year, on account of the stringent measures of the government in regard
to affairs both of church and state, are found the names of Isaac
Johnson, John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, and Sir Richard Saltonstall.
These gentlemen, by their persuasions, were the means of having the
charter and government of the company transferred to New England. They
left with fifteen hundred other persons, in a fleet of seventeen sail,
Winthrop having been chosen governor under the new order of things.
They arrived in safety, eleven ships at one time, and six at another;
and before the conclusion of the season, commenced settlements in
several places; which, at present, constitute some of the fairest
towns of New England. Governor Winthrop, and a portion of the company,
laid the foundation of Boston. Several most highly esteemed ministers
accompanied the expedition just spoken of; Mr. Wilson, Mr. Warham, and
others. These were placed over the several churches that soon began to
be formed in this vicinity. The first general court of Massachusetts,
was held in Boston this year, on the 19th of October, at which time
many of the planters attended, and were made freemen of the colony.
The winters of 1630 and 1631, were very fatal to the Massachusetts
colony. Frost and sickness carried off a number, and famine at length
threatened the suffering survivors. They were, however, providentially
relieved by the arrival of a ship from England with provisions, the
day previously to a public fast, which had been appointed on account
of the alarming state of things. This circumstance turned the intended
fast into a general thanksgiving. The colony continued to increase by
fresh accessions of emigrants till the year 1640, up to which time, it
is computed that four thousand families had arrived in New England.
From this small beginning have arisen the population, power, wealth,
piety, and freedom of the New England states.
In the year 1633, the Plymouth colony suffered from a pestilential
disease, which not only thinned their number, but, extending to the
neighboring territory, swept off many of the Indians. In the same
year, arrived those lights of the New England church, Mr. John Cotton,
Mr. Thomas Hooker, and Mr. Samuel Stone, and that model of a
magistrate, Mr. William Collier, whose services, to the Plymouth
colony, were so considerable. Generally, the emigrants of this period
were actuated by the same spirit of opposition to tyranny in church
and state, and of love to the institutions of Christianity, which had
characterized their predecessors. The men placed at the head of the
new colonies were, universally, men of sterling worth of character.
The first settlers of CONNECTICUT came from the eastern shore of
Massachusetts. They were a portion of the emigrants who constituted
the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts bay. The emigration from
England continuing to be large, and likely to increase from year to
year, more room was wanted, and especially locations where the soil
was rich and could be easily cultivated, became an object of desire.
This consideration, and, probably, others pertaining to their
tranquillity and increase as churches, had influence on the resolution
to seat themselves again in the wilderness. It had happened, as early
as the year 1631, that their attention was directed to the beautiful
and rich tract of land, on the Connecticut river, by Wahcuimacut, a
sachem living upon the river. He made a journey to Plymouth and
Boston, with a view to enlist the governors of those colonies in the
project of making settlements in his country. The proposition was not
formally accepted, but the governor of Plymouth was sufficiently
interested in it to make a voyage to the coast, in which excursion he
discovered the river and the adjacent territory; thus precluding the
title of the Dutch to any part of it, as they had neither
"trading-house, nor any pretence to a foot of land there."[11] The
subject of settling Connecticut was not lost sight of during one or
two subsequent years; but, occasionally, vessels were sent from
Plymouth to the river, for the purposes of trade, and, in one
instance, several men, from Dorchester, traveled through the
wilderness thither for the same object, as also to view the country.
[Illustration: The Settlers emigrating to Connecticut.]
