the sale of their houses and lands in Newtown], Hooker and Stone, with the members of their congregation, a hundred in number, of both sexes and all ages, took advantage of the pleasantest of the New England months to make their emigration. They directed their march by the compass, aided by such local information as they had derived from previous explorers. Their herd of a hundred and sixty cattle, which grazed as they journeyed, supplied them with milk. They hewed their difficult way through thickets, and their simple engineering bridged with felled trees the streams which could not be forded. Tents and wagons protected them from the rain, and sheltered their sleep. Early berries, which grew along the way, fur- nished an agreeable variety in their diet, and the fragrance of summer flowers and the songs of innumerable birds beguiled the weariness of their pilgrimage. It occupied a fortnight, though the distance was scarcely a hundred miles. Mrs. Hooker, by reason of illness, was conveyed in a horse-litter.
" At a spot on the right bank of the Connecticut, just north of the Dutch stockade [at Dutch Point], the caravan reached its journey's end. The little set- tlements above and below were enlarged in the course of the summer by the emi- gration of the churches of Dorchester and Watertown."
By the closing words of this paragraph it is very evident that Dr. Palfrey had the same idea that has already been expressed; namely, that Windsor and Wethersfield received large accessions in the year 1636, - larger than all they had received previously. Only, as before suggested, Watertown did not send an organized and embodied church, as Newtowne and Dorchester had done. If any will turn to the eccle- siastical record of Connecticut, he will find that the old Wethersfield church dates from 1635, and was formed on the Connecticut soil.
36
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
Of the companies coming into the valley from Dorchester and Water- town during the year 1636 we have little information. Whether they came in considerable bodies or in little and scattered companies we do not know. But we have the evidence that they came in some way dur- ing that year, else there could not have been so many white men in the valley to undertake the Pequot war in the spring of 1637. About the 1st of May, 1637, a levy of ninety able-bodied men was made from the three plantations on the river, which must have taken from one third to one half of all the men in the three plantations. Palfrey speaks of the " two hundred and fifty men in the Connecticut towns " at the opening of the Pequot war in 1637. If there were so many, and his conjecture cannot be far from the truth, many of them must have come in in times and ways to us unknown. Such as were here must have been here before the end of 1636. When on the 1st of May, 1637, it was "ordered that there shalbe an offensine warr agt the Pequoitt," there had been no time for land journeys, that year, from the Bay. These expeditions, as a rule, were not made so early in the season.
By the levy then made it is shown that Hartford had more popula- tion than either of the other two settlements, and Wethersfield the least. The settlement at Wethersfield, however, had just passed through a horrible slaughter, which had taken off several of their men, and in the state of fear and distress there prevailing it may be that plantation was not called to furnish its full quota according to its numbers.
We may properly end the present chapter at this point, though, of course, people continued for several years to come in considerable num- bers from the Massachusetts Bay to the valley towns. Some who would have come at the first were compelled to delay until they could more satisfactorily settle their affairs. New-comers from England sought these Connecticut towns as the places to which their kindred and friends had gone; but the real transfer which originated and established the colony of Connecticut took place in 1635 and 1636.
CHAPTER III.
SECTION I.
ORGANIZATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
BY THE REV. INCREASE N. TARBOX, D.D.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF STATE AND CHURCH. - THE FIRST CONSTITUTION : THE FUNDAMENTALS OF JANUARY, 1639.
