USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > Colonial justice in western Massachusetts, 1639-1702; the Pynchon court record, an original judges' diary of the administration of justice in the Springfield courts in the Massachusetts Bay Colony > Part 2
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relations between Pynchon and the Win- throps lend support to the inference that Pynchon was acquainted with John Win- throp and the Downings prior to 1629. See 1 Winthrop, Hist. New England 449; 2 Winthrop Papers 306; 3 ibid. 116; 6 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (4th ser.) 40. An- drews makes the sweeping statement that Saltonstall, Downing, Dudley, Johnson, Ward, Ludlow, Bradstreet, Bellingham, Eaton, Endecott, Nowell, and Pynchon "were all non-conformists, forming a close corporation of friends and relatives." 1 Col. Period Amer. Hist. (1934) 370. The same inference is possible in the case of Richard Andrews, one of the Plymouth ad- venturers, and a so-called London partner. 5 Winthrop Papers (1947) 2-4.
9 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 6, 10-11; Young, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Col- ony of Massachusetts Bay (1846) 281-282.
10 8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (2nd ser.) 228; 2 Waters, Genealogical Gleanings 863; supra, note 6. The subscription is re- produced in J. T. Adams, The Founding of New England (1921) , opposite p. 128. Compare the recital of John Pynchon in a 1659 petition to the General Court that his father had laid out £50 in furtherance of planting the colony, in consideration of
9
WILLIAM PYNCHON
the General Court on October 15 to draw up articles of agreement between the adventurers remaining in England and those intending to remove and again elected an assistant on October 29, 1629, when it had been decided to transfer the government to New England. By December 1629 he was engaged in assembling the ordnance for the Winthrop fleet.11
Pynchon left England on March 29, 1630 with John Winthrop's fleet, accompanied by his wife and three daughters and perhaps some servants. His son John apparently came over on a later ship.12 Upon arrival in New England Pynchon first settled at Dorchester, but within a short time removed to Roxbury, an adjoining settlement nearer to Boston. He is said by Thomas Prince, the annalist, to have been the "principal Founder" of Roxbury and by John Eliot to have been "one of the first foundation of the church" in that town. Shortly after her arrival in the plantation his wife succumbed to the wide- spread sickness and Pynchon then married Frances Sanford, charac- terized by Eliot as the "grave matron of the church at Dorcester." Her son by her first marriage, Henry Smith, a "Godly, wise young man," later married Anne Pynchon and figured prominently in the settlement of the plantation of Agawam on the banks of the Connect- icut River.13
which he had been promised land. 45 Mass. Archives 82.
11 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 40, 47, 49, 50-51, 54-56, 58-60; 6 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (4th ser.) 30. When John and Samuel Browne, lawyer and merchant respectively, arrived in England in September 1629, having been sent back from the plantation by Captain Endecott as "men factious and evil conditioned," the General Court au- thorized a committee of ten to determine the differences. Pynchon was one of four chosen by the Brownes. As to whether this selection by the Brownes, patentees and men of substance, was based on friendship (they came from Roxwell where Sir Ed- ward Pynchon had lived) or on their con- ception of Pynchon's religious views, the record is silent. The dispute had its origin in charges by the Brownes that the minis- try in the plantation were Separatists, de- parting from the orders of the Church of England. Young, Chronicles 88-91; I Rec. Mass. Bay 51-53; Salisbury, Memorial of Gov. John Endecott, Antiquarian Papers (1879) 21-26; 3 Archaeologia Americana, Trans. and Coll. Amer. Antiq. Soc. (1850) Ixxiv.
12 Morison, William Pynchon 72. A 1659 petition of John Pynchon to the Gen- eral Court for a grant of land recited that his father had brought over several serv- ants promising them 50 acres of land apiece, which the Company had agreed should be allowed each person, and that some of these servants were still impor- tuning petitioner for their land. 45 Mass. Archives 82. Banks (The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 (1930) , 53-54) refers to a contem- porary news report found in the Public Record Office in London that "Mr. Pinch- in and his wife and 3 daughters" had re- cently sailed to New England. Lockwood refers to a document in the Massachusetts Archives as showing that John remained behind and came over in a later ship. 1 Hist. Western Mass. 88.
