3 1822 00184 9025
 
 3 1822 00184 9025
 
 american ComtttontDealtIj& 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HORACE E. SCUDDER.
 
 TO ACCOMPANY 
 
 ALEXANDER JOHNSTON'S 
 
 CONNECTICUT in AMERICAN COMMONWEALTHS
 
 American <ffommontoealtf)g 
 
 CONNECTICUT 
 
 A STUDY OF A COMMONWEALTH-DEMOCRACY 
 
 ALEXANDEE JOHNSTON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IS 
 PRINCETON COLLEGE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1887
 
 Copyright, 1887, 
 BT ALEXANDER JOHNSTON. 
 
 AU rights reserved. 
 
 Tke Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co.
 
 THEIRS is a pure republic, wild, yet strong, 
 A " fierce democracie," where all are true 
 
 To what themselves have voted right or wrong 
 And to their laws denominated " blue ; " 
 
 If red, they might to Draco's code belong. 
 A vestal State, which power could not subdue, 
 
 Nor promise win, like her own eagle's nest, 
 
 Sacred, the San Marino of the West. 
 
 A justice of the peace, for the time being, 
 They bow to, but maj' turn him out next year; 
 
 They reverence their priest, but, disagreeing 
 In price or creed, dismiss him without fear : 
 
 They have a natural talent for foreseeing 
 And knowing all things; and, should Park appear 
 
 From his long tour in Africa, to show 
 
 The Niger's source, they 'd meet him with We know. 
 
 They love their land because it is their own, 
 And scorn to give aught other reason why; 
 
 Would shake hands with a king upon his throne, 
 And think it kindness to his majesty; 
 
 A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none. 
 Such are they nurtured, such they live and die. 
 
 FITZ-GRKKNE HALLECK.
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 THIS volume is not meant to deal mainly with 
 the antiquarian history of Connecticut, with the 
 achievements of Connecticut men and women, or 
 with those biographical details which so often 
 throw the most instructive side-lights on local his- 
 tory. These fields have heen explored so thor- 
 oughly by abler hands that it would be presump- 
 tion for the writer to enter them, unless to take 
 advantage of the materials thus stored up. The 
 volume is one of a " Commonwealth Series," and 
 it aims to take the history of Connecticut from 
 another side. Its purpose is to present certain 
 features in the development of Connecticut which 
 have influenced the general development of the 
 State system in this country, and of the United 
 States, and may be grouped as follows : 
 
 I. Connecticut's town system was, by a fortu- 
 nate concurrence of circumstances, even more in- 
 dependent of outside control than that of Massa- 
 chusetts ; the principle of local government had 
 here a more complete recognition ; and, in the 
 form in which it has done best service, its begin- 
 ning was in Connecticut.
 
 yiii PREFACE. 
 
 II. The first conscious and deliberate effort on 
 this continent to establish the democratic princi- 
 ple in control of government was the settlement 
 of Connecticut ; and her constitution of 1639, the 
 first written and democratic constitution on rec- 
 ord, was the starting-point for the democratic de- 
 velopment which has since gained control of all 
 our commonwealths, and now makes the essential 
 feature of our commonwealth government. 
 
 III. Democratic institutions enabled the people 
 of Connecticut to maintain throughout their colo- 
 nial history a form of government so free from 
 crown control that it became really the exemplar 
 of the rights at which all the colonies finally 
 aimed. 
 
 IV. Connecticut, being mainly a federation of 
 towns, with neither so much of the centrifugal 
 force as in Rhode Island, nor so much of the cen- 
 tripetal force as in other colonies, maintained for 
 a century and a half that union of the democratic 
 and federative ideas which has at last come to 
 mark the whole United States. 
 
 V. The Connecticut delegates in the conven- 
 tion of 1787, by another happy concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances, held a position of unusual influence ; 
 the frame of their commonwealth government, 
 with its equal representation of towns in one 
 branch and its general popular representation in 
 the other, had given them a training which ena- 
 bled them to bend the form of our national con-
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 stitution into a corresponding shape ; and the pe- 
 culiar constitution of our congress, in the different 
 bases of the senate and house of representatives, 
 was thus the result of Connecticut's long main- 
 tenance of a federative democracy. 
 
 VI. The first great effort at westward coloniza- 
 tion, in the Wyoming country, was managed by 
 Connecticut through her traditional system of free 
 towns ; and the example is enough to account for 
 the subsequent power of this principle in the or- 
 ganization of the great Northwest. 
 
 VII. Individual capacity and energy, the natu- 
 ral fruit of a democratic system, have enabled the 
 people of Connecticut to survive and prosper un- 
 der the industrial revolution of later times, and to 
 show that a commonwealth almost without natural 
 advantages, and forced to rely almost entirely on 
 the conversion of foreign products into other forms, 
 may reach the highest degree of prosperity through 
 the individual mechanical genius of her people. 
 
 For these reasons, the writer thinks that Con- 
 necticut has a claim to a high place among char- 
 acteristic commonwealths ; and that the antiqua- 
 rian, biographical, and other features which usu- 
 ally abound in State histories, should in this in- 
 stance be made subordinate to the study of her 
 democracy and its influences. So far as the usual 
 details can be given, and as they illustrate the 
 controlling features of the volume, they have been 
 used ; but the volume is not bound to them.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 Connecticut migration has been so great that it 
 has been necessary to resist an almost constant 
 temptation to diverge to the influence of Connecti- 
 cut men and ideas in Vermont, New York, New 
 Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, and other commonwealths. 
 How large that influence has been is not widely 
 known. Hollister states that in 1857 a single 
 county (Litchfield) had been the birthplace of thir- 
 teen United States senators, twenty-two represen- 
 tatives from New York, fifteen supreme court 
 judges in other States, nine presidents of colleges 
 and eighteen other professors, and eleven gover- 
 nors and lieutenant-governors of States. The re- 
 mark is attributed to Calhoun that he had seen 
 the time when the members of congress born or 
 educated in Connecticut lacked but five of being 
 a majority. This must be taken with allowance, 
 even if it were exact ; for by no means all those 
 educated in Connecticut have done much to carry 
 Connecticut characteristics elsewhere. But, with 
 all allowance, the foreign influence of Connecti- 
 cut has been extraordinary. One must sympa- 
 thize with the astonishment of the Frenchman 
 who, hearing that this and that distinguished man, 
 though a resident of another State, was born in 
 Connecticut, went to the library to find the loca- 
 tion of the State, and found that it was " nothing 
 but a little yellow spot on the map." If there be 
 anything in the claims for the work of the Connec- 
 ticut commonwealth, they must be still further
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 strengthened by the influence which the children 
 of the commonwealth have carried into all sorts 
 of channels. 
 
 The original scheme of the Series did not in- 
 clude the feature of foot-notes for authorities, and 
 the writer followed the plan of putting his author- 
 ities into a bibliography. It has not seemed ne- 
 cessary to alter the arrangement, and it has been 
 retained as an essay toward a bibliography of the 
 commonwealth for the further use of students. 1 It 
 is not meant to be implied that all, or nearly all, 
 the books there named have been used exhaus- 
 tively ; very many of them have merely been re- 
 ferred to in order to keep the writer from going 
 astray in matters on which their authors are au- 
 thority and he is not. If he has, nevertheless, 
 erred in these respects, he will feel under great 
 obligations to those who will call his attention to 
 the errors. The whole list is inserted in the hope 
 that it may be of some preliminary service to 
 those who shall further and more effectively pros- 
 ecute the study of this commonwealth's great and 
 honest work. 
 
 The approaching year 1889 is the 250th anni- 
 versary (or, to adopt the modern phrase, the quar- 
 ter-millennial) of the Constitution of 1639, which 
 seems to the writer the most far-reaching political 
 work of modern times, and from which he con- 
 ceives there are direct lines of communication run- 
 ning down to all the great events which followed, 
 
 1 See Appendix, p. 397.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 to commonwealth organization and colonial 
 resistance, to national independence and federa- 
 tion, to national union and organization, and even 
 to national self-preservation and reconstruction. 
 During the same year the nation will celebrate 
 the one hundredth anniversary of the inaugura- 
 tion of its Constitution, to whose essence and ex- 
 pression Connecticut contributed so largely. This 
 volume has been written in the hope that it may 
 aid in widening the appreciation of Connecticut's 
 first constitution, so that its birthday shall not 
 pass without its fair share of remembrance. 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J., May 1, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PA 
 
 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CONNECTICUT 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JUBISDICTION OF THE CONNECTICUT TERRITORY .... 7 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT 14 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT 26 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE PEQUOT WAR 34 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY 56 
 
 CHAPTER VTL 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY 83 
 
 CHAPTER VTH. 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT AND ITS FAILUBB 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION 120 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE Two COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION 143 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION . . 163
 
 Xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 1662-1 7G3 . 192 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 1636-1791 ........ 220 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 1640-1763 248 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. WYOMING AND THE 
 WESTERN RESERVE 265 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION 285 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION .... 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 328 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CONNECTICUT IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION 374 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 CONCLUSION 385 
 
 APPENDIX. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1639 389 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 397 
 
 THE GOVERNORS OF CONNECTICUT 401 
 
 INDEX . . 403 
 
 NOTE. The seal on the title-page is a f ac-simile of that which 
 appears on the title-page of the first revision of the laws of Con- 
 necticut, made in 1672 and published at Cambridge, Massachu- 
 setts, by S. Green in 1673. A discussion of the seals of Connec- 
 ticut will be found in the Collections of the Connecticut Historical 
 Society, I. 251.
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP CONNECTICUT. 
 
 THE story of the commonwealth of Connecticut 
 is one which is not strongly marked by the ro- 
 mantic element. Here are no witchcraft delu- 
 sions or persecuted Quakers, no doughty paladins 
 or high-souled Indian maidens, no drowsy burghers 
 or wooden-legged governors, only laborious and 
 single - minded men building a new state on a 
 new soil, exemplifying in the process the ten- 
 dency of their race, when placed in a wilderness, 
 to revert to the ancestral type of civil government, 
 ignoring the excrescences which centuries have 
 bred upon it. The record of their work need not 
 lose value from its simplicity. 
 
 Connecticut is the furthest southwest of the 
 little group of six American commonwealths to 
 which the popular name of New England has 
 been attached. It is of oblong shape, its northern 
 and southern boundaries being about eighty-eight 
 and one hundred miles long respectively, and its 
 1
 
 2 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 eastern and western boundaries forty-five and 
 seventy-two miles. The northern and eastern 
 boundaries are nearly straight lines east and west, 
 and north and south, respectively. The western 
 boundary is irregular at the southern extremity. 
 The irregularities will be considered more fully 
 hereafter, as they are the embodied mementos of 
 certain steps by which the material form of the 
 commonwealth was built up. The irregular south- 
 ern coast is washed by the waters of Long Island 
 Sound, beyond which lies the island which nature, 
 confirmed by law, assigned to Connecticut, though 
 the greed of the house of Stuart, superior to both 
 law and nature, transferred it permanently to New 
 York. The area of Connecticut is 4,990 square 
 miles, about one third that of Denmark and not 
 quite one half that of the Netherlands. 
 
 The trend of the rivers will indicate the general 
 nature of the surface of the commonwealth, which 
 is a succession of north and south hill ranges, 
 separated by river valleys. The great central 
 valley, about twenty miles in width, is drained by 
 the river Connecticut as far south as Middletown, 
 where the stream, forcing an outlet between two 
 encroaching cliffs, pursues its way to the Sound at 
 Saybrook, while the valley extends southwest to 
 New Haven. This central valley, the seat of the 
 early colonization, has an ideal agricultural soil, a 
 deep, rich loam, as far south as the point where 
 the river leaves it; thence to New Haven it is
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CONNECTICUT. 3 
 
 more sandy and less profitable. The smaller and 
 more broken valleys of the eastern part of the 
 commonwealth, the former "Pequot Country," 
 where the hill summits are not of great elevation, 
 attracted the early settlers through their advan- 
 tages for grazing : their water power has since 
 proved a greater source of wealth from manufac- 
 tures. The western part of Connecticut is even 
 more broken than the eastern, and the sharp and 
 ragged character of the hill-range summits make 
 them a somewhat greater obstacle to east and west 
 travel. Rough as is the general surface of the 
 State, its highest point is less than 1,000 feet above 
 sea-level. 
 
 Agriculture, in its various forms, was the first 
 inducement to settlement ; but the settlers soon 
 found that the soil contained metals. Of these, 
 iron alone was profitable ; the manufacture of 
 nails of all sizes was for a long time the principal 
 home industry for the colonists in their leisure hours. 
 Much of the iron used for the weapons of the Rev- 
 olution came from Connecticut ; and its hematite 
 ore still furnishes the best iron of its class in the 
 country. Copper and lead exist in sufficient amount 
 to lure a never-ending stream of adventurers into 
 financial difficulties. The copper mines of Sims- 
 bury (now in East Granby) were discovered 
 about 1705, ruined a number of successive pro- 
 prietors, and were finally made the state prison. 
 They furnished the material for the " Granby
 
 4 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 coppers," coined in 1737, and for other coins, in- 
 cluding the first United States coinage. There is 
 even an ignis fatuus of gold and silver. The rocks 
 of Connecticut have proved richer than a gold mine 
 to those who have developed them. Lime- stone, 
 marble, brown-stone, and flagging-stone are found 
 in excellent quality and unlimited amount, and a 
 large portion of the State leaves its borders annu- 
 ally in this form of export. The supply of feldspar 
 and other minerals has been developed as sharper 
 demand for them has arisen. 
 
 The beautiful southern shore of Connecticut, 
 which holds countless pictures in every mile of its 
 extent, has many hai'bors, and one, that of New 
 London, has advantages beyond the others. There 
 was not, however, in early years, sufficient agri- 
 cultural wealth or other material support behind 
 these harbors to build up any great foreign trade, 
 beyond a moderate export of mules, live stock, 
 and some food products to the West Indies ; and, 
 in later years, the railroad has been a channel 
 sufficiently capacious to provide for the outflow 
 and inflow of the wealth in whose production it 
 has been so essential a factor in Connecticut. The 
 time will come when the harbors of Connecticut 
 will be a necessary vent for foreign trade, but it 
 has not yet come. 
 
 To an intending English colonist in 1630, con- 
 sidering this oblong as an unbroken wilderness, 
 there would have been in it two points of great
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CONNECTICUT. 5 
 
 material advantage. One was the upper valley of 
 the Connecticut, with its rich soil, its broad mead- 
 ows, and its capacity for luxuriant vegetation ; 
 and this garden spot was the breach to which the 
 first assaulting party naturally directed its course. 
 The other was the inviting haven at the mouth of 
 the Thames River, apparently designed by nature 
 for the site of a great commercial city ; and this 
 was seized during the first decade. There were 
 other minor advantages in other parts of the ter- 
 ritory, such as the trade with the Indians for skins, 
 or the pursuit of the fish with which Connecticut's 
 waters and shore have always been stocked ; but 
 these two spots, the upper Connecticut Valley and 
 the site of the present city of New London, were 
 those to which material interests most strongly 
 turned the first immigration. Succeeding com- 
 panies, finding these spots occupied, were filtered 
 through them into the surrounding portions of the 
 territory. 
 
 Material interests, however, were far from being 
 the only or controlling incentives to settlement. 
 The New Haven company deliberately passed by 
 the Thames River and sacrificed its preeminent 
 commercial advantages, which must have been 
 sufficiently evident to the shrewd merchant who 
 was at the head of the enterprise ; and it is at least 
 not an improbable notion that the sacrifice was 
 grounded in the desire to give religion a place of 
 recognized and permanent superiority to commerce
 
 6 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 in the new settlement. The first break from Mas- 
 sachusetts into the Connecticut Valley was gov- 
 erned by religious, as it was actuated by material, 
 motives. To the Connecticut settler, religion was 
 an essential part of daily life and politics, and logic 
 was an essential part of religion. Town and 
 church were but two sides of the same thing. 
 Differences of opinion there must be, in church as 
 well as in town matters ; and, when the respective 
 straight lines had diverged sufficiently, a rupture 
 became inevitable. The minority, unwilling to 
 resist the majority or to continue in illogical union 
 with it, preferred to begin a new plantation, even 
 in a less hospitable location. Thus, every reli- 
 gious dispute usually gave rise to a new town, un- 
 til the faintest lines of theological divergence were 
 satisfied ; while the original disputants, finding 
 that a distance of even a few miles was enough to 
 soften down differences which once seemed intol- 
 erable, were able to live together in congregational 
 unity and harmony. 
 
 These three Hartford, New Haven, and New 
 London, and mainly the two former were thus 
 the openings through which immigration flowed in, 
 and, under natural pressure, was distributed over 
 the whole territory, even those less inviting por- 
 tions of it which would have waited longer for 
 settlement but that the pressure from behind made 
 distribution easier than return.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JURISDICTION OF THE CONNECTICUT TERRI- 
 TORY. 
 
 THE claim of England to the jurisdiction of the 
 territory included in Connecticut rested on the 
 discoveries of the Cabots in 1497, and more espe- 
 cially in 1498. This claim, however, was allowed 
 to lie dormant until the organization of the Lon- 
 don and Plymouth companies in 1606, when the 
 territory now in Connecticut was included in the 
 grant to the Plymouth Company. No effort was 
 made to reduce this territory to possession. The 
 Dutch were allowed to plant a colony at New Am- 
 sterdam, and the only white men who adventured 
 on Long Island Sound were occasional Dutch 
 skippers. The first of these was Adrian Blok, 
 who in 1614 found the mouth of the Connecticut 
 River, and explored the river as far north as the 
 present site of Hartford. As the tides affect the 
 Connecticut much less than they do the Hudson, 
 the Dutch naturally gave the former the name of 
 Varsche (or Fresh) River. Blok was merely a dis- 
 coverer, and he sailed on to Narragansett Bay, 
 leaving but a geographical impress on the terri- 
 tory, whose importance to the Dutch lay only in 
 its trade in peltries.
 
 8 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 In 1620, and without the original permission of 
 the Plymouth Company, English immigration 
 fixed its first grip on the New England territory. 
 The Plymouth Company itself did none of the 
 work of colonization. It gave or sold patents for 
 colonies, and, after a reorganization, gave up its 
 imbecile existence in 1635, and returned its charter 
 to the king, having first carefully divided up the 
 soil among its own members. The allotments 
 which are of interest in our subject were those of 
 the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Carlisle, 
 between the Hudson and Connecticut rivers ; and 
 those of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Marquis 
 of Hamilton, between the Connecticut River and 
 Narragansett Bay. None of these grants was ever 
 asserted or made troublesome to the colonists, with 
 the exception of the Hamilton grant. 
 
 The common story in our histories is that the 
 Council of Plymouth in 1630 granted the territory 
 now in Connecticut to the Earl of Warwick, and 
 that he, in 1631, transferred it to Viscount Say 
 and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others, who were dis- 
 posed to establish another Puritan colony in New 
 England. They were detained in England by the 
 approach of civil war ; but their agents, Winthrop 
 at Boston and Fenwick at the mouth of the Con- 
 necticut River, maintained their claims, and gave 
 the settlers in the upper Connecticut Valley either 
 a private or a tacit permission to enter their do- 
 main. In 1662, with the consent of the surviving
 
 JURISDICTION OF CONNECTICUT TERRITORY. 9 
 
 patentees, the jurisdiction was transferred to the 
 Connecticut colony, which could thus claim un- 
 broken continuity of title from the beginning of 
 English colonization in America. 
 
 The insistence of Connecticut authorities on 
 this chain of evidence was undoubtedly due in 
 great measure to the desire to make out a title 
 paramount to anything which the rival New 
 Haven colony could offer, and to put the New 
 Haven colonists into the legal position of original 
 trespassers, whose defect of title could never be 
 cured after the grant of the charter in 1662. Even 
 after this result had been attained, and New Haven 
 had submitted to incorporation with Connecticut, 
 another motive to continue the old claim was 
 found in the claims of the Hamilton family and 
 the colony's desire to antedate them with its own. 
 The story above given made out an admirably 
 harmonious title from beginning to end ; and it 
 was natural that it should become the official Con- 
 necticut account. 
 
 The foundation of the whole account, the grant 
 to Warwick, is altogether mythical ; no one has 
 ever seen it, or has heard of any one who claims to 
 have seen it. It is not mentioned even in the 
 grant from Warwick to the Say and Sele patentees 
 in 1631. In that document, " Robert, Earl of 
 Warwick, sendeth greeting in our Lord God ever- 
 lasting to all people unto whom this present writ- 
 ing shall come." He "gives, grants, bargains,
 
 10 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 sells, enfeoffs, aliens, and confirms" to the Viscount 
 Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, John Pym, John 
 Hampden, and others, the soil from the Narragan- 
 sett River to the Pacific Ocean, and all jurisdic- 
 tion " which the said Robert, Earl of Warwick, 
 now hath or had or might use, exercise, or enjoy." 
 What jurisdiction he had, or whence he had ac- 
 quired it, he is careful not to say ; the deed is a 
 mere quitclaim, which warrants nothing, and does 
 not even assert title to the soil transferred. In 
 the Hamilton grant, on the contrary, the claim of 
 title is carefully and fully stated. Why the War- 
 wick transaction took this peculiar shape, why 
 Warwick transferred, without showing title, a ter- 
 ritory which the original owners granted anew to 
 other patentees in 1635, are questions which are 
 beyond conjecture. It is evident, however, that 
 the New Haven colonists were until 1662 on an 
 absolute equality with their brethren of Connecti- 
 cut ; that all were legally trespassers ; and that 
 the charter of 1662 could have no retroactive 
 effect in validating the Say and Sele title, for that 
 was a nullity. The charter of 1662 is the only 
 legal title of Connecticut ; the only legal titles 
 prior to it, the grants of 1635, were barred by pre- 
 scription before the Hamilton heirs undertook to 
 prosecute their claim. In yielding to the final 
 junction, New Haven yielded to royal power, not 
 to a better title enforced by law. 
 
 The jurisdiction of Connecticut had a far better
 
 JURISDICTION OF CONNECTICUT TERRITORY. 11 
 
 title than could have been conferred by any charter ; 
 and the titles of both Connecticut and New Haven 
 stood on exactly the same, footing. In 1630 the 
 territory was a wilderness. The king of England 
 had laid claim to it by virtue of the undisputed fact 
 that Sebastian Cabot might possibly have caught 
 a distant glimpse of it as he passed by the coast 
 more than a century before. The king granted it 
 to a company which had not yet either settled or 
 granted it. Just before the outbreak of the Civil 
 War in England, the territory was reduced to 
 possession by immigrants, who quieted the claims 
 of the Indians by contract, and enforced the con- 
 tract by public force. The Civil War and its con- 
 sequences upon royal authority lasted long enough 
 to cover the time which human law takes as a title 
 by prescription. When Charles II. returned, who 
 could show a better title to the soil of Connecticut 
 than the colonists themselves ? 
 
 This could cover, at the best, only the title to 
 the soil ; the civil jurisdiction is of more impor- 
 tance. The first settlements, at Hartford, Windsor 
 and Wethersfield, were an irruption of subjects of 
 the king of England into an unorganized and un- 
 occupied territory, very much like the first settle- 
 ments in the territory of Iowa, more than two 
 centuries later. But there was one very great 
 difference between the two cases : the Iowa settle- 
 ment was an irruption of individuals ; the Con- 
 necticut settlement was an irruption of organized
 
 12 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 towns. In Massachusetts, the original towns, or 
 " plantations," were hardly to be taken as organ- 
 ized governments ; and the advent of the charter 
 government reduced them, and subsequent towns 
 as well, to a condition of subordination. In Con- 
 necticut, three fully organized Massachusetts 
 towns passed out of the jurisdiction of any com- 
 monwealth, and proceeded to build up a common- 
 wealth of their own ; while in New Haven the 
 original town and its successive allies entered 
 their new locations without ever having owned 
 connection with any commonwealth since leaving 
 England. The commonwealth jurisdiction of Con- 
 necticut is peculiar in that it was the product, in- 
 stead of the source, of its town system. 
 
 As a commonwealth, Connecticut has never lost 
 the characteristics due to its origin. Although 
 the commonwealth, by the royal charter of 1662, 
 obtained a legal basis independent of the towns 
 and superior to them in law, the towns have re- 
 tained a marked individuality, and the common- 
 wealth a narrowness of function, which indicate 
 the original relations of both. When Connecticut 
 undertook to push her claims in Wyoming and in 
 Ohio, the instrument to which she instinctively 
 turned was the town system, rather than the com- 
 monwealth. And she still is, in many respects, a 
 congeries of towns, though the commonwealth 
 spirit has grown stronger with the years. Curious 
 and worthy of study as is the New England town
 
 JURISDICTION OF CONNECTICUT TERRITORY. 13 
 
 system, there are few phases of it more worthy of 
 study than the manner in which, in Connecticut, 
 it succeeded in creating a commonwealth body for 
 itself ; in pushing back the asserted boundaries of 
 its neighbors ; and at last, when the royal power 
 could no longer be evaded, in using the royal 
 power to round out and complete its own form, as 
 it could not have done itself without a fratricidal 
 struggle with a sister colony.
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE PIEST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 DURING the ten years after 1620, the twin col- 
 onies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay had 
 been fairly shaken down into their places, and had 
 even begun to look around them for opportunities 
 of extension. It was not possible that the fertile 
 and inviting territory to the southwest should long 
 escape their notice. In 1629, De Rasieres, an en- 
 voy from New Amsterdam, was at Plymouth. He 
 found the Plymouth people building a shallop for 
 the purpose of obtaining a share in the wampum 
 trade of Narragansett Bay ; and he very shrewdly 
 sold them at a bargain enough wampum to supply 
 their needs, for fear they should discover at Nar- 
 ragansett the more profitable peltry trade beyond. 
 This artifice only put off the evil day. Within 
 the next three years, several Plymouth men, in- 
 cluding Winslow, visited the Connecticut River, 
 " not without profit." In April, 1631, a Connecti- 
 cut Indian visited Governor Winthrop at Boston, 
 asking for settlers, and offering to find them corn 
 and furnish eighty beaver skins a year. Win- 
 throp declined even to send an exploring party. In
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 15 
 
 the midsummer of 1633, Winslow went to Boston 
 to propose a joint occupation of the new territory 
 by Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay ; but the 
 latter still refused, doubting the profit arid the 
 safety of the venture. 
 
 Three months later, Plymouth undertook the 
 work alone. A small vessel, under command of 
 William Holmes, was sent around by sea to the 
 mouth of the Connecticut River, with the frame 
 of a trading house and workmen to put it up. 
 When Holmes had sailed up the river as far as 
 the place where Hartford was afterward built, he 
 found the Dutch already in possession. For ten 
 years they had been talking of erecting a fort on 
 the Varsche River ; but the ominous and repeated 
 appearance of New Englanders in the territory had 
 roused them to action at last. John Van Corlear, 
 with a few men, had been commissioned by Gover- 
 nor Van T wilier, and had put up a rude earth- 
 work, with two guns, within the present jurisdic- 
 tion of Hartford. His summons to Holmes to 
 stop under penalty of being fired into met with no 
 more respect than was shown by the commandant 
 of Rensselaerswyck to his challengers, according 
 to the veracious Knickerbocker. Holmes declared 
 that he had been sent up the river, and was going 
 up the river, and furthermore he went up the 
 river. His little vessel passed on to the present 
 site of Windsor. Here the crew disembarked, put 
 up and garrisoned their trading house, and then
 
 16 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 returned home. Plymouth had at least planted 
 the flag far within the coveted and disputed terri- 
 tory. 
 
 In December of the following year, a Dutch 
 force of seventy men from New Amsterdam ap- 
 peared before the trading house to drive out the 
 intruders. He must be strong who drives a Yan- 
 kee away from a profitable trade ; and the attitude 
 of the little garrison was so determined that the 
 Dutchmen, after a few hostile demonstrations, de- 
 cided that the nut was too hard to crack, and 
 withdrew. For about twenty years thereafter, 
 the Dutch held post at Hartford, isolated from 
 Dutch support by a continually deepening mass of 
 New Englanders, who refrained from hostilities, 
 and waited until the apple was ripe enough to 
 drop. 
 
 With respect to the claims of the Indians, the 
 attitudes of the two parties to the struggle were di- 
 rectly opposite. The Dutch came on the strength 
 of purchase from the Pequots, the conquerors and 
 lords paramount of the local Indians. Holmes 
 brought to the Connecticut River in his vessel the 
 local sachems, who had been driven away by the 
 Pequots, and made his purchases from them. The 
 English policy will account for the unfriendly dis- 
 position of the Pequots, and, when followed up by 
 the tremendous overthrow of the Pequots, for Con- 
 necticut's permanent exemption from Indian dif- 
 ficulties. The Connecticut settlers followed a
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 17 
 
 straight road, buying lands fairly from the Indians 
 found in possession, ignoring those who claimed a 
 supremacy based on violence, and, in case of re- 
 sistance by the latter, asserting and maintaining 
 for Connecticut an exactly similar title, the 
 right of the stronger. Those who claimed right 
 received it ; those who preferred force were ac- 
 commodated. 
 
 One route to the new territory, by Long Is- 
 land Sound and the Connecticut River, had thus 
 been appropriated. The other, the overland route 
 through Massachusetts, was explored during the 
 same year, 1633, by one John Oldham, who was 
 murdered by the Pequots two years afterward. 
 He found his way westward to the Connecticut 
 River, and brought back most appetizing accounts 
 of the upper Connecticut Valley ; and his reports 
 seem to have suggested a way out of a serious dif- 
 ficulty which had come to a head in Massachu- 
 setts Bay. 
 
 The colony of Massachusetts Bay was at this 
 time limited to a district covering not more than 
 twenty or thirty miles from the sea, and its great- 
 est poverty, as Cotton stated, was a poverty of 
 men. And yet the colony was to lose part of its 
 scanty store of men. Three of the eight Massa- 
 chusetts towns, Dorchester, Watertown, and New- 
 town (now Cambridge), had been at odds with 
 the other five towns on several occasions ; and the 
 assigned reasons are apparently so frivolous as to
 
 18 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 lead to the suspicion that some fundamental differ- 
 ence was at the bottom of them. The three towns 
 named had been part of the great Puritan influx 
 of 1630. Their inhabitants were " new-comers," 
 and this slight division may have been increased 
 by the arrival and settlement, in 1633, of a num- 
 ber of strong men at these three towns, notably 
 Hooker, Stone, and Haynes at Newtown. Dor- 
 chester, Watertown, and Newtown showed many 
 symptoms of an increase of local feeling : the two 
 former led the way, in October, 1633, in establish- 
 ing town governments under " selectmen ; " and 
 all three neglected or evaded, more or less, the fun- 
 damental feature of Massachusetts policy, the 
 limitation of office-holding and the elective fran- 
 chise to church-members. The three towns fell 
 into the position of the commonwealth's opposi- 
 tion, a position not particularly desirable at the 
 time and under all the circumstances. 
 
