USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I > Part 11
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For a time, the proffers of the Indian seem to have been made in vain, for neither company availed itself of his information, or accepted his offerings ; but two years later, in the autumn of 1633, the seed that he had sown gave signs of growth. Plymouth Colony made a venture, and, so far as we know, it was made on the strength of Wahginnacut's representations. The frame of a trading-house had been made ready and placed on board a small vessel. Lieuten- ant William Holmes commanded the expedition, and an Indian, Nattawamut, a sachem, was its pilot.
Already the Pequot Indians had made sale of lands on the Con- necticut River to the Dutch, lands that had been wrested from Nat- tawamut's tribe. The Dutch had taken possession of a point at Hartford, and when the Plymouth vessel sailed into and up the river, on its western bank a mound had been raised and two guns were pointing riverward. Lieutenant Holmes did not obey the signal from the fort or guns, but sailed on, unharmed, to the site of present Windsor. There, land was bought from the Connecticut River Indians, through Nattawamut. The trading-house was set up and garrisoned and the vessel went back to Plymouth, bearing what, for cargo, we know not, but we are told that the pilot, soon after his faithful service, died of small pox.
It will be remembered that this trading-house was built in the autumn of 1633, under the auspices of Plymouth Colony. Massa- chusetts Bay had been invited to join in the venture, but declined, giving at the same time its consent to the work, in so far as it might have jurisdiction over the territory to be occupied.
Through the regions usually characterized by writers as "pathless wilderness," it is well known there existed Indian thoroughfares, trails, and paths. The native Indian was, by nature and by practice, a traveler. He wandered, from very love of wandering-he roamed,
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as a hunter-he visited his kindred tribes-he journeyed to sur- round council fires-he attended dances far and near-he failed not to be present at the annual games, held on natural plains like our own Manhan meadows, and he well knew how to mark a new path- way for the white man from plantation to plantation. Add to this the well known habit of the inland tribes of going down to the sea to spend their summer days in fishing and digging clams, drying the clams in the sun and stringing them for winter store of food, and we shall not find it difficult to account for certain paths that existed, without apparent reason, at a very early date. The path, or trail, or road, as it is called, mentioned in 1674, from Milford to Farmington, is a case in point. This trail was probably made by the Indians of Tunxis Sepus, before Farmington came into being. The Indians of Farmington, without doubt, knew all about the fine fishing and clamming ground around Milford, long before English- men came. Milford was a favorite dwelling place; Ansantawae had his "big wigwam" on Charles Island, we are told by Lambert, and the tribe gathered there. The very fact that in 1640 it was necessary for the first settlers of Milford to surround themselves with a palisado a mile square, is eloquent of the number of their Indian neighbors, while at Quinnipiac there was no need of a pali- sado, not above forty-seven warriors dwelling there.
It was some such path, doubtless, through which, in the summer of 1633, the great Indian trader, John Oldham, "and three with him," came to Connecticut. The glimpses that we get, through the rifts in events, of Oldham, reveal a splendid, hopeful creature, through whose vision prosperity danced with a grace that in 1629 kept three ships waiting in England for two months, while he set forth to the gentlemen who were the adventurers the gains of three for one that could be made, if certain trading powers were conferred upon him. Oldham deserves a monument! He and the three unknown men with him were Connecticut's first traders. They had returned to the Bay by the fourth of September in that year, and it was in the same autumn that the vessel from Plymouth brought the trading-house into the river.
Oldham reported that the sachem "used them kindly and gave them some beaver." He estimated the land distance to be about one hundred and sixty miles, and said that he lodged in Indian towns all the way. He also "brought some black lead, whereof the Indians told him there was a whole rock."
