Mr. James Hammond Trumbull, the author of the work entitled “The Blue
Laws of Connecticut and New Haven, and the False Blue Laws invented by
the Rev. Samuel Peters,” which has just made its appearance, attempts
to throw discredit on the work of Dr. Peters, and represents it as a
fiction, and a calumny upon the early settlers of Connecticut.
Mr. Trumbull seems to have spared no trouble in his researches to show
that no such laws as the “Blue Laws” represented by Dr. Peters were in
existence, and to impress this more forcibly upon the public he gives
the laws of 1639, 1650, and 1656; when, had he looked more carefully
at the doctor’s “History of Connecticut,” he would have found he
alluded to them in these words: “The laws made by the independent
Dominion, and nominated the Blue Laws by the neighboring colonies,
were never suffered to be printed;” nevertheless, Mr. Trumbull shows
that there were laws at that time equally repugnant, though clothed in
more subtile phraseology, but pointing to the same result, and that
these laws were rigidly enforced.
Dr. Peters’s “History of Connecticut” was published in London, in
1781, and possibly there are not twenty persons living who have ever
read it. As its truthfulness was unpalatable to the Connecticut
colony, the issue that came to this country, I believe, was publicly
burnt, and the court prohibited the republishing of the work in the
State; consequently it has become a very rare work, so much so that in
March, 1877, a copy, at a sale of old works, brought the fabulous
price of one hundred and fifteen dollars, demonstrating the fact that
but few remained in existence.
The appearance, therefore, of Mr. Trumbull’s work gives the public but
one side of the case; under these circumstances I have been induced to
republish the work from the original copy belonging to Dr. Peters,
using notes and quotations from writers and authors of high repute,
and from documents and manuscripts written before the Revolutionary
War, which have come into my possession since Mr. Trumbull’s work has
appeared, and which, I believe, will show the unbiased public that Mr.
Trumbull has not been guided solely by unselfishness in attempting to
wipe out the ridicule entailed on Connecticut by the early Blue Laws;
but he still retains a little of the fanaticism, bigotry, and spleen,
so justly attributed to his ancestor, who was the cause of driving Dr.
Peters from his native country; and he would now attempt to cast
discredit upon a work that was well received in the State by the
intelligent portion of the community, and indorsed as a true history.
In writing of the “Blue Laws,” Prof. De Vere, of the University of
Virginia, in his volume on “Americanisms,” published in 1872, says,
“They are confirmed without a doubt.” The late Rev. A. B. Chapin, in
his article published in the _Churchman_ of Hartford, Connecticut,
August 19, 1876, entitled “Was the History of Connecticut a
Fabrication?” says, “If Dr. Peters had had my advantages he might have
been a worse historian for Connecticut than he has been already.” I
might continue such quotations from persons of equally high standing,
but my object is to let the work stand upon its merits, giving it to
the public as it left the author’s hands, merely adding such portions
as I find in the unpublished manuscripts in my possession, relating
chiefly to the doctor himself, and the cause of his having to leave
the country; also to the action taken by the colony of Connecticut for
the relief of the destroyers of the teas in Boston.
It has not been for the purpose of obtaining a character for the work,
which it did not before possess, that I again bring it before the
public; but that they may have both sides of the case for their view,
joined with that of defending my ancestor, the author, a good and
venerable old clergyman, who was driven from his country, and his
large estates sequestrated, for obeying “the laws of his God, the laws
of his country, and the dictates of his conscience, by the fanatics of
Connecticut,” and from the unjust and unwarrantable attacks of Mr.
Trumbull.