13 Morison, William Pynchon 72; Drake, The Town of Roxbury; Its Mem- orable Persons and Places (1878) 12; Prince, Annals of New-England, 7 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (2nd ser.) 14; A Report of the Record Commissioners Containing The Roxbury Land and Church Records (2nd ed., 1884) 74.
10
INTRODUCTION
Pynchon, after his arrival in the colony, was chosen assistant and magistrate annually until the May 1637 session of the General Court. He also served as treasurer of the plantation from August 1632 until May 1634.14 He may have served in a military capacity at Roxbury; he was one of the eleven members of the commission for military af- fairs established by the General Court in March 1634/5.15
During his tenure as assistant, the Court of Assistants was the principal judicial body in the plantation. Whatever Pynchon's previ- ous lack of judicial experience or training, his extensive participa- tion in hearing and determining causes, both civil and criminal, com- ing before the Court of Assistants must have given him considerable experience with the judicial process as it operated in Massachusetts Bay. However, the fact that in 1630 Pynchon was not one of the assist- ants granted the powers of a justice of the peace for the reformation of abuses and the punishing of offenders and that prior to 1637 he was named by the Court of Assistants in only one commission and one reference indicates that he was not regarded as a judicial stal- wart.16
While virtually all the records of his business activities have been lost, William Pynchon is regarded as one of the most important fur traders in Massachusetts Bay prior to 1650. An entry in Winthrop's Journal for October 30, 1631 concerning the wreck of "Mr. Pyn- chon's boat, coming from Sagadahock" indicates that he had brought over some capital and was engaged in trade with the port established on the Sagadahoc River by inhabitants of New Plymouth.17 A year later he agreed to give twenty-five pounds for his beaver trade for the year in return for remission of the twelve pence per pound im- posed by the plantation in June 1632 on all beaver skins received in trade with the Indians. However, this agreement was made "in re- gard of a benefit by an order of Court . .. that there should be but one in a town to trade in beaver," and, since the order was not ob- served and Pynchon's trade was less, he only made allowance at the twelve pence per pound rate. However, Pynchon's recomputed al- lowance of twenty pounds for his trade made up a substantial por- tion of the monies he accounted for, in his capacity of treasurer, as
14 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 99, 128, 136, 148; 8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (2nd ser.) 228-235. Perhaps because of his experience as Treasurer, Pynchon in September 1634, was charged by the General Court with the receipt and distribution of some mili- tary supplies furnished by Dr. Edmund Wilson for use of the plantation. A fine of a noble (6s., 8d.) for nonattendance on September 7, 1630 may have helped make
Pynchon a regular attendant at meetings of the Court of Assistants. 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 75.
15 1 Wright, Story Western Mass. 119; 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 138; 1 Winthrop, Hist. New England 186-187. See also Brennan, "The Massachusetts Council of the Magis- trates," 4 N. Eng. Quart. 54, 58-59.
16 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 74, 96, 144.
17 1 Winthrop, Hist. New England 76.