In 1633, when the Plymouth colony had determined to commence the work
of settlement, they commissioned William Holmes, and a chosen company
with him, to proceed to Connecticut. They took with them the frame of
a house, which they set up in Windsor. They achieved their object,
notwithstanding the threatened opposition of the Dutch at Hartford,
where the latter, after learning that the Plymouth people intended to
settle on the river, had erected a slight fort. The Plymouth people,
also, were successful in defending their trading-house subsequently,
both against the Dutch and the Indians. The Dutch erected a
trading-house at Hartford the same year, the house at Windsor having
preceded it, perhaps, by a few months. The actual settlement of the
region, however, was deferred for a time, from the fact of divided
opinions on the subject in the Massachusetts court. No vote could be
obtained in favor of the project. In the mean time, individuals were
determined to prosecute the enterprise, and a number of the people of
Watertown came, in 1634, to Connecticut. They erected a few huts at
Pyquag (Wethersfield), in which they contrived to pass the winter. In
the spring of 1635, the general court of Massachusetts bay assented to
the plan of emigration to Connecticut, and, accordingly, preparations
were made in several places. The Watertown people gradually removed,
and added to their settlement at Wethersfield. Mr. Warham, one of the
ministers of Dorchester, accompanied by a great part of the church,
settled at Mattaneang (Windsor). A company from Newtown began a
plantation, between those two settlements, at Suchiang (Hartford). In
the course of the year, a large body of settlers, sixty in number,
came together--men, women, and children, with their horses, cattle,
and swine. It being somewhat late in the season, and their journey
proving to be long and difficult, winter came upon them before they
were prepared. They were but indifferently sheltered, and their food
was scanty--a large portion of their furniture and provisions, having
been put on board of several small vessels, never reached them. The
vessels were lost, and some lives with them. A part of their domestic
animals they were obliged to leave on the other side of the river.
Famine and its fearful effects were now to be encountered. It was
impossible for all to stay where they were. Some, attempted to return
to the east through the wilderness; others, went down to the mouth of
the river, in order to meet their provisions, and, being disappointed,
were obliged, finally, to embark on board of a vessel for Boston. In
both instances they suffered greatly, but were providentially
preserved to arrive at their former home. The portion of the settlers
who remained were subjected to much distress. The resources of hunting
and food from the Indians being exhausted, they had recourse to
acorns, malt, and grains for subsistence. Large numbers of their
cattle perished. Their condition was indeed most trying and perilous,
in their solitude and separation from others, at the mercy alike of
the elements of nature, and the power of savage foes. But their God,
in whom they trusted, carried them through in safety.
The Connecticut planters held courts of their own, though they were
settled under the general government of the Massachusetts. These
courts consisted of two principal men from each town, joined sometimes
by committees of three additional persons, as occasion might require.
The first court was held at Hartford, April 26th, 1636. At this season
of the year, both those who had left Connecticut in the winter and
many others proceeded to take up their residence on the river. At
length, about the beginning of June, a company of an hundred men,
women, and children, under Messrs. Hooker and Stone, took their
departure from Cambridge, and traveled to Hartford through the
pathless wilderness that lay between the two places. Over mountains,
through ravines, swamps, thickets, and rivers, they made their way,
submitting to incredible fatigue and many privations. These trials, to
a portion of the new comers, must have been peculiarly severe, as they
were a class of society who, having enjoyed all the comforts and
elegancies of life, knew little of hardship and danger.
The year preceding, a fort was erected at the mouth of the river,
called Saybrook fort, in honor of Lords Say and Brooks, to whom, with
several others, a commission had been given to begin a plantation at
Connecticut. This was effected under the auspices of John Winthrop, a
son of the governor of Massachusetts. Winthrop's commission interfered
with the settlement commenced by the Massachusetts colonists, but the
latter were left in the quiet enjoyment of their possessions. The
number of persons in the three towns of Hartford, Windsor, and
Wethersfield, was about eight hundred at the close of the year 1636.
The succeeding year was signalized for the critical condition of the
settlement. There was a great want of provisions and of the implements
of husbandry, and every article bore a high price. The year was also
filled with the incidents of warfare. In the feebleness of its
infancy, the little colony was called to contend with one of the most
warlike tribes of Indians that ever inhabited New England. And never
were heroism and fortitude displayed in a more marked degree, or
animated by a loftier spirit of patriotism and piety. The particulars
need not be here rehearsed. Suffice it to say, they completely
triumphed over their savage foe, the Pequots, under their brave
leader, Captain John Mason. They went forth to battle, under the
sanction and rites of religion, to save themselves, their wives, and
children, and the Church of Christ in the wilderness, from utter
extinction. The holy ardor of Hooker, in his incomparable address to
the soldiers, filled their minds with an unwavering confidence in God.
