In the year 1661, when the city of New Haven was a small village
not much more than twenty years old, a family of boys named
Sperry lived out on a farm some two or three miles west of that
settlement. There was only one house then besides theirs outside
the town in that direction and the woods all about were thick and
wild.
That summer something mysterious was going on near the Sperry
farm. Every morning Richard Sperry himself, or one of his boys,
carried food, in dishes covered with a cloth, into the woods on
the steep side of West Rock about a mile from the house, and left
it there on a stump. Every evening he, or one of his sons, went
for the empty bowls and brought them home. The boys were curious
to know who had eaten the food, for they never met any one coming
or going, and never saw any one up on the Rock. In reply their
father told them that there were men at work in the forest near
by; yet they never heard voices nor the sound of an axe, and it
was only long afterward that they learned the real reason for
what they had done. If one of the boys had waited long enough
some morning, lying still and hidden in the bushes, he might have
seen a man come slowly and cautiously through the woods toward
him, a dignified, grave-looking person with something foreign in
his dress, something soldierly in his bearing, as if he were
accustomed to commanding others; he might have watched this
stranger--so different from the people he knew--take up the
dishes of food and disappear again into the dark forest. And he
would have wondered why a man like that, who was evidently not a
hunter and not a new settler, should be hiding in the woods
around New Haven.
Twelve years before, in England, this same man had taken part in
a very different scene. There was a great trial held in the
stately old Hall of Westminster and the prisoner at the bar was
the King of England himself, and among the fifty-nine judges who
condemned him to death was the man who was now hunted for his own
life and was in hiding near the Sperry farm that summer, three
thousand miles away from all he loved in England.
There were nearly one hundred men who had some part, large or
small, in the trial and death of King Charles the First, and all
of them were in great danger eleven years later when the
Royalists returned to power and his son, Charles the Second,
became king. A few who had very little to do with the king's
sentence were pardoned; others were seized at once, tried,
condemned, and executed in the barbarous way the English law then
allowed, and still others tried to escape by leaving England.
Some got safely to the Continent and wandered about from one
foreign city to another, trying to pass unnoticed in the crowd,
and always in danger of being discovered and arrested by the
messengers the English Government sent after them.
Three of them came to New England and spent some time in
Connecticut. This is their story.
Early in May, 1660, a ship named the Prudent Mary lay at
Gravesend near London, getting ready to sail under her master,
Captain Pierce, for the colonies in the new world. Two of the
regicides, General Edward Whalley and General William Goffe, had
taken passage in her, but they dared not sail under their own
names and they came aboard as Edward Richardson and William
Stephenson. While the ship was waiting in Gravesend the new king
was proclaimed. That was on Saturday, May 12. The next day
General Goffe wrote in his diary,--"May 13. Wee kept Sabbath
abord."
On Monday they sailed and were happy to get away from England
before an order could be given for their arrest. The ships of
those days were very small and the little Prudent Mary took ten
weeks to make her way across the ocean, but at last Goffe wrote
in his journal: "July 27. We came to anchor between Boston and
Charlestown; between 8 and 9 in the morning; all in good health
through the good hand of God upon us."
When the judges landed they were among friends, for most of the
people in New England were of their political party. They took
their own names again, called on the Governor of Massachusetts
Bay Colony and went about freely. Goffe's diary says: "Aug. 9.
Went to Boston lecture and heard Mr. Norton. Went afterwards to
his house where we were lovingly entertained with many ministers
and found great respects from them." And on the 26th: "We visited
Elder Frost, who received us with great kindness and love."
This diary and his letters show that Goffe was sincere and
religious, but his life tells us that he was brave and energetic
too. He had made his own way, and both he and Whalley, who was
his father-in-law, had been important men in England; they were
major-generals who had fought in great battles and had taken part
in great events in history. There is an old story about their
skill in fencing.
"At Boston," so the story runs, "there appeared a gallant person,
some say a fencing-master, who, on a stage erected for the
purpose, walked for several days challenging and defying any to
play with him at swords. At length one of the judges disguised in
a rustic dress, holding in one hand a cheese wrapped in a napkin
for a shield, with a broomstick, whose mop he had besmeared with
dirty puddle water as he passed along, mounted the stage. The
fencing-master railed at him for his impudence, asked what
business he had there, and bade him begone. The judge stood his
ground, upon which the gladiator made a pass at him with his
sword to drive him off. An encounter ensued. The judge received
the sword into the cheese and held it till he drew the mop of the
broom over the other's mouth, and gave the gentleman a pair of
whiskers. The gentleman made another pass, and plunging his sword
a second time, it was caught and held in the cheese till the
broom was drawn over his eyes. At a third lunge, the sword was
caught again, till the mop of the broom was rubbed gently all
over his face. Upon this, the gentleman let fall, or laid aside,
his small sword and took up the broadsword and came at him with
that, upon which the judge said, 'Stop, sir! Hitherto, you see, I
have only played with you and have not attempted to hurt you, but
if you come at me now with the broadsword, know that I will
certainly take your life.' The firmness and determination with
which he spoke struck the gentleman, who, desisting, exclaimed,
'Who can you be? You are either Goffe, Whalley, or the devil, for
there was no other man in England that could beat me.'"