 The ecclesiastical leaders of Dorchester were 
 Warham and Maverick ; of Newtown, Hooker and 
 Stone ; of Watertown, Phillips. Haynes of New- 
 town, Ludlow of Dorchester, and Pynchon of 
 Roxbury, were the principal lay leaders of the 
 half-formed opposition. Some have thought that 
 Haynes was jealous of Governor Winthrop, Hooker 
 of Cotton, and Ludlow of everybody. But the 
 opposition, if it can be fairly called an opposition, 
 was not so definite as to be traceable to any such 
 personal source. The strength which marked the
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 19 
 
 divergence was due neither to ambition nor to 
 jealousy, but to the strength of mind and charac- 
 ter which marked the leaders of the minority. 
 
 Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone were of 
 Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Hooker began 
 to preach at Chelmsford in 1626, and was silenced 
 for non-conformity in 1629. He then taught 
 school, his assistant being John Eliot, afterward 
 the apostle to the Indians ; but the chase after 
 him became warmer, and hi 1630 he retired to 
 Holland and resumed his preaching. In 1632, he 
 and Stone came to New England as pastor and 
 teacher of the church at Newtown ; and the two 
 took part in the migration to Hartford. Here 
 Hooker became the undisputed ecclesiastical leader 
 of Connecticut until his death in 164T. John 
 Warham and John Maverick, both of Exeter in 
 England, came to New England in 1630, as pastor 
 and teacher of Dorchester. Maverick died while 
 preparing to follow his church, but Warham set- 
 tled with his parishioners at Windsor, and died 
 there in 1670. George Phillips, also a Cambridge 
 man, came to New England in 1630, as pastor of 
 the church at Watertown. He took no part in 
 the migration, but lived and died at Watertown. 
 Fate seems to have determined that Wendell Phil- 
 lips should belong to Massachusetts. 
 
 Roger Ludlow was Endicott's brother-in-law. 
 He came to New England in 1630, and settled at 
 Dorchester. He was deputy governor in 1634,
 
 20 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and seems to have been " slated," to use the 
 modern term, for the governorship in the follow- 
 ing year. But this private agreement among the 
 deputies was broken, for some unknown reason, 
 by the voters, who chose Haynes, perhaps as a 
 less objectionable representative of the opposition. 
 Ludlow complained so openly and angrily of the 
 failure to carry out the agreement that he was 
 dropped from the magistracy at the next election. 
 He went at once to Connecticut, and was deputy 
 governor there in alternate years until 1654. 
 Incensed at the interference of New Haven to 
 prevent his county, Fairfield, from waging an in- 
 dependent warfare against the Dutch, he went to 
 Virginia in 1654, taking the records of the county 
 with him. It is not known when or where he 
 died. Pynchon, the third lay leader of the oppo- 
 sition, took part in the migration, but remained 
 within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, founding 
 the town of Springfield. 
 
 At the May session of the Massachusetts Gen- 
 eral Court in 1634, an application for "liberty to 
 remove " was received from Newtown. It was 
 granted. At the September session, the request 
 was changed into one for removal to Connecticut. 
 This was a very different matter, and, after long 
 debate, was defeated by the vote of the Assistants, 
 though the Deputies passed it. Various reasons 
 were assigned for the request to remove to Con- 
 necticut, lack of room in their present locations,
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 21 
 
 the desire to save Connecticut from the Dutch, 
 and " the strong bent of their spirits to remove 
 thither ; " but the last looks like the strongest 
 reason. In like manner, while the arguments to 
 the contrary were those which would naturally 
 suggest themselves, the weakening of Massachu- 
 setts, and the peril of the emigrants, the conclud- 
 ing argument, that "the removing of a candle- 
 stick " would be " a great judgment," seems to 
 show the feeling of all parties that the secession 
 was the result of discord between two parties. 
 
 Haynes was made governor at the next General 
 Court. Successful inducements were offered to 
 some of the Newtown people to remove to Boston, 
 and some few concessions were made. But the 
 migration which had been denied to the corporate 
 towns had probably been begun by individuals. 
 There is a tradition that some of the Watertown 
 people passed this winter of 1634-5 at the place 
 where Wethersfield now stands. In May, 1635, 
 the Massachusetts General Court voted that lib- 
 erty be granted to the people of Watertown and 
 Roxbury to remove themselves to any place within 
 the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In March, 
 1636, the secession having already been accom- 
 plished, the General Court issued a " Commission 
 to Several Persons to govern the people at Con- 
 necticut." Its preamble reads : " Whereas, upon 
 some reasons and grounds, there are to remove 
 from this our Commonwealth and body of the
 
 22 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Massachusetts in America divers of our loving 
 friends and neighbors, freemen and members of 
 Newtown, Dorchester, Watertown, and other 
 places, who are resolved to transport themselves 
 and their estates unto the river of Connecticut, 
 there to reside and inhabit ; and to that end divers 
 are there already, and divers others shortly to go." 
 This tacit permission was the only authorization 
 given by Massachusetts ; but it should be noted 
 that the unwilling permission was made more 
 gracious by a kindly loan of cannon and ammuni- 
 tion for the protection of the new settlements. 
 
 If it be true that some of the Watertown peo- 
 ple had wintered at Wethersfield in 1634-5, this 
 was the first civil settlement in Connecticut ; and 
 it is certain that, all through the following spring, 
 summer, and autumn, detached parties of Water- 
 town people were settling at Wethersfield. Dur- 
 ing the summer of 1635, a Dorchester party ap- 
 peared near the Plymouth factory, and laid the 
 foundations of the town of Windsor. In October 
 of the same year, a party of sixty persons, includ- 
 ing women and children, largely from Newtown, 
 made the overland march and settled where Hart- 
 ford now stands. Their journey was begun so 
 late that the winter overtook them before they 
 reached the river, and, as they had brought their 
 cattle with them, they found great difficulty in 
 getting everything across the river by means of 
 rafts.
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 23 
 
 It may have been that the echoes of all these 
 preparations had reached England, and stirred the 
 tardy patentees to action. During the autumn of 
 1635, John Winthrop, Jr., agent of the Say and 
 Sele associates, reached Boston, with authority to 
 build a large fort at the mouth of the Connecticut 
 River. He was to be " Governor of the River 
 Connecticut " for one year, and he at once issued 
 a proclamation to the Massachusetts emigrants, 
 asking " under what right and preference they 
 had lately taken up their plantation." It is said 
 that they agreed to give up any lands demanded 
 by him, or to return on having their expenses re- 
 paid. A more dangerous influence, however, soon 
 claimed Winthrop's attention. Before the winter 
 set in, he had sent a party to seize the designated 
 spot for a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut 
 River. His promptness was needed. Just as his 
 men had thrown up a work sufficient for defense 
 and had mounted a few guns, a Dutch ship from 
 New Amsterdam appeared, bringing a force in- 
 tended to appropriate the same place. Again the 
 Dutch found themselves a trifle late ; and their 
 post at Hartford was thus finally cut off from 
 effective support. 
 
 This was a horrible winter to the advanced 
 guard of English settlers on the upper Connecti- 
 cut. The navigation of the river was completely 
 blocked by ice before the middle of November ; 
 and the vessels which were to have brought their
 
 24 CONNECTICUT 
 
 winter supplies by way of Long Island Sound and 
 the river were forced to return to Boston, leaving 
 the wretched settlers unprovided for. For a little 
 while, some scanty supplies of corn were obtained 
 from the neighboring Indians, but this resource 
 soon failed. About seventy persons straggled 
 down the river to the fort at its mouth. There 
 they found and dug out of the ice a sixty-ton ves- 
 sel, and made their way back to Boston. Others 
 turned back on the way they had come, and strug- 
 gled through the snow and ice to " the Bay." 
 But a few held their grip on the new territory. 
 Subsisting first on a little corn bought from more 
 distant Indians, then by hunting, and finally on 
 ground-nuts and acorns dug from under the snow, 
 they fought through the winter and held their 
 ground. But it was a narrow escape. Spring 
 found them almost exhausted, their unsheltered 
 cattle dead, and just time enough to bring neces- 
 sary supplies from home. The Dorchester people 
 alone lost cattle to the value of two thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 The Newtown congregation, in October, 1635, 
 found customers for their old homes in a new 
 party from England ; and in the following June 
 Hooker and Stone led their people overland to 
 Connecticut. They numbered one hundred, with 
 one hundred and sixty head of cattle. Women 
 and children were of the party. Mrs. Hooker, 
 who was ill, was carried on a litter ; and the jour-
 
 FIJtST SETTLEMENTS OF CONNECTICUT. 25 
 
 ney, of " about one hundred miles," occupied two 
 weeks. Its termination was well calculated to 
 dissipate the evil auguries of the previous winter. 
 The Connecticut Valley in early June ! Its green 
 meadows, flanked by wooded hills, lay before 
 them. Its oaks, whose patriarch was to shelter 
 their charter, its great elms and tulip-trees, were 
 broken by the silver ribbon of the river ; here 
 and there were the wigwams of the Indians, or 
 the cabins of the survivors of the winter ; and, 
 over and through all, the light of a day in June 
 welcomed the new-comers. The thought of aban- 
 doning Connecticut disappeared forever. 
 
 During the summer of 1636, the body of the 
 church at Dorchester settled at Windsor, having 
 Warham as its pastor. Maverick had died before 
 the removal was completed. The Watertown 
 people also completed their removal, having Henry 
 Smith as pastor, Phillips remaining behind. Pyn- 
 chon, with eight companions, settled at Springfield, 
 just north of the boundary between Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut. When the spring of 1637 had 
 fairly opened, there were about eight hundred 
 persons within the present limits of Connecticut, 
 two hundred and fifty of whom were adult males 
 and fighting men. Perhaps the " strong bent of 
 spirit" to remove to a commonwealth where indi- 
 viduality was not to be sacrificed to " steady hab- 
 its " was not entirely confined to Newtown, Wa- 
 tertown, and Dorchester.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 THE aborigines of Connecticut did not differ 
 from other New England Indians so much as to 
 demand any extended notice. They were not nu- 
 merous ; the lowest and most probable estimate 
 of their numbers is six or seven thousand, and the 
 highest twenty thousand. The northeastern sec- 
 tion of the territory was inhabited by the Nip- 
 munks. The upper Connecticut separated the 
 Tunxis Indians on its western banks from the 
 Podunks on the eastern. To the south of both 
 were the Wangunks. New Haven is now in the 
 centre of the former territory of the Quinnipiacks. 
 To the west of the Quinnipiacks were the Paugus- 
 setts, and to the west of them a great number of 
 scattered tribes, known generally by the names of 
 their respective sachems or of the English towns 
 in which they dwelt. 
 
 All these tribes were alike unclean in their 
 habits, shiftless in their mode of life, and much 
 addicted to powowing, devil-worship, and darker 
 immoralities, if we may trust the possibly hasty 
 and prejudiced accounts of the early Puritan ob-
 
 THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT. 27 
 
 servers. The Indian rule, that all work is to be 
 done by the women, was enforced in its full rigor ; 
 but the correlative virtue of prowess in war was 
 not so prominent in the men, who were rather 
 prone to shout at a distance than to expose their 
 lives to the hazards of battle. They had, how- 
 ever, developed military science so far as to have 
 become acquainted with the rudiments of fortifi- 
 cation. It is not easy to say how far their con- 
 structions deserved the name of forts, but they 
 were numerous, and were an advance on the ordi- 
 nary Indian methods of fighting. The Connec- 
 ticut Indians were indebted for the advance, not 
 to natural genius, but to their chronic terror of 
 their lords or enemies, the Mohawks. 
 
 The Five Nations of Iroquois in central New 
 York had become the leading Indian power of 
 eastern North America. Its original five mem- 
 bers, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayu- 
 gas, and Senecas, were increased by the addition 
 of the Tuscaroras from North Carolina in 1712, 
 and the confederacy was thereafter known as the 
 Six Nations ; but, at all periods of its history, the 
 Mohawks were so emphatically the leading mem- 
 ber that their name was regularly put by synec- 
 doche for the whole. The Connecticut Indians, 
 at any rate, never stopped to discriminate mi- 
 nutely between the various branches of the Six 
 Nations, but, on the appearance of any of them, 
 promptly fled with the panic-stricken cry, " The
 
 28 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Mohawks are coming ! " There seems to have 
 been hardly the thought of resistance, when, every 
 year, two elders of the Mohawks appeared in 
 Connecticut, passing from village to village, col- 
 lecting tribute, and announcing the edicts of the 
 great council at Onondaga. To this exercise of 
 supremacy they seem to have made but one excep- 
 tion, the kindred tribe of the Pequots. 
 
 The Indians of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and 
 probably Massachusetts, were originally of one 
 blood, perhaps divided into a few strong tribes. A 
 few years before the arrival of the English, ac- 
 cording to tradition, a sept of the Mohegan blood 
 from New York, crossing the Hudson and moving 
 eastward to the Connecticut River, passed south- 
 ward and conquered a permanent home for them- 
 selves on the shore of Long Island Sound, in the 
 southeastern part of the present State. This ir- 
 ruption split the Indian population into two parts. 
 To the east of the Pequots were the Narragansetts, 
 the powerful tribe of Miantonomoh and Canon chet, 
 dwelling in Rhode Island, but claiming still some 
 portion of the soil of Connecticut. They were 
 sufficiently intact to make head against the Pe- 
 quots, and waged continual war with them ; but, 
 lacking the ferocity and fervor for war which was 
 a Pequot characteristic, they had difficulty in 
 maintaining their position. To the west of the 
 Pequots, the pressure of the strangers on one side 
 and the Mohawks on the other ground up the
 
 THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT. 29 
 
 Indians into that mass of petty tribes which has 
 been referred to, none of which dared to offer re- 
 sistance after the power of the Pequots had been 
 once established, all being interested merely to es- 
 cape the notice of their oppressors as far as pos- 
 sible. Thus the Pequots, with but seven hundred 
 fighting men, were able to overawe all the western 
 tribes, while maintaining equal warfare with the 
 Narragansetts, whose warriors are variously esti- 
 mated at from one to five thousand. There are 
 no annals of Indian diplomacy from which we may 
 learn how the Six Nations and the Pequots avoided 
 collision in the matter of supremacy over their 
 tributaries; but it is not probable that either 
 power was intent on establishing a right of ex- 
 clusive extortion. Both were satisfied by the pay- 
 ment of their respective tribute, and the Pequot 
 irruption merely doubled the burden of the abori- 
 ginal inhabitants. 
 
 At the time of the English entrance to Connec- 
 ticut, the grand sachem of the Pequots was Tato- 
 bam, or Sassacus. One of his sagamores was 
 Uncas, whose grandmother was the sister of the 
 grandfather of Sassacus. Uncas had connected 
 himself still more closely with the sachem's house 
 by taking the daughter of Sassacus in marriage. 
 He was Sagamore of Mohegan, the most impor- 
 tant Pequot district. His courage, strength, and 
 cunning were remarkable even among the Pe- 
 quots ; and the relations between him and Sas-
 
 30 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 sacus soon became strained and finally broke. Un- 
 able to resist the 'grand sachem, Uncas fled to 
 the Narragansetts, was allowed to return, rebelled 
 again, and was again defeated and fled. It was 
 inevitable that the coining of the English should 
 act as a wedge on this rift in the conquering tribe, 
 and should make its downfall the surer. 
 
 The Dutch had at first recognized the Pequots 
 as lords paramount of the territory, and had made 
 their purchases of land from them. But the Pe- 
 quots, unable to restrain the savagery of their 
 natures, had lain in wait for and killed some of 
 their enemies at the Dutch trading-house, and had 
 thus interfered very seriously with the course of 
 trade. In retaliation, the Dutch had killed the 
 father of Sassacus. Anxious to get rid of his 
 troublesome neighbors, Sassacus had acquiesced 
 in the invitation of Winthrop to furnish settlers 
 for the Connecticut Valley. But when Holmes at 
 last came, he brought back some of the old sa- 
 chems, who had been expelled by the Pequots, and 
 made his purchases of land from them. Further- 
 more, a certain lewd and drunken ship-captain 
 named Stone, from Virginia, having brought his 
 vessel into the Connecticut River during the sum- 
 mer of 1633, was taken for a Dutchman by the 
 Pequots, who murdered him while he lay in a 
 drunken sleep in his cabin. During the following 
 year, Sassacus sent messengers who made a treaty 
 with the government of Massachusetts Bay, by the
 
 TEE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT. i 
 
 terms of which many of the difficulties betvvet 
 his tribe and the English were put out of sigh 
 The Pequots were to allow the English to coloni 
 and trade within their borders ; were to give i 
 the murderers of Stone ; and were to pay a tribui 
 of wampum, a part of which was to be transferee; 
 by the English to the Narragansetts, so as to brir 
 about a peace between these two ancient enemit 
 without subjecting the haughty Pequot chief t 
 the degradation of a personal appeal for cessatio 
 of hostilities. The terms were largely nomina^. 
 The English made no demand for those who had 
 murdered Stone, and Sassacus paid none of the 
 stipulated tribute and was asked for none. 
 
 The murder of John Oldham, in 1636, first 
 brought the English into collision with the Pe- 
 quots. Oldham, with a crew of two boys and two 
 Narragansett Indians, had been trading with a 
 pinnace on the shore of the Pequot country, and 
 had passed on to Block Island. Here he was 
 killed by the Island Indians. The murder had 
 hardly taken place when John Gallop, who was 
 sailing from the Connecticut River to the east end 
 of Long Island, found Oldham's vessel in posses- 
 sion of Indians. He first fired duck-shot into the 
 naked Indian crew until he had driven them under 
 hatches, and then rammed Oldham's vessel until 
 all but four of the Indians had jumped overboard 
 and were drowned. Two surrendered, and he 
 made sure of one of them by throwing him over-
 
 32 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 board. As the sea was rising he took Oldham's 
 body into his vessel, and allowed the derelict to 
 drift ashore with two of the Indians still in her 
 hold. 
 
 It is difficult to see how the Pequots were con- 
 cerned in all this. But Governor Vane and his 
 council, of Massachusetts Bay, in sending Endi- 
 cott with an expedition to punish the Block Island- 
 ers, assumed that the Pequots had harbored some 
 of the murderers, and must be included in the 
 punishment. No proof was offered to the in- 
 dictment against the Pequots, who seem to have 
 held the same place in the English mind that 
 Habakkuk held in the Frenchman's, and to be 
 "capable of anything." But Endicott gathered 
 no laurels in his Pequot expedition. His fero- 
 cious antagonists did not wish to fight, and could 
 hardly be persuaded to fight. A few of them, and 
 none of the English, were killed and wounded ; 
 and the expedition, having satiated its wrath by 
 burning the Indian wigwams and crops, returned 
 to Boston. 
 
 Enough had been done to range the Pequots 
 against the English. As a choice of evils, Sassa- 
 cus proposed to the Narragansetts a treaty of alli- 
 ance against the foreigners, but this was thwarted 
 by the influence of Roger Williams, who induced 
 the Narragansetts to send ambassadors to Boston 
 and conclude a treaty with the English. The Pe- 
 quots were thus left to maintain alone their ancient
 
 THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT. 33 
 
 title, by courage, to their territory. They did not 
 hesitate. The fort at Saybrook, whose commander, 
 Lieutenant Gardiner, had strongly disapproved 
 Endicott's expedition, was first attacked. A forag- 
 ing party was cut off, and several men were cap- 
 tured and put to the torture. Other parties were 
 similarly caught in ambuscades, and the fort was 
 beleaguered through the whole winter. In the 
 spring of 1637, the war was opened in the upper 
 Connecticut Valley. The people of Wethersfield 
 had agreed, in buying lands from Sequin, a friendly 
 Indian, to allow him to remain within the town 
 limits. The agreement was violated, and he was 
 expelled. In revenge, he brought the Pequots 
 down upon the little settlement. They almost 
 took it by surprise, killed a number of the people, 
 and inflicted considerable damage before they were 
 driven off. Four days afterward, the successful 
 Pequots sailed past the fort at Saybrook, waving 
 the clothes of their victims and exhibiting two cap- 
 tive girls. The Pequot war had fairly begun, and, 
 in the nature of things, it could be ended only by 
 the extermination of one party or the other. For 
 this severe strain upon an infant colony, the Con- 
 necticut colonists were indebted to the stupidity or 
 willfulness of Governor Vane and his council. They 
 must have appreciated Cromwell's subsequent es- 
 timate of the governor. 
 3
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 
 
 THE Connecticut General Court met at Hart- 
 ford May 1, 1637, the ninth meeting of that body 
 which is on the records. It is not likely that it 
 represented, as yet, more than eight hundred souls, 
 though the proportion of fighting men in so young 
 a colony must have been abnormally large. Its 
 action was thorough-going. It resolved that there 
 should be " an offensiue warr against the Pequoitt," 
 and a draft of ninety men was ordered from the 
 three towns, forty-two from Hartford, thirty 
 from Windsor, and eighteen from Wethersfield, 
 the whole to be under command of Captain John 
 Mason, of Windsor. The minute distribution of 
 the assessment of the requisition for stores upon 
 the three towns, and the proviso that one half of 
 the corn is to be baked into biscuit " if by any 
 meanes they cann," are evidences of the poverty of 
 the colony, and the resolution with which its rulers 
 drove their demands upon its patriotism up to the 
 highest possible point. It is certain that the 
 people were nearly starving when they were thus 
 called on for a full third of their able-bodied men.
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 35 
 
 Nine days after the call, May 10, the ninety men 
 were ready, and, with seventy Mohegans under 
 Uncas, who was thereafter the ally of the colonists, 
 embarked on the river in three small vessels. Un- 
 cas and his men soon found the voyage uncomfort- 
 able, and begged to be allowed to make the trip 
 to Saybrook by land. When Mason reached Say- 
 brook, after five days of tedious sailing, he found 
 Uncas there, exultant in the success of a battle 
 with the Pequots, in which he had killed seven of 
 his enemies and captured another, who had been 
 living among the colonists as a spy. The spy 
 could appeal to no law, civilized or savage, for 
 safety ; but it is a repulsive business to read the 
 punishment which was allowed to be inflicted. He 
 was handed over to the mercy of Uncas and his 
 Mohegans, who tortured and roasted him, and 
 finally ate him. 
 
 Lying wind-bound hi front of the fort at Say- 
 brook, Mason knew well that his motions were 
 under the sharp eyes of Pequot scouts, and that 
 his entry into the Thames River would find his 
 enemies thoroughly prepared to meet him. Forti- 
 fied by a council of war, and by an all-night prayer 
 of the chaplain, Mr. Stone, he decided to disobey 
 instructions, pass on to Narragansett Bay, and at- 
 tack the Pequots from the eastward. The change 
 of programme was no doubt watched carefully by 
 the runners of Sassacus ; and when the three 
 vessels had passed the only available landing place
 
 36 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 in the Pequot country, the Thames or Pequot River, 
 the doomed tribe abandoned itself to a sense of 
 triumphant security : the white men had not 
 dared attack them after all, but had chosen the 
 less formidable Indians of Block Island or the Bay 
 as the objects of their revenge. The danger had 
 passed them by. 
 
 On Saturday, May 30, the little squadron came 
 to anchor in Narragansett Bay, too late in the 
 afternoon to effect anything that day. It is a 
 witness of their conscientious exposition of the 
 Puritan theory that the urgent need for prompt 
 action in order to gain the advantage of a sur- 
 prise could not induce them to devote Sunday to 
 that purpose ; and then an unfavorable wind kept 
 them from landing until Tuesday night. March- 
 ing at once to the village of Miantonomoh, the 
 Narragansett chief, Mason demanded his assistance 
 against their common enemy. The chief consid- 
 ered their enterprise a most laudable one, but 
 thought the English too few to deal with such 
 " great captains " as the Pequots. All that could 
 be obtained was permission to pass through the 
 Narragansett country, but a number of individual 
 volunteers from the surrounding Indians joined 
 the troops on their march. A few days' waiting 
 would have increased their force by a Massachu- 
 setts reinforcement under Captain Patrick, which 
 had already reached Providence ; but Mason bal- 
 anced the advantage of surprise against this in-
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 37 
 
 crease of force and pushed on. Thirteen men 
 were sent back with the vessels to meet the main 
 body at the Pequot River ; and the army now con- 
 sisted of seventy-seven Englishmen, Uncas's Mohe- 
 gans, and about two hundred exceedingly doubtful 
 Narragansett auxiliaries, who were present rather 
 as spectators and critics than as fighting men. 
 
 One day's march carried the expedition nearly 
 across the present State of Rhode Island, and on 
 the next morning the eagerness of the Narragan- 
 sett auxiliaries to act as a rear guard proved 
 that the trail was becoming uncomfortably warm. 
 Toward evening, when just north of the present 
 town of Stonington, Mason called a halt, and was 
 told by the Narragansetts that they were now 
 close to one of the two great Pequot forts ; the 
 other, the chief residence of Sassacus, being sev- 
 eral hours' journey further on. Camp was formed, 
 and the men slept on their arms, their outposts 
 having been pushed near enough to the fort to hear 
 the revelry of the Indian garrison, which lasted 
 until midnight. Before daybreak, June 5, the 
 men were up and on the march. Two miles of an 
 Indian trail brought them to the foot of a swelling 
 hill, still known as Pequot Hill, near Groton. 
 Here Uncas was called on for explanations, as there 
 were no signs of the Pequots. He told Mason 
 that the fort was at the top of the hill before him, 
 and that the Narragansetts at the rear had now 
 fallen into a condition of abject fright. " Tell
 
 38 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 them not to fly," said Mason, " but stand behind, 
 at what distance they please, and see now whether 
 Englishmen will fight." 
 
 Underbill with part of the men on the southern 
 slope, and Mason with the rest on the opposite 
 side, stole cautiously up the hill. There were no 
 sentinels, and the garrison was still sound asleep. 
 As the assailants came within a rod of the pali- 
 sade, there was a bark from an Indian cur within 
 it, and some Pequot warrior, perhaps starting up 
 from a dream, called out " Owanux ! Owanux ! " 
 (Englishmen.) Still there was no general alarm 
 within the fort until the assaulting party fired a 
 volley through the palisade, which was answered 
 by a terrified yell from the awakened garrison. 
 The piles of bushes which served for gates were 
 torn down, and the English swarmed through into 
 the fort, but still the Pequots remained within 
 their wigwams. Mason, after entering, stood in 
 the main street and saw not an Indian in it to the 
 other side of the fort. Every wigwam which was 
 entered, however, became the stage for a desperate 
 hand-to-hand struggle. Some of the Pequots began 
 to shoot from the wigwam doors ; and Mason, 
 shouting " We must burn them," touched a fire- 
 brand to the mats which covered a neighboring 
 hut. The fire, fanned by a rising northeaster, 
 spread through the fort ; Underhill on the other 
 side aided it with gunpowder ; and soon the at- 
 tacking party was forced to hurry out of the fur-
 
 THE PEQ.UOT WAR. 39 
 
 nace heat. There was no such privilege for the 
 hated Pequots. In an hour, from four to six hun- 
 dred of them were roasted to death, seven being 
 taken prisoners, and seven breaking through the 
 line and escaping. From one hundred and fifty to 
 two hundred of the Indians were warriors ; the 
 rest were old men, women and children. 
 
 It is true that two of Mason's party were killed, 
 and about twenty wounded, in the whole struggle, 
 but many of the recorded casualties bear strong 
 testimony to the disadvantages under which the 
 Indians fought. Some of the men were saved 
 from arrow wounds by their neck-cloths : when 
 so slight a buckler was sufficient, the force of the 
 weapon could not have been very terrible. Sim- 
 ilarly, a piece of cheese in the pocket of another 
 was enough to intercept an arrow in its deadly 
 flight. In recounting the subsequent attack upon 
 the retreating party, Underbill contemptuously 
 says that the Pequots fought with the Mohegans 
 and Narragansetts in such a manner that neither 
 would have killed seven men in seven years. The 
 arrow was shot into the air at such an elevation 
 as to drop on an adversary, if the adversary had 
 not sufficient forethought to step out of the way ; 
 and each arrow was retained until the result of its 
 predecessor was ascertained. The English regu- 
 larly avoided the weapon, then picked it up and 
 broke it, and thus gradually exhausted the ammu- 
 nition of the enemy. Savages though they were,
 
 40 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 it is pitiful to think of human beings, locked up 
 in a furnace by a circle of guns and keen-tempered 
 swords, and forced to rely on such weapons as the 
 fallacious Indian arrow. And yet to the last the 
 Pequots crawled up to the palisade and shot their 
 impotent bolts at their inaccessible foe. 
 
 Mason's thorough-going massacre of men, wo- 
 men and children has been compared to Arnold's 
 butchery at New London, long afterward, to Ma- 
 son's manifest disadvantage, since Arnold at least 
 did not burn the village, drive the women and 
 children back into the flames, and roast them in 
 the ashes of their homes. The comparison is un- 
 fair. Arnold had not the slightest reason to ap- 
 prehend from the women and children of New 
 London such treatment as Mason knew that the 
 Indian squaws and children would mete out to his 
 men if they were defeated and captured. In the 
 gray of the opening morning, while Indian men 
 and women, hardly to be distinguished from one 
 another by their dress and appearance, were vying 
 with one another in the ferocity of their resist- 
 ance, it was practically impossible for Mason's 
 men to make distinction. To say this is not to 
 assert that they were under a controlling desire 
 to make such a distinction. On the contrary, 
 probably not a man of them but was there under 
 the religious confidence that the Pequots were 
 acting the part of the Canaanites in resisting the 
 children of Israel, and that a similar fate was
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 41 
 
 their proper portion. In this they probably dif- 
 fered from Benedict Arnold. Much as we may 
 regret that Endicott's unpardonable raid had de- 
 cided that Sassacus was to be the enemy of the 
 colonists, and the disreputable Uncas their friend 
 and ally, this decision, when reached, had no pos- 
 sible result but the complete overthrow of the Pe- 
 quots. It is easy to talk of sparing non-combat- 
 ants, but not easy to apply it to a case in which 
 the non-combatants insist on fighting to the death. 
 Nevertheless, it is a truth that there is no feature 
 in the history of the commonwealth which is more 
 unpleasant reading than the conduct of the Pequot 
 war from its causeless outbreak down to its con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Hiring some of his generous Narragansett allies 
 to carry the wounded, Mason now began a retreat 
 to his vessels, which were just sailing into what is 
 now New London harbor, but half a dozen miles 
 away. By this time, nearly the whole remaining 
 power of the Pequot tribe had gathered at the 
 ruins of the fort. The chroniclers calmly state 
 the details of the ecstasy of rage into which the 
 sight of their slaughtered comrades threw them ; 
 they note with a curious interest, as if speaking of 
 the almost human affection of a she-bear robbed 
 of her whelps, how the Pequots stamped, shrieked, 
 tore their hair, and finally rushed down the hill to 
 charge the rear of the retiring column. But 
 alas for all excuses for the expedition ! they also
 
 42 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 note that a rear guard of a dozen men was suffi- 
 cient to repulse all the assaults of two thirds of 
 the whole Pequot power. The English force 
 reached the vessels without difficulty, finding 
 there Captain Patrick and the Massachusetts con- 
 tingent. Putting the wounded on the ships, the 
 uninjured men returned in triumph by land to 
 Saybrook. 
 
