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 12
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Up to this time, it is believed that but one attack had been made by Indians upon white men within the limits of Connecticut. A Captain Stone, then of Virginia, but from indications the same Cap- tain Stone who had been forbidden under penalty of death to re- enter Massachusetts jurisdiction, and who was accounted a worth- less person, had, three years earlier, been slain, with his com- pany of eight persons. In 1634, certain of the Pequots desiring a treaty with Massachusetts Bay, declared that the sachem who had been guilty of this crime had been killed by the Dutch, and
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that all but two of the Indians engaged in the murder had died of small-pox, and that Stone himself had provoked the deed by seizing two Indians, whom he bound and conveyed to his boat, compelling them to pilot it up the river. It was now the summer of 1636, and " The Bay " had made no effort to punish the crime or seek redress for the murder of this captain of Virginia, or for his crew.
The news of the killing of John Oldham aroused the people of Massachusetts to a spirit of indignation, the vindictiveness of which causes us, for the time, to regret our English blood. They made haste to gather their warriors. In less than five weeks, ninety men under four commanders, and generaled by Endicott himself, set forth for war. Their commission bade them "put to death the men of Block Island, make of the women and children prisoners; and thence to go to the Pequots on the river Thames and demand the murderers of Captain Stone. If they refused, to demand as hostages Indian children. If denied, to take the hostages by force." As we have seen, two years had passed by; negotiations had more than once been carried on between "The Bay" and the Pequots, but no attempt had been made to secure the two Indian murderers who were left alive, showing that Stone's death was not a bereavement to the colony; but Oldham, with whom they had often differed, had a strong hold on their regard, and they desired to avenge his death.
Block Island, as we see it to-day, does not seem an easy place for the men of two Indian towns to hide in, but hide they did in the brush-wood of oak that was so dense that men could only walk in file, so effectively, that ninety Englishmen could not find them in a two-days' search. When making a landing, about forty Indians had "entertained " them with their arrows, but these had immediately disappeared in the undergrowth. The Englishmen departed after having utterly destroyed two plantations, three miles apart, of sixty wigwams, "some of which were very large and fair," and two hun- dred acres of corn and seven canoes. How many Indians they killed by firing into the thickets they knew not, but Winthrop tells us that not a hair fell from the head of any one of the ninety men, "nor any sick or feeble person among them,"-the light scratch of an arrow upon the neck of one man and the foot of another not being apparently worth the mention. Going thence to the Connecticut shore the ninety men were joined by twenty more. These were doubtless Captain Underhill's twenty men who had been lent to the Saybrook fort by "The Bay," and we learn, incidentally, that they remained there three months. Augmented by this force the boats, four in number, set sail for the Thames river. There they pro- ceeded to do all the harm in their power to the Pequots. They
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burned wigwams on the left bank of the river and on the right, destroyed corn, killed, it is said, fourteen Indians, wounded forty, and departed entirely unharmed. Alas! The blood-thirsty savage ! But he learned, if slowly, the lesson of avengement from the her- alds of the Gospel of Peace. Six months later " a general fast was kept in all the churches in 'The Bay' because, among other causes, of the dangers of those at Connecticut and of ourselves also by the Indians." Oh, the deep satire of that fast! (that is, as seen from our point of view). No wonder is it that " those of Connecti- cut showed themselves unsatisfied with this expedition against the Indians, finding themselves in danger," and compelled to join in the war of extermination which soon followed.
No wonder is it that the Pequots found their way up the river in May, of 1637, as far as Wethersfield and avenged their losses by kill- ing and making captives. They killed six men, three women, and carried captive two young girls. This was the news by which Mr. Haynes, the first elected governor of the colony, was met at Say- brook about the fifth of May, 1637, when on his way with his family to join his fortunes with the men up the river. He wrote to Gover- nor Winthrop from Saybrook, announcing this first trouble with the Indians. History has it, but the authority is unknown to the writer, that the people of Wethersfield in buying their land from a friendly Indian, had promised that he might remain within the town limits, but expelled him, and that this violation of the treaty, as it were, with the Indian, caused him to bring the Pequots upon the settlement. We hope, for the good name of our fathers, that this is not true; but subsequent events create a strong probability that the statement was founded on fact. One of the pleasantest things that we have to record is that the two English maids were returned unharmed to their homes before May ended by the order of the Dutch Governor, who sent a sloop demanding them. When refused, he threatened to break his treaty with the Indians, and seized hostages with which he ransomed the captives.