W HEN the emigrants from the Massachusetts Bay found them- selves, in the summer of 1636, here in the valley of the Con- necticut, they were under a governmental arrangement provided for them by the General Court of Massachusetts. At the session of March 3, 1635-6, " A Comission [was] graunted to seuerall Prsons to governe the People att Conecticott for the Space of a Yeare nowe nexte comeing, an Exemplificacon whereof ensueth " : -
" Whereas, vpon some reason & grounds, there are to remove from this or Com- onwealth & body of the Mattachusetts in America dyv's of o' loveing ffriends, neighb's, freemen & members of Newe Towne, Dorchest", Waterton, & other places, whoe are resolved to transplant themselues & their estates vnto the Ryver of Conecticott, there to reside & inhabite, & to that end dyvrs are there already, & dyvrs others shortly to goe, wee, in this present Court assembled, on the behalfe of o" said membrs, & John Winthrop, Jun", Esq', Gouern", appoyncted by certaine noble personages & men of quallitie interesed in the said ryvr, wch are yet in England, on their behalfe, have had a serious consideracon there[on], & thinke it meete that where there are a people to sitt down & cohabite, there will followe, vpon occaeon, some eause of difference, as also dyvers misdeamean's, wch will re- quire a speedy redresse ; & in regard of the distance of place, this state and gou- ernmt cannot take notice of the same as to apply timely remedy, or to dispence equall instice to them & their affaires, as may be desired ; & in regard the said noble p'sonages and men of qualitie haue something ingaged themselues & their estates in the planting of the said ryver, & by vertue of a pattent, doe require jurisdiccon of the said place & people, & neither the mindes of the said p"sonages (they being writ vnto) are as yet knowen, nor any manner of gouernmt is yet agreed on, & there being a necessitie, as aforesaid, that some present gonernmt may be observed, therefore thinke meete, & soe order, that Roger Ludlowe, Esq", Willm Pinchon, Esq', John Steele, Will™ Swaine, Henry Smyth, Will™ Phelps, Willm Westwood, & Andrewe Ward, or the great' pte of them, shall haue full power & aucthoritie to hear & determine in a judiciall way, by witnesses vpon oathe exam- ine, wth[in] the said plantacon, all those differences wych may arise betweene partie & partie, as also, vpon misdemean", to inflicte eorporall punishmt or imprisonmt, to ffine & levy the same if occacon soe require, to make & decree such orders, for the present, that may be for the peaceable & quiett ordering the affaires of the
38
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
said plantacon, both in tradeing, planting, building, lotts, millitarie dissipline, defensiue warr (if neede soe require), as shall best conduce to the publique goode of the same, & that the said Roger Ludlowe [and others], or the greater p'te of them, shall haue power, vnder the great' parte of their ha[nds], att a day or dayes by them appoyncted, vpon convenient not[ice], to convent the said inhabitants of the said townes to any convenient place that they shall thinke meete, in a legall & open manner, by way of Court, to proceede in execute [ing] the power & aucthoritie aforesaide, & in case of present necessitie, two of them ioyneing to- geather, to inflict corporall punishmt vpon any offender if they see good & war- rantable ground soe to doe ; provided, alwayes, that this commission shall not extende any longer time than one whole yeare from the date thereof, & in the meane time it shalbe lawfull for this Court to recall the said presents if they see cause, and if soe be there may be a mutuall and setled gouernmt condiscended vnto by & with the good likeing & consent of the saide noble personages, or their agents, the inhab- itants, & this comonwealthe ; provided, also, that this may not be any preiudice to the interest of those noble personages in the sd ryver & confines thereof within their seuerall lymitts." 1
This frame of provisional government was probably agreeable to all parties concerned. It could not mean very much ; for, whatever doubts may have existed at an earlier date, it must have been generally under- stood by that time that Massachusetts had no jurisdiction over that part of the Connecticut valley where Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield were planted. It will be noticed in this Commission, granted to eight persons, that the name of William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, is included. He led out, in this summer of 1636, his little colony from Roxbury and planted it at Agawam. There were several places in New England called by this Indian name. The territory in Essex County, Mass., on which now stand the towns of Ipswich, Newbury, and others, was one of the ancient Agawams. There was an Agawam 2 also in Wareham, Mass. Mr. Pynchon and his little company took possession of the Agawam of the Connecticut valley in 1636, and in this temporary government it was thought best to link these, four river settlements in one system for one year. During the year while this provisional gov- ernment lasted there seems to have been no objection raised to it from any quarter. Six public courts were held during the year, four of them at Newe Towne (Hartford), one at Dorchester (Windsor), and one at Watertowne (Wethersfield). The eight commissioners were never all of them in attendance at one of these meetings. Mr. Pynchon, of Aga- wam, was present only once during the year. In two of the meetings only five commissioners, " the major prte of them," performed the service. The last meeting of the commissioners' court before the expiration of their year of office was held Feb. 21, 1637. At this meeting the first step was taken in the way of untying themselves from their Massachusetts belongings : --