Seventy-seven brave men saved Connecticut, and destroyed the most
terrible Indian nation in New England.
[Illustration: Hooker addressing the Soldiers.]
This necessity of warfare they would gladly have avoided, for the
condition of the settlement required all their energies and efforts at
home. They could neither hunt, fish, nor cultivate their fields, nor
travel the shortest distance, while an insidious and cruel foe was
hovering around them. They felt that he must be crippled or destroyed,
or that their entire settlement would be cut off by piecemeal. The
natives embraced every opportunity of committing depredations on the
lives and property of the whites. A picture of the kind of life which
was passed in those times of savage treachery and English daring, is
given in the following detail of incidents, which occurred on the
water immediately previous to the Pequot war:
[Illustration: Gallop finds Oldham murdered.]
"John Oldham, who had been fairly trading at Connecticut, was murdered
near Block island. He had with him only two boys and two Narraganset
Indians. These were taken and carried off. One John Gallop, as he was
going from Connecticut to Boston, discovered Mr. Oldham's vessel full
of Indians, and he saw a canoe full of Indians on board, go from her
laden with goods. Suspecting that they had murdered Mr. Oldham, he
hailed them, but received no answer. Gallop was a bold man, and though
he had with him but one man and two boys, he immediately bore down
upon them, and fired duck-shot so thick among them, that he soon
cleared the deck. The Indians all got under the hatches. He then stood
off; and, running down upon her quarter with a brisk gale, nearly
overset them, and so frighted the Indians, that six of them leaped
into the sea, and were drowned. He then steered off again; and,
running down upon her a second time, bored her with his anchor, and
raked her fore and aft with his shot. But the Indians kept themselves
so close, he got loose from her; and, running down a third time upon
the vessel, he gave her such a shock, that five more leaped overboard,
and perished, as the former had done. He then boarded the vessel, and
took two of the Indians, and bound them. Two or three others, armed
with swords, in a little room below, could not be driven from their
retreat. Mr. Oldham's corse was found on board, the head split and
the body mangled in a barbarous manner. He was a Dorchester man, one
of Mr. Warham's congregation. In these circumstances, Gallop, fearing
that the Indians whom he had taken might get loose, especially if they
were kept together, and having no place where he could keep them
apart, threw one of them overboard. Gallop and his company then, as
decently as circumstances would permit, put the corse into the sea.
They stripped the vessel, and took the rigging and the goods which had
not been carried off on board their own. She was taken in tow, with a
view to carry her in; but the night coming on and the wind rising,
Gallop was obliged to let her go adrift, and she was lost."
At the termination of the Pequot war, there was a great scarcity of
provisions in Connecticut, and fearful apprehensions were felt on the
part of the settlers. With all their efforts, they had not been able
to raise a sufficiency of provisions, and these became at length very
costly. Corn rose to the extraordinary price of twelve shillings by
the bushel. The debt contracted by the war was paid with difficulty.
Nothing saved the colony from a famine but a providential supply of
corn, which they were enabled to purchase from the natives, at an
Indian settlement called Pocomptock (Deerfield).
The first constitution of Connecticut was adopted January 15, 1639, by
the free planters of the three towns of Windsor, Hartford, and
Wethersfield, who convened at Hartford for the purpose. It was an
admirably contrived instrument, providing for the freedom and
liberties of themselves and their posterity. Some fifty years ago,
Doctor Trumbull remarked, respecting it, that it was "one of the most
free and happy institutions of civil government which has ever been
formed. The formation of it at so early a period, when the light of
liberty was wholly darkened in most parts of the earth, and the rights
of men so little understood in others, does great honor to their
ability, integrity, and love to mankind. To posterity, indeed, it
exhibited a most benevolent regard. It has continued with little
alteration to the present time."