The work of the Pequots at Wethersfield was accomplished before the first of May, for on that day the ninth session of court was held at Hartford. Six of the original members of it were pres- ent, and nine men called "comitties" appear in connection with its officers. Offensive war was declared against the "Pequoitt." Ninety men were levied out of the three plantations. Stricken Wethers- field furnished but eighteen of the number. The preparatory steps of this first war in our state are so simple that we may be forgiven for giving them. It must be kept in mind that every Englishman known to be within the limits of our state was confined to the three
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gatherings of humanity up the river, and the men, possibly forty, who were in and about the fort at the river's mouth.
With the ninety men went twenty " Armour " and 180 bushels of corn. Of this corn, each plantation was to bake into biscuit one- half of its proportion if by any means it could do so; the other half was to be in ground meal. "For the captain and the sick men," there was to be a hogshead of good " beare," three or four gallons of strong water and two gallons of "sacke." The suet, butter, oat- meal, pease, salt and five hundred of fish, Hartford furnished. Windsor provided the pork, rice and cheese; while unfortunate Wethersfield had to give but a single bushel of "Indian Beanes." Every soldier carried one pound of powder, four of shot, and twenty "bulletts." From the river's mouth was to be taken a barrel of powder and a light gun, if it could be carried.
Thus equipped, the soldiers of Connecticut Colony set forth to perform deeds forced upon them by the cruel onslaught of Endicott upon the Indians. Thus equipped, they sailed past the fort orna- mented by the heads of seven slain Pequots. No man worthy of the name can read of this onslaught without horror of spirit, or think of it without whole-souled pity and poignant regret. Alas, for the poor Pequot ! Treacherous he may have been, but no war- rior was he! He could die in hundreds and he did, while but a single Englishman gave up his life in the slaughter. War it could not be called. The attitude of the two races was permanently changed by it Faith in the white man departed for ever from the Indian. Englishmen looked with guilty suspicion upon the Red man to the end. Confidence expired in blood and flame. Peace was gone from the land. Henceforth, life became a series of efforts to protect itself. It does not in any degree relieve the repulsiveness of the situation to take in the broad view of the natural selection of the races. In their turn, the Indians were avenged. A century of care and perplexity, accompanied by wakeful nights and anxious days, often emphasized by present terror and cruel death, was borne by the guilty and by the innocent. To-day, interest is beginning to develop itself in regard to this Indian, whom, every year, we have been driving into thickets of wrongs, until he has degenerated into what he is. And what is he ?
In the Soldiers' Field, at Hartford, we find as land owners three Waterbury names: John Warner, John Bronson and Thomas Barnes, the father of Benjamin of Mattatuck, who, we have reason to think, were soldiers in this Pequot war. On the second of June, 1637, thirty men were sent out of the three plantations into the Pequot country, to maintain the right that "God, by conquest," had given
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them. Crops had suffered from want of attention, during the weeks of war, and the following February, Indian corn was not to be had, except from the Indians, who were treated very unfairly even in this thing. John Oldham's estate was the first settled in Con- necticut, and the court had much pains and trouble regarding it.
