History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 6

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But whether the Northmen were or were not the first Euro- pean explorers of the New World, it is certain that in the year 1497, but five years after Columbus made his first voyage, the Cabots-father and sons-discovered and explored the coast of North America in the region of New England, thus laying the foundation of the British claim to such vast American pos- sessions.

John Cabot was a merchant of Venice, who settled at Bris- tol, invited by the peaceful commercial policy of Henry VII. __ On the 5th day of March, 1496, Henry granted to John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sancius, and Sebastian,-the last of whom, Sebastian, was born in England, at Bristol, in 1477,- his royal letters-patent authorizing them to "sail to all parts, countries, and seas of the East and of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensigns, with five ships of what burden or quantity soever they may be, to seek out, discover, and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they may be, and in what part of the world soever they may be, which before this time have been unknown to all Christians."

The Cabots, by these letters-patent, were to occupy, subdue, possess, and govern such regions as they might discover for their own behoof, but in the name of England, the king to have one-fifth part of the profits of the enterprise. This was the first patent for discovery issued by the British crown.

In May, 1497, Cabot, with his son Sebastian, set out on his voyage. His fleet consisted of two, or perhaps five ships, with three hundred men on board. The expedition touched

at Iceland, and from thence sailed boldly into the unknown, mysterious west in search of gold and empire. They were the first in the search for the still undiscovered northwest passage to the " harbor of Cathay," on the eastern shore of Asia, all unconscious of the mighty continent which lay between them and the object of their desire. Unexpectedly soon they reached the shores of Newfoundland or Labrador. Cabot first sailed northwardly along the coast in search of the northwestern passage as far as the sixty-seventh degree of north latitude. Although in July, the cold became intense, and he reversed his course, and sailed south as far as the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude. Failing in his object he returned, taking to the king as trophies three American Indians. The Cabots probably saw nothing but the bays and headlands along the shores, but upon their discovery rests England's claim to her North American possessions.

The next year the king renewed his patent to John Cabot. But John Cabot presently died, and whether his son Sebastian made a second voyage to America is one of history's unsolved problems.

In the year 1500 the Portugese admiral, Gasper Cortereal, made a voyage to America, sailed along the coast some six or seven hundred miles, and returned with a number of Indian captives, giving glowing accounts of the country.

John Verazzano, a Florentine, sailing in the service of France, in the year 1524 made a voyage to America, which was followed by results as important to France as Cabot's voyage was to England. Verazzano, during this voyage, lay at anchor for fifteen days in what is now the harbor of New- port, and entered the Hudson River more than eighty years before the visit of the explorer whose name it bears. About the same time, in the year 1524 or 1525, Stephen Gomez was fitted out at the joint expense of the Emperor Charles V. and some merchants of Coruña and sent on a voyage in quest of the northwest passage. le first touched at Newfound- land, and then passing Cape Cod, sailed through Long Island Sound, and also entered the Hudson, which he named the Rio de San Antonio. In the year 1655, Jacques Cartier, the emi- nent mariner of St. Malo, in Brittany, on the 10th of August of that year, it being the festival of St. Lawrence, discovered the bay and river of that name, and laid the foundation of the French claim to Canada.

These discoveries opened a large field for industry and tempt- ing sources of profit to European adventurers. As early as the year 1503, only three years behind Cortereal, fishing-vessels began to arrive at Newfoundland and along the coast from Brittany and Normandy, and by the year 1517, only twenty years after the voyage of the Cabots, no less than fifty ships, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, were engaged in these fish- eries.

Henry VIII. paid little attention to American discovery. It was not until the year 1548, during the reign of Edward VI., that Parliament took the matter in hand, and passed laws protecting English fishermen on the American coast.

But it was not until during the last half of the reign of Elizabeth that a permanent settlement of the American con- tinent was undertaken by Englishmen. Sir Humphrey Gil- bert was the half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and his fellow-soldier in the Protestant armies of France. He had been a member of Parliament, was well versed in geographical and commercial knowledge, and the well-known author of a " Discourse to prove a Passage by the Northwest to Cathaia and the East Indies."