 The last council of the Pequot nation was held 
 on the day following the capture of the fort. It 
 is not difficult to imagine the feeling of the par- 
 ticipants. They had proved, even to themselves, 
 that it was impossible for them to resist the stran- 
 gers in the field ; and it seems to have been as im- 
 possible for them to conceive the notion of surren- 
 der. Having first put to death every relative of 
 Uncas within their reach, they came to a Roman 
 resolution. The route by which they had origi- 
 nally entered Connecticut was now blocked by 
 the new English towns ; but there was a possible 
 road of return along the Sound, where there were 
 as yet no settlements. Burning their villages and 
 crops, they set out on their desperate venture. 
 Thirty of the men, with many of the women and 
 children, soon abandoned it and returned to their 
 old home, where they took refuge in a swamp. 
 Toward the end of June, a Massachusetts party of 
 one hundred and twenty men under Stoughton 
 was guided to their hiding place by the Narragan- 
 setts, who had not ventured to attack them, but
 
 THE PEQ.UOT WAR. 43 
 
 said they were " holding them " for the English. 
 The Pequots met their fate calmly and without 
 resistance. All the men were put to death in 
 cold blood with the exception of two, who prom- 
 ised to guide the party to the hiding place of Sas- 
 sacus ; and even these, proving unwilling to fulfill 
 their bargain, were subsequently killed. Thirty- 
 three of the eighty women were presented to the 
 Indian allies ; the remainder were sent to Massa- 
 chusetts and sold as slaves. 
 
 The main body of the tribe pursued their march 
 for the Hudson under Sassacus and Mononotto. 
 While crossing the Connecticut, they came upon 
 three white men in a canoe, killed them after a 
 stout resistance, and hung their bodies on the 
 trees upon the shore. After passing Say brook, 
 they were driven by lack of supplies to take a 
 route close to the shore, in order to dig shell-fish. 
 Such circumstances were not favorable for a forced 
 march ; the daily journeys grew shorter ; and that 
 keen-scented hound, Uncas, was on their track. 
 Stoughton's men had joined Mason, and the com- 
 bined force had taken ship at Saybrook to pursue 
 by the Sound, while Uncas and his men searched 
 the shore. Stragglers from the main body were 
 occasionally met, and one incident will indicate 
 their fate. Near Guilford, a Pequot chief with a 
 few men was sighted. Escaping from view for a 
 few minutes, the fugitives hid at the end of the 
 cape which juts out from the eastern side of the
 
 44 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 harbor. Uncas searched the opposite side of the 
 harbor, but sent part of his men to search the 
 eastern cape. Driven from their refuge, the Pe- 
 quots swam across the harbor and were shot as 
 they landed by the Mohegans. Uncas cut off the 
 head of the Pequot chief and lodged it in the 
 branches of an oak, where it hung for years, giv- 
 ing the place the local name of Sachem's Head. 
 
 About the time when the pursuers had reached 
 the place where the town of Fairfield was after- 
 wards planted, a Pequot was captured who was 
 found willing, in return for life, to engage to kill 
 or betray Sassacus. He kept his agreement. He 
 joined the main body, and, when suspected and 
 forced to flee, brought back word that the main 
 body of the Pequots had taken post in a swamp, 
 the stronghold of a local sachem, near Greenfield 
 Hill. The untiring pursuers set out at once for 
 the place, some twenty-five miles away, found it, 
 and undertook to surround the swamp. There 
 were really two swamps, a larger and a smaller, 
 separated by a neck of firm ground covered with 
 bushes. After a hand-to-hand struggle, the be- 
 siegers succeeded in cutting down the bushes and 
 reducing the coverts to one, which their numbers 
 were sufficient to surround efficiently. A call for 
 surrender was then sent in. It was accepted by 
 the local tribe on whose hospitality the Pequots 
 had forced themselves, and by the women and 
 children of the Pequots, so that the number of the
 
 THE PEQUOT WAS. 45 
 
 besieged was reduced from three hundred to one 
 hundred. Those who were left were the picked 
 men of the tribe. They saw- before them the 
 strangers who had suddenly flung them from their 
 supremacy to their present position, and they had 
 a savage preference of death to surrender. They 
 rushed so furiously on the messenger that the 
 English found difficulty in rescuing him. All 
 night long they crept up to the border of the 
 swamp and shot their ineffectual arrows at the 
 besiegers ; and in the gray of the next morning 
 they made their last burst for freedom. In a heavy 
 fog they rushed on that part of the English line 
 commanded by Patrick, and the fight at once be- 
 came so furious that the rest of the English force 
 had to be brought up to Patrick's assistance. In 
 the confusion, about seventy of the hundred Pe- 
 quots burst through and got off ; but many of them 
 were found dead in the pursuit. The subsequent 
 course of the survivors is not known. There is a 
 tradition that they made their way to the moun- 
 tainous region of western North Carolina, and 
 that, forty years afterward, the intelligence of 
 King Philip's war brought them or their children 
 as far north as Virginia, on their way back to 
 strike another blow at the English, when they 
 were stopped by hearing of Philip's death. 
 
 Sassacus and Mononotto had left their tribe 
 before the swamp fight, either overwhelmed with 
 unpopularity, or unable to spur the remainder of
 
 46 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the tribe to the necessary celerity of movement. 
 Their party of thirty or forty men escaped to the 
 Mohawks ; but their new hosts put them all to 
 death, sending their scalps to the English to relieve 
 them from further anxiety. Only Mononotto es- 
 caped, and it is not known what became of him. 
 His Avife, with her children, was among the cap- 
 tives at the swamp. It is pleasant to record that 
 she had been very kind to the two captured Eng- 
 lish girls, and that Governor Winthrop gave di- 
 rections that she should be treated with corre- 
 sponding kindness. All the prisoners, even in- 
 cluding the wife of Mononotto, were made slaves, 
 some being kept in Connecticut, and others sent 
 to Massachusetts or the West Indies. They 
 proved, however, most unsatisfactory slaves, and 
 their servitude was in almost every case soon ter- 
 minated by death. 
 
 The downfall of the Pequots inured largely to 
 the benefit of Uncas. Many of the original tribe 
 took membership in the Mohegan branch, though 
 some preferred to join the Narragansetts or the 
 Long Island Indians. It was not long before the 
 jealous Narragansetts called Uncas to account be- 
 fore the equally jealous colonists for harboring 
 Pequots to such an extent as to make his own 
 power a source of possible danger. An investiga- 
 tion showed that there were still at large some 
 two hundred Pequots, half of which number were 
 given to Uncas and the rest to the Narragansett
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 47 
 
 chiefs. Late in 1638, the delicate negotiation was 
 closed by a treaty between the Connecticut dele- 
 gates, Miantonomoh for the Narragansetts, and 
 Uncas. The two high contracting Indian parties 
 were to retain their respective Pequots, paying an 
 annual tribute for them and incorporating them 
 into their tribes. Connecticut was to have all the 
 territory formerly occupied by the Pequots, and 
 was to act as umpire in any quarrel between Un- 
 cas and Miantonomoh. The former lords of the 
 soil had disappeared, and the stranger had taken 
 their place. 
 
 The tripartite treaty of 1638 settled the su- 
 premacy of the English for the future. Purchases 
 of lands from the Indians went on with increasing 
 frequency until prohibited by the general court 
 in 1663. Even Uneas was unwary enough to 
 make such transfers ; and in one of them, in 1640, 
 in return for " five and a half yards of trucking 
 cloth, with stockings and other things," he is said 
 to have transferred to the commonwealth his 
 whole territory, covering the whole northern por- 
 tion of New London County, with the southern 
 portion of Tolland and Windham counties. The 
 Mohegans, however, insisted that the transaction 
 was only a covenant to sell their lands to no white 
 men without first giving the commonwealth an 
 opportunity to buy, and their claims were a long- 
 standing source of difficulty. 
 
 Miantonomoh was not satisfied with the treaty
 
 48 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 of 1638. It is not probable that he would have 
 been permanently satisfied with any treaty which 
 left the parvenu Uncas in the position of a great 
 chief. An attack made by Uncas upon a chief 
 related to Miantonomoh furnished an opportune 
 casus belli. With a discretion worthy of a more 
 highly civilized monarch, Miantonomoh postponed 
 the declaration of war to the more urgent neces- 
 sity of making war. The whole power of the 
 Narragansetts was secretly set in motion for the 
 Mohegan country. Uncas was not asleep. His 
 runners saw the host of the enemy crossing a ford, 
 and carried the intelligence to their chief at his 
 fort near the present city of Norwich. When the 
 Narragansetts found the lair of the Mohegan chief, 
 they found that they had to deal with the whole 
 strength of his tribe, which he had had time to 
 call in. 
 
 Uncas had felt himself strong enough to ad- 
 vance a few miles, though he had but half the 
 force of his enemy, for he relied with confidence 
 on the mingling of unscrupulous treachery and 
 headlong courage which had been the Pequot title 
 to the soil from the beginning. He signaled for 
 a parley as soon as the Narragansetts came within 
 hearing, and, meeting the Narragansett chief be- 
 tween the lines, appealed to him to prevent a 
 needless effusion of blood by a single combat of 
 the leaders. Miantonomoh rejected the proposal, 
 perhaps with some contempt, and Uncas at once
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 49 
 
 gave the signal for which his men had been wait- 
 ing, by dropping prone upon the ground. His 
 men instantly poured a flight of arrows upon the 
 Narragansetts, and followed it by a charge, which 
 Uncas rose and headed. The battle lasted but a 
 moment ; the Narragansetts fled, almost without 
 striking a blow ; and Miantonomoh, deserted by 
 his people and over-weighted by an English corse- 
 let, was caught, after a long chase, by Uncas and 
 one of his sachems. The captive kept a stolid si- 
 lence, refusing to beg for mercy, even by gesture. 
 
 The tender mercies of Uncas would doubtless 
 have been swift to visit Miantonomoh but for one 
 circumstance. The Rhode Island settlers were 
 not forgetful of the benefits which they had re- 
 ceived at the hands of the Narragansetts ; and one 
 of them, Gorton, of Warwick, sent Uncas a violent 
 message, threatening him with English vengeance 
 if he injured Miantonomoh. Uncas, unable to dis- 
 criminate clearly between English sectaries or to 
 balance the respective power of white faces, carried 
 his prisoner to Hartford for trial. The governor 
 and magistrates referred him to the commissioners 
 of the united colonies, who were to meet at Boston 
 in the following September. Until then, Mianto- 
 nomoh remained at Hartford. 
 
 The commissioners, much as they dreaded Mian- 
 tonomoh, did not see their way clear to condemning 
 him to death. In the emergency they summoned 
 into council five of the delegates to a synod then
 
 50 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 sitting at Boston. These counselors rode rough- 
 shod over the scruples which had given pause to 
 the lay mind. To them the Nan*agansett was a 
 Philistine, an Amalekite, who was of necessity 
 guilty. They decided that he must die, and the 
 commissioners acquiesced in the decision. They 
 directed the Connecticut authorities to give him 
 up to Uncas for execution outside of the common- 
 wealth's jurisdiction, to detail witnesses to see that 
 all should be done in order, and to defend Uncas 
 against any threatened vengeance for the act. 
 The most shocking attendant circumstance is the 
 fact that the announcement of the sentence was 
 postponed until the Connecticut commissioners had 
 safely reached Hartford, for the reason that Mian- 
 tonomoh himself had given notice that his people 
 intended to capture them on the way and hold 
 them as hostages for his safety. It is no wonder 
 that so dangerous a chieftain should find no mercy. 
 The Narragansett chief was delivered to the 
 custody of Uncas, two Englishmen joining the 
 party to be witnesses to the execution. When the 
 Mohegans had reached the scene of the battle near 
 Norwich, Uncas gave a signal to his brother, Wa- 
 wequa, whose place was just behind the captive. 
 He at once sunk his hatchet into Miantonomoh's 
 brain, and death followed instantly. Uncas de- 
 voured a piece of flesh out from the dead man's 
 shoulder, declaring it the sweetest meat he had 
 ever eaten.
 
 THE PEQ.UOT WAR. 51 
 
 The only serious difficulties with Indians there- 
 after were in the southwest, and were really off- 
 shoots from the continual troubles between the 
 Dutch and the Indians. There were several mur- 
 ders and savage assaults, the most notable victim 
 being Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, 
 who had settled near Stamford, and was killed, 
 with some seventeen others, in a night attack 
 by the Indians. The Narragansetts seem to have 
 taken no concerted part in this border warfare. 
 They had come to despair of making head against 
 the whites ; and their hopes of revenge were con- 
 centrated on Uncas and his tribe, upon whom they 
 made repeated attacks. Their only results were 
 renewed and increased fines and tribute imposed 
 by the white supporters of Uncas. About 1658 
 these attacks ceased, and the Narragansetts re- 
 signed themselves to their fate. 
 
 The chiefs to whom Pequots had been assigned, 
 and especially Uncas, were so greedy and tyran- 
 nical in their rule that the conquered people began 
 to drift away from them and form scattered and 
 illegal communities. One or two of their new 
 chiefs showed themselves good friends of the Eng- 
 lish ; and in 1655 the New England commissioners, 
 to Uncas's unconcealed disgust, consented to a re- 
 organization of the Pequots into two tribes under 
 chieftains of their own blood, Hermon Garret and 
 Cassasinamon. In 1667 the colony established a 
 reservation for Cassasinamon's tribe in the present
 
 52 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 township of Ledyard, near Groton ; and in 1683 a 
 settlement was assigned to the other tribe in North 
 Stonington. The original force of the Pequot has 
 been persistent enough to carry their descendants, 
 after a fashion, through the intervening years in 
 which the subject tribes have disappeared. In 
 1850 the Ledyard settlement held 989 acres, and 
 the North Stonington settlement 240, with a mon- 
 grel population of twenty-eight and fifteen persons 
 respectively. In 1880 the county of New London 
 still held the largest proportion of the Connecti- 
 cut " Indians," 147 out of a total of 255 in the 
 State. 
 
 As the record of Indian difficulties ends with the 
 death of Miantonomoh, the record of Indian deca- 
 dence begins. Individuals, under the tacit or ex- 
 press authorization of the general court, bought 
 lands of the Indian proprietors ; and the early 
 town records begin with deeds given by a number 
 of sachems, whose unutterable names are only a 
 little less awe-inspiring than the hieroglyphics by 
 which they are indicated, transferring their lands 
 to whites for the pettiest considerations. Real 
 property titles in the State are traced back to 
 these Indian deeds. When a tribe had entirely 
 gotten rid of the inheritance, its few remaining 
 members drifted off to other parts of the country, 
 or became a town charge as paupers. But the 
 general court was careful so to limit these trans- 
 fers as not to drive the few dangerous tribes to
 
 THE PEQ.UOT WAR. 53 
 
 desperation, and the good results were seen in the 
 outbreak of King Philip's war in 1675. The 
 Connecticut Indians left the colony free to bend 
 all its energies to the assistance of the sister col- 
 onies. Even the Pequots and Mohegans were 
 faithful allies and soldiers, and enjoyed the Indian 
 luxuries of seeing the final overthrow of the Nar- 
 ragansetts, and of executing Canonchet, the son 
 of Miantonomoh. 
 
 Uncas died about 1683. Two of his alleged 
 descendants were living in 1800. His tribe and 
 its successive chiefs seem to have found a fatal fas- 
 cination in the process of land transfer, which they 
 never could master. Drunken sachems made trans- 
 fers of land which was really the common property 
 of the tribe ; or the tribe, having a well-founded 
 apprehension of the sachem's weakness for strong 
 drink, made clumsy attempts to make trust deeds 
 of their lands to white men in whom they confided, 
 while the trustees considered these instruments as 
 transfers of the fee simple. The result was abun- 
 dant litigation ; and some of the commonwealth 
 difficulties arising from it will be considered here- 
 after. In 1721 a committee of the general court 
 examined and decided on these transfers, reserving 
 some 5,000 acres to the Mohegans, and making the 
 tract inalienable so long as a single Mohegan 
 should survive. This arrangement was practi- 
 cally confirmed by royal commissions in 1737 and 
 1743, on appeal by the Indians. The tribe sent
 
 54 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 many of its number into the American army dur- 
 ing the Revolution, and some eighteen of them 
 were killed. In 1786 a few of the survivors, with 
 other Connecticut Indians, went to the Oneida 
 country, in New York, and there established the 
 Brothertown tribe. There remained to the tribe 
 in 1850 some 2,300 acres of its reservation at 
 Montville, with some sixty persons living on it, 
 and about the same number scattered in other 
 parts of the country. 
 
 However we may discredit the accounts given 
 by the first settlers of Indian immorality, it is im- 
 possible to exaggerate their subsequent degrada- 
 tion. Ignorant, poverty-stricken, unclean, drunken, 
 and licentious to the lowest degree, the smaller 
 Indian tribes disappeared with startling rapidity. 
 In 1680 there were but five hundred warriors left 
 in the whole colony. In 1774 there were only 
 eight left in Greenwich, nine in Norwalk, and 
 none in Stamford. There is not now a drop of 
 pure Indian blood in the State. The so-called In- 
 dians are the progeny of two centuries of irregular 
 intercourse between Indians, negroes, mulattoes, 
 and whites. 
 
 Efforts have not been wanting to civilize or 
 evangelize the race, but they have been of little 
 avail. Pierson, Fitch, and Barber preached to 
 them with hardly any perceptible result ; Gookin 
 and John Eliot entered the colony for the same 
 purpose, but withdrew defeated; and the only
 
 THE PEQUOT WAR. 55 
 
 effort which ever came to anything like success 
 met it outside of Connecticut. Eleazar Wheelock 
 began preaching at Lebanon in 1735. In 1762 
 his Indian school numbered twenty, and he went 
 to England to raise funds for it, developing it into 
 what became Dartmouth College. Among his 
 Connecticut pupils he had received in 1743 a Mo- 
 hegan aged twenty, who took the name of Samson 
 Occom. After an irregular education and service 
 as teacher on Long Island and elsewhere, Occom 
 was ordained in 1759 by the presbytery of Suffolk, 
 L. I., and became a successful preacher. He 
 stands out as about the only civilized product of 
 Connecticut Indian origin ; and even he occasion- 
 ally relapsed into intoxication, to his own bitter 
 repentance. He made a part of the Brothertown 
 tribe, and died among its members in 1792. 
 
 There is little room or excuse for romance in the 
 Indian history of the commonwealth ; and it has 
 seemed best to bring it down to its conclusion at 
 once, in order to confine the subsequent story of 
 the commonwealth to the history of the dom- 
 inant race.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 
 
 WHEN the Pequot war broke out, there were 
 but three English settlements within the present 
 area of Connecticut. Leaving Massachusetts, the 
 Connecticut River flows to the southwest and then 
 to the southeast, forming two sides of a very ob- 
 tuse and irregular angle. At the apex of this 
 angle, and on the western side of the river, was 
 planted the town of Newtown (the present capital 
 city of Hartford). On the same side of the river 
 were Dorchester (Windsor), a few miles above 
 Hartford, and Watertown (Wethersfield), a few 
 miles below Hartford. To the north, and just be- 
 yond the Massachusetts boundary line, was Aga- 
 wam (Springfield), Pynchon's settlement ; but it 
 was not known for some years whether it was in 
 or beyond the jurisdiction of the mother colony. 
 Until this was ascertained, this town was taken 
 and deemed to be a part of Connecticut. The 
 first settlers had no notion of leaving government 
 behind them when they left Massachusetts. The 
 migration took place under direction of eight 
 persons, headed by Roger Ludlow and William
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 57 
 
 Pynchon, acting under the commission from the 
 Massachusetts General Court, which was to be in 
 force for only one year. By the time it expired, 
 the new colony had begun its own system of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The meeting of the first legislative body, the 
 " Corte," was held at Newtown, April 26, 1636. 
 The three migrating towns at first retained even 
 their Massachusetts names, and this inchoate com- 
 monwealth government was little more than a 
 consequence of the Massachusetts commission. It 
 was not until February 21 of the next year that 
 the name of Hartford was substituted for that of 
 Newtown, that of Wethersfield for Watertown, 
 and that of Windsor for Dorchester. The name 
 of Hartford was probably meant to commemorate 
 the birthplace of Mr. Stone, Hertford, near Lon- 
 don. Windsor was taken from its English name- 
 sake ; and Wethersfield was named from Wethers- 
 field in Essex, England, the birthplace of one of 
 the leading men of the settlement, John Talcott, 
 commonly called " Tailcoat " in the records. For 
 a year the court met at the three towns in turn, 
 two magistrates from each town making up its 
 number, except when Pynchon was present and 
 raised the number to seven. Like all the com- 
 monwealth legislatures of New England, this one 
 exercised both legislative and judicial functions, 
 taking from the latter its title of the " Corte," 
 afterwards the " General Court," as in the Massa-
 
 58 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 chusetts charter. For the first year its proceed- 
 ings were confined to the prevention of the trade 
 in muskets with the Indians, the enforcement of 
 military drill, the regulation of swine and other 
 animals, the appointment of constables, some pro- 
 bate business, and one suit at law, that of a land 
 claimant against the people of Wethersfield. 
 
 On May 1, 1637, the legislature, now first called 
 the General Court, met at Hartford in a form more 
 fitting for a separate commonwealth. In addition 
 to the six magistrates there were now present 
 nine " committees," or deputies, three from each 
 town. Hooker, in his letter to Winthrop, states 
 that the " committees " were chosen by the towns ; 
 that they met at Hartford, elected the six magis- 
 trates, and gave them an oath of office. The mi- 
 gratory commission from Massachusetts was thus 
 supplanted by a new government, deriving its 
 authority directly from the towns. In the dis- 
 tinction between deputies and magistrates, slight 
 at first, there was the germ of the commonwealth's 
 subsequent bi-cameral system. Springfield was 
 represented occasionally during 1637-38, and her 
 affairs were considered to be under the jurisdiction 
 of the new colony. For the next two years Spring- 
 field is neither represented nor referred to, the 
 general court confining its attention to the other 
 three towns. On June 2, 1641, the Massachusetts 
 General Court recognized Springfield, on petition 
 therefrom, as one of its towns, and appointed com-
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 59 
 
 missioners to define the boundary line between 
 the two colonies. 
 
 The General Court, under its new constitution, 
 at once assumed a wider range of action. Its first 
 meeting declared war against the Pequots ; its 
 second, June 2, 1637, ordered a draft of thirty men 
 "to sett downe in the Pequoitt Countrey and 
 River in place convenient to mayntaine o r right y* 
 God by Conquest hath given to vs." At the 
 meeting June 26, it was decided that Haynes and 
 Ludlow should " parle with the bay [Massachu- 
 setts] about o r settinge downe in the Pequoitt 
 Countrey." For Massachusetts had advanced a 
 claim to the Pequot soil, based partly on the ex- 
 ceedingly hazy geography of the time, and partly 
 on conquest ; while Connecticut had a keen per- 
 ception that this section was essential to her com- 
 monwealth's development, and meant to hold it. 
 In the end her determination prevailed, and she 
 still keeps the Pequot country. 
 
 It would hardly be too strong to say that the 
 establishment of the town and of the church was 
 coincident : the universal agreement in religion 
 made town government and church government 
 but two sides of the same medal, and the same 
 persons took part in both. In fact, the three orig- 
 inal settlements had entered the new territory not 
 only as completely organized towns, but as com- 
 pletely organized churches, only one (Watertown) 
 having left its minister behind. The original
 
 60 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 church of Watertown is therefore still in Massa- 
 chusetts ; the original churches of Cambridge 
 (Newtown) and Dorchester are now in Hartford 
 and Windsor. For nearly a century (until 1727) 
 the same persons in each town discussed and de- 
 cided ecclesiastical and civil affairs indifferently, 
 acting as a town or a church meeting. The same 
 body laid the taxes, called the minister, and pro- 
 vided for his salary. When the gradual recogni- 
 tion of other sects reduced the Congregational 
 order from its exclusive to a merely predominant 
 position in the commonwealth, a trace of the old 
 system remained in the Congregational churches 
 in the dual control of the " church and society " 
 in each congregation, the former, composed of 
 church-members, having ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; 
 the latter, composed of pew-holders and contribu- 
 tors, having a financial and administrative control, 
 and joint action of the two being usually neces- 
 sary. The " society" represents the former town 
 meeting. The Connecticut churches agreed with 
 those of Massachusetts in their Congregational 
 system ; and their pastors and teachers were called 
 upon again and again to make the journey through 
 the wilderness to Boston, in order to take part in 
 the synods made necessary by the vexed questions 
 of Puritan belief and practice. Connecticut, how- 
 ever, did not agree with Massachusetts in making 
 church-membership a prerequisite to voting and 
 holding office. In this omission, it maintained
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 61 
 
 the complete independence both of its churches 
 and of its towns ; but it gave rise to many of its 
 subsequent ecclesiastical difficulties. It was largely 
 a dispute on this point that had sent the first set- 
 tlers into the wilderness, and the original three 
 towns would undoubtedly have insisted on local 
 freedom in this respect. When new towns were 
 formed, offshoots from the first three, it was nat- 
 ural in the eyes of both town and colony that this 
 freedom should be continued to them, and none of 
 them desired any ecclesiastical restriction on the 
 right of suffrage. Those who desired such an ar- 
 rangement went into the New Haven jurisdiction, 
 of which it was an essential part. 
 
 The independence of the town was a political 
 fact which has colored the whole history of the 
 commonwealth, and, through it, of the United 
 States. Even in Massachusetts, after the real be- 
 ginning of government, the town was subordinate 
 to the colony ; and, though the independence of 
 the churches forced a considerable local freedom 
 there, it was not so fundamental a fact as in Con- 
 necticut. Here the three original towns had in 
 the beginning left commonwealth control behind 
 them when they left the parent colony. They had 
 gone into the wilderness, each the only organized 
 political power within its jurisdiction. Since their 
 prototypes, the little tuns of the primeval German 
 forest, there had been no such examples of the 
 perfect capacity of the political cell, the " town,"
 
 62 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 for self-government. In Connecticut it was the 
 towns that created the commonwealth ; and the 
 consequent federative idea has steadily influenced 
 the colony and State alike. In Connecticut, the 
 governing principle, due to the original constitu- 
 tion of things rather than to the policy of the 
 commonwealth, has been that the town is the re- 
 siduary legatee of political power ; that it is the 
 State which is called upon to make out a clear 
 case for powers to which it lays claim ; and that 
 the towns have a primd facie case in their favor 
 wherever a doubt arises. 
 
 All this is so like the standard theory of the 
 relations of the States to the federal government 
 that it is necessary to notice the peculiar exact- 
 ness with which the relations of Connecticut towns 
 to the commonwealth are proportioned to the re- 
 lations of the commonwealth to the United States. 
 In other States, power runs from the State up- 
 wards and from the State downwards ; in Connec- 
 ticut, the towns have always been to the common- 
 wealth as the commonwealth to the Union. It 
 was to be the privilege of Connecticut to keep the 
 notion of this federal relation alive until it could 
 be made the fundamental law of all the common- 
 wealths in 1787-89. In this respect, the life prin- 
 ciple of the American Union may be traced 
 straight back to the primitive union of the three 
 little settlements on the bank of the Connecticut 
 River. All this, however, may be left to the
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 63 
 
 chapter on the Convention of 1787. The point in 
 question here is the introduction of the democratic 
 element into the American system, and the claims 
 of Connecticut to the credit or responsibility for 
 it. 
 
 The first constitution of Connecticut the first 
 written constitution, in the modern sense of the 
 term, as a permanent limitation on governmental 
 power, known in history, and certainly the first 
 American constitution of government to embody 
 the democratic idea was adopted by a general 
 assembly, or popular convention, of the planters 
 of the three towns, held at Hartford, January 14, 
 1638 (9). The common opinion is that democ- 
 racy came into the American system through the 
 compact made in the cabin of the Mayflower, 
 though that instrument was based on no political 
 principle whatever, and began with a formal ac- 
 knowledgment of the king as the source of all 
 authority. It was the power of the crown " by 
 virtue " of which " equal laws " were to be en- 
 acted, and the " covenant " was merely a make- 
 shift to meet a temporary emergency: it had 
 not a particle of political significance, nor was 
 democracy an impelling force in it. It must be 
 admitted that the Plymouth system was acci- 
 dentally democratic, but it was from the absence 
 of any great need for government, or for care 
 to preserve homogeneity in religion, not from po- 
 litical purpose, as in Connecticut. It was a pas-
 
 64 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 sive, not an active system ; and it cannot be said 
 to have influenced other American common- 
 wealths. Another though less prevalent opinion 
 is, that the first democratic commonwealth was 
 the mother colony of Massachusetts Bay. The 
 intensely democratic feeling subsequently devel- 
 oped in Massachusetts has been reflected on her 
 early history, and has given it a light which never 
 belonged to it. On the contrary, it is not difficult 
 to show that the settlement of Connecticut was it- 
 self merely a secession of the democratic element 
 from Massachusetts, and that the Massachusetts 
 freemen owed their final emancipation from a the- 
 ocracy to the example given them by the eldest 
 daughter of the old commonwealth. 
 