1 Massachusetts Records, vol. i. pp. 170, 171.
2 This Indian name denotes a tract of low meadow, or "low land" in general. Captain John Smith (1616) mentions the harbor of Augoam (he elsewhere wrote Aggowam), now Ips- wich, and the " plaine marish ground, fit for pasture or salt ponds," covering half of Plum Island opposite (Generall Historie, 1624, p. 214). Wood, in "New England's Prospect," writes the name of this place Agowamme and Igowam, which "aboundeth with . . . great Meads and Marshes and plaine plowing grounds," etc. (p. 48). Agawam brook, in Wareham, flows "throng flat meadows" (2 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 286). In an Indian deed to John Pynchon and others, of Springfield, July 15, 1636, the Indian name is written Aguam. The Rev. Thomas Hooker, in a letter to Governor Winthrop, 1638, made it Agaam. - ED.
39
ORGANIZATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
" It is ordered that the plantacon nowe called Newtowne shalbe called & named by the name of Harteford Towne, likewise the plantacon now called Water- towne shalbe called & named Wythersfeild."
" It is ordered yt the plantacon called Dorchester shallbee called Windsor."
"Wythersfeild" is spelled " Weathersfeild" in the same record; and that is the way it was more commonly spelled in the early colonial days, though sometimes, as now, " Wethersfield."
[By common consent apparently, possibly by election, but more probably for the discharge of the last work of their commission, " to convent the . . . inhabitants of the said townes to any convenient place . .. in a legall & open manner, by way of Court," etc., six of the eight commissioners (Mr. Pynchon and Mr. Smyth of Agawam not being present ) held a Court at Hartford, March 28, 1637. The com- mission, by its own limitation, could " not extend any longer time than one whole year from the date thereof," and-from its place in the Massachusetts record (though the commission as recorded bears no date) -it seems to have been issued by the Massachusetts General Court of March 3, 1636.]
Just as the commissioners continued in office after the expiration of their year, so Agawam, which had been linked to the three towns below, continued on for a time in this same connection, and Mr. Pynchon occasionally attended as a magistrate at the General Court. Agawam, though it sent no men to the Pequot War in 1637, was assessed for, and apparently did bear, its portion of the expenses, as if its part and portion had been with the three towns below.
[" The first day of May, 1637," a " General Court " met at Hartford ; and this was, so far as the records show, the first general court held in the colony. The towns-except Agawam (Springfield) - were repre- sented each by two magistrates, assistants, or commissioners (the title of these "magistrates" was not fixed before the Constitution of 1638- 39), and by three deputies, here called " Committees." An election by the people must have been made between March 28 and May 1; but of this election there is no mention in the records. The " upper house " - as we may call it by anticipation -included five of the six com- missioners of 1636-1637, the sixth, Mr. (Thomas) Welles, taking the place of Mr. William Westwood, of the original commission. The colony records of this period of transition from a provisional to an established constitutional government are manifestly incomplete ; but the original commission had expired by limitation, and Mr. Welles could not have been substituted for Mr. Westwood except by the choice of his town (Hartford) or by a general election.]
At a meeting of the Court, Feb. 9, 1637-38, after the transaction of some business about the price of corn and the payment of the expenses of the recent war (Agawam being included in this levy of money), the following important vote was passed before adjournment : -
"It is ordered yt the generall Courte now in being shall be dissolued and there is noe more attendance of the members thereof to be expected except they be newly Chosen in the next generall Courte."