One can well imagine how this enthusiast, on his return, set the glories of Connecticut valley forth to the men who gathered to learn the story he had to tell. Three men (the name of but one is
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given, as "Hall") were moved by it to set out in the cold of Novem- ber, to trade for themselves. Governor Winthrop records that they lost themselves, endured much misery, could not trade because the Indians were dying of small-pox, and returned on the twentieth of January. To the imagination of John Oldham, brisk and fertile, and stirring with life and a very solid faith in itself, we may safely attribute the settlement of the valley, at so early a date. The trading venture of the men of Plymouth, and the overland journey of Oldham, seem to have been brought about by Wahginnacut's visit to the eastward. The other items that we have been able to . glean concerning Connecticut in the year 1633, are the following : Oct. 2, "The bark Blessing, which had been sent to the southward, returned. She had been at an island over against Connecticut, called Long Island, because it is near fifty leagues long. There, they had store of the best wampumpeak, both white and blue. They have many canoes, so great as one will carry eighty men. They were also in the river of Connecticut, which is barred at the entrance, so as they could not find above one fathom of water."
On the twenty-first of January following, in the same year, news was received at Massachusetts that Captain Stone, putting in at the mouth of Connecticut, "on his way to Virginia, where the Pequin * inhabit, was there cut off by them, with all his company, being eight." Within four months after the return of Hall, we find Newtown, now Cambridge, petitioning the court for liberty to remove the town to a more commodious site. On May 13, 1634, the inhabitants were granted leave to seek out some convenient place for themselves, with the promise that it should be confirmed to them for a habitation, provided that it did not take in any place to prejudice a plantation already settled.
In this permit, no limit of jurisdiction was included, and, as early as July, "six men of Newtown went in the Blessing, to discover Connecticut River, intending to remove their town thither." We are left without any knowledge of the work accomplished by these six unknown men. It is probable that they had for a fellow passen- ger Governor Winslow of Plymouth, for he visited the Plymouth trading-house in his "bark," that summer. It is also possible and even probable that the tradition regarding the presence of English- men at Wethersfield in the winter of 1634, is based upon this visit and its results for a foundation ; if so, the men were not Watertown men who were there, but Newtown men, as is proven by the fact that it was not until May of 1635, that Watertown petitioned for leave to remove. It is well known that present Hartford was
* The Pequots.
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formerly Newtown; Windsor was Dorchester, and Wethersfield was Watertown, respectively named from the towns of the same names in the Bay, whence most of their first settlers camc.
In September 1634, the court convened, and its most important business was the serious discussion regarding the removal of Newtown to Connecticut. "The matter was debated divers days and many reasons alledged pro and con." Newtown men com- plained of the want of accommodation for their cattle, "so as they were not able to maintain their ministers." They had no room to receive more of their friends to help them. The towns were too near each other. Connecticut was fruitful and commodious, and Dutch or English would possess it soon. To these reasons was added, "the strong bent of their spirits," urging them to go.
Massachusetts said that these men ought not to depart, because they were bound by oath to seek the welfare of the commonwealth, which was in danger, being weak, and the departure of Mr. Hooker would not only draw away many already in the Bay but would divert others from it. Beside, they who might go would be exposed to evident peril from the Dutch and Indians, "and also from our own State at home, who would not endure they should sit down, without a patent, in any place which our king lays claim unto." The outcome was, that both Boston and Watertown offered Newtown enlarged accommodations. The congregation of Newtown accepted, for the time, the offer of the towns, and the fear of their going forth was removed.
The General Court had learned wisdom by the action of New- town, and, when in May of 1635 Watertown and Rocksbury, and in June, Dorchester sent up, asking permission to remove, the court granted all the requests, but limited the territory to some place within the jurisdiction of the Court.
A careful reading of the records of Massachusetts Bay, from 1630 to 1636, and of Connecticut colony from 1636 to any subsequent date, will reveal to the reader the wisdom of the migration to Connecticut.
The men who came to Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor, were not the men who could have "sat down in peace" under the jurisdiction of the Bay. It is well known that one man of their number, Thomas Hooker, could dispense "the shines of his favour" upon colony or continent-for, to the light of one sermon of his we owe the Constitution of our State and of our United States.