 He who studies carefully the history of Massa- 
 chusetts from 1629 until 1690 will see that there 
 was a constant struggle in that colony between 
 two conflicting forces, and that its earlier phases 
 were coincident and complicated with the Connec- 
 ticut secession. The better blood of the colony 
 was determined to establish a privileged class of 
 some sort ; and the bulk of the freemen, instinc- 
 tively inclined to democracy, found it difficult to 
 resist the claims of blood, wealth, and influence, 
 backed by the pronounced support of the church. 
 For the ministers of the colony, in spite of their 
 evidently conscientious wish to separate church and 
 state, seem to have had no notion of the real boun- 
 daries between the two, and were constantly in
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 65 
 
 favor of measures which tended straight to the 
 establishment of an oligarchy. Whenever the 
 dominant class desired to overcome the rising op- 
 position of the commons, the readiest and surest 
 means was to offer to submit the question to the 
 decision of the " elders," or ministers. The com- 
 mons never ventured to refuse ; and the ministers 
 never failed to decide in accordance with the 
 wishes of the dominant class. The expressions of 
 dissenting writers, as to the " spiritual tyranny " 
 in early Massachusetts, must be taken always with 
 very large allowance. Ecclesiastical punishments 
 were not severe, according to the universal stand- 
 ard of the times ; and the result of hostile research 
 seems curiously inadequate to the indignation 
 which has been spent in it. But one must admit 
 that the early Massachusetts system, whatever 
 else it may have been, was not even meant to be 
 a democracy. " Democracy," said Cotton, the 
 spokesman of the dominant class, " I do not con- 
 ceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government 
 either for church or commonwealth." 
 
 The question appeared with the transfer of the 
 charter government from England to Massachu- 
 setts. The charter gave to the governor, eighteen 
 assistants, and the freemen, assembled in a single 
 chamber as the " great and general Court," the 
 power of electing officers and making laws and 
 ordinances. The dominant class of the colony 
 was determined to restrict this general court,
 
 66 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 which the superior numbers of the freemen could 
 control, to the functions of a mere electing body, 
 leaving to the assistants, what the charter did not 
 give them, the duties of making and enforcing 
 laws. The first meeting of the Court of Assist- 
 ants in Massachusetts made the support of the 
 clergy a commonwealth matter; the second as- 
 sumed control of the admission of inhabitants to 
 the towns ; and, early in 1632, the settlement of 
 town boundaries, and the control of town inter- 
 ests, were assumed by the assistants without any 
 authority, either from the charter or from the 
 towns. Secular and ecclesiastical influences were 
 strong enough to induce the freemen, in 1630, to 
 confirm the usurped powers of the Court of Assist- 
 ants ; and this was followed in the next year by 
 the exclusion of all but church-members from 
 " the liberties of the Commonwealth," that is, 
 from voting. So wide was the effect that Hut- 
 chinson asserts, and Judge Story approves the esti- 
 mate, that five-sixths of the people were still dis- 
 franchised as late as 1676. The whole system 
 was upheld by Governor Winthrop of Massachu- 
 setts, in a letter to Hooker, on the ground that it 
 was unwarrantable and unsafe to refer matters 
 "of counsel or judicature" to the body of the 
 people, because " the best part is always the least, 
 and of that best part the wiser part is always the 
 lesser." The people, or that better part of them 
 who should be admitted to vote, were to choose
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 67 
 
 the Court of Assistants ; but that wiser body was 
 to make the laws and enforce them. 
 
 Such a system was certain to arouse dissatisfac- 
 tion ; and a due regard to the fact will make it 
 easier to understand why the Massachusetts char- 
 ter was finally lost so tamely. Dissatisfaction, to 
 the honor of the Massachusetts freemen, first took 
 the shape of assertion of local liberty, of town 
 freedom rather than of individual freedom. There 
 were attempts at independent town action before 
 1634 ; but the curious and perhaps significant fact 
 is that nearly all of them took place in the three 
 towns which afterwards made up the Connecticut 
 secession. The towns in 1634 informally sent two 
 deputies each to Boston to get a sight of the pa- 
 tent. The sight was enough to expose the usur- 
 pation of the assistants ; and at the general court 
 in May the freemen would make no elections un- 
 til their deputies had been recognized as a factor 
 in the government. Nevertheless, influence, and 
 particularly that of the ministers, was still strong 
 enough to secure the passage of an act, the very 
 next year, constituting a council for life, consisting 
 at first of three members, but meant to be larger 
 in future. There is every indication of an organ- 
 ized design to establish an hereditary order, or at 
 least a life privilege for certain classes, in order 
 to attract influential and wealthy immigrants from 
 the mother country ; but luckily Massachusetts 
 freemen knew how to cut the knot. When it
 
 68 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 was proposed in 1639 to give the governor a life 
 tenure, the freemen answered by taking all "mag- 
 istratical " powers from the council, and that body 
 died the death soon after. Time would fail in 
 telling the further details of the struggle, the 
 success of the deputies in maintaining that share in 
 the government which the charter had not given 
 them ; the efforts of the assistants to secure the 
 " negative voice," by which they were to have a 
 veto on the deputies; the famous "sow business," 
 which convulsed the colony, and brought the 
 " negative voice " into common disrepute ; and the 
 final compromise in 1644, by which the introduc- 
 tion of a bi-cameral system gave both the assistants 
 and the deputies a negative voice. All these be- 
 long to Massachusetts history, and were the efforts 
 of democracy to get its head out of water. 
 
 In every point, the ministers had been on the 
 side of the assistants. The latter had always been 
 willing to refer every disputed question to the el- 
 ders, and had always been supported. The stand- 
 ing grievance had been that the assistants would 
 not admit the right of the general court (which 
 really meant the deputies, or the freemen whom 
 they represented) to adopt a body of laws as a 
 permanent limitation on the judicial powers of the 
 assistants ; they wished to decide every case " on 
 its own merits." Winthrop himself acknowledged, 
 in 1639, that the people " had long desired a body 
 of laws, and thought their condition very unsafe
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 69 
 
 while so much power rested in the discretion 
 of magistrates ; " and he adds the very credible 
 note that the magistrates and some of the minis- 
 ters were " not very forward in this matter." In 
 December, 1641, a brief code of laws was extorted 
 by the freemen ; but it left great blanks, which 
 the assistants still persisted in filling as they saw 
 fit. In 1645 the elders formally declared that the 
 freemen were to choose the assistants, but that the 
 authority of the latter was not derived from the 
 freemen or to be limited by them, and that they 
 were to decide according to the word of God in 
 the absence of express law. The deputies yielded ; 
 and it was not until 1649 that they at last secured 
 a complete code of laws. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the patent 
 differences between the three migrating towns and 
 the five which they left behind them, and to the 
 probability that there was some political difference 
 to account for them. A regard to the coincident 
 struggle against class power in Massachusetts will 
 make it still more probable that the migrating 
 towns were simply those which did not choose to 
 continue the struggle longer at home, but pre- 
 ferred to establish a more democratic system for 
 themselves in the wilderness, and without any 
 charter. Hooker was undoubtedly the strength 
 of the migration ; and he had been so notoriously 
 opposed to Cotton in the old colony that it would 
 be reasonable to presume that he differed toto coelo
 
 70 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 from Cotton's views as to democracy. In answer- 
 ing the letter of Winthrop mentioned above, he 
 is evidently cautious, and unwilling to provoke 
 an argument ; but he dissents from Winthrop's 
 entire position, and says : " In matters of greater 
 consequence, which concern the common good, a 
 general council, chosen by all, to transact busi- 
 nesses which concern all, I conceive, under favor, 
 most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of 
 the whole." The difference between him and 
 Winthrop is marked ; and it would not be difficult 
 to say, from these two letters, which of them held 
 the seed from which sprang the modern American 
 commonwealth. Again, the first step of the Con- 
 necticut settlers was to secure what their Massa- 
 chusetts brethren were still struggling for pop- 
 ular control of legislation. Codes of laws were 
 merely tlie symbol : democracy wanted the recog- 
 nition of the deputies, the direct representatives of 
 the towns, as a factor in the government ; and this 
 was secured by the constitution of 1639. It even 
 provided a way by which the deputies, if the gov- 
 ernor and the " magistrates " (answering to the 
 Massachusetts title of "assistants") refused to call 
 them together, might meet and organize a supreme 
 legislature without their associates, a provision 
 wholly inexplicable without a careful regard to the 
 contemporary struggle in Massachusetts. 
 
 Here the evidence that government "of the 
 people, by the people, for the people," first took
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 71 
 
 shape in Connecticut, and that the American form 
 of commonwealth originated here, and not in Mas- 
 sachusetts, Virginia, or any other colony, might 
 well stop. The case in favor of Hooker, however, 
 has now an impregnable basis, which was wanting 
 when the standard histories of the commonwealth 
 were written. His letter to Winthrop might be 
 made the foundation of the claim that he had sup- 
 plied the spirit of the Connecticut constitution ; 
 and yet the basis is an unsatisfactory one. It is 
 evident enough that the complete popular control 
 over government which was the characteristic of 
 the new Connecticut system was neither familiar 
 nor welcome at the time in the other Puritan com- 
 monwealth ; but the letter alone is not enough to 
 establish a connection of this fact with Hooker. 
 All this time there has been in existence an abstract 
 of a sermon of Hooker's, preached at Hartford, 
 May 31, 1638, some seven months before the 
 framing of the constitution. Henry Wolcott, Jr., 
 of Windsor, had been in the excellent Puritan 
 habit of taking notes of the sermons to which he 
 listened, and he had left behind him a MS. volume 
 of abstracts of Hooker's sermons. Among them 
 was this sermon. Dr. J. H. Trumbull saw its im- 
 portance and deciphered its short-hand characters. 
 Any one who will read this abstract, and try to 
 imagine the way in which the writer of the letter 
 to Winthrop must have clothed this skeleton with 
 flesh and blood, and the effect on his hearers, will
 
 72 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 appreciate its importance in American history. If 
 the germ is potentially the whole development, 
 this is the most important profession of political 
 faith in our history. It is as follows : 
 
 DEUT. i. 13. Take you wise men, and understand- 
 ing, and known among your tribes, and I will make them 
 rulers over you. Captains over thousands, and captains 
 over hundreds, over fifties, over tens, etc. 
 
 Doctrine. I. That the choice of public magistrates 
 belongs unto the people, by God's own allowance. 
 
 II. The privilege of election, which belongs to the 
 people, therefore must not be exercised according to 
 their humours, but according to the blessed will and law 
 of God. 
 
 III. They who have power to appoint officers and 
 magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds 
 and limitations of the power and place unto which they 
 call them. 
 
 Reasons. 1. Because the foundation of authority is 
 laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people. 
 
 2. Because, by a free choice, the hearts of the people 
 will be more inclined to the love of the persons chosen 
 and more ready to yield obedience. 
 
 3. Because of that duty and engagement of the people. 
 Uses. The lesson taught is three-fold : 
 
 1st. There is matter of thankful acknowledgment in 
 the appreciation of God's faithfulness towards us, and 
 the permission of these measures that God doth command 
 and vouchsafe. 
 
 2dly. Of reproof to dash the councils of all those 
 that shall oppose it.
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 73 
 
 3dly. Of exhortation to persuade us, as God hath 
 given us liberty, to take it. 
 
 And, lastly, as God hath spared our lives, and given 
 us them in liberty, so to seek the guidance of God, and 
 to choose in God and for God. 
 
 Here is the first practical assertion of the right 
 of the people not only to choose but to limit the 
 powers of their rulers, an assertion which lies at 
 the foundation of the American system. There is 
 no reference to a "dread sovereign," no reserva- 
 tion of deference due to any class, not even to the 
 class to which the speaker himself belonged. Each 
 individual was to exercise his rights " according 
 to the blessed will and law of God," but he was to 
 be responsible to God alone for his fulfillment of 
 the obligation. The whole contains the germ of 
 the idea of the commonwealth, and it was devel- 
 oped by his hearers into the constitution of 1639. 
 It is on the banks of the Connecticut, under the 
 mighty preaching of Thomas Hooker and in the 
 constitution to which he gave life, if not form, 
 that we draw the first breath of that atmosphere 
 which is now so familiar to us. The birthplace of 
 American democracy is Hartford. 
 
 From early times, certainly since 1656, Con- 
 necticut has placed upon her common seal vines, 
 to represent her towns, at first three for the origi- 
 nal towns ; then one for each town ; then, as the 
 towns became more numerous, the original three 
 again. The stripes on the flag of the United
 
 74 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 States, increased to fifteen until after the war of 
 1812, are a curious parallel. With the vines was 
 the significant motto of the commonwealth, at 
 first on a scroll held by a hand coming out of a 
 cloud, afterwards on a scroll below the vines : QUI 
 TRAUSTULIT SUSTINET. The motto was not 
 meant as the record of an historical fact alone, 
 or as an exclusion of the agency of man from the 
 attainment of liberty. The spirit, if not the trans- 
 lation, of it is in the third of Hooker's " Uses " of 
 his lesson, his " exhortation to persuade us, as 
 God hath given us liberty, to take it." This his 
 flock proceeded to do in their constitution. 
 
 In the preamble, the inhabitants and residents 
 of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, desiring 
 to establish an orderly and decent government 
 according to God, associated and conjoined them- 
 selves to be as one public state or commonwealth, 
 for the purposes of maintaining and preserving the 
 liberty and purity of the gospel, the discipline of 
 the churches, and the orderly conduct of civil 
 affairs according to law. There is no mention or 
 hint of royal, parliamentary, or proprietary author- 
 ity in any part of the constitution, or in the forms 
 of oaths for governor, magistrates, and constables 
 which make an appendix to it. The ecclesiastical 
 excrescence upon it, probably inevitable at the 
 time, but absolutely contrary to the spirit of the 
 whole instrument, was to remain and trouble the 
 commonwealth until the political system came 
 fully up to its own original standard in 1818.
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 75 
 
 The constitution gave the general court power 
 to " admit of freemen ; " but the right of suffrage 
 was given unequivocally, by a subsequent addition 
 to the first section, to admitted freemen who had 
 taken the oath of fidelity to the commonwealth ; 
 and in 1643, to settle the matter, the court declared 
 that it understood by " admitted inhabitants " 
 those who had been admitted by a town. The 
 towns, therefore, retained complete political con- 
 trol of their own affairs. No attempt was made 
 to define the powers of the towns, for the reason 
 that they, being preexistent and theoretically in- 
 dependent bodies, had all powers not granted to 
 the commonwealth. To avoid any possible ques- 
 tion, the general court, at its meeting in the follow- 
 ing October, passed a series of orders, securing to 
 the towns the powers of selling their lands ; of 
 choosing their own officers ; of passing local laws 
 with penalties ; of assessing, taxing, and distrain- 
 ing for nonpayment ; of choosing a local court of 
 three, five, or seven persons, with power to hear 
 and determine causes arising between inhabitants 
 of the town, and involving not more than forty 
 shillings; of recording titles, bonds, sales and 
 mortgages of lands within the town ; and of man- 
 aging all probate business arising within the town. 
 The really new point introduced by the " orders " 
 was the direction to the towns to choose certain 
 of their chief inhabitants, not exceeding seven, to 
 act as magistrates. Out of this grew rapidly the
 
 76 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 executive board of the towns known as " select- 
 men," who have ever since held almost a dictator- 
 ship in their towns during the intervals between 
 meetings of their towns, limited by the force of 
 public opinion, by commonwealth statutes, and by 
 personal responsibility. These orders are often 
 called an " incorporation " of the towns by the 
 general court. The word can hardly be defended. 
 All these privileges belonged to the towns already ; 
 and the orders of October 10, 1639, are much more 
 like the first ten amendments to the Constitution 
 of the United States, a Bill of Rights, originating 
 in the jealousy of the political units. Indeed, 
 there is hardly a step in the proceedings in Con- 
 necticut in 1639 which does not tempt one to di- 
 gress into the evident parallels in the action on the 
 national stage one hundred and fifty years later. 
 Like causes produced curiously similar effects. 
 
 Each town was to choose annually, by vote of 
 the freemen, four persons as deputies to the gen- 
 eral court, unless the number of towns should in- 
 crease so as to make a reduction necessary. Each 
 year there was to be a court of election on the 
 second Thursday of April (afterwards changed to 
 May), to choose a governor and six magistrates. 
 The choice of magistrates was limited to those 
 nominated at some preceding session of the court, 
 each town making not more than two nominations, 
 and the general court adding as many as it chose. 
 At the court of election, the freemen brought in
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 11 
 
 paper ballots stating their choice for governor for 
 the following year, a plurality vote electing. It 
 seems to have been the intention to make this 
 election a pure democracy, in which each voter 
 gave in his ballot in person. As population spread 
 further from Hartford, the custom of sending bal- 
 lots by proxies must have grown up ; for the court 
 order of 1660, which proposed a change in the 
 governor's term of office, suggested to the " remote 
 Plantations, that use to send Proxies at the elec- 
 tion, by their Deputies," that they should vote on 
 their ballots for or against the proposed repeal. 
 After 1670, the regulations adopted by the assem- 
 bly, to govern the manner of taking these proxies, 
 amounted practically to election laws, to be en- 
 forced by the town selectmen. The governor was 
 to be a church-member, and originally no one was 
 to be chosen to the office two years in succession. 
 In 1660, the general court, desiring to retain John 
 Winthrop, Jr., as governor, proposed to the free- 
 men to abolish the restriction of reelection, and 
 the freemen did so. 
 
 The six magistrates were the germ of the fu- 
 ture senate of the commonwealth, but at first they 
 can hardly be considered a separate chamber! 
 Their " magestraticall powers " were quite unde- 
 fined, and, until the charter, may be taken to 
 cover not only judicial functions, but such duties 
 as the general court saw fit to add thereto from 
 time to time. In general, they were district
 
 78 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 judges, meeting from time to time in bank, with 
 legislative powers when joined by the governor 
 and deputies. At the court of election, the sec- 
 retary for the time being read the nominations 
 for the office of magistrate in the order in which 
 they had been given him. As each was read, the 
 freemen handed in either blank ballots counting 
 against the candidate, or ballots containing his 
 name and counting for him. The balloting con- 
 tinued until six names had obtained a majority of 
 the votes cast. If six magistrates were not thus 
 obtained, the number was filled up by taking those 
 names which had received the largest number of 
 votes in their favor. 
 
 On the second Thursday of September, the gov- 
 ernor, magistrates, and deputies were to meet as 
 a general court, " for makeing of lawes," other- 
 wise expressed by the phrase " to agitate the af- 
 faires of the commonwealth." This body was to 
 pass laws of general interest, to dispose of unap- 
 propriated lands, to act as a court of last resort, 
 to decide on the amount of taxation, and to appor- 
 tion it among the towns on the report of an ap- 
 portionment committee on which each town was 
 to be equally represented. 
 
 In the little town republics, the ancient and 
 honorable office of constable was the connecting 
 link between commonwealth and town. The con- 
 stable published the commonwealth laws to his 
 town, kept the " publike peace " of the town and
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 79 
 
 commonwealth, levied the town's share of the 
 commonwealth taxation, and went " from howse 
 to howse " to notify the freemen of meetings of 
 the general court, and of the time and place of 
 elections of deputies thereto. " The parish," says 
 Selden, " makes the constable ; and, when the 
 constable is made, he governs the parish." He 
 might even become the instrument of a legal rev- 
 olution, in case the governor and magistrates re- 
 fused to call the regular meetings of the general 
 court, or, on petition of the freemen, a special 
 meeting. In that case, the constitution provided 
 that the freemen were to instruct the constables 
 to order elections of deputies, who were to consti- 
 tute a general court themselves, excluding the 
 governor and magistrates. This power never was 
 exercised, but it is an extraordinary feature in 
 constitutional law. It was the Connecticut mode 
 of ensuring recognition of the direct representa- 
 tives of the towns. 
 
 This constitution was the first conscious and 
 deliberate attempt to found a commonwealth de- 
 mocracy on this continent, and it lasted in reality 
 until 1818, for the charter changed it in no essen- 
 tial point. It was a system of complete popular 
 control, of frequent elections by the people, and 
 of minute local government. It remained, through- 
 out confiscations, modifications, and refusals of 
 charters in other colonies, the exemplar of the 
 rights of self-government which all the English
 
 80 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 colonies gradually came to aim at more or less 
 consciously. In later times the length of ser- 
 vice of its officers was again and again cited by 
 Jefferson to prove that, in a real democracy, an- 
 nual elections were no bar to prolonged tenure 
 of office. The first election of officers under the 
 constitution was held April 11, 1639. John 
 Haynes was chosen governor. Six magistrates 
 were elected. One of the magistrates, Roger Lud- 
 low, was chosen deputy governor ; another, Ed- 
 ward Hopkins, secretary; and another, Thomas 
 Wells, treasurer ; and these and twelve deputies, 
 or " committees," made up the general court. 
 Until 1660, it was a tolerably steady rule that the 
 governor of one year was the deputy governor of 
 the next, and vice versa. In this period of about 
 twenty years Haynes was governor eight times, 
 and deputy governor five times ; and Hopkins was 
 governor seven times, and deputy governor six 
 times. In 1657 John Winthrop began his term 
 of service as governor, which lasted, through the 
 removal of the provision against reelection, for 
 eighteen years, the longest term of service reached 
 by any of Connecticut's chief magistrates. In the 
 next century, Gurdon Saltonstall held the office 
 for seventeen years, 1707-24, Nathan Gold hold- 
 ing the office of deputy governor during all but 
 the first year of Saltonstall's term. Saltonstall 
 was followed by Joseph Talcott, who also held 
 the office of governor for seventeen years, 1724-
 
 THE CONNECTICUT COLONY. 81 
 
 41 ; having the same deputy governor, Jonathan 
 Law, throughout his entire term. Law succeeded 
 Talcott ; and thereafter, until 1818, the rule was 
 that a governor held office until he died or refused 
 to serve longer, when the deputy governor took 
 his place for a like term. Jonathan Trumbull, 
 senior, was governor, 176984 ; and his son, of 
 the same name, held the office 1798-1809. 
 
 Reelection to other offices was never prohibited, 
 and long terms of service in them have been al- 
 most too numerous for special mention. John Al- 
 lyn, for example, became secretary in 1664 and 
 held the office for twenty-eight years, influencing 
 the policy of the colony strongly during the whole 
 period. A more remarkable case is that of the 
 Whitings, who held the office of treasurer for 
 seventy years, Joseph Whiting 1679-1718, and 
 his son and successor, John Whiting, 1718-49. 
 Even this family record was outdone by the 
 Wyllyses in the office of secretary. Hezekiah 
 Wyllys held the office 1712-35 ; his son and suc- 
 cessor, George Wyllys, 173596 ; and Samuel 
 Wyllys, George's son and successor, 1796-1810, 
 the office having remained in the family but two 
 years short of a century. Length of tenure was 
 the rule in local offices as well. In the first two 
 hundred and fifty years of its history, Hartford 
 has had but twenty town clerks. One of them, 
 John Allyn, held the office, by annual elections, 
 for thirty-seven years, and another, George Wyllys,
 
 82 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 for fifty years. Cases of this kind were exceed- 
 ingly common throughout the commonwealth. 
 William Hillhouse, of New London, served in the 
 general court for fifty-eight years, so that, as elec- 
 tions to the lower house of that body were semi- 
 annual, he was sent by his town to one hundred 
 and sixteen successive sessions. 
 
 It must be admitted that much of this perma- 
 nency in democracy was due to the nature of the 
 people ; but a large share ought to be credited to 
 their institutions. The people, fully satisfied with 
 the complete control over the government which 
 their constitution had secured to them, were con- 
 tent to allow circumstances to develop the men 
 best suited to government. At the same time, 
 the intense personal interest felt by every citizen 
 in the commonwealth gave all of them a common 
 motive, sharpened their intelligence, united their 
 force, and carried the commonwealth safely 
 through storms which would otherwise have been 
 fatal. So much, at least, Connecticut owes to the 
 constitution of 1639.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 
 
 THE settlements of New Haven, Milford, and 
 Guilford probably had their origin in closely con- 
 nected movements at home, though they took 
 place at different times. Every indication to be 
 drawn from the records shows common character- 
 istics of persons, methods, beliefs, and purposes. 
 
 The two most prominent men in the New Haven 
 party of settlers were John Davenport (otherwise 
 Damport or Dampard) and Theophilus Eaton, 
 both Londoners, at least by adoption. Davenport 
 was a Coventry man, an Oxford student, curate 
 of St. Lawrence Jewry, and vicar of St. Stephen's, 
 Coleman Street, London. His inclinations seem 
 to have been at first those of a moderately Low 
 Church man, in the modern sense ; but Laud's 
 persecutions had converted him into a "danger- 
 ous " Puritan by 1633, when he resigned and went 
 to Holland. His acquaintance among Londoners 
 of the middle class and of his own way of think- 
 ing was extensive ; and it was from this class that 
 the material strength of the New Haven settle- 
 ment was drawn. Its leading representative was
 
 84 CONNECTICUT, 
 
 Theophilus Eaton, an Oxfordshire man by birth, 
 and a London merchant of sufficient prominence 
 to have served in some semi-diplomatic capacity at 
 the Danish court. In some way now unknown, the 
 tentacles of the movement had run out into York- 
 shire, Hertfordshire, and Kent ; and these counties 
 furnished the bulk of the purely agricultural pop- 
 ulation. The Hertfordshire families seem to have 
 tended to Milford, and the men of Kent to Guil- 
 ford, while the Yorkshiremen found New Haven 
 most congenial. 
 
 The first or New Haven party of settlers, mainly 
 Londoners, with Davenport and Eaton as leaders, 
 landed at Boston, July 26, 1637. The wealth, 
 influence, and coherence of the party made it a 
 desirable acquisition, and the Bay colony made 
 every effort to settle it within the jurisdiction. 
 Many reasons combined to make the efforts fruit- 
 less. Theological disputes, notably the Hutchin- 
 son controversy, had harassed Massachusetts ; and 
 there was no great promise, to the critical eyes of 
 the new-comers, of healing them. The peculiar- 
 ity of Massachusetts, as distinguished from Con- 
 necticut, was the supremacy of the commonwealth 
 over the towns, of church - members over non- 
 church-members, and of influential classes over 
 the church-members. This constitution of affairs 
 was not so objectionable to the Davenport and 
 Eaton party, for they followed it closely in their 
 own colony, as the fact that in Massachusetts
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 85 
 
 they would form only one or two towns, and 
 would be under the control of the commonwealth, 
 whereas they desired to be the commonwealth and 
 control the subordinate civil divisions. They had 
 no desire to assume the place of the common- 
 wealth's opposition, from which the Connecticut 
 settlers had just escaped. Again, they came to 
 Boston at a time when the newly opened Connec- 
 ticut territory was a common topic of conversa- 
 tion ; and a " fine opening " has always been an 
 almost irresistible temptation to the race. Fi- 
 nally, the chase of the Pequots along the Connec- 
 ticut coast toward New Netherland had taken 
 place within a month of their arrival ; and who 
 could pass through the southern borders of Con- 
 necticut in June without sounding their praises to 
 his friends at Hartford and the Bay ? The new- 
 comers seem to have decided very quickly that 
 they would not remain in Massachusetts ; that 
 they would go to the new territory ; and that 
 their settlement should be placed somewhere on 
 the coast. 
 
 In the autumn of 1637, Eaton, with some of his 
 party, explored the northern shore of Long Island 
 Sound, and pitched on Quinnipiack, an Indian 
 district having a good harbor, as the best seat for 
 a colony. A hut was built, and a few men were 
 left to try the winter climate by personal experi- 
 ence. The rest of the party remained in various 
 Massachusetts towns, and even increased their
 
 86 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 numbers by accessions from their neighbors. The 
 venture had a commercial as well as a politico- 
 religious aspect. Each of the " free planters " 
 had invested stocks, varying from Eaton's .3,000 
 down to the ordinary 10 share. Some of these 
 " free planters " never came to New Haven or 
 New England, investing money only ; and, on the 
 other hand, some Massachusetts men entered their 
 names, and even promised their personal presence 
 to the venture. 
 
 The company set sail from Boston March 30, 
 1638. Quinnipiack was reached in about a fort- 
 night; and the memorable first sermon was 
 preached by Davenport, April 18, under an oak- 
 tree, probably from Matt. iv. 1 : " Then was Jesus 
 led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be 
 tempted of the Devil." It is a pity that no note 
 of the discourse has been preserved, for the obvious 
 application of the text to the situation of the hear- 
 ers, the constant temptation to consider every un- 
 pleasant incident, or even the consequences of their 
 own errors, as the intervention of their personal 
 enemy and antagonist, the Devil, would go very 
 far to explain or palliate many otherwise inex- 
 plicable events in their history. 
 
 Such incidents were not slow in coming. The 
 season was so bad that the crops failed and had to 
 be replanted ; and a violent earthquake, June 1, 
 seemed sent to daunt their spirits and drive them 
 out of the territory into which they had intruded.
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 87 
 
 If any of these things moved them, it was probably 
 only to a more stubborn resolution against Satanic 
 power and Indian powowings. Their determina- 
 tion to stand their ground was not relaxed. On 
 the contrary, and as if to deal fairly even with 
 their spiritual enemies, they went on to complete 
 their title to the soil by purchase from the Indians. 
 On November 24 and December 11, 1638, Daven- 
 port, Eaton, " and others " bought the title from 
 Momaugin and Montowese respectively, with their 
 subordinate chiefs. Subsequent neighboring pur- 
 chases made up, roughly speaking, the present 
 county of New Haven, excluding the narrow strip 
 on its northern border. For all this the price paid 
 was one dozen each of coats, spoons, hatchets, hoes 
 and porringers, two dozen knives, and four cases of 
 French knives and " sizers " to one, and a dozen 
 coats to the other, with a vague promise to both of 
 protection against their enemies, and a reservation 
 of the Indian right to hunt and fish on the ceded 
 territory. Some may think that this was driving 
 a sharp bargain with the adversary; but, all things 
 considered, it must be admitted that the Indians 
 received all that the territory was worth to them. 
 The colony purchases did not stop here : pur- 
 chase was the colony's consistent policy. The In- 
 dian district of Wapoweage (subsequently Milford) 
 was bought February 12, 1638 (9) ; Menunkatuck 
 (Guilford), September 29, 1639 ; Rippowams 
 (Stamford), in July, 1640 ; and Yennicock (South-
 
 88 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 old, L. I.), some time in 1640. These four plan- 
 tations, subsequently developed into towns, with 
 Branford, made up mainly of the purchase of De- 
 cember 11, 1638, and the parent settlement of New 
 Haven, finally constituted the New Haven com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 New parties entered the colony from England 
 throughout the autumn and winter of 1638-39, so 
 that there were three ministers present Daven- 
 port, Rev. Henry Whitefield, and Rev. Peter Prud- 
 den, with congregations more or less organized ; 
 and another, Rev. Samuel Eaton, a brother of 
 Theophilus, who seems to have had no following. 
 Homogeneous as this settlement was, there were 
 evidently interests which would impel segregation, 
 and it was decided that the Whitefield party 
 should take Guilford, the Prudden party Milford, 
 and Samuel Eaton Branford, if he could obtain 
 settlers. The latter enterprise was a failure, and 
 Eaton was a resident of New Haven for four years 
 after 1640, then returning to England and dying 
 there in 1664. The Milford and Guilford ventures 
 were successful during the summer ; and they 
 were from the beginning so definite in organiza- 
 tion that, though they were in New Haven in June, 
 and afterwards followed the ecclesiastical and 
 civil constitution then adopted, they did not in- 
 trude upon the proceedings which led to it. 
 