11
WILLIAM PYNCHON
received from the beaver trade.18 In addition to his fur trading, it seems likely that he engaged in farming at Roxbury.19
It has been assumed that William Pynchon removed from Rox- bury to the banks of the Connecticut River to obtain a more advan- tageous location for his beaver trade but supporting evidence is scant.20 Massachusetts Bay had lagged behind the Dutch and New Plymouth in settling the Connecticut Valley and it was not until May 1635 that the inhabitants of Roxbury were granted liberty to remove to another location, provided they continued under the Bay government. In the last half of 1635 settlers arriving in substantial numbers from the Bay made an effective beginning of the settle- ments along the Connecticut at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethers- field.21
18 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 96, 100; 8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (2nd ser.) 231-232. The justice of Pynchon's account was recog- nized by the General Court in March 1634/5 when it remitted five pounds due under its agreement with Pynchon at the time it repealed the June 1632 order. 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 140-141. See also the im- position by the General Court in May 1634 of a five-pound fine upon Thomas Mayhew and Pynchon for violation of an order against employing Indians to use firearms and of five pounds upon the Court of Assistants which authorized such conduct, the fines being remitted. 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 118. Wright states that Pynchon had asked to have the Indians armed be- cause beaver could not be obtained other- wise. 1 Story Western Mass. 120. The same court imposed a five-pound fine, also re- mitted, upon Pynchon for refusal to pay his part of the last rate for Roxbury with- out distraint, on the ground that Roxbury was not equally rated with other towns. 1 ibid. 136. See also Winthrop's account in 1 Winthrop, Hist. New England 186. Wright states that the basis of Pynchon's objection was that the Roxbury lands were not the same fertile meadows as in other towns. 1 Story Western Mass. 119.
19 See the description of the town in Wood's New England's Prospect, the earli- est topographical account of Massachusetts (1634) , reprinted in 1 Memorial History of Boston (ed. J. Winsor, 1880) 403.
20 Moloney, The Fur Trade in New England, 1620-1676 (1931) 49-50. One publication attributes Pynchon's motiva- tion to his "instinct for adventure."
Springfield 1636-1936, p. 4, published by the 300th Anniversary Committee, May 1936. A recent writer states that Pynchon was not in sympathy with the rigid Cal- vinism of the church at Roxbury. J. L. Cox, "Governor William Pynchon," 3 Hist. Pub. Soc. Col. Wars in Commonwealth Pa., No. 3 (1950) p. 5. No evidence found supports the statement (see 1 Lockwood, Hist. Western Mass. 1) that Pynchon was much interested in accounts furnished Governor Winthrop in 1631 by the Indian sachem Wahginnicut of fertile regions in the west. John Winthrop gave as reasons for the migration to the Connecticut Val- ley: the lack of accommodation for cattle in the Bay; the fruitfulness and commodi- ousness of Connecticut; and the "strong bent of their spirit to remove thither." By- ington, The Puritan in England and New England (1896) 189. It has been stated that the Dutch in 1633-34 attempted to se- cure exclusive trading rights from the In- dians in the vicinity of what was later to be Springfield and that Pynchon was aware of such attempt. 1 Wright, Story Western Mass. 123; 1 Lockwood, Hist. Western Mass. 90-91. The basis for the statement as to the Dutch is Bradford. Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-47 (ed. S. E. Morison, 1953) 270.
21 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 146; 2 Andrews, Col. Period Amer. Hist. 73; Andrews, The Beginnings of Connecticut, 1632-1662 (Pub. Ter. Comm. State Conn., 1934) 3; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 281; 1 Stiles, The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut (1891) 28- 30.
1 2
INTRODUCTION
When Pynchon made his first trip to the Connecticut River and how extensive his explorations were before he settled upon a site at Agawam, on the west bank of the Great River where it is joined by the Agawam or Westfield River, are subjects of speculation. An accepted view is that Pynchon with a few followers, coming in a shal- lop from Boston, visited the site of the proposed settlement in Sep- tember 1635, entered into an oral agreement with the Indians to pur- chase the requisite lands, and erected a house on the west bank of the Connecticut.22 The first permanent settlement was made in April or May of 1636 on the east bank of the River (Agawam being too en- cumbered with Indians) ; most of the settlers came overland. On May 14 Pynchon and seven others entered into "articles and orders to be observed and kept" by the signatories. These articles, largely con- cerned with the division of the plantation lands, expressed the in- tent to procure "some Godly and faithfull minister" and contem- plated a settlement not exceeding fifty families.23
Pynchon's role in establishing the plantation is indicated by a recital in the articles that "Mr. William Pynchon, Jehu Burr and Henry Smith have constantly continued to prosecute this plantation when others fell off for feare of the difficultys, and continued to pros- ecute the same at greate charges and at greate personall adventures." The minister procured was George Moxon, a Cambridge graduate ordained in 1626 and a former chaplain to Sir Edward Brereton; he had been censured several times by the Bishop of Chester for ignor- ing the ceremonies of the Church while serving in a Lancastershire parish.24 He makes several appearances in the Record.