For seven months the two judges lived in Cambridge at the house
of Major Daniel Gookin, a member of the governor's council and a
fellow passenger of theirs in the Prudent Mary. They went to
church on Sundays, and no doubt on "training-days" they watched
the train-bands practice, for they were famous fighters
themselves. But meantime the news of their being in the colonies
was carried to England by a royalist named Captain Breedon, and
the governor debated with his council what to do about it. He
wanted to protect them, but he feared the king's displeasure
might bring trouble on the colony. Before he decided, the two
judges, or "the two Colonels" as they were called, finding they
were not safe in Boston, left for New Haven.
This was their first journey in the new wilderness; it was winter
time, and probably there was snow on the ground and hanging heavy
on the trees-more snow than they had ever seen in England. Most
of the road between Boston and New Haven was a trail through
forests where a guide was necessary. They stopped at Hartford,
were kindly received there, and reached New Haven early in March.
For three weeks they were guests of the minister, Reverend John
Davenport. He was their friend and is said to have preached a
sermon from the text, "Hide the outcasts; betray not him that
wandereth," to prepare people for their coming. Whalley's sister
had once lived in New Haven and they had other friends there too.
But it was very dangerous for these friends to try to protect
them, and when word came that a reward had been offered in
England for their arrest, the hunted judges left New Haven as
they had left Boston before, pretending, this time, to go to New
York. However, they only went as far as Milford and turned back
secretly in the night to New Haven where the minister received
them again and hid them, in his own house and in the houses of
other friends, until May, when a still greater danger threatened
them.
The royal order for their arrest at last reached Boston and the
governor there was obliged to forward it. He gave it to two young
royalists, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, and on Saturday, May
11, they arrived with it in Guilford at the house of William
Leete, the Governor of the New Haven Colony. Governor Leete took
the paper and began to read it aloud, hoping some one in the room
would overhear it and send word to warn the judges. Kirk and
Kellond interrupted him and said the paper was too important to
read in public. Then they asked for horses and a search-warrant
to carry with them to New Haven. It took a long time to get the
horses; there was one delay after another, and the governor said
he could not give them the warrant without consulting the other
magistrates, but he would write a letter. It took a long time
also to write the letter, and when both horses and letter were
ready it was too late to start that night. The next day was
Sunday and nobody was allowed to travel on Sunday in the New
Haven Colony. So the messengers waited impatiently for Monday,
and meantime they heard rumors that the judges had been seen in
New Haven, and that Mr. Davenport must be protecting them still,
because he had lately put ten pounds' worth of fresh provisions
in his house; all of which made them still more impatient.
On Monday, at last, they got to New Haven, and some hours later
Governor Leete followed them--very slowly--and called the
magistrates together. It took the magistrates so long to decide
what to do that Kellond and Kirk asked bluntly whether they meant
to honor and obey the king or not. The governor answered, "We
honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences." At last a
search was ordered to be made for the regicides, but Kirk and
Kellond were convinced by this time that it would be useless, and
they left in disgust for New York.
They were right, it was useless; for an Indian runner had come
quickly from Guilford on Saturday, and Goffe and Whalley had
disappeared.
Several stories are told of their narrow escapes at this time.
One says they were on the Neck Bridge over Mill River on State
Street when they heard the horses of their pursuers behind them
and had only time to slip under the bridge and lie there hidden
while the men rode over their heads. Another tells how a woman
hid them in her house, in a closet whose door looked like a part
of the wall with kitchen pots and pans hung on it. When they left
the settlement they took refuge in the wild forest, and most of
that summer they lived in a cave in a pile of boulders on the top
of West Rock. The cave is there still, and is called "Judges'
Cave" to-day. Richard Sperry carried food to them or sent it by
one of his boys, and sometimes on very stormy nights they crept
secretly down to his house and stayed with him. Once, in June,
they went back to New Haven and offered to give themselves up to
save their friends, if necessary, and arranged that Governor
Leete should always know where to find them. Most people thought
they had left the colony altogther then, but they were back in
their cave on the Rock, or in some other hiding-place in the deep
woods. Rewards were still offered for them and they dared not
venture out. They called West Rock "Providence Hill," because God
had provided for them there. And now these two men, who had led
such stirring, active lives in England, lived in a great
loneliness and silence, with no friends near them, no sounds but
the distant crash of a falling tree, or the wind sighing in the
forest branches. There were prowling Indians and prowling wild
beasts. Once, so the story says, a panther crept up stealthily to
the cave at night as they lay in bed and put his head in at the
opening, his eyes burning in the darkness like two fires.