Connecticut, by virtue of her conquest, began at once to collect tribute from the Indians, and in three years' time, the magis- trates at Hartford were sending all the way to Uncoway, our Fair- field, to collect it. It is well known that the pursuit of the Pequots to their final refuge gave to Englishmen their knowledge of the sea-coast lying to the westward towards the Dutch, and opened the way for the settlements at New Haven and Milford, which had their beginnings in the next year, and that the result of the war made of Connecticut colony a military organization, almost to a unit. Every man above sixteen years old was to bear arms, except he was excused by the court, or unless he was a church officer or an officer of the General or other Courts. There was a magazine of powder and shot in every plantation, fifty corslets were provided " and kept in the meeting-house,"* at Hartford, and every military man was continually to have in his house "half a pound of good powder, two pounds of bullets and a pound of match." Captain John Mason was the public military officer of the plantations. He was to train the men in each town ten days in the year; but not in June or July-Mason to give a week's warning. Watch by night and ward by day began. And thus was the century of care and tribulation inaugurated by our fathers in the towns on the river.
Connecticut's treatment of the Indians after the subjugation and well-nigh extermination of the Pequot tribe, is a study at once curious and most interesting. She held out her mailed hand for tribute; extended a legal protectorate over a right or two that the Red man might possibly be thought to own by virtue of his crea- tion; admitted in many ways, with apparent unconsciousness, the wrongs she committed against him (as that in the Wethersfield trouble " the first breach was on the part of the English);" held him off, and lured him on, and knew no more what to do with him then than we do now. She tried quite earnestly to convert him; at the same time holding him responsible for crimes that he never commit- ted, and possibly knew nothing about. The Indians rebelled against imputed sin and other wrongs to such a degree that a whole century passed away before a chief of the Indian natives sought admission to a Christian church. When he came, his name was Ben Uncas, a
* This gives the date of the first meeting-house at Hartford, as 1637.
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sachem of the Mohegans. Being willing to encourage so good "a beginning, the Assembly desired the Governor to procure for him a coate made in the English fashion, and a hat, and for his wife a gown." The desire was granted.
In the end of the year 1637, in March, Agawam (Springfield) sent deputies to the court.
On the 14th of January, 1638, Mr. Hooker's sermon bore fruit in the constitution of Connecticut colony. A governor was about to be made, and his oath of office, as well as that of future magistrates and constables, was made ready. The governor promised in his oath "to execute justice according to the rule of God's word; " the magistrate, "according to the righteous rule of God's word," and the constable, "to execute all lawful commands or warrants from any magistrate or court."
"John Haynes, Esq.," was chosen governor May 11, 1639. The deputy governors, the magistrates, the secretary and the treasurer were all chosen at the same meeting of the freemen, and the wheels of government immediately began to revolve, according to the will of the people. We can readily imagine that the occasion was one of great rejoicing on its first occurrence, and the election sermon and election cake commemorated it annually far into the present cen- tury. Thus early, a correspondence began with the neighbors at Quinnipiac. No person was punished for any crime or misdemeanor during three years from 1636 to 1639, and few complaints were made. That mild-mannered gentleman, Mr. Pincheon, was “ ques- tioned about imprisoning an Indian at Agawam, whipping an Indian and freeing of him," and a few fines were laid, but Justice held her hands off. In August, a treaty of combination with "The Bay" was thought of, but it was deferred after consultation with Mr. Fenwick, who had arrived at the fort, on account of the matter of bounds.
It is impossible to write a page of the history of this period and leave out the Indian question. It suddenly comes to the front at this time in one of the incomprehensible ways practiced by our fathers. Soheage, sometimes called Sequin, was a sachem of Weth- ersfield. Divers injuries had been done to him by the English. He, in turn, committed wrongs against them, but between them all for- mer wrongs had been remitted the year before. He had been com- pelled to move down to Middletown. It does not appear that any new offense had been committed, but the Indians were accused of growing insolent, and the court was "put in mind that it had long neglected the execution of justice upon the former murtherers of the English." Surely, Oldham had been avenged, and the Wethers-
7
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field victims, if they fell by the hands of the Pequots, had been most vengefully avenged; but now, in mid-August of 1639, two years after the Pequot war, one hundred men were levied to be sent down to Middletown, to demand the guilty persons of Soheage, who was accused of harboring them. They desisted from their demands only by the persuasion of the New Haven people, who appealed for their own safety, and perhaps more potently because of the harm that might come to Connecticut colony and New Haven alike, by "the noise of a new war, that might hinder the coming of ships the next year." Of all things, the colonists dreaded anything inimical to immigration.