With Raleigh, he cordially embraced the scheme of the colonization of North America. Mexico, the West Indies, and Peru were pouring immense wealth into Spain. How could London and Bristol behold unmoved the strange pros- perity of Cadiz ? The queen gave Sir Humphrey Gilbert a patent, conveying privileges on him similar to those granted by Henry VII. to John Cabot. He and his heirs were to be

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

proprietors of such countries, paying homage therefor to the crown of England, together with one-fifth part of all precious metals found. Sir Humphrey was given admiralty jurisdic- tion over neighboring seas as well as full power to govern on the land. After making his first attempt, which proved abortive, Gilbert finally set sail the second time, on the 11th of June, 1583, with two hundred and sixty men in five ships. He reached the coast of North America, on the fifty-first parallel, north latitude, July 30, and on the 3d of August entered the harbor of St. John, in Newfoundland. On the 5th of Angnst he landed, and, pitching his tent on shore, called around him the commanders of the thirty-six fishing- vessels of different nations he had found there, and, with imposing ceremonies, took possession of the territory in the name of the British crown. Ilis commission was read and interpreted, a turf and a twig were formally delivered to him in token of investiture and of allegiance to the crown, and proclamation made of his authority to govern the country for two hundred leagues on every side. He set up a pillar with the royal arms affixed thereto graven on lead, and made grants of land in severalty for erecting stands for euring fish.

But this attempt of Sir Humphrey Gilbert at settlement, the first made by Englishmen on American soil, heads also the long list of frustrated settlements whose sad details are more interesting to the historian than those of many a suc- cessful one. His search for gold was unavailing. His com- pany was unused to hardships, and many sickened and died. One disaster followed another, and, utterly discouraged, Gil- bert sailed for England. He took passage himself on the least seaworthy vessel, thus choosing the place of danger ; and on the 9th of September his little ship, in a violent storm, went to the bottom, and every soul on board perished. The last words he was heard to utter by those who survived on other ships were, " We are as near heaven by sea as by land."

After Gilbert's death his patent was renewed to Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in 1584 and the following year, made his attempt to colonize Virginia, so named in honor of England's virgin queen.

EARLIEST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS.

It was in the year 1602, nineteen years after the failure of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, that Bartholomew Gosnold, a mariner of the West of England, under the command and with the consent of Sir Walter Raleigh, at the cost among others of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, in a small ship called the "Concord," set sail for "the north part of Vir- ginia" with a view to the establishment of a colony. Gosnold sailed from Falmouth on the 26th of March, and had with him a company of thirty-two persons, eight of whom were seamen, and twenty men to become planters. On the 14th of May he saw land in Massachusetts Bay, and soon after taking a large quantity of fish near a headland, he named it Cape Cod.

Gosnold, Brereton, and three others went on shore, being the first Englishmen who are known to have set foot on the soil of Massachusetts. Sailing southerly and westerly to the south of Nantucket, Gosnold, after landing at No-man's-land, to which he gave the name Martha's Vineyard, since transferred to the larger island, reached an island now called by the In- dian name of Cut-ty-hunk, where he laid the foundation for a settlement. In three weeks after landing he had dug a cellar, prepared timber, and built a house fortified with palisades after the Indian fashion. A dispute arose between the planters and the sailors as to their provisions, and a party going out in search of shell-fish was attacked by hostile savages. Becom- ing discouraged, at the end of a month from landing on the island Gosnold abandoned his settlement and returned to Eng- land. But his enterprise, although a present failure, was fruit- ful in its consequences. Out of it slowly developed the tinal settlement of New England. Such glowing accounts were given by his men of the fruitfulness of the soil and the sadu-

brity of the climate that other expeditions soon followed. The land was " overgrown," said they, " with wood and rub- bish, viz. : oaks, ashes, beech, walnut, witch-hazel, sassafrage, and cedars, with divers others of unknown name. The rub- bish is wild pease, young sassafrage, cherry-trees, vines, eglan- tine, gooseberry-bushes, hawthorn, honeysuckles, with others of like quality. The herbs and roots are strawberries, rasps, ground-nuts, alexander, surrin, tansy, etc., without count."