At this point, probably, a full end was made of all the real or seem- ing authority that had been lodged in the commission granted (with
40
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
the assent of the emigrants) by the Massachusetts Court in March, 1636, for the government of the river towns. The people of Connecticut found themselves far away out of the Massachusetts jurisdiction, and they proposed to set up for themselves an order of government which should be their own as fully as that of the Massachusetts Bay was its own. Both colonies owed allegiance in a general way to the mother country, but meant to be independent of each other in all the ordi- nary details of civil rule, while they might be united for mutual sys- tem and defence. The Connecticut towns had already chosen their representatives in a General Court. By this action the members so elected limited their own tenure of office.
Another election must have been made sometime between Feb- ruary 9 and March 8; for the new Court came together on that day, and Mr. Pynchon was in attendance, showing that Agawam still inclined to be counted in the same category with the Connecticut towns, and sent her commissioner to the Hartford Court as before. Through the year 1638 (as we now reckon years) Agawam walked in this companionship, and apparently regarded herself as practically a member of the Little River confederacy. But on the 14th day of Janu- ary, 1638-9, " the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Harteford, and Wethersfield " adopted by their votes a frame of government, and asso- ciated and conjoined themselves "to be as one Publike State or Com- onwelth." The eleven " fundamental orders " by which this union was established - with their preamble - present " the first example in his- tory of a written constitution, - a distinct organic law, constituting a government and defining its powers."1 The Pilgrims had made their simple compact in few words in the cabin of the " Mayflower." The Massachusetts Company had brought with them from England a char- ter giving certain rights and prerogatives over a described amount of territory. But this constitution defined the laws, rules, and regulations of a government created by the people and existing for the people. It opens as follows : -
" Forasmuch as it hath pleased the Allmighty God, by the wise disposition of his diuyne p'uidence so to Order and dispose of things, that we the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Harteford and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and vppon the River of Conectecotte and the Lands thereunto ad- joyneing ; And well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to mayntayne the peace and vnion of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Gouerment established according to God, to or- der and dispose of the affayres of the people at all seasons as occation shall re- quire : doe therefore assotiate and conioyne our selues to be as one Publike State or Comonwelth ; and doe, for our selues and our Successors and such as shall be adioyned to vs att any tyme hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation togather, to mayntayne and p'searue the liberty and purity of the gospell of our Lord Jesus wch we now p'fesse, as also the disciplyne of the Churches weh accord- ing to the truth of the said gospell is now practised amongts vs ; As also in of Ciuell Affaires to be guided and gouerned according to such Lawes, Rules, Orders and decrees as shall be made, ordered, & decreed, as followeth."
[It is not necessary to introduce here the eleven fundamental "orders " which follow this preamble and declaration. They may be
1 Dr. Leonard Bacon.
41
ORGANIZATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
found, in full, in the first volume of the Colony Records (pp. 21-25).1 The tenth order vests in the General Courts, composed of the magis- trates elected by the freemen and the deputies chosen by the. several towns, " the supreme power of the Commonwealth," and " they only shall have power to make laws or repcal them, to grant levies, to admit of freemen," etc.]
It will be noticed that we have now reached a point where Agawam drops out. The paragraph which next precedes the record of this Con- stitution, and ends the record of the General Court of April 5, 1638, reads thus :
" It is ordered that none shall trade in this Riuer wth the Indians for beau" [beaver], but those that are hereafter named (vizt) : For Agawam, Mr. Pyncheon ; for Windsor, Mr. Ludlowe, Mr. Hull; for Harteford, Mr. Whytinge, Tho. Staun- ton ; Wythersfeild, Geo. Hubberd & Rich. Lawes ;" etc.
Here Agawam appears as co-partner, but appears so no longer.2 The Connecticut Colony stands alone, self-governed, with its three towns.
On the 11th of April, 1639, came the First General Meeting of the Freemen, under the Constitution, for the election of Magistrates, when John Haynes, who had been Governor in the Massachusetts Bay in 1635, was now chosen the first Governor of the Connecticut Colony. Mr. Roger Ludlowe, of Windsor, was chosen deputy-governor. The magistrates were Mr. George Wyllys, Mr. Edward Hopkins, Mr. Thomas Welles, Mr. John Webster, Mr. William Phelps.