The war-spirit contented itself for the time, by sending forty men in two shallops, with two canoes, to gather the corn that the Indian husbandmen had planted on land that had been conquered by the English to the eastward. It was said that the planting had been done contrary to agreement. This corn-robbing expedition was undoubtedly carried out, for, on the third of October, "the soldiers for the last exploit " were ordered paid for nine days, at two shillings per day. Meanwhile, the first Thanksgiving on record in Connecticut had been held on the 18th of September, 1639.
Before October, 1639, Stratford, under the name of Pequanocke,* had the beginnings of a plantation, the formula for which we do not find, and Roger Ludlow, the former commandant of Castle Island, in Boston harbor, had taken upon himself to set Uncoway, or Fairfield, going into the ways of a well-ordered plantation. Gov- ernor Haynes and Mr. Wells made a visit at this time to Stratford, to see how matters were going there; to make freemen and admin- ister the oath of fidelity to the planters, and to assign Sergeant Nicholls, the ancestor of the Nichols family of Waterbury, to train the men and exercise them in military discipline; and then to visit Fairfield, in order to condemn or confirm the proceedings of Roger Ludlow there. This year, 1639, was an important year. Towns were insured certain rights in their own lands, and powers were bestowed for choosing officers and making orders for well-ordering the same. In fact, the town meeting was fully ordained, with its town book and town clerk, and the Probate Court was established at Hartford. There was one act of this October court, the result of which, if it did result in action, historians would delight to find. Six men of the three towns were appointed to gather up the passages of God's providence that had been remarkable since the first undertaking of the plantations, in each town, and then, jointly, to gather them up and deliver them unto the court, and if they
* It was also called Cupheage.
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were judged then fit, they were to be recorded. Will this record be found ?
Thus early, the spirit of unrest had come upon the plantations. Men of Wethersfield had flitted and were about to flit to Milford and to Fairfield, and now, just as the year was ending, in January, 1639, a committee was appointed, at the request of the planters of all these towns, to view the lands by Unxus Sepus (at Farmington) with all haste, that a new plantation might there be made. So urgent did this seem, even in the wintry weather, that the court was adjourned while the country should be viewed. The weather proved too severe, and Wethersfield, which seemed the most impor- tunate in the matter, agreed to wait until the next meeting of the General Court. Undoubtedly, the departure of persons from the last mentioned town to Milford and Fairfield was greatly deplored, and every means was used to keep her inhabitants near by. It has not been an easy matter to obtain light on the beginnings of indi- vidual towns; the lands of the original three plantations were ample, and could be extended by a word from the court. The children of the planters were not grown, in three years, to man's estate. A new generation had not come upon the stage to find all the places of public trust filled, and to desire to make new offices in a new place; therefore, this longing to emerge from town bounds could not have been born of the want of land. These early men were only just out of the toils of English life and law, and to every one of them who was endowed by nature with a spark of individu- ality, we can safely attribute an overwhelming desire to wield the power within him, without let or hindrance. Such was the stability of English life then, as now, that men had no expectation of rising above the station into which they were born; therefore, in the new condition of things, what was more natural than that every man should seek to be born into a new town, whose good places were not already seized upon ? The conditions for the planting of Farming- ton were to be made in July of 1640, but the particular court of that date omits to give us the details, and because of this omission, we are obliged to grope in ignorance, gathering here and there the con- ditions attending the formation of plantations.