An agreement whereby title to the lands was obtained from the Indians was entered into on July 15, 1636; it reserved certain hunt- ing and fishing privileges to the Indians.25 It is probable that by this
22 1 Lockwood, Hist. Western Mass. 92; 1 Wright, Story Western Mass. 124-128. Cf. 1 Burt, Hist. Springfield 156 that the trip was overland. The references in the Dutch records to the establishment in 1635 of a trading post above Fort Hope on the Connecticut by a "Pinsen" or "Prinsen" apparently confuse Pynchon with Captain Holmes. See 1 Doc. Rel. Col. Hist. N.Y. 543, 565; 2 ibid. 134. Oliver B. Morris in his Bi-Centennial Address at First Church in Springfield, May 25, 1836 (reprinted in 1 Papers and Proc. Conn. Valley Hist. Soc. 298, 305-306) stated that: "From a some- what minute examination of our ancient records, and manuscripts, I am induced to believe that Mr. Pynchon with his son-in- law Henry Smith, and Jehu Burr, and per-
haps others of Roxbury, visited this river in 1634, explored the valley, and selected a place for their future settlement."
23 1 Wright, Story Western Mass. 130- 131, 144-145; 48 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 29; 1 Burt, Hist. Springfield 156-158. On March 17, 1635/6 Pynchon sold approxi- mately £200 of goods at Roxbury, largely cloth, to John Winthrop, Jr. 3 Winthrop Papers 238, 255, 314.
24 1 Burt, Hist. Springfield 157; 1 Wright Story of Western Mass. 183-184; DNB article on George Moxon. The state- ment that Moxon moved to Agawam to be near his "old friend and neighbor," Wil- liam Pynchon, is without support.
25 Indian Deeds of Hampden County (ed. H. A. Wright, 1905) 11-12. The con-
1 3
WILLIAM PYNCHON
time Pynchon had commenced his trading operations. A warehouse constructed later on the lower end of Enfield Falls, the head of navi- gation for seagoing vessels, at what is still called Warehouse Point, played a large part in the success of these operations.26 This site af- forded easy access to the upper reaches of the Connecticut, to the Bay via overland paths, and to the Mohawk country via the Westfield River.
At the time of the Agawam settlement the General Court had already taken steps to govern those inhabitants who had settled or intended settlement along the Connecticut River by granting a com- mission on March 3, 1635/6, limited to a one-year period, to Roger Ludlow, William Pynchon, John Steele, William Swaine, Henry Smith, William Phelpes, William Westwood, and Andrew Ward, or the greater part of them, with full authority to hear and determine all differences which might arise between party and party, as well as misdemeanors, to inflict capital punishment or imprisonment, and to impose fines. Also granted was the power to make such orders for the peaceable and quiet ordering the affairs of the plantation as best conduced to the public good. The powers granted were to be exer- cised as a court to which the inhabitants of the River towns were to be convented, although the power to inflict corporal punishment might be exercised by two commissioners, if the occasion warranted.27
Under this commission a number of meetings were held in the River towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, although Pyn- chon attended only one. After the expiration of the commission by its terms in March 1636/7 the inhabitants of the River towns in ef- fect set up an independent government by electing magistrates, in- cluding Pynchon and Henry Smith, and sending "committees" of deputies from each town to join with magistrates in a Connecticut "General Court." 28 From the start the relation between Pynchon and this de facto government was marked by friction. Having de- clared war against the Pequots at a meeting at which he was not present, the government, cautioning Pynchon to avoid betrayal by friendship with the Indians, not only failed to afford any protection
sideration, £30 of wampum, blanket-coats, hatchets, hoes, and knives, was advanced by Pynchon who was not reimbursed until 1647. 1 Lockwood, Hist. Western Mass. 98-99.