Mr. Edward Hopkins was chosen secretary, and Mr. Thomas Welles treasurer.
Twelve deputies or representatives had been chosen, four from each town, and so the constitutional government of Connecticut was set in motion.
We have before spoken of the freedom of suffrage in early Connecti- cut as contrasted with that which prevailed in Massachusetts. The first passage in the Colonial Records which attempts to fix the law on this point may be found in vol. i. p. 96 :-
" Whereas in the fundamentall Order yt is said (that such who haue taken the oath of fidellity and are admitted inhabitants) shall be alowed as quallified
1 A good abstract of them is given in Dr. B. Trumbull's " History of Connecticut," vol. i. pp. 100-103, and they are printed in full in his Appendix, pp. 498-502. - ED,
' The discovery of the Rev. Thomas Hooker's letter to Governor Winthrop, written in the autumn or early winter of 1638 (published, 1860, in the Conn. Historical Society's Collec- tions, vol. i. pp. 3-15) has enabled us to supply an important omission in the Colony Records. Nothing was previously known to historians concerning the constitution of government in Connecticut between the expiration of the Massachusetts commission in March, 1637, and the adoption of the Fundamental Laws, in January, 1639. The records show the proceedings of a General Court at Hartford, April 5, 1638, composed of magistrates and committees ; but noth- ing is said of their election, or of any delegation of authority by the freemen. At this court the names of Mr. Pynchon and Mr. Smith (of Agawam) appear on the list of magistrates, and those of Mr. Moxam and Mr. Jehu Burr (both of Agawam) with the committees or deputies. " At the time of election," wrote Mr. Hooker, in the letter above mentioned, "the committees from the town of Agaam came in with other towns, and chose their magistrates, installed them into their government, took oath of them for the execution of justice according to God, and engaged themselves to submit to their government and the execution of justice by their means and dispensed by the authority which they put upon them, by choice." To this General Court, probably, was intrusted the work of framing the first constitution ; and Mr. Hooker's sermon (elsewhere quoted) of May 31, 1638, may have been delivered before an adjourned session of this Court, and "was apparently designed to lead the way to the general recognition of the great truths soon to be incorporated in the Fundamental Laws." - ED.
42
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
for chuseing of Deputyes, The Court declares their judgement, that such only shall be counted admitted inhabitants, who are admitted by a generall voate of the major p'te of the Towne that receaueth them."
No one ought to desire any system more nearly approaching univer- sal suffrage (for men) than that. In this infant Commonwealth, where the great desire was to increase and grow, if any man was so bad that a major part of the voters in a town would not admit him as an inhab- itant, surely he ought not to be a voter. The temptation manifestly would be to make voting almost too easy under this rule. Some evi- dently crept in from time to time that were not wanted. So in 1656 the law was changed to the following form : -
"The Court doth order that those that shall hereafter bee made free shall haue an affirmative certificate under the hands of all or a major part of the deputies in their seueral towns of their peaceable and honest conversation, and those and only those of them wch the Gen1. Court shall approue shall bee made free men." 1
This fixed a check upon the too easy compliance of a given town ; 2 but the system was still one of broad general suffrage like that of the Plymouth Colony, but was unlike that of the Massachusetts or the New Haven Colonies. Palfrey says of this organization of government in Connecticut : -
" Containing no recognition whatever of any external authority on either side of the ocean, it provided that all persons should be freemen who should be ad- mitted as such by the freemen of the towns and take an oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth. . . . The whole constitution was that of an independent state. It continued in force, with very little alteration, a hundred and eighty years, se- curing throughout that period a degree of social order and happiness such as is rarely the fruit of civil institutions." 3
We desire again to call special attention to the peculiar character of early Connecticut, in that the beginning of everything which after- ward made the State was from these three little settlements in the Con- necticut valley. They grew out of no government before existing. They were native and original. They rose into being out of the wants and the rights of individual men standing in the presence of God, just as the early Congregational Church rose into being wherever there was a little company of believers needing for their growth and education to be so organized.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.