In April of 1640, "Mr. Hopkins, Esqr.," was made governor, fif- teen men were made freemen, the bounds between Stratford and Fairfield were ordered, and the late governor, Mr. Haynes, had to make the journey to determine them. The first prison in the colony was prepared for, at Hartford. It was to be of stone, or wood, twenty-four feet long and sixteen or eighteen feet broad, with a cellar. Our Thomas Hancox presided over the Hartford prison after he left
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Waterbury in 1691. Intended marriage engagements were to be published in some public place and at some public meeting at least eight days before the parties became engaged, and the same interval was required between the engagement and the celebration of the marriage covenant. Hartford had one hundred and fourteen land owners, and the court was, as usual, very busy making laws to pre- vent the Indians from becoming bold and insolent. Any Indian who had the curiosity to touch any weapon of any sort in house or field, was to pay half a fathom of wampum and to pay "life for life, lymbe for lymbe, wound for wound " in case of accident to life or limb thereby. Moreover, the culprit was to pay for the healing of such wounds; if he stole he was to pay double and receive such pun- ishment as the " magestrats " chose to inflict. He might not enter the house of an Englishman; and he might not enter the plantations, except on conditions. The first will appeared on record-that of Henry Pack [?], wherein he bestowed upon the church the clock that his brother Thornton had bought. The first prisoner was kept by John Porter, constable of Windsor, with lock and chain, and held to hard labor and coarse diet; the Oath of Fidelity for the western plantations at Stratford and Fairfield was made ready; the Hartford portion of the first highway in the colony-that from Hartford to Windsor-was mended sufficiently "for man to ride and go on foot and make drift of cattle comfortably," and to the governor was given liberty of free-trade up the river for seven years.
In this year, 1640, the colonists took a long look ahead. They recognized the vital necessity of securing to themselves some com- modity to defray the charges consequent upon supplying their needs from abroad. The raising of English grain seemed to the government to promise well for that end, and it at once gave per- mission to all persons within its plantations to seek out suitable ground where it might soonest be raised, and granted to each "teeme" furnished a hundred acres of ploughing ground and twenty of meadow. The main condition to be regarded was, that twenty acres, that is, the meadow, was to be improved the first year, and the one hundred within three years. Careful and minute orders concerning the same were to be carried out by a committee, of whom the "Worshipfull " Edward Hopkins was one. Men were to send in their names and be served by the town, after the commit- tee had made choice for themselves. A competent lot was to be allowed for each owner of a team, for a workman to manage the business and carry on the work. Stock removed to such place was to be levied to the town from whence it came. The committee might even admit inhabitants plantation-wise. In fact, from these
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and other orders, we may look to this enterprise in grain-raising as the nucleus of more than one town. It seems probable that Eng- lish Grass meadow in Waterbury, now in Plymouth, was one of the meadows early sought out for raising grain by some Farmingtonian.
If cotton has ever been king, far-seeing Governor Hopkins was the first to recognize it, for, in 1640, he undertook "the furnishing and setting forth a vessel to those parts where the said comodity was to be had, that a trade of Cotton Wooll be set upon and attempted." This vessel went and came with its cargo of "cotton wool," and this name for cotton was in general use in Connecticut after 1830. Thus early was an order for the preservation of the forests sent forth, that the material for the supply of pipe-staves remain undimin- ished. The export of pipe-staves was an important and extensive industry and regulated with great care. The staves were to be four inches broad, four feet and four inches long, half an inch in thick- ness besides the sap, and if under four inches in breadth they were to go for half staves. A supply of linen cloth was desirable- experience had thus early taught them that much land lay about that might be improved in hemp and flax. To this end, every family was ordered to procure and plant, that year, one spoonful of Eng- lish hemp-seed in fruitful soil. This was for seed-supply for the year following, wherein every family, although no cattle were kept, was ordered to sow ten perches; if any cattle, twenty perches; if draft cattle, one rood of hemp, or flax.
Country rates, "yet behind unpayed," were to be accepted in merchantable Indian corn at three shillings the bushel; other indebtedness of labor, or contract, or commodity, at three shillings four pence the bushel.
That the fear of the Indians was not appalling, appears from the fact that six men were sent into the Mohegan country to plant corn near Uncas, and were to remain until the harvest should be over. It will thus be seen how far away the colonists were reach- ing to occupy the meadows, even in 1640, and so the suggestion already made, that Waterbury, as an occupied locality, is a number of years older than it has been accounted will not be deemed unwor- thy of consideration.
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