26 See the June 2, 1636 letter to John Winthrop, Jr., in charge of the Saybrook plantation at "the Rivers Mouth," ac- knowledging receipt of some wampum. 48 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 38-39. An Octo- ber 5, 1684 reference in the Enfield com-
mittee book refers to the former ware- house at Warehouse Point built forty- eight years earlier by William Pynchon. 1 Allen, The History of Enfield, Connecti- cut (1900) 92-93. Wright also refers to a Pynchon warehouse at Saybrook under the charge of Stephen Winthrop. 1 Story Western Mass. 152.
27 1 Rec. Mass. Bay 170-171.
28 1 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn. 1-3, 5-7.
14
INTRODUCTION
to outlying Agawam, but even pressed into service one of Pynchon's boats. Later, when a tax to defray the costs of the war was levied upon Agawam, Pynchon protested a prior understanding "that if we would look to ourselves you would expect no more at our handes," that the defensive measures employed at Agawam "have not been chargeable to any of you" and that, in any event, he had been rated for the war in the Bay for his whole estate.29
Another source of annoyance was the adoption of a system, simi- lar to that formerly in effect in the Bay, of granting rights in the beaver trade to one or two persons in each town in return for a pay- ment of one shilling per skin. Pynchon, granted the monopoly at Agawam, may have doubted the enforceability of the exclusive fea- tures of such grants. Or, he may have been concerned that he was being taxed for a monopoly he in fact already enjoyed when he com- plained that, "I cannot see how it can well stand with the public good and the liberty of free men to make a monopole of trade." 30
The most serious controversy developed over a shortage of corn, with its threat of ensuing famine, which developed in the River towns as a result of the poor crop harvested in 1637, the year of the Pequot hostilities. To alleviate the shortage, the General Court of the towns in March 1637/8 instructed Pynchon to purchase corn from the Indians at about five shillings per bushel. Others were for- bidden to trade for corn with the Indians, except in case of neces- sity. When Pynchon attempted to carry out his mandate, he found the Indians at Agawam unwilling to sell at the stipulated price and so informed the Hartford authorities. The General Court promptly sent Captain John Mason, conqueror of the Pequots, up the river to obtain the necessary supply. Mason obtained little or no corn at the prices he offered and returned to Hartford convinced that Pynchon was attempting to profit by the shortage.31
Shortly after Mason's return the General Court summoned Pyn- chon before it on charges of "unfaithful dealing in the trade of corne" and breach of his oath as a magistrate, alleging that Pynchon had obstructed Mason in the performance of his mission by forbid- ding the Indians to trade with the Captain and by refusing to pro- cure a canoe needed for their transportation to Woronoco. Pynchon replied that he had sought to have the Indians do business with Ma- son and that, even when his own family and neighbors were in want of corn, he had refused to exceed the maximum price fixed by his
29 8 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (2nd ser.) 235-237; 58 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 387-388; 64 ibid. 83. Bliss found no indication that Agawam contributed either money or troops to the Pequot war. An Address, De-
livered at the Opening of the Town-Hall in Springfield, March 24, 1828 (1828) . 30 58 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 388.
31 1 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn. 11, 13, 16; 48 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 40-48.