 More is known of the early topography and 
 appearance of New Haven than of Hartford.
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 89 
 
 Atwater and Lambert give maps of early New 
 Haven and Milford. The houses of the early 
 leaders, at least, are pretty accurately described, 
 and something is known of their interiors. Con- 
 temporaries were struck with the unaccustomed 
 luxury of the New Haven houses. Some of them 
 had tapestry hangings ; and Governor Eaton's had 
 Turkey carpets, tapestry carpets and rugs. It is 
 certain, at any rate, that the colony was spared 
 many of the privations incident to most of the 
 New England settlements ; and that, until the 
 unhappy issue of the Delaware Bay settlement, 
 which brought poverty into the colony, its affairs 
 were unusually prosperous. 
 
 Soon after their arrival at Quinnipiack, the 
 Davenport and Eaton party had framed what was 
 called a " plantation covenant." Nothing is known 
 of its terms, except that it was short and simple, 
 merely engaging that the Scriptures should govern 
 their proceedings not only in the gathering and 
 ordering of the church, but in the choice of magis- 
 trates and other officers, the making and repeal of 
 laws, the allotment of inheritances, and all other 
 civil affairs. This, to be sure, furnished the lines 
 on which the future constitution was to be con- 
 structed. It had, also, peculiar effects which de- 
 serve notice, though they may not be apparent on 
 the surface. It practically abolished the excres- 
 cences, such as entails and primogeniture, which 
 had grown up on the English common law ; it
 
 90 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 was almost, if not quite, a declaration of indepen- 
 dence ; and it made it certain that nothing short 
 of direct and overmastering force could make the 
 commonwealth anything but a republic. But it 
 was yet without form or consistence ; and in spite 
 of its Scripture provisions, the real work of consti- 
 tution-making by the settlers did not begin until 
 
 " They in Newman's barn laid down 
 Scripture foundations for the town." 
 
 The planters met June 4, 1639, in a large barn 
 belonging to Mr. Robert Newman, to settle a con- 
 stitution. Rev. Mr. Davenport opened the matter 
 by preaching from Prov. ix. 1 : " Wisdom hath 
 builded her house ; she hath hewn out her seven 
 pillars." The application of the text to the busi- 
 ness in hand was that, in a wise ordering of church 
 or state, it was essential to rest on seven approved 
 brethren, to whom the others were to be added. 
 It is not difficult to see, on a general survey of the 
 whole proceeding, what was the underlying pur- 
 port of this proposition ; for, if the constitution of 
 Connecticut looked of necessity to a government 
 by the many, that of New Haven had as strong a 
 disposition to secure government by the chosen 
 few. 
 
 After the service, Mr. Davenport submitted six 
 " foundamentall orders " to the planters before 
 him ; and as each was adopted by a show of 
 hands, the whole became the constitution of New 
 Haven. The orders were as follows :
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 91 
 
 1. That the Scriptures hold forth a perfect rule 
 for men in their family, church and commonwealth 
 affairs. 
 
 2. That the rules of Scripture were to govern 
 the gathering and ordering of the church, the 
 choice of magistrates and officers, the making and 
 repeal of laws, the dividing of allotments of inher- 
 itance, and all things of like nature. 
 
 3. That all " free planters " were to become such 
 with the resolution and intention to be admitted 
 into church fellowship as soon as God should fit 
 them thereunto. 
 
 4. That civil order was to be such as should con- 
 duce to securing the purity and peace of the ordi- 
 nances to the free planters and their posterity. 
 
 5. That church-members only were to be " free 
 burgesses," and were to choose from their own- 
 number magistrates and officers to make laws, di- 
 vide inheritances, decide cases at law, and transact 
 all public business. This alone seems to have met 
 opposition. It called upon those free planters who 
 were not church-members to surrender political as 
 well as ecclesiastical power into the hands of the 
 comparative minority who were church-members, 
 and to make the surrender permanent and funda- 
 mental. One man, probably Rev. Samuel Eaton, 
 agreed to the general principle that voters and 
 magistrates should be men fearing God, and that 
 the church was the likeliest place to find such ; 
 " only at this he stuck, that free planters ought
 
 92 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 not to give this power out of their hands." The 
 vote left the objector in a minority of one. The 
 number thus disfranchised in New Haven was 
 probably a majority ; in Guilford, nearly half ; in 
 Milford, but ten out of forty-four, and six of these 
 were admitted within a year or two. 
 
 6. That the free burgesses, or church-members, 
 were to choose twelve of their number, and that 
 these twelve were to choose the " seven pillars " 
 to begin the church. The twelve selected were 
 Eaton, Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gil- 
 bert, Richard Malbon, Nathaniel Turner, Ezekiel 
 Cheevers, Thomas Fugill, John Ponderson, Wil- 
 liam Andrews and Jeremiah Dixon, all noted 
 names in early New Haven history. The names 
 given number but eleven. The reason for the de- 
 ficiency is unknown. It may perhaps be found in 
 a note on the record that one of the twelve was 
 accused of extortion, confessed it with grief, and 
 made restitution. His name may have been left 
 out and never supplied. 
 
 A provision was added to the " foundamentalls" 
 that no one be admitted as a free planter until he 
 had signed them. This was to make the peculiar- 
 ities of the constitution permanent. 
 
 Eaton, Davenport, Newman, Gilbert, Fugill, 
 Ponderson and Dixon were chosen as the " seven 
 pillars." These then entered into covenant with 
 one another (August 22), this step constituting 
 the church, and proceeded to gather the other
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 93 
 
 brethren to them and it. They were thus a church 
 before they were a civil government, and the or- 
 ganized church organized the government. On the 
 same day the church at Milford was gathered in 
 the same way. 
 
 The seven pillars met for the first time as a 
 general court October 16, 1639. They elected 
 Eaton " magistrate : " he was not called governor 
 until the full development of the commonwealth 
 in 1643. Newman, Gilbert, Turner and Fugill 
 were chosen deputy magistrates, and Fugill secre- 
 tary and notary public. It was agreed that future 
 elections should be held in the last week of Octo- 
 ber yearly, and that the word of God should be 
 the only rule for the guidance of judges and public 
 officers. Popular control, carefully limited as to 
 the general court, was as nearly as possible ex- 
 cluded from the periodical meetings of the magis- 
 trates' court held by Eaton and his four deputies. 
 Even after 1643, when it became the Particular 
 Court of New Haven, it was rather a court of both 
 civil and criminal equity than anything else. 
 
 The republic of New Haven, thus constituted, 
 had very little official communication with depend- 
 ent or associated towns for some four years. Mil- 
 ford with forty-four free planters, and Guilford 
 with forty, were settled in 1639, in November and 
 August respectively, under governments carefully 
 modelled on that of New Haven. Most of the 
 Milford settlers were dissatisfied Wethersfield
 
 94 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 people, who had left the Connecticut jurisdiction 
 to reach just such a social and ecclesiastical system 
 as that of New Haven ; while the Guilford people 
 were absolutely in sympathy with Davenport even 
 before their departure from England. Each had 
 its church, gathered to its seven pillars, who also 
 acted as a legislature and court, and held the town 
 lands in trust for the town. The separate life of 
 New Haven may therefore stand as a fair repre- 
 sentative of the others. 
 
 The lands belonging to the towns seem to have 
 been distributed by common agreement or by lot, 
 and with entire impartiality. The minister was 
 given a first choice ; and it was very natural that 
 a man so distinguished among his fellows as Eaton 
 was honored with a choice next after the minister. 
 The leading military man, Captain Turner, and 
 the deacons, were given a similar privilege, so that 
 they might choose places convenient for the ful- 
 fillment of their duties. Thereafter the division 
 bears a curious resemblance to the distribution of 
 lands under the village community system. The 
 limited area which was meant to be the real town 
 was divided into home lots, and the outlying lands 
 of the township, as distinguished from the town, 
 were divided into corresponding plots of arable 
 and meadow lands. Home lots and outlying plots 
 were of different sizes, corresponding to the vari- 
 ous known gradations of contribution to the com- 
 mon stock. In each grade of contribution, the
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 95 
 
 contributors received share and share alike, though 
 the higher grades of contributors had to be first 
 satisfied. But " grades of contribution " did not 
 depend simply on money values. In the distribu- 
 tion of January, 1640, each settler received five 
 acres of upland and meadow for each hundred 
 pounds of his estate, and for each head in his 
 family two and a half acres of upland and half an 
 acre of meadow ; " and in the necke an acre to 
 every hundred pound, and half an acre to every 
 head." In the distribution of September, 1640, 
 twenty acres of out-land were assigned to every 
 " hundred pounds of estate given in," and two and 
 a half acres for " every head ; " and it was decided 
 that each of the small lots in the town should have 
 four acres of planting ground to each lot, and one 
 acre to every head. As a restriction on the eager- 
 ness for acquisition, taxes were imposed from the 
 beginning, fourpence an acre per annum for up- 
 land and meadow, and twopence for second-division 
 lands. Finally, no sales to outsiders were to be 
 made without the approval of the general court ; 
 and common lands, including clay-pits, were re- 
 served to the commonwealth. 
 
 These " common lands " were held under much 
 the same conditions in the New Haven and Con- 
 necticut towns as in those of Massachusetts, though 
 the materials for study are not so abundant. 
 There was no hasty scramble from ship to shore, 
 no location wherever choice and opportunity might
 
 96 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 lead a family to settle without interfering with 
 prior rights. On the contrary, every step was or- 
 dered and directed by the voice of the town, ex- 
 pressed in that assembly which has always been 
 the mainspring of the New England system. The 
 voice of the town either chose each man's location 
 for him, or fixed the principles on which it was to 
 be chosen. Here the parallel with any form of 
 the village community must stop, for the New 
 England settlers had come from England thor- 
 oughly imbued with the idea of individual prop- 
 erty in land; and the land, when once allotted, 
 became purely individual property, subject to 
 alienation or devise, without return to the com- 
 mon stock. But there was necessarily a certain 
 amount of land, larger or smaller, which was not 
 needed for immediate allotment ; and the rules of 
 the community were pretty rigidly applied to this. 
 It was the property of all, and was at first regu- 
 lated by the town authorities. In New Haven, 
 January 16, 1642 (3), it was decided that the 
 common land known as " The Neck " should be a 
 " stinted common " for cattle, and should be 
 fenced and fitted with gates. The owner of 
 twelve acres could put in a horse, of six acres an 
 ox, of three acres a two-year-old steer, and of 
 two acres a calf. As allotments had not depended 
 on wealth alone, but on " heads " as well, this gave 
 every man a share in the common. So a Norwalk 
 town meeting of May 30, 1655, voted that " all
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 97 
 
 dry cattle, excepting two year old heifers, shall 
 be herded together on the other side of the Nor- 
 walk river, and there kept by the owners of the 
 cattle; every man keeping according to his pro- 
 portion of the cattle there herded." And all the 
 town records of early years contain provisions al- 
 lowing the inhabitants to fell timber in the town 
 " commonage " at particular seasons, or to carry 
 away windfalls. 
 
 As long as the town commonage was large and 
 comparatively valueless, its affairs were managed 
 by the town meeting. As its area became smaller 
 and more valuable, and as new-comers crowded into 
 the town, the management fell into the hands of 
 an association of proprietors, composed of descend- 
 ants of the original settlers, and interminable law- 
 suits often varied the monotony of the management. 
 All through the eighteenth century, the efforts of 
 the " new-comers " to get a share of the common 
 lands made up a large part of local politics ; and, 
 during the Revolution period, the same question 
 underlies much of the difference between " Sons 
 of Liberty " and " Tories." Finally, the com- 
 monage being reduced by sales to a minimum of 
 land poor enough to bankrupt any corporation 
 which should undertake to manage it in earnest, 
 the association of proprietors dies out and disap- 
 pears, or becomes an hereditary social organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 A pronounced distinction between New Haven
 
 98 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and Connecticut was the inquisitorial character 
 assumed by the former from the beginning of its 
 existence. It is true that much of what appears 
 to be inquisitorial proceeding was due to the pe- 
 culiar theory which governed the constitution of 
 the legislative bodies of New England : the legis- 
 latures were also courts, and their proceedings 
 were interspersed with a vast number of cases 
 which would now be thought beneath the atten- 
 tion of a commonwealth government, cases of 
 lewdness, drunkenness in servants, impertinence, 
 promiscuous kissing, etc. But the .difference, 
 which is plainly perceptible from any reading of 
 the respective records, is that such, matters were 
 rather matters of business with the Connecticut 
 authorities, to be dealt with and got rid of as rap- 
 idly as justice would permit; while to the New 
 Haven magistracy they were matters of deep and 
 serious import, to be probed to the bottom with 
 scientific accuracy in every moral and psychologi- 
 cal detail. Every New Haven sentence bristles 
 at least with implications of the moral law. 
 "Never elsewhere, I believe," says Dr. Bacon, 
 " has the world seen magistrates who felt more 
 deeply that they were God's ministers executing 
 God's justice." All this may be admitted with- 
 out impairing the belief that this attempted per- 
 sonification of Divine justice had its drawbacks. 
 It would be unjust to say, as is generally assumed, 
 that it resulted in Draconic severity of punish-
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 99 
 
 mcnt: New Haven punishments, as a rule, were 
 not at all severe. It would be unfaithful not to 
 say that it resulted in a meddlesomeness which 
 must have done more moral harm than good, and 
 in the end did much to overthrow the government 
 itself. " Goodman Hunt and his wife, for keep- 
 ing the councils of the said William Harding, bak- 
 ing him a pasty and plum-cakes, and keeping com- 
 pany with him on the Lord's day, and she suffer- 
 ing Harding to kiss her," were ordered to be sent 
 out of town " within one month after the date 
 hereof [March 1, 1643], yea, in a shorter time if 
 any miscarriage be found in them." While the 
 New Haven magistracy was sitting in solemn la- 
 bor to bring forth such a mouse as this, its Con- 
 necticut rival was actively engaged in real com- 
 monwealth business, every step of which made its 
 ultimate supremacy more assured. 
 
 The peculiar cast of mind of the New Haven 
 magistracy has done injustice to the good name of 
 the early town. Its records of trials contain a 
 mass of filth from which the Connecticut records 
 are comparatively free. Some think that the 
 missing records, covering the years 1649-53, were 
 even worse, and were destroyed by the authorities 
 to protect the town's reputation. But the trials 
 which remain really speak highly for the morals 
 of the town. The amount of real uncleanness 
 brought to light is singularly small ; the " evi- 
 dence " on which other convictions were based
 
 100 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 would not be even admitted in a modern court of 
 law ; and the whole makes up a record rather of 
 the diseased suspicions of the magistrates than 
 of the criminality of their people. Most of the 
 " criminals " better deserved a medical than a 
 " magistratical " examination ; and their cases are 
 merely a demonstration of the necessity of the 
 recognized rules of evidence, not of the immo- 
 rality of the early Puritans, as dissenting author- 
 ities are so fond of representing them. 
 
 Sumptuary laws were attempted in New Haven, 
 as in Connecticut, and with as little success in one 
 as in the other. Codes were drawn up to regulate 
 prices of labor and materials, but they were prob- 
 ably meant mainly to regulate the rates at which 
 taxes should be paid to the commonwealth in 
 kind, in materials or labor. So far as they were 
 meant to regulate individual contracts, they were 
 evidently a failure, and they were soon repealed. 
 Rules against excess in drinking and in apparel 
 were also attempted, with the usual want of suc- 
 cess; and in their failure, as in the matter of 
 "watching and warding," there are indications 
 that kissing is not the only thing that goes by 
 favor. John Jenner, accused, February 5, 1639 
 (40), of being drunk with strong waters, was ac- 
 quitted, " itt appearing to be of infirmyty and 
 occasioned by the extremyty of the colde." 
 
 It needed but a few years for the little settle- 
 ment to show its consciousness of independent ex-
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 101 
 
 istence. As soon as the establishment of houses 
 and streets had given it a corporate appearance 
 and feeling, its name was changed, September 1, 
 1640, to New Haven (commonly then Newhaven). 
 Another step, though abortive, shows the spirit of 
 the people. It was ordered, December 25, 1641, 
 " that a free school shall be set up in this town." 
 Davenport was to ascertain the amount of money 
 which would be needed for it, and to draw up rules 
 for the institution. Contemporary expressions go 
 to show that the intent was not to establish a mere 
 school, in the modern sense of the word, but to lay 
 a foundation which could develop easily into some 
 such institution as the powerful university with 
 which New Haven's name is now so closely linked. 
 It should not be forgotten that, at least in spirit, 
 the establishment of Harvard by the common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts Bay had a contemporary 
 rival in the straggling little settlement on the 
 shores of Long Island Sound. But for the differ- 
 ent circumstances of the two peoples, and a defer- 
 ence to Harvard's appeals for support, their two 
 universities would have been born almost together, 
 and the two hundred and fiftieth anniversaries of 
 Harvard and Yale would have been almost coinci- 
 dent. 
 
 When the separate existence of New Haven had 
 lasted some five years, her government developed 
 into a confederation. Many reasons might be 
 assigned for such a result. The towns which
 
 102 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 had been founded on the New Haven purchases 
 had been separated from the parent stem long 
 enough to make Mr. Davenport's opinion some- 
 thing less than all-sufficient, and to develop a 
 higher regard for the opinion of their own minis- 
 ters ; for there was a strong ecclesiastical tap-root 
 to town independence, even under the New Haven 
 system. Again, it may well be imagined that 
 men like Goodyear and Leete had not been blind 
 to the growth and possibilities of the Connecticut 
 colony. New Haven claimed only what she had 
 bought : Connecticut claimed every square foot on 
 which a Pequot had ever collected tribute. If 
 New Haven was to maintain her solidarity against 
 her rival's indefinite and penetrating claims, it 
 must be by turning a nominal hegemony into a 
 real commonwealth. Closely connected with this 
 point was the proposed New England Union. If 
 New Haven were left out of it, she was practically 
 subordinated to her rival in the new territory. If 
 she was to present her claim to admission, it must 
 be with all the prestige derivable from a cluster 
 of allied, not dependent, towns. It is significant, 
 perhaps, that the first suggestion of the change 
 comes in the appointment, April 6, 1643, of com- 
 missioners to the New England Union "for the 
 jurisdiction of New Haven." It is quite probable 
 that the leading men of the various towns had 
 already agreed on the general form which the 
 " jurisdiction " was to take, but it was not settled
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 103 
 
 until October, owing to difficulties in the case of 
 Milford. 
 
 During Milford's four years of nominal depend- 
 ence, but real independence, it had gone so far as 
 to admit six men as " free burgesses," or voters, 
 although they were not church-members. With 
 the rise of the commonwealth proposition, the ad- 
 mission of these six Milford burgesses became a 
 great international question, which cost a whole 
 summer of negotiation before it could be settled. 
 It was finally agreed that the six should continue 
 to vote in peace so long as they remained in Mil- 
 ford, but that they should not hold office, and that 
 Milford should never again scandalize the other 
 towns by thus violating their common law. 
 
 Harmony having thus been restored, a consti- 
 tution for the commonwealth was agreed upon, 
 October 27, 1643, by a general court, consisting 
 of Governor Eaton, now first so called ; Deputy- 
 governor Goodyear ; three magistrates ; and eight 
 deputies, two each from New Haven, Milford, 
 Guilford, and Stamford. The features of the new 
 constitution were not essentially different from 
 that of 1639. Free burgesses, or voters, were to 
 be church-members only, except the six Milford 
 anomalies. Only church-members were to hold 
 office. The rights of " free planters," not church- 
 members, were limited to " their inheritance and 
 to commerce." Each town was to have its par- 
 ticular court, elected by the burgesses, dealing
 
 104 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 with causes of not more than 20, or, in criminal 
 cases, involving no greater punishment than 
 ''stocking and whipping" or a fine of 5, with 
 right of appeal to the general court. In the 
 election of governor and other commonwealth of- 
 ficers, voters need not go to New Haven, but 
 might vote by proxy. The general court, con- 
 sisting of governor, deputy governor, magistrates 
 and two deputies from each town, was to meet at 
 New Haven twice a year, on the first Wednesday 
 in April and the last Wednesday in October, the 
 latter being the court of election. The magis- 
 trates were to meet separately, as a court of mag- 
 istrates, on the Monday preceding the stated gen- 
 eral court meetings, to try weighty and capital 
 cases or appeals from town courts, and to perform 
 most of the functions of a grand jury. Ordinary 
 trial by jury was not a part of the New Haven 
 system. 
 
 The general court was to provide for the main- 
 tenance of the purity of religion, and " suppress the 
 contrary ; " to make and repeal laws, and require 
 the execution of them; to call magistrates to ac- 
 count for misdemeanors ; to impose upon the in- 
 habitants an oath of fidelity and subjection to the 
 laws ; to settle and levy taxes ; and to try causes 
 on appeal from any of the other courts. Its pro- 
 ceedings were to be in accordance with the Scrip- 
 tures, and no law was to pass but by a vote of a 
 majority of the magistrates and a majority of the 
 deputies.
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 105 
 
 At the next stated meeting in April, 1644, it 
 was ordered that "the judicial laws of God, as 
 they were delivered by Moses," should be consid- 
 ered binding on all offenders, and should be a rule 
 to all the courts of the jurisdiction, " till they be 
 branched out into particulars hereafter." These 
 are probably the provisions which have done most 
 to develop the current notions of the criminal 
 code of New Haven. They have very probably 
 reflected upon the sister colony as well, and, since 
 the provisions of the Connecticut criminal code 
 were like those of New Haven, though without 
 their expressed basis, both have helped to give 
 currency to Mr. Peters's absurd code of " Blue 
 Laws." A general reference to " the Mosaic code 
 of New Haven " has usually been held sufficient 
 rebutter to any attempt to argue against the Blue 
 Law myth. Nor is the reason far to seek. It is 
 not a violent assumption that the phrase, " the 
 judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by 
 Moses," has not, to the average reader or hearer 
 of the present time; that clear-cut significance 
 which it had to those who first used it, or which 
 the death statutes of a modern state have to the 
 criminal lawyer. It is true that the New Haven 
 general statute, agreeing generally with those of 
 Connecticut and Massachusetts, made some fifteen 
 offenses capital crimes, murder, treason, perjury 
 aimed at life, kidnapping, bestiality, sodomy, 
 adultery, incest, rape, blasphemy in its highest
 
 106 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 form, idolatry, witchcraft, " presumptuous " Sab- 
 bath-breaking, the third conviction for burglary 
 committed on the Lord's day, and rebellion against 
 parents. A formidable catalogue truly. But 
 why is it the only one to be brought to the bar ? 
 Mackintosh, speaking in the English House of 
 Commons so late as March 2, 1819, said : " I hold 
 in my hand a list of those offenses which at this 
 moment are capital, in number two hundred and 
 twenty-three" The New Haven and Connecticut 
 colonists, by a single stroke of legislation more 
 than a century and a half before, had reduced 
 their list of capital offenses to fifteen. If such a 
 reduction, with hardly an execution for any of 
 them, be not considered a long step in the history 
 of law reform, law reformers are hard to satisfy. 
 
 The government established in 1643 continued 
 without essential change until its final absorption 
 by Connecticut. Two towns, however, were 
 added to the four already named. Southold, L. 
 I., bought in 1640, was admitted as a town in 
 1649. It was at first called by its Indian name, 
 Yennicott or Yennicock ; and its English name, 
 Southold or Southhold, perhaps signified the place 
 of strength to the south of New Haven. It ex- 
 tended some forty miles west of Orient Point. 
 Totoket, or Branford, was a part of the second 
 purchase of 1638. Samuel Eaton having failed 
 to settle it, it was granted in 1640 to another dis- 
 satisfied Wethersfield company, headed by Wil-
 
 THE NEW HAVEN COLONY. 107 
 
 Ham Swayne, and Branford was admitted as a 
 town in 1651. In 1644 it had been reinforced by 
 Rev. Abraham Pierson's church from Southamp- 
 ton, L. I., which sought a more congenial home 
 under the New Haven jurisdiction when its town 
 joined Connecticut. But Pierson's church was 
 not to escape thus. Within twenty years, the 
 union was consummated, and the church again 
 broke away from Connecticut and founded New- 
 ark, N. J., a settlement which has given to New 
 Jersey the mass of the Connecticut family names 
 which have appeared in her history. Hunting- 
 ton, L. I., also applied to be admitted in 1656 and 
 1659, but was refused because of her demand that 
 her local court should try all her civil cases and 
 all criminal cases not capital. 
 
 Six towns, therefore, New Haven, Milford, 
 Guilford, Stamford, Southold and Branford, 
 made up the New Haven jurisdiction during its 
 short history. With the exception of Stamford 
 and Southold, the commonwealth lay immediately 
 around New Haven. Its smaller members are now 
 villages which offer little that is striking to the 
 traveler or visitor. Time was when they were 
 members of an almost independent republic whose 
 hopes were high, and whose history serves at 
 least to show that the New England town system 
 cannot thrive in an unfriendly soil.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SAYBEOOK ATTEMPT AND ITS FAILURE. 
 
 THE Saybrook colony was the offspring, in one 
 sense, of the English king's committal to the 
 policy of " thorough." There was in the king- 
 dom, in addition to the comparatively helpless 
 lower-class victims of Laud, an unknown number 
 of gentlemen of good family who were thoroughly 
 indoctrinated with Puritanism, or with kindred 
 forms of dissent. These had as yet escaped serious 
 persecution, partly through family and social influ- 
 ences, partly through the English reserve which, by 
 checking any too violent expressions of dissent, 
 had enabled family and social influences to have 
 their full effect. About 1634-35 there were strong 
 indications that the period of peace for this class 
 was approaching its limit. Wentworth, in Ireland, 
 was constructing the covered way by which the 
 liberties of England were to be assailed. The 
 heart of all Protestant Europe was yet faint and 
 sick at the hideous atrocities of Tilly's musketeers 
 at the sack of Magdeburg : was any more mercy 
 to be expected by English cities at the hands of 
 Wentworth's Irish musketeers? And who was
 
 THE SAY BROOK ATTEMPT. 109 
 
 to suppose that the supple body known as a parlia- 
 ment under Elizabeth and James would take the 
 law into its own hands against Charles ? Or that 
 Puritanism would develop a soldiery before which 
 the king's men would faint and fly ? Patient and 
 reserved men forgot that other Englishmen were 
 as reserved, as patient and as dangerous as they, 
 and concluded that hope was gone from England, 
 and that there was no refuge but across the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 It may be that the supposititious, or at least 
 unverifiable grant to Warwick by the Council of 
 Plymouth in 1630 was a pious fraud, designed to 
 provide some such refuge, if the fear of confisca- 
 tion of charter rights should deter Massachusetts 
 from receiving refugees. The difficulty is to un- 
 derstand why the declaration of a baseless claim 
 by the Say and Sele patentees, in the country and 
 during the life of the original owner, should not 
 have been met by a prompt contradiction. This 
 is the strongest secondary evidence of the validity 
 of the grant to Warwick in 1630, and its transfer 
 to the Say and Sele Company in 1631, that in 
 1634-35 the latter patentees made active and pub- 
 lic preparations to enforce their claims to Con- 
 necticut and to remove there themselves, without 
 exciting any complaint or opposition on the part 
 of the Plymouth Council or their later grantees. 
 That broad excuse, "the confusion of the times,"
 
 110 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 may serve as a partial but hardly as an entirely 
 satisfactory explanation. 
 
 John Winthrop, Sen., the governor of Massachu- 
 setts, had led the great Puritan migration to that 
 colony in 1630. His son, John Winthrop, Jr., 
 did not reach Boston until October, 1635. He was 
 then a young man of twenty-nine, of good natural 
 parts, well improved at Cambridge and Dublin 
 and by travel on the continent, and he bad already 
 shown that philosophical, equable and judicial 
 temperament which made him a trusted leader of 
 men throughout his life. One of the bitterest 
 critics of the early Massachusetts system hesitates 
 before the beauties of the younger Winthrop's 
 character, and calls him " perhaps the brightest 
 ornament of New England Puritanism." His 
 father's connection with the Say and Sele associates 
 must have been close, and they must have seen 
 in the son the qualities they needed. It thus hap- 
 pened that the son, on his way to Boston, was di- 
 verted into an interest in Connecticut, which 
 finally made him more vitally important to that 
 colony than the father had ever been to Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 Articles of agreement were entered into July 
 7, 1635, between John Winthrop, Jr., of the one 
 part, and Viscount Say and Sele, Sir Arthur Has- 
 selring, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Henry Lawrence, 
 Henry Darley and George Fen wick of the other. 
 Robert, Lord Brooke, did not sign, but was a party
 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT. Ill 
 
 in interest. Winthrop was to be fully compen- 
 sated for his time and trouble, was to act as " gov- 
 ernor of the river Connecticut in New England, 
 and of the harbor and places adjoining," for one 
 year, and was to build a fort at the mouth of the 
 river, with a garrison of fifty men, reserving 1,000 
 or 1,500 acres of good ground, near the fort, for its 
 maintenance. His commission as governor was 
 signed, sealed and delivered to him July 18. 
 
 Winthrop arrived at Boston just a week before 
 the first considerable migration to the Connecticut 
 Valley. It is said that the intruding settlers made 
 an agreement with him that, if the real owners, 
 " their lordships," should require them to remove 
 from their new settlements, they were to do so on 
 receiving satisfaction for their improvements, or 
 corresponding locations elsewhere. The agree- 
 ment is referred to in the preamble to the Massa- 
 chusetts commission to the provisional magistrates 
 of Connecticut ; but it is curious that it does not 
 seem to be referred to in the elaborate series of 
 instructions to Winthrop, and letters to the king 
 and various English noblemen in regard to the 
 charter, although it would have materially strength- 
 ened their case under the Fenwick purchase, as 
 showing constructive permission from " their lord- 
 ships " to settle, in default of notice to quit. Win- 
 throp, to whom the instructions were addressed, 
 was the very person who in 1635, as agent for 
 the proprietors, had given them conditional per-
 
 112 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mission to settle in the Connecticut Valley ; and 
 yet, in 1661, they allow themselves to appear to 
 his majesty as originally sheer interlopers. In 
 spite of the authority of the father's journal, the 
 statement seems to lack some particulars essential 
 to a clear understanding of it. 
 