The NEW HAVEN colony was settled in the spirit that influenced the
comers to the other parts of New England, and eminently so. The
establishment of the Church of God on its true basis, and the
enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, was the object of the
emigrants; and they proceeded to secure the fair inheritance by the
wisest counsels and the most efficient action. The company who first
constituted the settlement, was a rare assemblage of choice spirits.
Among them were John Davenport, a distinguished minister in London,
and Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, wealthy merchants of the same
city, and eminent for their abilities and integrity. They with their
associates arrived at Boston in the summer of 1637, and would have
been gladly retained in the Massachusetts colony, had they consented.
Strong inducements were held out to them to fix their residence there,
but they wanted more room than they could find in the vicinity of
Boston for themselves and the large number of friends whom they
expected to follow them. Their principal reason, however, for
migrating elsewhere, as suggested by the historian of Connecticut, was
probably "the desire of being at the head of a new government,
modeled, both in civil and religious matters, agreeably to their own
apprehensions. It had been an observation of Mr. Davenport, that
whenever a reformation had been effected in the church, in any part of
the world, it had rested where it had been left by the reformers: it
could not be advanced another step. He was embarked in a design of
forming a civil and religious constitution, as near as possible to
scripture precept and example." Their strict views, it seems, could
not be fully met elsewhere.
Mr. Davenport and his company, on the 30th of March, 1638, sailed from
Boston to Quinnipiac (New Haven), and arrived at the desired spot at
about the middle of April. A portion of their company, with Eaton at
their head, had made a journey to Connecticut during the preceding
autumn, to explore the lands and harbors on the sea-coast; and having
fixed upon Quinnipiac as the best place for a settlement, erected a hut
there, in which a few men passed the winter. The first Sabbath which Mr.
Davenport spent in the wilderness, was on the 18th of April, 1638, when
he preached a discourse on the _Temptations of the Wilderness_. In a
short time, at the close of a day of fasting and prayer, they entered
into what they called a plantation covenant, in which they solemnly
engaged, in their civil ordinances as well as religion, they would be
governed by the rules of scripture. At different times, and in separate
contracts, they purchased their lands of the Indians, by the payment of
such articles as were satisfactory to the latter. As the New Haven
adventurers were the most opulent company which came into New England,
they were disposed and able to lay the foundation of a first-rate
colony--the proofs of which are visible, in part, in the elegant city
which became its capital. The foundations of the civil and religious
polity of the colony were laid on the 4th of June, 1639, with every due
solemnity. The act was not consummated until the 25th of October of the
same year, as a term of trial was required for the seven men who were to
constitute the seven pillars of the church. The number of subscribers to
the compact, on the 4th of June, was sixty-three; to which there were
soon after added about fifty other names. This colony enjoyed great
comparative order and tranquillity, as well from the extreme care with
which it was constituted at the beginning, the superior wealth and
character of its founders, and their wise and prudent intercourse with
their neighbors, the Indians.
The New Haven colony was distinguished among the sister-colonies for its
zeal in behalf of education, for its great strictness in the
administration of the laws, for its scrupulous justice towards the
Indians, and for the absence of a frivolous or extravagant legislation,
which in some instances had been thought to characterize the other
colonies.[12] The colony, however, was not exempt from occasional
providential calamities, particularly in its commercial pursuits. For a
period, the colonists did not succeed in their principal secular object.
Their plans may not have been the most judicious; but their greatest
misfortune in this concern was the loss of a large ship, which contained
a valuable cargo of about five thousand pounds. The ship, with its
precious burden, and more precious navigators, was never heard of more
after it left the harbor. Several other settlements in the vicinity were
nearly coëval with that of New Haven. Milford and Guilford were settled
in 1639, as also Stratford and Fairfield the same year; Stamford in
1641, and soon after the town of Brandford.