We take but a step within the Records of Massachusetts in the year 1635, before we find the wisdom of the serpent well delineated in the Court's organized opposition to Connecticut's first attempts at
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settlement. It squirms in the very laws enacted in that year, and repealed when there was no longer use for them. Certain of the men who wished to leave had taken the Freeman's Oath. In the beginning of 1635, it was ordered that every man, sixteen years or older, who had been six months in the jurisdiction, servants included, should take the oath of a Resident, with punishment at the discretion of the court, upon refusal-thus placing bonds upon themselves to remain within the jurisdiction of the Bay. If any resident should presume to leave without due permission, special laws were made for his speedy return by every means that could be pressed into service, on land or sea. The way was still farther hedged by an enactment that forbade any man to carry out of the jurisdiction a bushel of corn without the consent of the governor, or an assistant, under penalty of eight shillings, when corn was selling for five shillings. Another law was made, forbidding resident or stranger to buy any commodity whatever from any ship, under penalty of confiscation, without like permission. Meanwhile, the elders and brethren of every church were entreated "to devise one uniform order of discipline in the churches agreeable to the Scrip- tures, and to consider how far the magistrates were bound to inter- pose for the preservation of uniformity." This was, perhaps, the first open appeal from Court to Church. The battle was between the adherents of a "Covenant of Works," and a "Covenant of Grace," and we learn incidentally that Mr. Hooker was believed, by one man at least, not to preach a "Covenant of Works."
It is well known that the corner stone of Church and State in the Bay was laid in mortar mixed only by church members, but a new enactment went forth at this time. It is not clear that it was aimed at the churches and congregations that removed to Connecti- cut, but there is nothing to evidence that such was not the case. It forbade a man the rights of citizenship, even though a church member, unless the particular church of which he was a member had been gathered with the consent of the neighboring churches and elders.
The times were stirring with events. The first military organ- ization of the colony of twelve towns took place.
But the crowning disturber of the period was Mrs. William Hutchinson, who came to Massachusetts about 1634, with her hus- band and son Edward. With her individuality, her able gifts, and her undoubted charm of manner, she wrought what was believed by the Puritans of the Puritans to be great mischief, by her daring flights of liberty of belief and thought. It is hard to understand why the court allotted her to be kept prisoner by one of her alleged captives, John Cotton, but the Puritans were a mysterious people,
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and we need an interpreter. It finally became necessary in the eyes of the Court to deprive a considerable number of the staid inhabitants, notably fifty-nine men of Boston, of all fire-arms or other means of offense and defense. The very permits to the towns for removal, that have been cited, were accompanied by an edict, under which a committee was appointed to imprison persons suspected to be enemies to the Commonwealth and to bring in, " alive or dead, such as should refuse to come under command or restraint." Did this mean such as should attempt to escape from jurisdiction into Connecticut ?
This edict had been issued but a few days, when an arrival from England wrought a magical change in the hard heart of the Massa- chusetts Court. The arrival was only a little forty-ton bark, with twenty men in it, who were called servants. The bark and the men had been sent over by Sir Richard Saltonstall. The magic of the affair was, that they were "to go plant at Connecticut." The Court serpent at once became a courting-dove-and brooded her departing children with " three pieces to fortifie themselves withall." Two small pieces of artillery were also lent to them for the same purpose, and six barrels of powder granted ; two out of Watertown; two out of Dorchester, and two out of Rocksbury. To these were added two hundred shot, all of which Captain Underhill and Mr. Beecher (also a captain) were to deliver-and the Connecticut towns were granted liberty to choose their own constable.
There was evident haste to take possession of the new territory before Sir Richard Saltonstall's men should begin their settlement, and the colonists, anxious to depart for Connecticut, went forth with the good - by blessing of the Court. It will be noticed that there was no requisition of powder from Newtown. This may have been because six men of that place (now Cambridge) were already upon the Connecticut River, for we know that they were there as early as July of 1634. Governor Winthrop tells us that the men of Dorchester were set down near the Plymouth trading - house (at Windsor), in August, 1635, at which date they had been there long enough to cause the Dutch to send home into Holland for com- mission to deal with the English at Connecticut.
That the inhabitants were at Wethersfield early, may be inferred from the fact that permission was given to Watertown to migrate early in May, and dismission granted by the church of the same place to members to form anew in a church covenant in Connecticut on the 29th of the same month. We find also that if the inhabi- tants were not removed from Watertown in Massachusetts to Watertown on the River, by the last of October, 1636, their inter- est in the lands to be divided was to be forfeited.