 The mouth of the river had already been seized 
 by an English force, in order to keep it from 
 the Dutch ; but the works constructed must have 
 been of the most primitive character. A party 
 of twenty men, sent by Winthrop, arrived at the 
 fort and took possession November 24, 1635 ; and 
 a little later came Winthrop himself and Lyon 
 Gardiner, who soon became commander of the fort. 
 For some years the garrison endured even more 
 than the usual monotony of a frontier fort. Its 
 men were ambushed and attacked during the Pe- 
 quot struggle, but were restricted to a defensive 
 warfare. Even settlement was really hindered by 
 the fort. It drew danger, from Dutch or Indians, 
 as the candle draws the moth ; and its direct 
 protection was only efficient enough to keep its 
 people within the fort, and in a few scattered 
 buildings very near it. 
 
 George Fenwick had visited the place the year 
 of Winthrop's assumption of control. About mid- 
 summer of the year 1639 he returned with much 
 more parade. He had two vessels, which brought 
 also his wife, Lady Alice Boteler, and his family. 
 The name Saybrook was given to the settlement
 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT. 113 
 
 in honor of the two leading proprietors, Lord Say 
 and Lord Brooke ; but the contemporary genius 
 for misspelling, reacted upon by the neighborhood 
 of the river and the Sound, made it read Seabrook 
 for many years upon the Connecticut records. 
 
 The first minister was Rev. Thomas Peters, 
 followed in 1646 by Rev. James Fitch, who re- 
 moved in 1660 to settle at Norwich with most of 
 his church, there to become very much entangled 
 with the affairs of the Indians and the manage- 
 ment of their lands. Besides these, Captain John 
 Mason, a renowned man of war and major general 
 of the Connecticut colony's militia, and Thomas 
 Leflmgwell, were the leading men ; but there were 
 many other Saybrook names which the Norwich 
 migration transferred to that part of the common- 
 wealth and subsequently far beyond its borders. 
 
 The tract of land usually considered as under 
 the jurisdiction of Saybrook was about ten miles 
 in length, divided midway by the Connecticut 
 River, and extending six or eight miles back from 
 Long Island Sound. Small as this territory was, 
 it was of great importance as controlling the only 
 water exit from the Hartford region, and as the 
 seat of the representative of the only paper title 
 within the future commonwealth. The authori- 
 ties of Connecticut showed their usual acuteness 
 by forming close relations with Fenwick. He was 
 admitted to the first conference which formed the 
 New England union in 1643 ; and, as that con-
 
 114 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 federation recognized only the four colonies of 
 Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New 
 Haven, Connecticut shrewdly appointed him as 
 one of her commissioners in 1643 and 1644, with 
 Edward Hopkins as the other. Fenwick was thus 
 identified with Connecticut as closely as he could 
 have been without an actual transfer of the rights 
 which he represented. His second term of service 
 as commissioner, in 1644, enabled him to render 
 most important service to Connecticut in her 
 boundary disputes with Massachusetts, which col- 
 ony laid claim before the commissioners to the 
 Pequot country. Fenwick interposed a protest 
 against any decision which should in any way im- 
 peach his principals' title to the territory in dis- 
 pute, and the commissioners decided to postpone 
 the decision until the patentees could be heard 
 from. The delay served to enable Connecticut to 
 secure a firmer hold on the conquered territory 
 before a final decision became imperative. 
 
 This diplomatic stroke had hardly been dealt 
 when the Connecticut general court appointed a 
 committee to treat with Fenwick for the sale of 
 Saybrook. The logic of events had been too 
 much for the Saybrook colony. The state of 
 things at home was no longer what it had been in 
 1634. Whether Jenny Geddes ever threw her 
 stool or not, a train of events had been started, 
 bringing calamities to royalty and relief to the 
 persecuted ; the once supple parliament had taught
 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT. 115 
 
 Wentworth the real meaning of "thorough;" 
 and, above all, Cromwell and his Ironsides had 
 charged at Marston Moor. Puritan gentlemen in 
 England had other things to think of than emi- 
 grating to Saybrook ; and Fenwick was hopelessly 
 isolated. Connecticut had the purpose and power 
 of growth, but there was no longer hope for Say- 
 brook. 
 
 The agreement of sale was made December 5, 
 1644. Fenwick made over the fort, its appurte- 
 nances, and the land in the neighborhood to the 
 colony of Connecticut. Lands not yet disposed of 
 were to be distributed by a committee of five, of 
 whom Fenwick was to be one. The rest of the 
 Warwick patent, from Saybrook to Narragansett 
 Bay, was to be brought by Fenwick " under the 
 jurisdiction of Connecticut, if it came into his 
 power." In return, Fenwick was to have the use 
 of the buildings within the fort for ten years, with 
 an impost on exports of corn, biscuit, beaver and 
 cattle which should pass the fort during that time. 
 As security to Fenwick, the general court ordered 
 in the following February, in its ratification of 
 the agreement, that every master of a vessel should 
 land at the fort while passing it, and deliver to 
 the commandant of the fort a note of the duti- 
 able part of his cargo. In 1646 the amount was 
 limited to .180 per annum, the total duty col- 
 lected during the ten years being about .1,600. 
 
 The imposition of the duty nearly disrupted
 
 116 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the New England union. In 1647 Massachusetts 
 filed a protest against it before the commission- 
 ers of the union. She claimed that Connecticut 
 had no right to levy on the Massachusetts towns 
 of the upper Connecticut Valley a tax which 
 was to inure to Connecticut's sole benefit in the 
 acquisition of Saybrook. In 1649 the commis- 
 sioners of the other three colonies decided against 
 the protest of Massachusetts. Thereupon the 
 Massachusetts commissioners exhibited an order 
 of their general court, levying a tax on all goods 
 of the other colonies imported into or exported 
 from Boston, ostensibly for the repair of the cas- 
 tle in the harbor. The suspiciously opportune 
 circumstance of the castle's need of repairs just at 
 this time excited considerable anger in the other 
 colonies ; and this was intensified in 1653 by the 
 refusal of Massachusetts to join the other colonies 
 in a war against the Dutch and Indians. Perhaps 
 the feeling in the latter case was the greater on 
 account of the attitude assumed by Massachusetts, 
 that of an advocate of peace and righteousness, 
 averse to an offensive war ; whereas the fact, as 
 it seemed to contemporary observers, was that the 
 governing desire of the Bay colony was to con- 
 vince the other colonies of their impotence, and of 
 their folly in supporting the refusal of Connecti- 
 cut to yield to Massachusetts even in the petty 
 affair of the impost. With the expiration of Fen- 
 wick's ten years' term the retaliatory measures
 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT. 117 
 
 were quietly allowed to disappear : probably the 
 castle had been put into good repair by that 
 time. 
 
 With the conclusion of the agreement of 1644, 
 Say brook subsided into the position of a Connec- 
 ticut township. Fenwick continued to reside at 
 the fort, but took no prominent part in Connecti- 
 cut affairs. The Connecticut general court re- 
 quested him to return to England at his earliest 
 convenience, and act as its agent in procuring 
 that grant of the entire jurisdiction under the 
 patent which he had promised to get "if it ever 
 came within his power to do so." Lady Fenwick 
 died at Saybrook about 1648, and her husband 
 soon after returned to England, giving up the last 
 vestige of the commercial city which was to have 
 graced the mouth of the Connecticut. He died 
 in 1657, before the colony applied for a charter. 
 
 The Connecticut authorities were diligent in 
 disseminating the idea, and were perhaps honest 
 in their own belief, that Colonel Fen wick's sale 
 had been a transfer of the patent and of the juris- 
 diction thereunder, for this gave the colony a 
 quasi-legal standing which it had not before. 
 When Massachusetts, during the impost and boun- 
 dary disputes, impugned the standing of Connec- 
 ticut as a colony unauthorized and unwarranted 
 by law, the latter colony always replied that it 
 had a charter or patent in England, but that " the 
 confusion of the times " prevented it from show-
 
 118 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ing anything more than a copy. It was when the 
 confusion began to disappear, and the validity of 
 the excuse with it, that the colony took steps to 
 secure a charter from the king. In the instruc- 
 tions to Governor Winthrop, the colonial authori- 
 ties lay great stress on the Fenwick sale as in- 
 volving the equitable transfer of the patent itself, 
 although the terms of the agreement contradict 
 them. They go so far as to say, " Had we not 
 been too credulous and confident of the goodness 
 and faithfulness of that gentleman [Fenwick], we 
 might possibly have been at a better pass ; " and 
 they direct the governor to take steps to recover 
 from Fen wick's heirs the amount paid to him. 
 They even sequestered the colonial estate of Mrs. 
 Cullick, Fen wick's sister and his New England 
 heir, until 500 were repaid and further claims 
 were remitted. It would be far more than even- 
 handed justice to the fathers of the Connecticut 
 colony to admit that they were the simple victims 
 of the wiles of George Fenwick : if he could so 
 easily delude them, he was more successful than 
 their other contemporaries. They seem to have 
 understood perfectly in 1644 the wares for which 
 they were then bargaining, and were quite aware 
 that this part of the consideration was purely 
 contingent. So impossible was it in 1661 for the 
 contingency to be fulfilled that the letter of the 
 colony to the king takes conspicuous care not to 
 mention the Fenwick agreement at all. Perhaps
 
 THE SAYBROOK ATTEMPT. 119 
 
 its attitude toward the Fenwick family may best 
 be explained as that of men who had bought a 
 contingency, found it less valuable than they ex- 
 pected, and were unwilling to confess their error 
 even to one another. 
 
 On the other hand, the romantic life and death 
 of Lady Fenwick ought not to give to her hus- 
 band's character that generous glamour which Con- 
 necticut historians have been too prone to allow 
 him. It should not be forgotten that he deliber- 
 ately sold and appropriated the proceeds of prop- 
 erty of which he was not the sole owner, only the 
 agent. The colonial authorities yielded to his de- 
 mand for <1,600 for property which was not his, 
 rather than see it sold to the Dutch ; and they 
 paid the sum agreed upon. But the substantial 
 iniquity of the transaction undoubtedly stirred 
 them to a greater eagerness to make use of the 
 invalidity of one feature of the agreement in order 
 to secure substantial justice in others. On the 
 whole, the merits of the case seem to be with the 
 colony.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 
 
 IT is much to be regretted that the fathers of 
 the Connecticut colony seem to have been too 
 much immersed in the struggle for existence to 
 give us any record of the appearance of men and 
 things in these early years. In this respect, Con- 
 necticut is unfortunate beyond any of her sister 
 commonwealths. Hartford, the subsequent capi- 
 tal of the colony and state, may be taken as an 
 example. There does not seem to be any surviv- 
 ing map, plan, picture, sketch or verbal descrip- 
 tion of the town, or of any public or private build- 
 ing, until about the time of the Revolution. Even 
 the zeal of the antiquary finds " no thorough- 
 fare " inscribed almost immediately on every clue 
 which would have been a promising one in Massa- 
 chusetts. The contemporary letters, journals, 
 etc., seem to take existing things for granted. 
 The minds of the writers were occupied almost 
 exclusively with the actions of men ; and the 
 pregnant incidental hints as to social features, 
 manners and customs, topography, etc., which 
 are so frequently furnished in other colonies by
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 121 
 
 writers who had no notion that they were furnish- 
 ing them, are not found in Connecticut. This was 
 due to the peculiar nature of the early struggles 
 in the colony. Difficulties of soil, commerce and 
 general industry were no new matters with them : 
 their wits were working mainly to know what 
 other men might do or could do ; how Massachu- 
 setts men would act about the boundary line ; how 
 the Dutch would act about Long Island and the 
 territory west of the Connecticut River ; how Eng- 
 lishmen would settle their home government ; and 
 what would be the influence on the fortunes of 
 the little congeries of towns which, formed with- 
 out a legal title, had never acquired one except 
 from a man who never had it and did not profess 
 to sell it. Determined as they were to maintain 
 the integrity of their colonial existence, the im- 
 pediments were enormous, and almost all of them 
 lay in possible human action. It is no wonder, 
 then, that the early official and unofficial records 
 of Connecticut deal so largely with this one side 
 of human history, and give us so little of any 
 other. 
 
 Antiquarian zeal has overcome some of these 
 difficulties. The process of tracing back land ti- 
 tles through the records of land transfers has given 
 us an excellent map of Hartford in 1640, which, 
 though partly conjectural, gives what is probably 
 a very close representation of the town. It lies 
 on the west bank of the Connecticut River, where
 
 122 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the river runs nearly due south. Running east- 
 ward, through the southern central part of the 
 town, is the " little river," or " riveret," a swift- 
 flowing brook, whose depth varied with the sea- 
 sons. The bulk of the town was thus to the north 
 of the little river, and to the west of the Connecti- 
 cut. Like the city of Washington, it was at first 
 a city of magnificent distances. Its first settlers 
 laid it out on a scale so generous that it was not 
 necessary to enlarge the city limits until 1853, or 
 to add more than one highway to the original 
 roads during the century and a half between the 
 settlement of Hartford and its incorporation as a 
 city in 1784. Only one tenth of the township 
 was included in the city limits of 1784 ; the city 
 now covers the whole township, and its streets 
 have increased from thirty to three hundred in 
 number within the present century. 
 
 At the mouth of the little river is the Dutch 
 post Good Hope, still in the possession of its orig- 
 inal owners in 1640, as Berwick-upon-Tweed long 
 marked the remnant of the English claims in Scot- 
 land. Alongside the main river was a strip of 
 meadow land, and along the rising ground which 
 bounded it on the west ran the highway from Bos- 
 ton, which passed through the three river towns, 
 and afterwards became the highway to the whole 
 territory to the south. On the north bank of the 
 little river, fronting a road along its edge, there 
 were placed in succession the houses of Governor
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 123 
 
 Haynes, of Rev. Mr. Hooker, of Rev. Mr. Stone, 
 and of Elder Goodwin, " Meeting House Alley " 
 separating Hooker and Stone. Meeting House 
 Alley ran from the little river to a square (now 
 State House Square), some distance in the rear 
 of Stone and Goodwin, and nearly in the topo- 
 graphical center of the town, which contained the 
 market place, the jail, and the meeting house. 
 The mass of the lots on this side of the town, ex- 
 cept those fronting on the little river, lay east and 
 west, perpendicular to the Boston highway and 
 the parallel roads. The lots to the south of the 
 little river lay mostly north and south, perpendic- 
 ular to the highway along the little river and the 
 parallel streets. Almost all the meadow land on 
 this side of the little river, down to the Dutch 
 settlement, was owned by Edward Hopkins, the 
 colony's leading merchant ; and to the southwest 
 of his tract was the estate of the Wyllys family, 
 on which was that which was to be the Charter 
 Oak. Further up the little river were the tan- 
 yard, located on an island ; and the mill, on the 
 northern shore. Outside of the town were the 
 cow pasture, the ox pasture, the landing, etc., and 
 the roads were named according to the places to 
 which they led. 
 
 Few particulars are known of the size or appear- 
 ance of the meeting house, or of any other build- 
 ing. All the buildings were very certainly small, 
 though the erection of a sawmill in 1667 is an in-
 
 124 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 dication of an early improvement in house-build- 
 ing. The windows were hardly more than open- 
 ings for light and air ; and their size was reduced 
 by the scarcity of glass, and the necessity of using 
 oiled linen or other translucent material as a sub- 
 stitute. The meeting house was too small to ad- 
 mit of galleries, or of anything more than the mer- 
 est suggestion of a pulpit. There was no plaster. 
 Instead of pews there were plain and hard benches, 
 and artificial heat was unknown, even in the bit- 
 terest weather. Indeed, the Hartford church had 
 no stoves until about 1815 ; and what Lodge calls 
 *' the ferocious practice " of baptizing newly born 
 infants in church must have had an additional 
 horror in the depth of winter. Finally an armed 
 guard, suggestive of Indian neighbors, was an in- 
 separable accompaniment to religious services, and 
 was provided with seats near the door. In the 
 other Connecticut towns, religious and other meet- 
 ings were called by beat of drum, one of the in- 
 habitants making an annual contract for the ser- 
 vice. Hartford alone had a bell, brought from 
 Cambridge, which was probably at that time the 
 only church or public bell on the continent, with 
 the exception of the one at Jamestown, Va. Its 
 contents now make part of the bell, recast in 
 1850, belonging to the First Congregational Church 
 of Hartford. New Haven had no church bell until 
 1681. 
 
 One of the most difficult and delicate functions
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 125 
 
 of a church committee in Connecticut and New 
 Haven towns was the seating of the congregation. 
 A transfer of a family from one seat to another 
 betokened a social rise or fall. In the smaller 
 towns, such transfers were usually made by a ma- 
 jority vote at a town meeting; and the town 
 records have numberless entries of permissions 
 granted to fortunate and rising men to sit " in the 
 justice's pew," or " in the cross pew by the sec- 
 ond pillar," or " in the second pew on the right," 
 the proper places for their wives, on their side of 
 the house, being as carefully specified. 
 
 Finally the meeting house was used for a long 
 time for every variety of secular purposes, not 
 only as a place for town and other meetings, but 
 as a place of deposit for arms, military provisions, 
 and lost or stolen property. The Hartford church 
 building was not merely the scene of ecclesiastical 
 councils : the meetings of the New England com- 
 missioners, of deputies from other commonwealths, 
 and even the exciting conferences with Andros in 
 regard to the charter, took place here. It was not 
 until toward the middle of the next century that 
 the towns began to see the incongruity of secular 
 business in a dedicated house of worship, and be- 
 gan to erect townhouses and other distinctively 
 public buildings. 
 
 Bad as were the roads of the United States al- 
 most everywhere until the era of turnpikes set in, 
 and railroads in their turn forced the turnpikes up
 
 126 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 to a higher standard, the roads of Hartford and its 
 neighborhood had a certain evil preeminence. The 
 excellence of the soil was reflected in the bad char- 
 acter of the roads. Its tenacious clay only needed 
 moisture enough to become a weariness to the 
 flesh of horses and of men. Within the last thirty 
 years, says one authority, wagons have been seen 
 sunk to the hub in the native clay of Pearl Street, 
 close to the center of the city. In 1774 the town 
 prisoners for debt represented to the general as- 
 sembly that the roads were for a considerable part 
 of the year so miry and impassable that no one 
 came to the jail to bestow alms on the prisoners ; 
 and they petitioned that the jail limits should be 
 enlarged. What the roads must have been in 
 still earlier days passes speculation. It may per- 
 haps be that the early years of John Fitch, of 
 Windsor, spent in annual experiences of the hor- 
 rors of Hartford roads, were the influence which 
 turned his attention to improving the waterways 
 of the country by endeavoring to perfect the 
 steamboat. 
 
 Mr. J. C. Parsons "cannot discover that any 
 land in the town is now in possession of the de- 
 scendants of the original owners, having been con- 
 tinuously in the possession of the family ; some, 
 through female heirs, may possibly be so held." 
 This state of things is common to most Connecti- 
 cut towns, but it does not imply that the original 
 stock is dying out. It is only a symptom of the
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 127 
 
 universal readiness to transfer property and assume 
 new property relations. There is hardly a Con- 
 necticut town in which the names of the first set- 
 tlers are not as absolutely numerous as at the 
 settlement ; if there is any relative decrease, it is 
 due to the superimposition of a foreign popula- 
 tion. The old names, even the Christian names, 
 show a remarkable persistence, and an equally re- 
 markable persistence in the characteristic of prop- 
 erty-holding, even though their possessors have 
 exchanged family for other property. The origi- 
 nal fecundity is shown in the fact, that, in spite of 
 this persistence, it is the old family names which 
 have shown a disposition to drift out of the com- 
 monwealth by emigration. For this there have 
 been four main channels : in early years, to Ver- 
 mont, and so over the border into New York ; 
 later, to Pennsylvania (Wyoming) and to central 
 New York ; later still, to the Western Reserve of 
 Ohio, and so throughout that State and the West ; 
 and of recent years, to New York city, and thence 
 in every direction. In addition to these main 
 channels, isolated routes of migration have been 
 innumerable, so that Connecticut names are now 
 to be found in every part of the Union. Such a 
 steady stream of migration could not but have 
 hastened this process of alienation of family prop- 
 erty. Those who migrated soon disposed of their 
 share of the patrimony, and it regularly passed 
 away from the name, though not necessarily from
 
 128 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Connecticut names and stock. The absence of an- 
 cestral holdings in the State is merely a redistri- 
 bution of the original holdings. 
 
 The Massachusetts man and woman of 1637-38 
 are the exact social representatives of the early 
 Connecticut settlers, except so far as the poverty 
 and meagerness of the Massachusetts life of the 
 time were still further intensified by the difficul- 
 ties of an absolutely new settlement. There are 
 said to have been but thirty plows at the time in 
 all Massachusetts : what estimate shall we make 
 for the new and struggling Connecticut colony? 
 We have, unfortunately, no such Pepys as Judge 
 Sewall for early life in Connecticut, but Sewall's 
 hints as to the hardships of early Massachusetts 
 life may well be reinforced and transferred to our 
 commonwealth. The utter lack of a multitude of 
 things which have come to seem absolute necessa- 
 ries in the eyes of their descendants ; the difficul- 
 ties of travel and communication ; the complete 
 isolation from the outer world through the grim 
 months of a New England winter, during which 
 the sacramental bread in the churches was some- 
 times frozen on the plates ; the bitterness of the 
 winter cold even in private houses, where the ink 
 sometimes froze in the inkstands within a few feet 
 of the great fire ; the utter inadequacy of medical 
 and surgical attendance ; tlie ignorance of and an- 
 tagonism to the art of amusement in every form ; 
 the incongruous mixture of the civilized and the
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 129 
 
 savage, in a society in which a minister, trained 
 in an English university, might be called away 
 from writing a treatise on the dealings of the Eng- 
 lish commonwealth with its former king, or with 
 the American churches, to drive a drunken Indian 
 out of his kitchen, or chaffer with a hunter for 
 food or clothing, these were social conditions 
 from which the early settler did not escape by re- 
 moving from Massachusetts to Connecticut, and 
 they are more fairly within the province of the 
 Massachusetts historian. 
 
 There are, however, certain visible distinctions 
 between the drift of public events in Connecticut 
 and in Massachusetts which make it difficult to 
 believe that there was not some hidden differenti- 
 ation between the people of the three migrating 
 towns and of the five which were left, which has 
 colored their whole subsequent history. 
 
 The difficulties between king and parliament 
 were at their height when the Connecticut colony 
 was founded ; and for more than half a century 
 the relations of the house of Stuart to its various 
 opponents formed the critical public question for 
 the New England colonies. Throughout this pe- 
 riod there was probably no great difference be- 
 tween the underlying purposes of the two colonies 
 under consideration. Both meant to preserve the 
 public privileges which they had gained, to ex- 
 tend their territory and jurisdiction, and to evade 
 or resist the interference of the home government 
 9
 
 130 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 with their autonomy. But the methods of Mas- 
 sachusetts were peculiarly her own. There were 
 strong reasons, in the history, traditions, and con- 
 sistent public teachings of the colony, why she 
 should pose as the pronounced champion of colo- 
 nial liberties. On every occasion she seems to 
 have felt it to be incumbent upon her to assume a 
 more or less decided public attitude, and equally 
 incumbent upon her strongest neighbor, Connecti- 
 cut, to support her by a similar course. In very 
 many cases Connecticut did so ; in fact, the most 
 common criticism of her policy by her own people 
 was that she was too apt to " trot after the Bay 
 horse." But every case in which Connecticut chose 
 to follow a policy of her own seemed to the Bay 
 colony only an instance of unmanly defection 
 rather than of independent action. 
 
 The consistent policy of Connecticut, on the 
 other hand, was to avoid notoriety and public at- 
 titudes ; to secure her privileges without attract- 
 ing needless notice ; to act as intensely and vig- 
 orously as possible when action seemed necessary 
 and promising; but to say as little as possible, 
 yield as little as possible, and evade as much as 
 possible when open resistance was evident folly. 
 Much of the difference must have been due to the 
 different circumstances of the two colonies. Mas- 
 sachusetts, secure in the possession of a charter, 
 must have felt always that, even if beaten down 
 from any claim, she could fall back, in the last
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 131 
 
 resort, upon her legal privileges. Connecticut, 
 while without a charter, must have felt the same 
 hesitation in following some of the leads of her 
 neighbor which an unarmored vessel would feel in 
 following some of the motions of an ironclad ; but 
 the steady continuance of her policy after she had 
 obtained a charter seems to argue some structural 
 difference in the people. Her line of public con- 
 duct was precisely the same after as before 1662. 
 And its success was remarkable : it is safe to say 
 that the diplomatic skill, forethought, and self- 
 control shown by the men who guided the course 
 of Connecticut during this period have seldom 
 been equaled on the larger fields of the world's 
 history. As products of democracy, they were its 
 best vindication. 
 
 The period closed in 1691 with the loss of the 
 original charter of Massachusetts, the imposition 
 of a new and restricted charter upon her, and the 
 palpable and even conscious inability of her pub- 
 lic men to make good by action the positions as- 
 sumed in the past. The mortification of this de- 
 feat was aggravated by the pronounced success of 
 the Connecticut policy. The best of New Eng- 
 land's historians has not hesitated to avow and to 
 reiterate his conviction, not only that Connecticut 
 left Massachusetts in the lurch, but that she al- 
 lowed her application for a charter to be used by 
 the royal agents as an essential instrument in the 
 disintegration of the New England union and the 
 final humiliation of Massachusetts.
 
 132 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Such a conclusion assumes far too much. It 
 would have been just, in the first place, if Connec- 
 ticut had ever imitated the Massachusetts posi- 
 tions, and had given Massachusetts to understand 
 that she had entered the union for the purpose of 
 upholding the Massachusetts policy. On the con- 
 trary, the Connecticut policy was a matter of no- 
 toriety among New England public men from the 
 beginning. The accusation of Massachusetts was 
 wholly an afterthought to cover her own want 
 of forethought in sacrificing democracy to class 
 influence, and in thus drifting into a position 
 where she was hopelessly stalemated. It must 
 always have been baseless, except on the supposi- 
 tion that Connecticut was in some manner bound 
 to follow her neighbor's lead, and to surrender her 
 own right of judgment in every great emergency, 
 a course which Connecticut was not bound or 
 likely to take. In the second place, an admission 
 of the legality, with an impeachment of the jus- 
 tice, of Connecticut's policy, assumes that a decided 
 adherence by Connecticut to the Massachusetts 
 policy would have resulted in obtaining a more 
 complete autonomy for all the New England col- 
 onies, and would have saved the union. But this 
 is mere conjecture, and improbable as well. It is 
 no more probable, at least, than that Massachu- 
 setts would have scored a success equal to that of 
 Connecticut by following a similar line of policy. 
 It is no answer to this to say that Massachusetts
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 133 
 
 preferred failure, after an heroic resistance, to suc- 
 cess attained by shifty and temporizing measures : 
 the less said about the heroism shown by the dom- 
 inant class of Massachusetts, in the events which 
 culminated in 1691, the better. Its nullification 
 of the articles of union in 1652-54 had taken the 
 life out of them : they never again showed any vi- 
 tality, and the Connecticut charter simply gave 
 decent burial to the corpse. 
 
 The facts are, that these commonwealths were 
 then hardly fitted for complete autonomy ; that the 
 Connecticut policy obtained about as much as was 
 practicable or best at the time, while the Massa- 
 chusetts policy obtained considerably less. The 
 spirit which still moves the Connecticut workman 
 to invent anything rather than expend a foot- 
 pound of energy uselessly, seems to have actuated 
 the people from the beginning. They would re- 
 ceive Andros, for example, most deferentially, 
 make no sign of resistance until resistance could 
 take its most vigorous and effective form : then 
 the work was done thoroughly, and almost abso- 
 lute silence followed until the next opportunity 
 for decisive action. No one can study the history 
 of the commonwealth without being struck with 
 the individuality of the people, as shown in their 
 public career ; or, without believing that that in- 
 dividuality was not due simply to circumstances, 
 to their thirty years' struggle for a charter, but 
 that it belonged to them even in Massachusetts, 
 perhaps even in old England.
 
 134 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 From their first settlement, Hartford and u an- 
 cient" Windsor seem to have gone quietly and 
 steadily on in their natural course of development. 
 Wethersfield had migrated without a minister, and, 
 for this or some other reason, its course of devel- 
 opment ran ill from the first. Within its first 
 half dozen years of life, its neighbor towns and 
 New Haven were compelled to offer " loving coun- 
 sel " as to Wethersfield difficulties ; and Daven- 
 port, of New Haven, put his into the wise sugges- 
 tion that the minority should migrate again. The 
 minority who acted on this advice settled at Stam- 
 ford and formed a New Haven town. In 1644 
 another portion of the Wethersfield minority, as 
 has been said, removed to the New Haven juris- 
 diction and formed part of the town of Branford. 
 
 There seems to have been no denned method of 
 turning a settlement into a political " town," be- 
 yond the mere act of the general court in receiv- 
 ing its deputies, until after the charter was ob- 
 tained. It is difficult, therefore, to assign any 
 exact date to the political birth of the early Con- 
 necticut towns. The growth of the family may 
 be traced in the steady increase in the number of 
 deputies in the general court itself. There were 
 seventeen deputies in 1649 ; twenty in 1650 ; 
 twenty-two in 1651 ; twenty-five in 1654 ; and 
 twenty-six in 1656-57, this number remaining the 
 maximum until after the union was consummated 
 under the charter. The increase came from the
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 135 
 
 successive recognition of the new towns of Say- 
 brook, Stratford, Farmington, Fairfield, Norwalk, 
 Middletown, New London, Norwich, and the Long 
 Island towns Huntington, Southampton and 
 East Hampton ; but there can be no pretense at 
 accuracy in saying when each of these towns was 
 first represented in the general court. Town rec- 
 ognition seems really to have taken a somewhat 
 different line, hinging on those ancient and im- 
 portant functionaries, the constables. Professor 
 H. B. Adams has said : " We do not suppose that 
 this has always been a conscious standard for leg- 
 islative action in the recognition of towns, or for 
 the actual determination of town or parish units ; 
 but we claim that without a constable, or some 
 power representing the corporate responsibility of 
 the community for the preservation of the local 
 peace, a town would be an impossibility." His 
 evident hesitation in making an assertion which 
 would seem almost a truism to the Connecticut 
 historian is another illustration of the unwisdom 
 of confining the study of the New England town 
 system to its phases in Massachusetts, as if it had 
 been a thing peculiar to that commonwealth. In 
 fact, it can be studied better, for many purposes, in 
 Connecticut than in Massachusetts ; for the town 
 in Connecticut was almost as free as independency 
 itself until near the period of the charter, while 
 in Massachusetts it was circumscribed from the 
 beginning by commonwealth power. Professor
 
 136 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Adams will find his supposition, doubtful as it 
 may be under the comparatively artificial Massa- 
 chusetts system, emphatically confirmed under 
 the more natural Connecticut system. We know, 
 for example, that the Indian purchase on which 
 the town of Norwalk rests was made in 1640, and 
 that settlement began about 1650 ; and we infer 
 from various circumstances that the purchase and 
 settlement of Middletown took place about 1646- 
 47. But the record of their " incorporation "is no 
 more than a vote of the general court, September 
 11, 1651, that " Mattabeseck [Middletown] and 
 Norwalke " should be towns and should choose 
 constables. As the collection of taxes and the an- 
 nouncement of elections were among the functions 
 of the constable, it seems probable that the ex- 
 press or tacit recognition of the town's constable 
 was in effect until the charter, a recognition of 
 the town itself and of its right to choose deputies. 
 The records really show no other. The difficulty 
 of the general court in dealing with new towns 
 was about parallel with the difficulty of the con- 
 gress of the confederation in dealing with the 
 quasi State of Vermont. 
 