[Illustration: Portsmouth founded.]
A settlement, at an early period, was made in NEW HAMPSHIRE, but it
did not, until some time afterwards, constitute a distinct colony. In
the spring of the year 1623, two members of the council of Plymouth
(Gorges and Mason) having obtained a grant of a tract of country, sent
over a few persons for the purpose of establishing a colony and
fishing at the river Piscataqua. This was the beginning of the town of
Portsmouth; but, for several years, together with the town of Dover,
which had a fish-house erected about the same time, it was a small and
scarcely permanent settlement. In 1629, some of the settlers about the
Massachusetts bay, purchased a tract of country of the Indians, with a
view to unite with the settlement at Piscataqua. After this purchase,
the latter settlement was favored with a small increase; but no other
settlements were made till the year 1638, when the towns of Exeter and
Hampton commenced. Exeter was settled by people chiefly from Boston,
who had been regularly dismissed from their church relations, and were
constituted at once into a church in their new locality. Like the
settlers of the other New England colonies, those of New Hampshire
were desirous of enjoying the ministrations and ordinances of the
Gospel, and were able to obtain excellent ministers.
These several plantations continued, for many years, to live on good
terms with the natives, and were generally well supplied with
provisions, in consequence of their advantages for fishery. They
constituted distinct civil communities, after the most perfect model of
freedom, but were unable to preserve their peculiar organization, on
account of the intrusion of disaffected individuals, from the colonies
of Massachusetts and Plymouth, and the constant influx of other
emigrants. They were too weak thus to stand alone, and, after suitable
negociations on the subject, they came under the jurisdiction of
Massachusetts, in 1641, on the condition of enjoying equal privileges
with the people of that colony, and having a court of justice maintained
among themselves. This union continued nearly forty years, and was
followed by the greater increase and security of the colony.[13]
The rise of the colony of RHODE ISLAND commenced in the expulsion of
Roger Williams from Massachusetts. He was a minister of the Gospel at
Salem; but, holding tenets that were obnoxious to the people there, and
being unwilling to renounce them, after friendly remonstrance and
dealing, he was ordered to quit the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. He
accordingly took his exile thence, and traveling, with his few
followers, as far as the present town of Rehoboth, he sat down there;
but, being within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, Governor Winslow, out of
courtesy to the government of Massachusetts, desired Mr. Williams to
leave that place. The latter, then crossing the Pawtucket river, came to
the spot which, in acknowledgment of God's merciful providence to him in
his distress, he called 'Providence.' He purchased the lands of his
plantation of the Indian owners, became the father of the colony, and,
for a period, appeared to have combined, in his person, the principal
powers of government. Times of scarcity occurred in the Providence
plantation, as in most of the other colonies in North America, and the
followers of Mr. Williams were saved from famine only by the products of
their forests and rivers. No personal resentment seems to have arisen
between Mr. Williams and Governor Winthrop, from the proceedings which
led to the founding of the new settlement. All the several colonies
remained at peace, and cultivated friendship with each other.
The religious difficulties in Massachusetts, arising out of the case
of the fanatical Mrs. Hutchinson, were the occasion of the origin of
the Rhode Island plantation, south of Providence. Several gentlemen
differed in principle from the prevailing belief of the churches, and
chose to leave the colony. Among them were William Coddington, John
Clark, and others, who came to Providence in search of a place where
they might enjoy their own sentiments unmolested. Through the
assistance of Mr. Williams, they purchased Aquetnec of the Indian
sachems. The adventurers, eighteen in number, incorporated themselves
into a body politic, and chose Mr. Coddington to be their judge, or
chief magistrate. The character of the climate and soil, soon brought
many adventurers to their settlement. The territory was RHODE ISLAND,
according to its subsequent name. The two settlements of Mr. Williams
and Mr. Coddington, being destitute of any charter from the
mother-country, the former went to England with a view to procure one.
He succeeded in the object, and returned with a liberal charter of
incorporation of Providence and Rhode Island plantations.