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By the 6th of October, we learn from the journal of Governor Winthrop, that the three towns were gone to Connecticut. On the day that Winthrop recorded that fact he tells us that there arrived two great ships, the Defence and the Abigail. John Winthrop, Jr., who had been in England for a number of months, and Sir Henry Vane were passengers on the ships. The fame of Connecticut had been carried across the sea. Men of station and fortune in England had secured a patent and charter and resolved to establish a new colony along the banks of the beautiful river. John Winthrop seems to have gone abroad on this very mission, for he returned with authority "from Lord Say, Lord Brook, and divers other great per- sons in England, to begin a plantation, and to be its governor." Men and ammunition and two thousand pounds in money he had, to begin a fortification at the mouth of the river. Massachusetts Bay took the part of her colony children when Sir Henry Vane treated with the magistrates concerning the three towns, gone thither. Sir Henry Vane thought that the towns should give place to the new commission, and Massachusetts seems to have demanded full satis- faction, in case they were required to do so.
It was November before the new "Governor Winthrop, Jr.," by the appointment of the "Lords of Connecticut," sent a bark and about twenty men to take possession, and to begin building. This little expedition was only just off for its work, when there came in "a small Norsey bark, with one Gardiner, an expert engineer or work-base, and provisions of all sorts, to begin a fort at Saybrook."
Nature frowned mightily upon little Connecticut in her first efforts at life. Her Indian children had been so reduced in num- bers by small-pox in 1634, that the winter of 1635 found scanty store of corn or other provisions awaiting the emergency that came upon the white settlers when their own provision ships failed to arrive.
The overland route was probably taken in the summer or autumn of 1635. The goods and provisions of the little company went by sea in two shallops, or barks. An east wind arose in the night. The boats were cast away upon "Browns Island near the Gurnetts Nose," and every man was drowned. Meanwhile, the people were waiting, not knowing why the lost barks failed them. Winter came before its time. Snow fell, when it was only time for leaves to fall. Early in November it was knee-deep. Before the ninth of the month six men had wandered for ten days in the cold and the snow in their efforts to reach Plymouth, having been cast away in " Man- amett" Bay, on their return from Connecticut. The fifteenth of November the river was closed by ice, thus cutting off, most com- pletely, all hope of their provisions reaching them by sea. The day
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after the river was frozen, twelve men set out for Massachusetts, to secure help.
Of this journey, we have the following record : "November 26, 1635, there came twelve men from Connecticut. They had been ten days upon their journey and had lost one of their company drowned in the ice by the way, and had been all starved, but that by God's providence they lighted upon an Indian wigwam."
In their extremity, and having, it would seem, full faith that their lost barks would come to the river's mouth, about seventy men and women determined to brave the perils of a journey to meet them. Perhaps they also had some hope of relief from the provisions that were sent by the thirty - ton bark for the twenty men, at the fort, in the beginning of November.
They did not meet the expected help, but they found the ship Rebecca of sixty tons. It is not quite clear whether the company went on board the Rebecca twenty miles up the river or at the river's mouth. Winthrop tells us that two days before, the ship had been frozen in twenty miles above the sound, and that it ran upon a bar in getting to sea and was forced to unload before it could get off. He also adds that the Rebecca was set free from the ice by a small rain. Historians tell us that these starving people cut it out. They arrived in Massachusetts December 10, having been but five days at sea, "which was a great mercy of God, for otherwise they had all perished with famine, as some did."
A little later, Winthrop tells us that those of Dorchester who had removed their cattle to Connecticut before winter, lost the greater part of them, " but some, which arrived at the eastern bank too late to be taken over, lived all the winter without any hay; that the people were put to great straits for want of provisions. They ate acorns and malt and grains."
The hardships and suffering of that 1635 winter, have never been told-can never be known. The heroism of it has slipped noise- lessly down into unbroken silence. The names even of the men and the women who stayed to eat acorns and malt, or who wandered in snow and cold, without food, to the river's mouth; or of those who braved the journey overland, or who perished by the way, are utterly unknown. But this we do know-that of the men and women who had part in the events outlined in this migration, were the fathers and mothers or the grandfathers and grandmothers of men and women who, two hundred and fourteen years ago, made their homes in the leafy basin that holds within its hill-notched rim the Waterbury of to-day.