In August, when the search for them was pretty much over, they
went to Milford. They stayed there very secretly for three years,
until, in 1664, there was danger of another search being made.
Then they went back to their cave on the Rock; but it was no
longer a safe place for them, because "some Indians in their
hunting discovered the cave with the bed," and their friends made
a different plan for their concealment.
The exiles set out on another long journey. They traveled only at
night, stopping and hiding in the daytime. The trail they
followed led them up the valley of the Connecticut River, beyond
Hartford and far into the north, until they came to what is now
the town of Hadley in Massachusetts. This was then one of the
farthest settlements in the wilderness and very remote and
lonely. Reverend John Russell, the minister there, gave them
shelter and took care of them. There was a cellar under part of
his house, and, by taking up some loose boards in the floor above
it, they could drop down quickly into it if visitors came
unexpectedly. In spite of the danger to himself, Mr. Russell kept
them safe in Hadley for twelve or fifteen years. A few friends
wrote to them and sent them money, but no one else in the world
outside knew what had become of them or whether or not they were
still alive.
There is a famous story about one of the regicides in Hadley.
Once, it says, in King Philip's War the Indians attacked the
place. They burst out of the woods and rushed upon the settlement
on a Sunday morning while every one was at church. Terror-stricken
and thrown into wild confusion by the sight of the yelling savages
the people of Hadley were helpless, when, all at once, an unknown
man, with whitening hair and strange garments, appeared in the
midst of them and took command. He rallied them and led them out
against the Indians and drove them back into the forest. "As
suddenly as he had come, the deliverer of Hadley disappeared."
No one ever saw him again, and the people said God must have sent
an angel to help them. Long afterward they learned that it was
General Goffe.
[Illustration: The Judges' Cave on West Rock]
There is not much more to tell about the judges after this.
Whalley was an an old man now, and Goffe wrote to his wife, who
was Whalley's daughter, "Your old friend" (he dared not say her
father, and he signed himself Walter Goldsmith instead of
William Goffe) "is yet living, but continues in a very weak
condition and seems not to take much notice of anything that is
done or said, but patiently bears all things and never complains
of anything. The common and very frequent question is to know how
he doth and his answer for the most part is, 'Very well, I praise
God,' which he utters with a very low and weak voice."
After Whalley died, Goffe left Hadley and went to Hartford. We do
not know much about him there. We know that he was still an exile
with a price on his head, and still hiding. In one of his letters
he says to a friend, "Dear Sir, you know my trials are considerable,
but I beseech you not to interpret any expression in my letters as
if I complained of God's dealing with me." His family in England
had moved and he did not know their address or how to reach them,
and in April, 1679, he wrote to the same friend, "I am greatly
longing to hear from my poor desolate relations, and whether my
last summer's letters got safe to them." What answer he received,
whether he ever heard from them again, we cannot tell, for his
story ends with that last letter.
The third regicide judge who came to Connecticut; was Colonel
John Dixwell. He spent some time with Whalley and Goffe at Hadley
and afterward lived seventeen years in New Haven. No search was
ever made for him because he was supposed to have died in Europe,
and he was known to almost every one in the colony as Mr. James
Davids. It was only when he was on his death-bed that he allowed
his real name to be told. His house stood on the corner of Grove
and College Streets; he married in New Haven and had several
children. He was a great friend of Reverend James Pierpont, the
minister, and the story goes that they had beaten a path walking
across their lots to talk over the fence and that Madame Pierpont
used to ask her husband who that old man was who was so fond of
living "an obscure and unnoticed life" and why he liked so much
to talk with him, and he replied that "if she knew the worth and
value of that old man she would not wonder at it."
Once, so it is said, Sir Edmund Andros came from Boston to New
Haven and noticed on Sunday in church a dignified old gentleman
with an erect and military air very different from the rest of
the people, and asked who he was. He was told that it was Mr.
Davids, a New Haven merchant. "Oh, no," said Andros, "I have seen
men and can judge them by their looks. He is no merchant; he has
been a soldier and has figured somewhere in a more public station
than this." Some one warned Dixwell and he stayed away from
church that afternoon.
When he died he was buried in the old burying-ground behind
Center Church on the New Haven Green. In 1849, one of his
descendants put up the monument to him which stands there to-day.
The monument to Goffe and Whalley is the "Judges' Cave" on the
top of West Rock, and three streets in New Haven are also named
for the three regicide judges who came to Connecticut.