In the year 1603, Richard Hakluyt, the learned cosmo- grapher, took an active interest in schemes for the further ex- ploration of North Virginia, as New England was then called, which resulted in the voyage of Martin Pring of that year, and in 1605 Lord Southampton fitted out and sent George Waymouth.

In the mean time, between the years 1603 and 1606, the French, through the Sieur de Monts, came near taking posses- sion of North Virginia. De Monts, with Pontgravé and De Poutrincourt for his lieutenants, and Samuel de Champlain for his pilot, in 1604 set sail for the principality of Acudie, of which he had a patent. Thinking the climate of that region too severe, the next season he embarked for the shores of Mas- sachusetts, and was upon the coast nearly at the same time with Waymouth; but the Indians were hostile, and he did not stay. The next year his companions renewed the voyage, and De Poutrincourt sent a party on shore at Cape Cod to plant a cross in the name of the king of France. The Indians at- tacked his men, killed two and wounded others. His situation . becoming dangerous he returned to Port Royal, leaving North Virginia to become New England, and not New France.

In pursuing this rapid sketch of the early navigators, we now come to many names more prominently identified with the early settlement of the country, conspicuous among which are Sir Fernando Gorges and Capt. John Smith, the one the founder of Virginia, and the other, in a certain sense, the father of Puritan New England.

In the year 1604, Sir Fernando Gorges was made governor of Plymouth. Waymouth, on his return from America in the year 1605, brought with him several Indian captives. Three of these he gave to Gorges. "This accident," writes Gorges, " was the means, under God, of putting on foot and giving life to all our plantations." Gorges took the natives into his house and kept them three years. Ile taught them to speak in the English tongue, and listened with delight to their accounts of the "stately islands and safe harbors" of their native land, " what great rivers ran up into the land, what men of note were seated on them, what power they were of, how allied, what enemies they bad, and the like."*

Sir John Popham, another name conspicuous in early New England history, was then lord chief-justice of the King's Beneh, and Gorges, who had befriended him in former times, obtained his powerful influence at court for authority to renew operations in America. This movement of Gorges and Pop- ham, in the west of England, was seconded by "certain noble- men, knights, gentlemen, and merchants" of London, who were desirous of renewing the attempt made by Raleigh in Virginia.

The result of this joint application was the incorporation of two companies, called in the patent the " First and Second Colony." Both companies were placed under the common supervision of a body called " THE COUNCIL OF VIRGINIA," to be appointed by the crown, and each company was to be governed on the spot by a council appointed in like manner.

The First or London Company had assigned to it South Virginia, being the territory extending from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree of north latitude, with a breadth of fifty miles inland. The Second or Plymouth Company, under the management of " sundry knights, gentlemen, and other adventurers, of the cities of Bristol and Exeter, and of the

* Mass. ITist. Coll., XXVL., 50, 51.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

town of Plymouth, and of other places," was authorized to plant in North Virginia, between the thirty-eighth and forty- fifth parallels. As their territory overlapped in part, neither company was to settle within one hundred miles of land pre- viously occupied by the other. All the rights of British sub- jects were granted to the colonists and their descendants.

Under this last-named patent various abortive attempts at settlement were made by both companies-notably that of Gorges, of the Plymouth Company, to plant a colony at the mouth of the Kennebeck, in Maine, in the year 1607.

But it was not until the year 1614 that a new impetus was given to the settlement of America. In that year Capt. John Smith sailed from London for the American coast, in com- mand of two ships, fitted out by some private adventurers.

The history of John Smith, the founder of Virginia, under the London Company, reads more like some mythical ro- mance of prehistorie times than the sober account of events occurring in the seventeenth century, and in the very days of William Pynchon, the father of Springfield. The fascin- ating story belongs rather to the Old Dominion than to New England.

Suffice it to say that Smith visited the coast of North l'ir- ginia in the year 1614, drew a map of it " from point to point, isle to isle, harbor to harbor, with the soundings, sands, rocks, and_landmarks," and he was the first to call it by the name of New England.

After his failure on the Kennebeck, in 1607, Gorges, in the interest of the Plymouth Company, sent out Richard Vines to New England in 1616-17, and Thomas Dermer in the early summer of 1620, who landed at Plymouth a few months before the Pilgrim Fathers came, and carried back to England the news of the terrible plague among the Indians, that had so nearly depopulated the country.