CHAPTER VII.
MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY GOVERNS CONNECTICUT-JOHN OLDHAM AND THE PEQUOT WAR-CONNECTICUT COLONY A MILITARY ORGANIZATION-GOVERNMENT BY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE-THE FIRST GOVERNOR-BEGINNINGS OF TOWNS-FARMINGTON PLANTA- TION-GROWTH OF LAWS-TROUBLES FROM AND WITH INDIANS- FREEMEN ADMITTED-LAND BOUGHT AT DERBY-CONNECTICUT OBTAINS A CHARTER FROM KING CHARLES II-NEW HAVEN COL- ONY UNITES WITH CONNECTICUT-FORMATION OF COUNTIES- COUNTY COURTS.
T HE first civil officer in Connecticut was William Westwood. He was appointed by Massachusetts Bay constable of the plantations on Connecticut River in September, 1635, and seems to have been the sole representative of Law and Order during the first six months of the existence of the Colony. "John Winthrop, Jr., Governor "-as the son was called by the father, Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay-had apparently no desire to exercise authority over the colonists at Connecti- cut, although he had been commissioned to do so by the "Lords of Connecticut" in England. Winthrop was on the ground in the beginning of the year 1636, and remained for several months either up the river with the new towns, or at the fort at the mouth of the river. The General Court of the Bay, therefore, arose to the emergency of the hour in March, 1636, and created a provisional government, placing it in the hands of eight persons selected out of the number of their "loving friends, neighbors, freemen, and members, gone, and to go, unto the river." William Westwood was one of the eight. He had been appointed to the office of constable in 1635, and this appointment gives his name to us as a resident of Connecticut during the winter of that year. It was on the last day of May that Mr. Hooker and the rest of his congregation set off for Connecticut. We all know that this company went by land, and that Mrs. Hooker was carried in a horse-litter; that the company drove one hundred and sixty cattle, and fed of their milk by the way. It may not be as generally known that this company, when leaving Massachusetts, turned their backs upon fifteen great ships riding at anchor in the bay, so brisk was the business of emigration as then carried on, and that the echoes had scarcely died away from the volley of great shot fired by
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the fleet on the election of Sir Henry Vane as governor. The first court was held at Hartford-then Newtown-in 1636. "Newtowne " in Massachusetts became Cambridge in 1638; Newtown in Connec- ticut became "Hartford Towne" in 1636. Five of the eight mem- bers of the government were present. Henry Stiles was the first legal culprit in the colony. He traded a "pecce" for corn with the Indians. He was ordered to regain it in a fair and legal way. The first act of legislation was an order forbidding to trade fire-arms, powder or shot with the natives. To this law the people had been obedient in Massachusetts. That the first months of civilized living in the river-valley were not months of the apprehension of evil from the Indian is evident; for it was not until after the seventh of June, 1636, that a watch was established, and even then it was to begin and end only when ordered by authority.
Peace and prosperity reigned until July, when John Oldham came upon the scene in a most tragic manner. He had been out a long time on one of his trading expeditions; had visited the Pequot region and passed on to Block Island. John Oldham's personal properties and his real estate were widely scattered; his interests were many. He seems to have acted as agent for Governor Crad- dock in England, and for others. "One John Gallop, with one more and two little boys," passing through Long Island Sound, saw and recognized his pinnace about two miles from Block Island, in the hands of fourteen Indians. Gallop at once made war upon boat and Indian crew. After the onslaught was over, certain of the sav- ages having leaped into the sea, three Indians were left alive. Two of them were prisoned in the hold of Oldham's boat. One, having surrendered to Gallop, was bound and placed in his boat. Another surrenderer had been bound and dropped overboard. Oldham's body, still warm, was found under a seine. After committing it to the sea, Gallop sailed away with the pinnace in tow, but, in the night, the wind rising, it was cast adrift, with the Indians in its hold. Later, Gallop's prisoner implicated the Narragansetts in the murder of Oldham.
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