 A parallel indication of the growth of the col- 
 ony is to be found in the tax-lists. The first dis- 
 tinct increase of taxable property comes December 
 1, 1645, when the general court granted a " rate " 
 of 400, " to be paid by the country." Of this 
 amount 340 was to be paid by the three origi-
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 137 
 
 nal towns ; .45 by Stratford and Fairfield ; 15 
 by Say brook ; and 10 each by Tunxis (Farm- 
 ington) and Southampton, L. I. In 1652 the 
 " rates " were still confined to the towns just 
 named, Southampton being omitted. It is an in- 
 dication of the prosperity resulting from sixteen 
 years' work that the assessed value of the property 
 in these seven towns was now 70,000, as fol- 
 lows : Hartford, 20,000; Windsor, 14,100; 
 Wethersfield, 11,500 ; Farinington, 5,200 ; 
 Saybrook, 3,600; Stratford, 7,000; and Fair- 
 field, 8,900. In the following year, three new 
 towns, Pequot (New London), Mattabesek (Mid- 
 dletown), and Norwalk, are recognized in a draft 
 of men for an armed force, as well as in the rates ; 
 and the assessed value rises to 79,700. In 1661, 
 just before the receipt of the charter, the assessed 
 value rises to 84,137. The usual tax assessed 
 upon this amount was a penny or a halfpenny, 
 constituting a " rate " or a " half rate." 
 
 Long Island had never been more than nom- 
 inally under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. They 
 had planted a few farms at its western end, but 
 the rest of the island was a wilderness. Among 
 the multitude of conflicting and unintelligible 
 grants made by the council of Plymouth before 
 its dissolution, was one to the Earl of Stirling, 
 covering Long Island. The grantee seems to 
 have claimed ownership only, not jurisdiction. In 
 practice, therefore, when his agent sold a piece of
 
 138 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 territory, the new owners became an independent 
 political community, with some claims against 
 them, but no direct control. The island was thus 
 in much the same position as the Connecticut ter- 
 ritory before the first irruption of settlers, and 
 offered much the same attractions as a place of 
 refuge for persons or communities who had found 
 the connection between church and state grievous. 
 A company from Lynn, Mass., bought the town- 
 ship of Southampton from Stirling's agent, April 
 17, 1640. There were at first but sixteen persons 
 in the company, Abraham Pierson being their 
 minister. This was the church which, first re- 
 moving to Branford in 1644, when Southampton 
 became a Connecticut town, finally settled at 
 Newark, N. J. Easthampton was settled about 
 1648, by another Lynn party, and was received 
 as a Connecticut town, November 7, 1649. The 
 town of Huntington, though part of it was bought 
 from the Indians by Governor Eaton, of New 
 Haven, in 1646, really dates from about 1653. 
 May 17, 1660, it was received as a Connecticut 
 town. There were thus three Connecticut towns 
 on Long Island, in addition to Southold, the New 
 Haven township. Between these and the really 
 Dutch settlements at the western end of the is- 
 land, there were English settlements in the neigh- 
 borhood of Hempstead; but these acknowledged 
 a much closer dependence on the Dutch authori- 
 ties.
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 139 
 
 Hardly any of the expansion of Connecticut, 
 prior to the grant of the charter which gave a legal 
 basis to its claims, was due to accident. In almost 
 all of it we can see very clearly a provident de- 
 termination on the part of the people to give their 
 commonwealth respectable limits, and to turn to 
 account every favoring circumstance in that direc- 
 tion. Hardly was the Pequot war under way 
 when the general court resolved to send thirty 
 men to occupy " the Pequoitt Countrey & River 
 in place convenient to maynteine our right that 
 God by Conquest hath given us." And from this 
 moment Connecticut maintained her right by con- 
 quest to the whole of the present eastern part of 
 the State with a vigor which was in itself strong 
 promise of success. One secret of the common- 
 wealth's success, in this as in the Saybrook and 
 other cases, was the policy which it followed with 
 adverse claimants, a policy which the politico-reli- 
 gious constitution of New Haven prevented it from 
 imitating. Instead of engaging in a struggle with 
 a rival, the Connecticut democracy always en- 
 deavored to adopt him, to make its interests his, 
 and so to secure even a better title out of conflict. 
 In the case of the Pequot country, it was John 
 Winthrop, Jr., the former agent of the Saybrook 
 proprietors, who developed an inchoate rivalry 
 with the colony for possession of the coveted terri- 
 tory ; and Connecticut's policy, carefully applied, 
 not only strengthened her title to the Pequot
 
 140 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 country, but gave her one of the best of her long 
 line of excellent governors, and was in the end one 
 of the chief means of obtaining her long desired 
 charter. Winthrop's attention had been turned 
 to the Pequot country. Fisher's Island, " against 
 the mouth of the Pequot River," was granted to 
 him by the Massachusetts general court, October 
 7, 1640, with a reservation of the possibly superior 
 title of Connecticut or New Haven ; and Connecti- 
 cut, instead of taking any exceptions to the grant, 
 promptly confirmed it. In 1644 Massachusetts 
 gave Winthrop authority to " make a plantation 
 in the Pequot country." He went to the place in 
 the following spring, and in the autumn of 1646 
 had gathered a few families there, and was begin- 
 ning to put up houses. The claims of Massachu- 
 setts were grounded on the fact that her troops had 
 taken part in the conquest of the Pequots ; and 
 the case was decided against her by the New Eng- 
 land commissioners in July, 1647. Connecticut at 
 once gave Winthrop a commission, September 9, 
 1647, to execute justice in his town "according to 
 our laws and the rule of righteousness." May 17, 
 1649, the court established the boundaries of the 
 new town and named its magistrates. One of 
 these two dates, and most probably the former, is 
 to be taken as the town's entrance to the list of 
 Connecticut towns. On the latter date, the court 
 suggested the name " Fair Haven," but the people 
 preferred that of New London.
 
 CONNECTICUT UNTIL THE UNION. 141 
 
 The last of the Connecticut towns before the 
 charter was Norwich, an offshoot of Saybrook. 
 Its settlement was approved, under the name of 
 " Mohegan," by the general court in 1659 ; and it 
 was summoned, October 3, 1661, under the name 
 of " Norridge," to send representatives. 
 
 The divergence between the Connecticut colony 
 and its sister and rival of New Haven had become 
 marked long before Monk began his march for 
 London. The attempt has been made in this 
 chapter to state some of the elements of strength 
 of Connecticut. It had become a strong, well- 
 balanced political unit, with a clear notion of a 
 territorial goal to be striven for, and of the line of 
 policy to be pursued in striving for it. Its democ- 
 racy gave every man a personal interest in the main- 
 tenance of the colony's claims ; and the results 
 were another proof that " everybody knows more 
 than anybody." Its towns were as free as towns 
 could well be ; the right of suffrage was as nearly 
 as possible universal ; it can hardly be said that 
 there were any dissatisfied elements to be placated, 
 or else to fester in the vitals of the commonwealth ; 
 and the steady bias of the commonwealth toward 
 civil and religious freedom had enabled it to find 
 elements of increased strength in what might have 
 been elements of intestine weakness. For twenty 
 years or more, the " loving brethren " of Connec- 
 ticut and New Haven lived on in entire satisfac- 
 tion with one another's corporate existence. The
 
 142 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 time had then come when the growing common- 
 wealth found that the separate existence of New 
 Haven was a complete obstacle to the natural 
 course of development of Connecticut. The com- 
 parative weakness of New Haven will come out in 
 the narrative of the events which led to the union ; 
 but it is fair to say in advance that one of the most 
 effective of these weakening elements in New 
 Haven was the apparent agreement of a part of 
 her people with Connecticut rather than with their 
 own colony. Freedom was more attractive in the 
 long run than restriction.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 
 
 THE organization in which the idea of the 
 American Union first cropped out, to exist a while 
 and then to die away almost unnoticed, was the 
 New England union of 1643. As Massachusetts 
 was the most distinguished and influential mem- 
 ber of this confederation, the full account of its 
 origin and history should in fairness be reserved 
 to Massachusetts historians. It will not be im- 
 proper to say here that such a union had been pro- 
 posed by Connecticut in 1637, just after the settle- 
 ment ; but Massachusetts received the proposal 
 with a demand that her right to Agawam (Spring- 
 field) and to free navigation of the Connecticut 
 should be recognized. Connecticut's answer was 
 so " harsh " that the further consideration of the 
 matter lapsed for some years. It soon turned out 
 that Massachusetts had right on her side, so far, 
 at least, as the jurisdiction over Springfield was 
 concerned ; and the extreme confusion of English 
 affairs, through the struggle between king and 
 parliament, was an inducement to the New Eng- 
 land colonies to suspend all minor differences,
 
 144 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and combine for common defense against the In- 
 dians and the Dutch. In 1643 the union was 
 formed, consisting of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
 Connecticut, and New Haven. Connecticut had 
 not yet advanced far enough on the road to a clear 
 comprehension of her future to make any objec- 
 tions to New Haven's separate existence ; but New 
 Haven's hurry to organize a systematic govern- 
 ment and take part in the confederation seems to 
 show at least a dawning suspicion of a possible 
 conflict between her own interests and those of 
 her neighbor. There was not yet any consider- 
 able superiority of one colony over the other : their 
 respective populations are estimated at 3,000 for 
 Connecticut and 2,500 for New Haven. 
 
 The leading reason for the formation of the 
 union was probably the inability of the home gov- 
 ernment, during the confusion of the civil war, to 
 afford protection to the New-Englanders against 
 the claims of the Dutch colony of New Nether- 
 land. With the most amicable feelings on both 
 sides, the Dutch colony, thrust in between English 
 colonies to the south and to the north of it, must 
 have been pressed more hardly as the English col- 
 onies grew, until at last the question of the an- 
 nexation or independent existence of New Nether- 
 land must have called imperatively for settlement. 
 But the feelings on neither side were really ami- 
 cable. The New England settler was an English- 
 man ; and the Englishman of that time had a
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 145 
 
 chronic disposition to regard the Dutchman as a 
 commercial rival, and an habitual intruder into 
 places where he had no good excuse for being. As 
 the New England Englishmen found themselves 
 forced into nearer relations with the New Nether- 
 land Dutch, the two parties met with many of the 
 old animosities still unhealed. The grant to the 
 New Netherland company by the States General 
 of Holland, October 11, 1614, had covered all the 
 territory " between New France and Virginia, the 
 sea-coasts of which lie between the fortieth and 
 forty-fifth degrees of latitude," that is, from about 
 the present location of Philadelphia to the Bay of 
 Fundy. This nominal jurisdiction was really con- 
 firmed by the States General to the Dutch West 
 India Company in 1621 for twenty-four years ; but 
 in course of time the growth of English settlement 
 compelled the Dutch to modify this nominal claim, 
 and to rely on the discoveries of Hudson to support 
 their claims to the district between the thirty- 
 eighth and forty-second degrees of latitude, or from 
 about the mouth of the Potomac to the mouth of 
 the Connecticut. As the greatest concession to 
 the English, based on the English charters then in 
 existence, they claimed the coast from Cape May 
 to the mouth of the Connecticut, from latitude 39 
 to latitude 41. In answer to all these official 
 and unofficial claims, the English finally relied on 
 the voyages of the Cabots as entitling them to the 
 whole coast, including the parts explored by Hud- 
 
 10
 
 146 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 son, which they declined to take as real discov- 
 eries. But at first, with the possible expedition of 
 one Captain Argal, of Virginia, about 1614, who 
 is said to have compelled " the pretended Dutch 
 governor " at the mouth of the Hudson to submit 
 to the king of England and promise tribute, the 
 English for many years quietly acquiesced in the 
 Dutch settlement. Their objection was to the ex- 
 tent, not to the fact, of the Dutch colony. 
 
 The Delaware company, including nearly all 
 the leading men of New Haven, had been formed 
 for colonization purposes. Following the New 
 Haven policy of purchase, the New Haven settlers 
 had sent an agent in 1640, who bought from the 
 natives a tract of land on both sides of the Dela- 
 ware River. In the following year the New Haven 
 civil authority asserted its jurisdiction over the 
 purchased territory ; and a company was sent out 
 which settled on the west shore of the Delaware, 
 near what is now known as Salem Creek. This 
 was under the governorship of Kieft ; and Wil- 
 liam the Testy sent two ships in 1642 with a de- 
 tachment of troops, who attacked the settlement, 
 burned its houses and made the settlers prisoners. 
 Remonstrance for this step was almost the first 
 business of the commissioners of the New Eng- 
 land union; but they got no satisfaction from 
 Kieft. In 1649 Governor Eaton made another 
 appeal to the commissioners for help ; but the 
 commissioners were not disposed to enter upon a
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 147 
 
 quarrel at the time. They would refuse to assist 
 any persons from any other colony who should 
 attempt to settle the Delaware purchase without 
 the consent of New Haven ; but they would not 
 maintain the claims of New Haven against the 
 Dutch by force. The failure of the scheme was 
 a blow from which independent New Haven never 
 recovered. Her richest men had ventured their 
 all and lost it, and the colony was in sore straits 
 for some years. 
 
 The Dutch West India Company perceived 
 clearly the growing strength of the English colo- 
 nies. In reply to the appeal of the new Dutch 
 governor, Stuyvesant, for authority to repel force 
 by force, and for material aid, the home corpora- 
 tion declined to think of war, which, they said, 
 " cannot in any event be to our advantage : the 
 New England people are too powerful for us." 
 Thus left in the lurch by his superiors, Stuyve- 
 sant could do no more than take the best terms 
 obtainable ; and it is creditable to him that he 
 kept his colony in existence more than ten years 
 longer. His first step was to go to Hartford, to 
 meet the New England commissioners in negotia- 
 tion, arriving there September 11, 1650. He took 
 high ground from the beginning. He insisted on 
 having the negotiations conducted in writing; 
 and, in his first letter, he not only protested 
 against the presence of the English in Connecti- 
 cut as an infringement on the undoubted rights of
 
 148 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the Dutch, but dated the letter at " New Nether- 
 land," thus calmly assuming every point in dis- 
 pute. The commissioners were not to be caught. 
 They refused to receive the letter and thus ac- 
 knowledge that Hartford was within the Dutch 
 territory. He finally yielded the point, and a 
 long correspondence resulted in an agreement to 
 submit all the questions between Dutch and Eng- 
 lish to four arbitrators, two to be named by the 
 governor, and two by the commissioners. Stuy- 
 vesant named Englishmen as his agents, and the 
 four agreed upon a settlement of the boundary 
 matter, ignoring all other points in dispute as hav- 
 ing occurred under the administration of Kieft. 
 It was agreed that the Dutch were to retain their 
 lands in Hartford ; that the boundary line be- 
 tween the two peoples on the mainland was not 
 to come within ten miles of the Hudson River, but 
 was to be left undecided for the present, except 
 the first twenty miles from the Sound, which was 
 to begin on the west side of Greenwich Bay, be- 
 tween Stamford and Manhattan, running thence 
 twenty miles north ; and that Long Island should 
 be divided by a corresponding line across it, " from 
 the westernmost part of Oyster Bay " to the sea. 
 The English thus got the greater part of I^ong 
 Island, a recognition of the rightfulness of their 
 presence in the Connecticut territory, and at least 
 the initial twenty miles of a boundary line which 
 must, in the nature of things, be prolonged in
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 149 
 
 much the same direction, and which in fact has 
 pretty closely governed subsequent boundary lines 
 on that side of Connecticut. If these seem hard 
 terms for the Dutch, and indicative of treachery 
 on the part of their two English agents, it must 
 be borne in mind that, by the terms of his instruc- 
 tions from his principals, Stuyvesant had to take 
 the best terms he could get. The treaty of Hart- 
 ford was dated September 19, 1650. 
 
 Peter Stuyvesaut was probably not satisfied 
 with the treaty, even though he was compelled to 
 accept it. At all events, he soon furnished fresh 
 occasion for negotiation. In the spring of 1651, 
 the New Haven people fitted out another vessel 
 for their Delaware Bay settlement. It touched 
 at New Amsterdam, and its appearance put the 
 last of the Dutch governors into a terrible rage. 
 He arrested officers and passengers, and only re- 
 leased them with sounding threats of the fate of 
 any future New Haven expedition to the Dela- 
 ware, on their promise to return at once to New 
 Haven. Again the New Haven adventurers ap- 
 pealed to the New England commissioners, and 
 those officials this time espoused their cause. 
 They wrote to Stuyvesant, charging him with a 
 breach of the treaty, though it is not easy to see 
 on what grounds; and a resolution was passed, 
 promising protection to any Delaware settlement 
 against all comers, provided it should number a 
 hundred and fifty men. Still there was no colli- 
 sion.
 
 150 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 In the following year, vague rumors of an im- 
 pending Dutch and Indian war nearly brought 
 about the long expected struggle. As the New 
 England colonies came nearer to the Dutch, the 
 resulting complications with the Indians increased. 
 The two Connecticut colonies, as has been said, 
 had no difficulties with their own Indians after 
 the downfall of the Pequots. Their main difficul- 
 ties arose in the southwestern corner of the present 
 State, in the district where now is the town of 
 Greenwich. The district had been bought by its 
 first owner, Robert Feake, as a part of the New 
 Haven jurisdiction; but the Dutch had seduced 
 the first inhabitants, under Captain Patrick, who 
 had a Dutch wife, to come under their jurisdiction 
 and accept a place as a Dutch town. It had been 
 agreed at Hartford that Greenwich should be 
 restored to New Haven ; but the usual vices of a 
 border settlement seem to have prevailed here. 
 Later, in 1656, the deputies of Stamford at New 
 Haven complained bitterly of the conduct of the 
 people of Greenwich, of " their disorderly walke- 
 ing among themselues, admitting of drunkenness 
 both amonge the English and Indians, whereby 
 they are apt to doe mischeife both to themselues 
 and others : they receive disorderly children or 
 seruants who fly from their parrents or masters 
 lawfull correction ; they marry persons in a dis- 
 orderly way, beside other miscariages." It was in 
 this Alsatia that the troubles seem to have begun
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 151 
 
 which broke out first in the war of 1643 between 
 the Dutch and Indians, when the Dutch called in 
 Captain Underbill, of Stamford, as their comman- 
 der-in-chief, and in the course of which Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, who had found refuge here from her 
 Massachusetts enemies, was done to death by the 
 Indians. Other Indian outrages took place at in- 
 tervals in the neighborhood. A Stamford Indian, 
 found guilty of one of the most atrocious of these, 
 was taken to New Haven and executed by decapi- 
 tation. " He sat erect and motionless," says the 
 New Haven record, " until his head was severed 
 from his body." There was enough trouble with 
 the Indians in this quarter to make it a source of 
 universal alarm when, in the spring of 1652, it 
 was rumored that Stuyvesant had induced all the 
 Indians to unite against the English, and had sup- 
 plied them with ammunition. The evidence of 
 the existence of the plot was in the affidavits of a 
 number of the Indians themselves, a class of evi- 
 dence which ought of itself to have been Stuyve- 
 sant's complete vindication. A majority of the 
 commissioners, however, believed it, and based 
 upon it an ultimatum to Stuyvesant. The accu- 
 sation naturally made Stuyvesant very indignant, 
 and he demanded a committee of investigation. 
 The commissioners sent three distinguished New- 
 Englanders to New Amsterdam to act as such 
 committee. The tone of their letters was not con- 
 ciliatory, or calculated to inspire the governor with
 
 152 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 confidence in his judges ; and he refused to answer 
 any questions except such as should be approved 
 by persons whom he should select. His reason 
 doubtless was his diffidence of his familiarity with 
 the language in which the examination was to be 
 conducted. But, as the persons whom he selected 
 had " been complained of for misdemeanors at 
 Hartford, and one of them had been laid under 
 bonds for his crimes," the committee took the 
 whole proceeding as a fresh affront, and judges 
 and accused parted in still higher exasperation 
 with one another. On the report of the commit- 
 tee, whose members had obtained new evidence of 
 Stuyvesant's duplicity and treachery on their way 
 home, all the commissioners except those of Massa- 
 chusetts declared for war. Massachusetts referred 
 the question to her ministers, who declared that, 
 while they believed the evidence against the Dutch 
 governor, it was not sufficient to justify a war be- 
 fore the judgment of the rest of the world ; and 
 that the colonies should stand on the defensive, 
 without declaring war. One of their number, 
 who claimed to write on behalf of " many pensive 
 hearts," took more warlike ground, and threatened 
 the commissioners with the curse of the angel of 
 the Lord against Meroz unless they declared war 
 upon Stuyvesant. But the resolution of the ma- 
 jority was more satisfactory to the Massachusetts 
 general court, and it steadfastly refused to take 
 part in an offensive war. The whole controversy
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 153 
 
 is particularly interesting for the reason that it 
 was the first in our history which shows the ten- 
 dency which has finally controlled American con- 
 stitutional law. All the parties acknowledged the 
 binding character of the articles of union ; and 
 the controversy went mainly to the construction 
 of them, to the interpretation of the powers of the 
 commissioners under them. The occasion was 
 not, as it would have been in England, a dispute 
 as to what the governing body had better do, but 
 a dispute as to what the governing body had a 
 right to do, thus showing that in the latter case 
 there was behind the nominally governing body 
 a recognized popular sovereignty superior to it. 
 This debate of 1652 might very well be taken as 
 the beginning of constitutional law, in the peculiar 
 phase of the term which obtains in the United 
 States and other countries having a written con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The unusual bitterness of the controversy had 
 come largely, not from academic differences as to 
 the construction of the articles, but from the gen- 
 eral suspicion that the Bay colony was moved by 
 the question of the tolls at the mouth of the Con- 
 necticut River, already referred to, and by a desire 
 to convince the associate colonies that Massachu- 
 setts was their real head. Some of the western 
 towns of Connecticut even made ready for war on 
 their own account ; and it was when all prospect 
 of war, either by colonial or home power, had van-
 
 154 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ished, that Ludlow in disgust left the colony which 
 he had helped to plant, and went to Virginia. In- 
 deed, the New England confederation was in a 
 state of extreme confusion, and almost in articulo 
 mortis. The commissioners had declared war ; 
 Massachusetts had really introduced the first in- 
 stance of nullification ; and the other colonies 
 found it equally difficult to make war, in obedi- 
 ence to the commissioners, without Massachusetts, 
 or to keep the peace and satisfy their own people. 
 Connecticut and New Haven kept a small cruiser 
 in commission. New Haven decided guardedly 
 that it would not do to begin war under present 
 circumstances ; and it was not until April, 1654, 
 that the Hartford general court formally "se- 
 questered " the Dutch fort of Good Hope, and 
 banished the Dutch ensign from Connecticut soil. 
 But both had great difficulty in restraining their 
 people, and a small insurrection had to be quelled 
 in Stamford. 
 
 The relations between England and Holland 
 had not been improved by the establishment of 
 the English commonwealth. At the execution of 
 Charles I., the Dutch States General had waited 
 in a body on his son, recognized him as Charles 
 II., and refused even a reception to the English 
 envoys. Cromwell's successful battle of Dunbar, 
 in September, 1650, and his still more successful 
 battle of Worcester just a year later, brought the 
 Dutch to their senses, and they asked an alliance
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 155 
 
 with the Commonwealth. The English parlia- 
 mentary leaders, however, wished to make a suc- 
 cessful navy the counterbalance to their too suc- 
 cessful army. They passed the Navigation Act 
 of 1651, which cut their rivals out of the carrying 
 trade. There was an " accidental " collision be- 
 tween the two fleets in May, 1652, when Blake 
 called upon Van Tromp to lower his flag, and Van 
 Tromp answered with a broadside. Again, in the 
 autumn, Blake and De Ruyter met in the Channel 
 in an indecisive conflict ; and in November Van 
 Tromp drove Blake into the Thames, and sailed 
 the Channel with a broom at his masthead. A 
 few months later, Blake, issuing forth again into 
 the Channel with a horsewhip at his masthead, 
 drove Van Tromp in his turn into harbor. 
 
 While the two great marine monsters were thus 
 rolling heavily into collision, it was but natural 
 that the little fish across the Atlantic should take 
 a keen personal interest in the matter. Every 
 accidental victory of Blake was to them an addi- 
 tional hope of a parliamentary fleet, which should 
 deal out justice to the wicked Dutch governor and 
 his Manhattan associates. New Haven was espe- 
 cially elate, for the relations of her leading men 
 with Cromwell had always been particularly close. 
 It was the battle of Naseby which had brought 
 about that almost solitary touch of romance in 
 Connecticut history, the " phantom ship " of New 
 Haven. The New Haven people, feeling more
 
 156 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 reason for relying on the rising fortunes of the 
 Cromwell interest, equipped a ship of one hundred 
 and fifty tons, freighted her, and sent her to Eng- 
 land with an agent to endeavor to procure a charter 
 from the new power there. It was in January, 
 1647, that she sailed, and the ice in the harbor 
 had to be cut in order to open the way for her. 
 Nothing more was ever known of her : the seventy 
 souls on board had gone to their account, and the 
 material loss was so severe a strain on the colony 
 that its leaders began to cast about for a new 
 location, in Ireland, Jamaica, or elsewhere, the 
 Jamaica proposition being Cromwell's own. In 
 June, 1649, so the story goes, the long-lost ship 
 was seen beating up the harbor towards New 
 Haven. As the townspeople gathered to watch 
 her, at first incredulous, then joyful, then hesitat- 
 ing and awe-stricken, it was seen that there was 
 but one man on her deck ; that he was leaning on 
 his sword, and looked sadly on the gathered mul- 
 titude. As she drew nearer, he pointed once to 
 the sea, and then New Haven's phantom ship 
 vanished from sight. 
 
 In June, 1653, the joyful news was received 
 that Cromwell had taken sides with the majority 
 of the commissioners, and had enjoined Massachu- 
 setts to desist from her opposition ; and that a 
 fleet of commonwealth ships was at Boston, ready 
 to help the New England union to remove the 
 Dutch flag from Manhattan. The Massachusetts
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 157 
 
 general court was angry, but not angry enough 
 to resist openly. It still refused to raise troops 
 for the war, but consented to allow the parliamen- 
 tary commissioners to raise men in Massachusetts, 
 if they could. Arrangements for an expedition of 
 eight hundred men, to attack New Netherland, 
 were in progress, when they were stopped by the 
 news of peace between England and Holland, 
 which had been concluded April 5, 1654. Stuyve- 
 sant thus obtained another lease of life. 
 
 There was at first a strong disposition in Con- 
 necticut and New Haven to allow the union to 
 lapse because of what they regarded as the perfi- 
 dious conduct of Massachusetts. New Haven had 
 even formally voted not to choose commissioners. 
 But Massachusetts urged a continuance of the 
 union so feelingly that commissioners were chosen 
 as usual, and their meeting proved to be an ex- 
 ceedingly amicable one. From that time the 
 union went on through the rest of its brief exist- 
 ence with little apparent friction. But it is as 
 evident as anything can be that the heart had 
 been taken out of it by the course of Massachu- 
 setts in 1652. Nullification is nullification, whether 
 the moving cause be worthy or unworthy ; and 
 after Massachusetts had once successfully nullified 
 the plain provisions of the articles, her confeder- 
 ates could never again feel that perfect confidence 
 in her future action which is essential to the use- 
 fulness and even the existence of a league govern-
 
 158 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ment. A stronger tendency is evident every year 
 to reduce the functions of the commissioners to 
 matters of administrative routine, while the sev- 
 eral colonies diverge more and more strongly in 
 the protection of their own interests and in their 
 peculiar development. 
 
 For six years after the peace between England 
 and Holland, the two Connecticut colonies went on 
 in their course of development with few events of 
 exceptional interest. Successive deaths were thin- 
 ning out the ranks of the original settlers. Hooker 
 died in 1647. John Haynes, the first governor of 
 Connecticut, died in 1654, and his family seems to 
 have become extinct soon after. Henry Wolcott, 
 one of the most influential leaders of the same 
 colony, died in 1655. He was more fortunate in 
 his descendants : there was hardly a time for the 
 next two centuries when a Wolcott was not in 
 some post of trust and honor in the service of the 
 Commonwealth. In 1657 and 1658 died Edward 
 Hopkins of Connecticut, and Theophilus Eaton of 
 New Haven. Hopkins had been governor of his 
 colony in alternate years from 1640 until 1654, 
 Haynes being chosen in the other years. He had 
 married the sister of David Yale, a Boston mer- 
 chant ; and his bequest to the towns of Hartford 
 and New Haven founded the Hopkins grammar 
 schools in those cities, as Elihu Yale's beneficence 
 long afterward gave the impetus to the college 
 which bears his name. Eaton had been chosen
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 159 
 
 governor of New Haven every year from the 
 settlement in 1638 until his death. His loss was 
 almost irreparable to his colony, coming as it did 
 just before the crisis in her history. It is impos- 
 sible here to do justice to his public services and 
 his private worth. But there are some indications 
 that in these respects he had surmounted obstacles 
 which the official records have not fully detailed. 
 His biographers claim that his numerous family 
 "was under the most perfect government." If 
 the facts found by the church trial of 1644, in 
 which Mrs. Eaton (the governor's second wife) 
 was censured, are to be taken as proved, Eaton's 
 home life must have been a constant thorn in the 
 flesh. Mrs. Eaton seems to have been in the 
 habit of venting a very ugly temper in the most 
 outrageous language to the whole family, from her 
 husband down to " Anthony the neager." She 
 slapped the face of " old Mrs. Eaton," while the 
 family were at dinner, until the governor was com- 
 pelled to hold her hands ; she pinched Mary, the 
 governor's daughter by his first marriage, until 
 she was black and blue, and " knocked her head 
 against the dresser, which made her nose bleed 
 much ; " she slandered Mary, falsely impeaching 
 her character ; and in all points she seems to have 
 been the type of the vulgar notion of a step- 
 mother. She, the wife of one of the " seven pil- 
 lars," put the church to shame by becoming a 
 pronounced Anabaptist, walking out from the com-
 
 160 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 munion service, arguing with Mr. Davenport from 
 her seat in the audience, and expressing loud and 
 exasperating approbation when he used the famil- 
 iar formula, " On this point I will be brief." There 
 seems to have been a good deal of human nature 
 under the surface, even in New Haven. 
 