II.

GREAT PATENT OF NEW ENGLAND.

At length, on the 3d day of November, 1620, King James granted to the Plymouth Company a separate charter of their part of the patent under the control of the " Council of Vir- ginia," and formed them into a separate corporate body, styled in the patent " The Council established in Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England in America."

Of the forty patentees named in this patent thirteen were peers, some of the highest rank, and most of the others were men of distinguished consequence.

The following extracts from this patent will be interesting to New England readers :

"We, therefore, of our special grace, mere motion, and certain knowledge, by the advice of the lords and others of our privy council, have, for us, our heirs, and successors, grauted, ordained, and established that all that circuit, con- tinent, precinets, and limits in America lying and being in breadth from forty degrees of northerly latitude from the equinoctial line to forty-eight degrees of the said northerly latitude, and in length hy all the breadth aforesaid, through- out the main land, from sea to sea, with all the seas, rivers, islands, creeks, inlets, ports, and havens within the degrees, precincts, and limits of the said latitude and longitude, shall be the limits, and bounds, atd preciucts of the said second colony."

" And to the end that the said territories may forever hereafter be more par- ticularly and certainly known and distinguished, our will and pleasure is that the same shall from henceforth be nominated, termed, and called by the name of NEW ENGLAND in America; and by that name of New England in America, the said cireuit, precinct, limit, continent, islands, and places in America aforesaid, we do, by these presents, for us, our heirs, and successors, name, call, erect, found, and establish, and by that name to have continuance forever."

As it is a matter of interest to the people of the present day to know who were the " principal knights and gentlemen and other persons of quality" who were the real projectors and founders of the New England colonies resident in England, some of whom came over to this side and many of whom were represented in the infant settlements by their near relatives and friends, we give below a list of the first patentees and proprietors with their titles as recited in the patent : 4

"Our right trusty and right well-beloved consin and counselor, Lodowick, Duke of Lenox, Jord stewart of our household; George, Lord Marquis Buckin- ham, our high admiral of England; James, Marquis Hamilton ; William, Earl of Pembroke, lord chamberlain of our household; Thomas, Earl of Arundel; and our right trusty and right well-beloved consin, William, Earl of Bath; and our right trusty and right well-beloved rousin and counselor, llenry, Earl of South- ampton ; and our right trusty and well-beloved cousins, William, Earl of Salsbury, and Robert, Earl of Warwick ; and our right trusty and right well-beloved John, Viscount lloddington ; and our right trusty and well-beloved counselor, Ed- ward, Lord Zouch, lord warden of our cinque ports; and our trusty and well-be- loved Elmond, Lord Sheffield; Elward, Lord Gorges; and our well-beloved Sir Edward Seymour, Knight and Baronet ; Sir Robert Mansel; Sir Edward Zouch, our knight marshal ; Sir Dudley Diggs, Sir Thomas Roc, Sir Ferdinando Gor- ges, Sir Francis Popham, Sir John Brooks, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Richard Haw- kins, Sir Richard Edgecomb, Sir Allen Apsley, Sir Warwick Heale, Sir Richard Catchmay, Sir John Bourgchin, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Edward Giles, Sir Giles Mompesson, Sir Thomas Worth, Knights; and our well-beloved Matthew Sut- cliff, Dean of Exeter; Rubert Heath, Esq., Recorder of our city of London; Henry Bourgchin, John Drake, Raleigh Gilbert, George ( 'hadley, Thomas Ilamon, and John Argall, Esquires to be. . . the first modern and present council, es- tablished at Plymouth in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and guverning of New England in America."

It will be seen that at the very date this patent of New Eng- land was granted a little ship-the " Mayflower"-was on the ocean with its precious freight,-the Pilgrim Fathers,- who were destined to be its first permanent settlers.

III.

THIE CHARTER OF THE COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

Following closely upon the patent of New England, and being the immediate title of settlers of the Connectiont Valley in Massachusetts, came the colony charter.

The charter of the colony of Massachusetts was granted by King Charles I., in the third year of his reign, on the 4th day of March, 1628.