15
WILLIAM PYNCHON
instructions in order to induce the Indians to sell. The use of the canoe had been refused by its owner who needed it during the plant- ing season.32
The General Court, in the course of its hearings, sent for the Reverend Thomas Hooker, then pastor of the Hartford Church, and Samuel Stone, teacher, for an opinion on the questions involved. Hooker accused Pynchon of holding off buying in order to obtain a monopoly and delivered his judgment that Pynchon had broken his oath. Following Hooker's opinion, the Court fined Pynchon forty bushels of corn as "he was not soe carefull to promote the publicque good in the trade of corne as hee was bounde to doe." Pynchon's jus- tification came within a few months when Mason, with a show of arms and threats of force, still was compelled to pay twelve shillings a bushel in order to obtain any corn from the Indians.33
Pynchon did not submit tamely to the General Court's judgment. A statement of his, probably presented to the General Court, shows reliance upon principles of English law, buttressed with a reference to "Sir John Fortescue in his treatise of Rights." 34 The charges against Pynchon in connection with the corn purchases were also taken up to the elders of the church at Windsor but, after several years delay, were apparently referred to the church at Roxbury which eventually, it has been assumed, cleared Pynchon of any fault in the matter.35
Despite the judgment passed upon Pynchon by the Connecticut General Court, Roger Ludlow on May 29, 1638, in behalf of that body, commissioned John Haynes, William Pynchon, and John Steele to treat with the Massachusetts authorities as to some "rules, articles and agreements" for the purpose of combining and uniting the Con- necticut plantations with Massachusetts Bay, in accordance with some preliminary discussions held in Boston the previous summer. While the records of the meeting have not survived, it appears that in June at a meeting in Cambridge of the Massachusetts General Court, Pyn- chon, to the consternation of his fellow commissioners, expressed a desire to remain under the Massachusetts Bay government.36 Some
32 48 ibid. 40-51.
33 48 ibid. 43-48; 1 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn. 19. See also Perry Miller, "Thomas Hooker and the Democracy of Early Connecticut," 4 N. Eng. Quart. (1931) 663, 710-711, and the same author's more recent account in Errand into the Wilderness (1956) 45-46. 34 48 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 47-48.
35 48 ibid. 48-50; Morison, William Pynchon 87; Cox,
Governor William Pynchon 8.
36 Morison, William Pynchon 87; Cox, Governor William Pynchon, 8. Baldwin, "The Secession of Springfield from Connec- ticut," 12 Pub. Col. Soc. Mass. 68-69. See also Ludlow's communication to the Bay authorities on the mission of the Connec- ticut commissioners. 4 Winthrop Papers, 36-37. At a July 23, 1649 meeting of the Commissioners for the United Colonies the Connecticut commissioners stated that Pynchon's "apprehension that Springfield
1 6
INTRODUCTION
light is cast upon this meeting by a passage from Winthrop's Journal written at a later date:
The differences between us and those of Connecticut were divers; but the ground of all was their shyness of coming under our government, which, though we never intended to make them subordinate to us, yet they were very jealous.37
The attitude of the River towns toward Pynchon's desertion is most vividly expressed in a famous letter from Thomas Hooker to John Winthrop, written in December 1638, concerning the "busi- ness of Agaam." As might be expected, the characterization of Pyn- chon's conduct is harsh.38
Hooker, in emphasizing the inconvenience and charges of Aga- wam settlers seeking justice in small causes in courts located in the Bay, failed to appreciate that, following the example of the River towns, the Agawam inhabitants might also establish their own court. Such establishment in fact took place on February 14, 1638/9 and constitutes the first entry in the Record.
However, it was not until June 2, 1641 that Agawam, by then called Springfield after the birthplace of its founder, was integrated into the Massachusetts Bay frame of government. On this date, the General Court made answer to a petition of William Pynchon and others of Springfield that some of their neighbors upon the Connecti- cut had taken offense at petitioners for adhering to Massachusetts Bay and withdrawing from the General Court on the River, on the supposition that petitioners had been dismissed from the Massachu- setts jurisdiction and that the General Court of the Bay had bound itself by its own act from claiming any jurisdiction or interest in Agawam, now Springfield.39
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