The charter made and constituted the persons below-named, among whom was William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, "one body corporate and politick in faet and name, by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," viz. : Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Younge, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Southeott, John Humfrey, John Endicott, Simon Whetcome, Isaac Johnson, Samuel Aldersey, John Ven, Matthew Cradock, George Harwood, Increase Nowell, Richard Puey, Richard Billingham, Na- thaniel Wright, Samuel Vas-all, Theophilus Eaton, Thomas Goffe, Thomas Adams, John Browne, Samuel Browne, Thomas Hutchins, William Vassall, William Pinchion, and George Foxerofte.

This charter was brought over to New England in the year 1630, by Jobn Winthrop, and the colony founded.

CHAPTER VIL

THE NEW ENGLAND PEOPLE-ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS-THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND-THE PURITAN FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. I.

THE NEW ENGLAND PEOPLE.

THIE early settlers of the Valley of the Connecticut in Massachusetts were ahnost without exception English Puri- tans. Of a truth almost all the inhabitants of the valley, up to the beginning of the present century, were descendants of English Puritans. "Civilized New England," says John Gorham Palfrey, " is the child of English Puritanism." The English emigration to New England began with the Pilgrim Fathers in the year 1620. It was not until 1680, ten years later, that they came in any considerable numbers. Ten years later still, in 1640, the English emigration to New England almost ceased. During the twenty years of this active move- ment about twenty thousand English people in all came to New England. These twenty thousand people thenceforth, for over a century and a half, multiplied on their own soil in remarkable seclusion from other communities who were their

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

neighbors in the New World. "Till the time of the Boston Port Bill, eighty-four years ago," says Palfrey, writing in 1858, " Massachusetts and Virginia, the two principal English colonies, had with each other searcely more relations of ac- quaintance, business, mutual influence, or common action, than either of them had with Jamaica or Quebec."* Thus isolated and almost free from foreign influences, this remark- able people preserved its identity quite unimpaired. During all this long period of one hundred and fifty years it was making of itself a homogeneous race, and as such was forming a distinct character and working out its own problems in re- ligion and government. It is true that some small settlements were composed of other elements, and there were from time to time small aceessions to its numbers from abroad. Thus, in 1651, Cromwell, after the battles of Dunbar and Worcester, exiled some four or five hundred of his Scotch prisoners to Massachusetts Bay, few traces of whom are left. In the year 1685, after Louis XIV. had revoked the Edict of Nantes, about one hundred and fifty families of French Huguenots came to Massachusetts, and in 1719 about one hundred and twenty families of Scotch-Irish came over and settled in Lon- donderry, N. H., and elsewhere in New England. But these few strangers had no perceptible influence upon the sturdy New England character. In the solitudes of the old primeval wilderness this remarkable people worked out its own high destiny in suffering and in faith. The reader must bear in mind, however, the distinction that is made in New England history between the Pilgrim Fathers, of Plymouth, and the Puritan Fathers, of Massachusetts Bay. Although both are of English Puritan stock, yet they differ in this : the Pilgrim Fathers, who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, separated from the Church of England several years before they fled to Holland, from whence they came to America, while the Puri- tan Fathers, who mostly landed at the Massachusetts Bay, about the year 1630, did not separate from the English Church until after their arrival here. In fact, their first religious services after their arrival were in strict accordance with the Book of Common Prayer, save in such matters of non-con- formance as had led to their coming here. With the Pilgrim Fathers no ministers came. Their religious services were conducted by laymen for several years after their arrival.

The ministers who came with the Puritan Fathers were without exception all regularly-ordained clergymen of the Church of England. It is true the most of them had been silenced in the mother-country for non-conformity, yet their full connection with the church had not been lawfully severed.

ORIGIN OF THE PURITANS.

Christianity, it is probable, was first planted in Britain in the beginning of the second century by the carly Christian fathers, if it was not even earlier by Saint Paul himself, as some say. It is known to have existed there in the fourth eentury, and that British bishops during that period attended the general councils of the church on more than one occasion. The Saxons invaded England about the middle of the fifth century, and not only drove out the ancient British people, but nearly ex- terminated the early British church.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 6

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700