 Davenport was still in New Haven : it was not 
 until 1668, after the union of the two colonies had 
 been accomplished, that he removed to Boston. 
 In both Connecticut and New Haven, the healthy 
 condition of the body politic was shown by the 
 fact that new men were coming up prepared to 
 take the places of those whom death was so rapidly 
 removing. First among these was John Winthrop. 
 Chosen governor in 1657, deputy governor in 
 1658, and governor again in 1659, he became at 
 once so necessary to the people of Connecticut 
 that they changed the provision in their constitu- 
 tion forbidding the immediate reelection of a gov- 
 ernor, and he was reflected annually until his 
 death in 1676. His son, Fitz John, following in 
 his father's course, was governor from 1698 until 
 his death in 1707. The Wyllyses, Talcotts, Wol- 
 cotts, Treats, Shermans, and other families were 
 sending a stream of young men into public life, 
 and all of them were well fitted for it. One of the 
 ablest of the new men. was John Allyn of Hart- 
 ford. Nominated to the board of assistants in 
 1661, he was chosen secretary of state in 1664, 
 and held that office for twenty -eight years between
 
 THE TWO COLONIES UNTIL THE UNION. 161 
 
 that date and his death in 1696. The personali- 
 ties of the men of the time get little attention, 
 unless their work is theological, as in the case of 
 Hooker or Davenport, or their non-essential char- 
 acteristics are such as to strike the public attention 
 and so win some advantage for the colony, as in 
 the case of Winthrop. The mass of the leaders 
 pass slowly across the stage, doing their work like 
 men, but leaving us hardly any notion of their per- 
 sonal appearance or traits. The influence of the 
 feeling is shown in the refusal of the Wyllys 
 family to erect any monuments in their family 
 bury ing ground. Said one of them: " If Connecti- 
 cut cannot remember the Wyllyses without a 
 monument, let their memory rot." In few cases 
 is this general tendency more disappointing than 
 in that of John Allyn. Hardly any trace of him 
 is left beyond the cramped but legible writing in 
 which he kept the records, and the work which 
 those records detail. And yet it is quite evident 
 that, whenever work was to be done requiring 
 stubborn tenacity of purpose and cautious shrewd- 
 ness of method, John Allyn's name always appears 
 in the center of it. Like so many of his contem- 
 poraries, he seems to have been entirely satisfied 
 with the reward offered by the consciousness of 
 effective work ; and we can only wonder now how 
 much the commonwealth of Connecticut owes to 
 John Allyn. 
 
 Eaton's place at New Haven had been taken by 
 11
 
 162 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 William Leete, who served as governor of that 
 colony from 1661 until the union of the colonies. 
 He was one of the original settlers, and one of the 
 seven pillars of the church at Guilford. After the 
 union, he became deputy governor, 1669-75, and 
 then served as governor from Winthrop's death 
 until 1680, dying in 1683.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 
 
 MONK'S march to London came in the opening 
 days of the year 1660. On the 25th of April, 
 Charles landed at Dover ; and in July the momen- 
 tous tidings reached Boston. On the vessel which 
 brought them came Whalley and Goffe, two of 
 the regicides : England was no longer a place for 
 them. They stayed in Boston and Cambridge 
 until the following February, treated at first with 
 distinguished consideration by the authorities as 
 well as by private persons. The first intelligence 
 that they were under the ban of the new govern- 
 ment made such a change in their treatment that 
 they fled to New Haven, arriving there March 27. 
 A royal warrant for their arrest followed them 
 from Massachusetts through Hartford, but the 
 messengers found their errand blocked at New 
 Haven by the most exasperating obstacles. They 
 had to yield to the magistrates' cautious regard 
 for the Sabbath ; their documents were read aloud 
 in public meeting, instead of being treated as 
 secret-service business ; and, when the Sabbath 
 came, they were regaled with a sermon from the
 
 164 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 significant text : " Hide the outcasts ; bewray not 
 him that wandereth ; let mine outcasts dwell with 
 thee, Moab ; be thou a covert to them from the 
 face of the spoiler." Davenport and his people 
 were evidently in full accord with the regicides. 
 Leete and the magistrates seem to have seen the 
 consequences of their action ; but they continued 
 to make use of every legal obstacle to thwart the 
 arrest, and the messengers finally returned to Bos- 
 ton empty-handed, though the two judges had 
 been concealed at New Haven, or within three 
 miles of it, throughout their visit. The " Judges' 
 Cave," on the summit of West Rock, sheltered 
 them for a month, and then they set out on their 
 wanderings. Sometimes in New Haven, Guilford, 
 or Milford, sometimes in their old refuge or like 
 spots, they continued to escape their pursuers for 
 some three years. In 1664, finding that special 
 royal commissioners had arrived, charged with 
 their arrest, they went to Hadley, in western 
 Massachusetts. Their choice of a final refuge 
 shows again the secret tie which seems to have 
 bound together the New Haven people, the minor- 
 ity of the dissatisfied Connecticut churches, and 
 the Cromwellian element in England ; for Had- 
 ley's settlement had been due to the secession of 
 a minority of the Hartford and Wethersfield 
 churches. This was the scene of their asserted 
 appearance to head the settlers in repelling an In- 
 dian attack ; and here Whalley died about 1674,
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 165 
 
 and Goffe probably five years later. Their burial- 
 place is really uncertain, though some have be- 
 lieved it to be in New Haven. 
 
 The authorities of Connecticut were as anxious 
 as those of New Haven that no harm should come 
 to the regicides, and the fugitives found as fre- 
 quent and as secure refuge in Hartford as any- 
 where else. But the difference of method showed 
 itself in this as in other cases. When the regi- 
 cides were really not within their jurisdiction, the 
 Connecticut authorities always seized the oppor- 
 tunity to make their zeal in the king's service 
 evident. They overwhelmed the royal commis- 
 sioners with warrants, letters of authority, and 
 proclamations ; the colony was in a ferment be- 
 cause of their haste to lay hands on the criminals ; 
 they were his majesty's most faithful servants. 
 Under the like circumstances, the New Haven au- 
 thorities always showed a decorous satisfaction in 
 saying No to the commissioners, which went far 
 to discount the sincerity of their denials when the 
 fugitives were suspected to be concealed within 
 their jurisdiction with their privity. They could 
 not but have been reported to the home authori- 
 ties as a dangerous colony, the remaining quintes- 
 sence of Cromwellianism ; and such reports could 
 not but have had a strong influence on the fortunes 
 of the two colonies in the charter struggle which 
 followed immediately. 
 
 The records of Connecticut show nothing done
 
 166 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 in regard to the Restoration until March 14, 1660 
 (61), though the vote then passed refers to a pre- 
 vious decision at an informal meeting of the mag- 
 istrates and deputies. On the date just given, the 
 general court voted that Charles II. should be 
 proclaimed king ; that an address should be pre- 
 pared and sent to him, asking for " the continu- 
 ance and confirmation of such privilidges and lib- 
 erties as are necessary for the comfortable and 
 peaceable settlement of this colony ; " and that 
 the X500 which the Cullick estate was to pay the 
 colony should be reserved to pay the expense of 
 the application. The court of election, May 16, 
 approved a draft of an address offered by Gover- 
 nor Winthrop, appointed a committee to revise 
 and complete it, and named the governor as the 
 colony's agent in England in regard to the patent. 
 This last is the first open mention of what must 
 have been the burning desire of every Connecticut 
 leader, the obtaining of a charter to give legal 
 title to what had been done by popular author- 
 ity. At the session of June 7, the court finally 
 approved the address- which had been completed, 
 renewed the governor's appointment as agent " to 
 procure us a patent," and authorized him to draw 
 on the treasurer for 500. From that time there 
 is not a word about the charter in the records un- 
 til they are blazoned with the triumphant entry 
 of its reception in October, 1662, more than a 
 year afterward. In the interim, the colony, hav-
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 167 
 
 ing done all that it could do, waited in sober pa- 
 tience. Just as Winthrop was embarking for 
 England, New Haven at last proclaimed Charles 
 II. king, more than a year after the news of his 
 accession had been received ; and the step was not 
 taken until remonstrances had been received from 
 friends at home, warning the colony of the evil 
 impression which its continued silence was mak- 
 ing there. The form has been called grudging 
 and half-hearted. In reality, it almost demands 
 the space for insertion in full, for the sake of the 
 refreshing contrast which its simple and manly 
 terms offer to the servility of the style which the 
 habit of the times at court seems to have extorted 
 from Connecticut. It is as follows : 
 
 " Although we have not received any form of 
 proclamation, by order from His Majesty or Coun- 
 cil of State, for proclaiming His Majesty in this 
 Colony; yet the Court, taking encouragement 
 from what has been done in the rest of the United 
 Colonies, hath thought fit to declare publicly 
 and proclaim that we do acknowledge His Royal 
 Highness, Charles the Second, King of England, 
 Scotland, France, and Ireland, to be our sovereign 
 lord and king ; and that we do acknowledge our- 
 selves, the inhabitants of this colony, to be his 
 Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects." 
 
 Winthrop set sail for England in August, 1661.
 
 168 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 He took with him the address and petition to his 
 majesty, which had cost the whole intellect of the 
 colony such prolonged labor ; a letter of instruc- 
 tions from his principals ; and letters to Lord Say 
 and Sele, and the Earl of Manchester, two old 
 Puritans, now of the king's privy council. The 
 instructions directed him to consult with Say and 
 Sele, Brooke, and such of the original patentees 
 as he could find ; to endeavor to obtain a copy of 
 the Say and Sele patent, and have it confirmed to 
 the colony, with such amendments as could be 
 obtained ; and, in case the Say and Sele patent 
 could not be come at, to apply for a new patent 
 for the colony, with bounds extending " eastward 
 to the Plymouth line, northward to the limits of 
 the Massachusetts colony, and westward to the 
 Bay of Delaware, if it may be." The southern 
 limit is not mentioned, unless a recommendation 
 to include the adjacent islands be considered as 
 carrying the limits beyond New Haven and over 
 Long Island. A contemporary protest from Con- 
 necticut against the appointment of a boundary 
 committee, cited by Atwater, would go to show 
 that such was the case. " We conceive you can- 
 not be ignorant of our real and true right to those 
 parts of the country where you are seated, both by 
 conquest, purchase, and possession, though hitherto 
 we have been silent, and altogether forborne to 
 make any absolute challenge to our own." The 
 address to the king is of the most inflated style of
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 169 
 
 the Stuart period of English. It begins with a 
 regret that its authors are separated by so vast an 
 ocean from those who are under the immediate in- 
 fluence and splendor of so great a monarch, in the 
 princely palace of his renowned imperial city, the 
 glory of the whole earth ; and that a too early 
 winter had hindered them from long since pros- 
 trating themselves by an humble address at their 
 sovereign prince's feet. It described the settle- 
 ment of the colony just at the beginning of the 
 sad and unhappy times of the wars in England, 
 which its people had since been bewailing with 
 sighs and mournful tears. It told how the people 
 of Connecticut, all through the civil war, had 
 been hiding themselves behind the mountains in 
 that desolate desert, as a people forsaken, choos- 
 ing rather to sit solitary, and wait upon the Divine 
 Providence for protection, than to apply to any 
 of the illegitimate governments which had arisen 
 in England, their hearts still remaining entire to 
 his majesty's interests. It implored his majesty, 
 now that the beams of his sovereignty had not 
 only filled the world's hemisphere, but had ap- 
 peared over the great deeps in the New England 
 horizon, to accept " this colony, your own colony, 
 a little branch of your mighty empire." And it 
 pleaded their poverty as an excuse for their pre- 
 sentation of nothing more than their hearts and 
 loyal affections to his majesty. It is hard to see 
 how Winthrop could have read the document with 
 a straight face.
 
 170 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The gratitude of the colony was a lively sense 
 of favors to come : the petition which accompanied 
 the address was as straightforward as the address 
 was circumgyratory. It asked that the king 
 would grant to the colony a patent in the terms 
 of that formerly granted to the Say and Sele as- 
 sociates, or of that granted to Massachusetts ; and 
 that it might include immunity from customs, in 
 order that the colony might recoup by commerce 
 its losses in the Pequot war. The letters to Man- 
 chester and Say and Sele besought their coopera- 
 tion, which was heartily given. 
 
 Winthrop's winter in London was spent to good 
 advantage. New England historians have wearied 
 themselves in detailing his advantages for such a 
 negotiation in such a court, his natural powers 
 of mind, developed by sound university education ; 
 his gentle manners, polished by continental travel ; 
 the manly beauty of his face and person ; and the 
 kindly, mature, and solid judgment which governed 
 the whole man. The story is also told of a ring 
 given to Winthrop's grandfather by Charles I., 
 and now returned by the ambassador to the new 
 king ; and the charter of Connecticut is attributed 
 almost equally to the tactful courtesy of Winthrop 
 and the filial affection of Charles. One can hardly 
 help a suspicion, however, that the 500, which 
 the Connecticut leaders had placed at Winthrop's 
 disposal, had a more considerable influence on the 
 result than the histories have yet admitted. The
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 171 
 
 new court had required some time to get warm in 
 its seat before showing plainly the depths of ve- 
 nality to which it was prepared to descend. The 
 time for the disposition of places, and of all kinds 
 of court favors, by bargain and sale, had now fully 
 come ; and it was about this time that Samuel 
 Pepys seems to have had his eyes opened to the 
 fact that this was the way in which many of those 
 about the court did get their incomes. At any 
 rate, there seems to have been no final accounting 
 for the balance of the 500 between Winthrop 
 and the colony. Winthrop had gone primarily 
 on his own business : so says the resolve of May 
 16, 1661. The colony had ordered the munificent 
 sum of X80 to be paid to the governor as his salary 
 for the year ; and it would not have been likely 
 to have passed over a further claim of X500 for 
 mere expenses, unless those expenses had been 
 somewhat in the nature of a secret-service fund. 
 
 There is a sentence in the petition to the king 
 which may possibly have some significance. " May 
 it please your majesty graciously to bestow upon 
 your humble supplicants such royal munificence, 
 according to the tenor of a draft or instrument, 
 which is ready here to be tendered, at your gra- 
 cious order." That Charles II. should have drawn 
 up and offered to a Puritan commonwealth a char- 
 ter under which, as Chalmers, sound royal author- 
 ity, says, " over- their acts of assembly there was 
 no power of revisal reserved, either to the king or
 
 172 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 to his courts of justice, nor was there any obliga- 
 tion imposed to give an account of their transac- 
 tions to any authority on earth," is hardly a con- 
 ceivable theory. That a charter drawn up by 
 Winthrop, and passing through some of the many 
 secret channels existing at the court, should have 
 passed the scrutiny of the king, more through favor 
 for the channel through which it had come than 
 through filial affection or liking for a chance ac- 
 quaintance, is at least more easy to believe. For 
 no more democratic charter was ever given by a 
 king than that which Charles signed for Connecti- 
 cut, April 23, 1662, giving it a government which 
 lasted for a century and a half, until the adoption 
 of the new constitution in 1818. 
 
 The charter constituted a body politic and cor- 
 porate, under the name of " Governor and Com- 
 pany of the English Colony of Connecticut in New 
 England in America," to consist of Winthrop, 
 John Mason, seventeen associates named, and such 
 other persons as should be made free of the com- 
 pany thereafter (i. e., admitted voters), with all 
 the powers of an English corporation and with a 
 common seal. The freemen were to choose from 
 time to time a governor, a deputy governor, and 
 twelve assistants ; each " town, place, or city " was 
 to send two deputies ; and the governor, assistants, 
 and deputies together were to constitute the gen- 
 eral assembly, with power to change times of elec- 
 tion, to admit freemen (that is, to establish the
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 173 
 
 requisites for the right of suffrage), to constitute 
 judicatories, to make laws not contrary to those of 
 England, to define the duties of officers and the 
 manner of their election, to impose fines and pen- 
 alties or revoke them and pardon offenses, to repel 
 warlike attacks by force, and to hold the territory 
 within the limits granted in trust for the freemen 
 of the colony. Until the second Thursday of the 
 following October, Winthrop was named governor, 
 Mason deputy governor, and twelve of the charter 
 members assistants. All the freemen and their 
 descendants were to have the rights of natural- 
 born English subjects. Finally, the territory of 
 the colony was to cover "all that part of our do- 
 minions in New England in America bounded on 
 the east by Norrogancett River, commonly called 
 Norrogancett Bay, where the said river falleth 
 into the sea, and on the north by the line of the 
 Massachusetts Plantation, and on the south by 
 the sea, and in longitude as the line of the Mas- 
 sachusetts colony, running from east to west; that 
 is to say, from the said Narrogancett Bay on the 
 east to the South Sea on the west part ; with the 
 islands thereunto adjoining." Connecticut was 
 thus to have a domain stretching from Narragan- 
 sett Bay to the Pacific Ocean ; and the charter- 
 less and defenseless colony of New Haven was 
 included within these limits. 
 
 The charter was first produced and shown in 
 this country at a meeting of the New England
 
 174 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 commissioners at Boston, September 4, 1662. The 
 New Haven commissioners must have sent the 
 startling intelligence home at once, so that both 
 the interested colonies must have known of it 
 about the same time. The Connecticut general 
 court records for October 9 note that the " pa- 
 tent or charter" was this day publicly read in 
 the presence of the freemen, and that a committee 
 of three had been appointed to take the charter 
 into their custody in trust for the colony. Hart- 
 ford was then declared the capital ; the civil and 
 military officers of the colony were confirmed in 
 their places ; and a formal letter was drawn up to 
 the constables of the towns, directing them to col- 
 lect the taxes, and to distrain the property of de- 
 linquents. Such laws as were not in conflict with 
 the terms of the charter were validated and con- 
 firmed. The right of suffrage was regulated by an 
 order that all candidates for the privilege should 
 bring a certificate from a majority vote of their 
 town that they were persons " of a civil, peaceable 
 and honest conversation," twenty-one years old or 
 upward, and taxed in the lists for at least X20 
 estate. This was a widening of the elective fran- 
 chise, for the qualification had been fixed at X30 
 since 1657. In addition to these enactments, a 
 long series of resolutions was passed, all intended 
 to strike at the weak spot of New Haven, and 
 break up the political organization of that colony. 
 Their details will be reserved until the statement
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 175 
 
 of the events which gave them success has been 
 made. 
 
 On its part, the New Haven general court, at 
 its meeting of October 15, merely appointed a day 
 of fasting and prayer for guidance " in this weighty 
 business about joining with Connecticut colony." 
 Immediately after the fast, a New Haven town 
 meeting disapproved any such union. At the 
 freemen's meeting, November 4, and the general 
 court meeting on the following day, a letter from 
 Connecticut was read, enclosing a copy of the 
 charter, and demanding the consummation of the 
 union. Two answers were sent. The first inti- 
 mated mildly that New Haven was not " expressly 
 included" within the charter jurisdiction, and 
 asked that the New Haven colony might remain 
 " distinct, entire, and uninterrupted, as hereto- 
 fore," until they could hear from Winthrop. The 
 second, from the freemen, argued that the charter 
 only empowered Connecticut to acquire and hold 
 lands within the limits assigned, but did not author- 
 ize it to interfere with the lands already acquired 
 by New Haven ; and it besought the Connecticut 
 authorities to wait until they could make appli- 
 cation for a charter, and learn his majesty's real 
 intentions, to which they meant to submit. Here 
 the public records become silent until the follow- 
 ing spring. 
 
 But the inherent weakness of the New Haven 
 confederacy, arising from its peculiar ecclesiastical
 
 176 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 system and its restrictions on the right of suffrage, 
 had already become visible, and were having their 
 influence on the proceedings of both parties to the 
 controversy. For some ten years before, an un- 
 derlying spirit of dissatisfaction seems to have 
 cropped out from time to time ; but the final out- 
 burst seems to have been due, at least indirectly, 
 to the Quakers. The New England commissioners 
 had recommended the several colonies, in Septem- 
 ber, 1656, to take measures against the Quakers. 
 Connecticut complied so far as to direct that any 
 town which harbored Quakers should be fined ; 
 but the execution of the penalties against the sect 
 was finally left " to the discretion " of the magis- 
 trates. They seem to have exercised so much dis- 
 cretion that the heretics, despairing of any chance 
 of martyrdom in this quarter, gave Connecticut a 
 comparatively wide berth. New Haven, on the 
 contrary, went into the matter with more spirit. 
 The court of magistrates itself undertook the trial 
 of offenders, and every trial increased the number 
 of criminals. The public and indignant criticisms 
 of the Quakers and their harborers upon the meth- 
 ods and manners of the New Haven jurisdiction 
 must have been as fire to tow, when there were so 
 many others dissatisfied by reason of more tem- 
 poral circumstances. About 1660, the general 
 court begins to have especial trouble in regard to 
 letters attacking their civil organization and prac- 
 tice. It looked upon all such offenses as not
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 177 
 
 merely civil offenses, but as offenses " against the 
 King of Peace, that had so long continued peace 
 amongst them ; " and it punished them most rigor- 
 ously. The number of its assailants rapidly be- 
 came greater, as did the exasperation of the court, 
 which was hardly ever out of hot water from 1660 
 until the union was accomplished. In 1661 the 
 dissatisfaction had risen so high that several of 
 those chosen as magistrates refused to take the 
 oath ; and the general court decided to make 
 public declaration of its position. It acknowledged 
 that the non-freemen had complained that " just 
 privileges and liberties " were denied them ; but 
 it declared that this denial was a part of the funda- 
 mental system of the colony, established by law, 
 from which it would not be diverted by any agita- 
 tion ; and it added the hint that it was only neces- 
 sary for the dissentients to join the church in order 
 to qualify themselves for the enjoyment of the 
 rights to vote and hold office. This declaration 
 must have added fuel to the flame ; and the court's 
 meeting in May, 1662, gives evidence of this. The 
 record admits that there was "great discourage- 
 ment upon the spirits of those that were now in 
 place of magistracy ; " and it was no wonder. 
 Cases were multiplying of men who, when arrested, 
 denied the authority of the colony to make laws 
 now that the king was proclaimed, and demanded 
 of the marshal " whether his authority came from 
 Charles the Second ? " These were awkward ques-
 
 178 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 tions for New Haven to answer. As they multi- 
 plied, the embarrassment of the court, and the 
 hesitation of the doubtful mass of citizens, in- 
 creased with them. The want of a legal basis to 
 the colony's authority was already painfully evi- 
 dent, even while its only antagonists were its own 
 ill-disposed citizens : what was to be the difficulty 
 of the case when Connecticut should set up her 
 claims, and become an eager refuge and support to 
 every one who should resist the authority of New 
 Haven ? 
 
 It was at this session that Bray Rossiter of 
 Guilford, and his son John, the Mother Carey's 
 chickens of the coming storm, first appeared on 
 the scene. The father, as an allowed physician, 
 had claimed exemption from taxation ; when that 
 was refused, he excepted to the colony's right to 
 tax ; and now he, with others of Guilford, was 
 haled before the general court to answer to the 
 charge of having sent some offensive papers to the 
 court, and of having spread others abroad, "to 
 the disturbance of the peace of this jurisdiction." 
 Most of the accused apologized, the lamest apolo- 
 gies being gladly accepted by the court ; but their 
 statements all pointed to the Rossiters as the ring- 
 leaders, and the court hardly knew what to do 
 with them. There were present, says the record 
 with half concealed bitterness, " Mr. Allen and Mr. 
 Willis, of Connecticut, waiting to see an issue of 
 the business, pretending to be friends to us and
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 179 
 
 friends to peace, laboring with Mr. Rossiter and 
 his son to bring him to some acknowledgment of 
 evil." Finally a written statement was accepted 
 from him in which he " owned that in several pas- 
 sages and expressions he had been very rash and 
 inconsiderate," and agreed to submit to the govern- 
 ment " while he continued under it." The Con- 
 necticut charter was soon to relieve him from con- 
 scientious scruples as to the last-named clause. 
 It is noteworthy that, in examining one of the 
 parties, the court said that it " had met with this 
 business both from Stamford and Southold ; " and 
 Southold sent no deputies to this session. A sum- 
 mons was sent to the Southold deputies to see that 
 the taxes were paid, and to report for prosecution 
 all persons refusing payment. It is evident that 
 the New Haven jurisdiction was already among 
 the breakers. 
 
 This was the state of affairs when the two gen- 
 eral courts met in October, and the Connecticut 
 body heard their invaluable charter read to the 
 freemen. Then followed the first series of orders 
 by which Connecticut spread out her jurisdiction 
 over her neighbor. The people of Southold wrote 
 that they had had notice from "Mr. Willis, of 
 Connecticut," that they were within Connecticut's 
 limits ; and that they had appointed Mr. Young 
 to be their deputy. Young was admitted as a 
 freeman and deputy, and was appointed magistrate 
 for Southold ; and the people of that place were
 
 180 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 directed to choose a constable, to whom Young 
 was to administer the oath of fidelity to Connec- 
 ticut. Similar applications were received from 
 "several inhabitants " of Stamford and Green- 
 wich, of Huntington and Oyster Bay, on Long 
 Island; and these towns, with Mystic and Pawca- 
 tuck in the district claimed by Massachusetts, 
 were directed to choose Connecticut constables, 
 for the constable seems still to have been the pivot 
 of town authority. The court went further, and 
 ordered that word be sent to the inhabitants of 
 Westchester that they too were within the colony's 
 chartered limits, and that they should follow the 
 same procedure. In the new pride of the charter, 
 the colony was ready to throw down the gantlet 
 not only to New Haven and Massachusetts, but to 
 the Dutch also. So fully had the colony taken 
 its position, that, at the meeting of the following 
 March, it was necessary to do no more, except to 
 vote X20 to Mr. Rossiter. 
 
 The letter to New Haven, and the answers of 
 the New Haven committee and freemen, already 
 mentioned, occupied the winter ; but the forces 
 which were disintegrating New Haven met no 
 check. The Connecticut committee, in March, 
 1663, proposed nearly the same terms of union, 
 which were finally adopted ; but New Haven re- 
 jected them, on the ground that she had appealed 
 to the king and could not prejudice her appeal. 
 In May, New Haven sent another remonstrance to
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 181 
 
 Connecticut ; but it is noteworthy that her offi- 
 cers, then elected, took the oath " for the year en- 
 suing, or until our foundation settlements be made 
 null." In August, her committee showed further 
 signs of weakness by proposing a series of a dozen 
 questions as to the terms on which a treaty of 
 union could be effected ; and the answer of the 
 Connecticut committee certainly gave them full 
 assurance of perfect equality and security for all 
 their rights, except the exclusive privileges of 
 church-members, under the New Haven system. 
 In September, the New Haven delegates com- 
 plained to the New England commissioners of the 
 action of Connecticut, particularly of the appoint- 
 ment of constables, " who are very troublesome 
 to us." Connecticut answered, and Massachu- 
 setts and Plymouth decided that, as New Haven 
 had been recognized as an independent member of 
 the confederation, any infringement on her juris- 
 diction would be a violation of the articles of 
 union ; and that any such act in the past ought to 
 be recalled. All this time, however, the Connec- 
 ticut authorities were quietly allowing their new 
 agents in the New Haven towns to carry on their 
 work ; and the results were that before the end of 
 the next year the unfortunate colony of New 
 Haven was deeply in debt, unable to collect 
 taxes, and unable even to pay the salaries of her 
 officers. 
 
 At the meeting in December, 1663, the New
 
 182 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Haven court had received some poor encourage- 
 ment in two letters, one from Winthrop, the other 
 from the English privy council. Winthrop's let- 
 ter was to John Mason, deputy governor, and 
 the Connecticut general court ; but he had sent a 
 copy to New Haven. He remonstrated against the 
 appointment of constables in New Haven towns, 
 and wished that all such proceedings should be 
 suspended until his return home, when he hoped 
 to arrange an amicable union of the two colonies. 
 His language as to his own previous pledges is 
 curiously ambiguous : " And further I must let 
 you know that testimony here doth affirm that I 
 gave assurance before authority here, that it was 
 not intended to meddle with any town or planta- 
 tion that was settled under any other government ; 
 had it been otherwise intended or declared, it had 
 been injurious in taking out the patent not to 
 have inserted a proportionable number of their 
 names in it." Who can make out from this 
 whether Winthrop means to endorse this asserted 
 promise of his or not? The course of the two 
 governors, indeed, is almost inexplicable. Win- 
 throp obtains a charter, covering New Haven ; 
 the New Haven authorities assert, without con- 
 tradiction, that he had twice promised in writing, 
 before setting out for England, that he would not 
 have New Haven included under his colony's ju- 
 risdiction ; and Winthrop finally makes this curi- 
 ously roundabout admission, with which all par-
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 183 
 
 ties seem afraid to meddle further. On the other 
 hand, while Leete, the New Haven governor, ful- 
 fills all his duties through the crisis with punctu- 
 ality, his action always carries a suspicion that it 
 is perfunctory ; his heart does not seem to be in 
 the work. No one who has followed the records 
 carefully will be at all surprised by the assertion 
 of Hubbard and Mather, that the action of Win- 
 throp in so framing the charter as to include New 
 Haven was by the special desire of Governor 
 Leete himself ; nor by the assertion of the Con- 
 necticut governor and council in 1675, when 
 Leete was deputy governor and present, with sev- 
 eral of the former New Haven leaders, that " their 
 [New Haven] conjunction with this colony was 
 desired by the chief amongst them." Leete's 
 action was repudiated by Davenport, in a letter 
 to Winthrop, as " his private doing, without the 
 consent or knowledge of any of us in this col- 
 ony ; " " not done by him according to his public 
 trust as governor, but contrary to it." And yet, 
 so far from repudiating Leete, the people reflected 
 him governor. The facts probably are that Leete 
 and other New Haven leaders were quietly tired 
 of the whole New Haven system, and despaired of 
 their ability to maintain it longer ; that Winthrop 
 ascertained this fact just before leaving for Eng- 
 land ; and that much of the fury of words which 
 was expended on the negotiations was meant to 
 allow events to take their course, while the honest
 
 184 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and conscientious upholders of the old system 
 were being satisfied and convinced of the futility 
 of further resistance. The times were out of 
 joint for New Haven ; and while the leaders were 
 not disposed to help overturn their fathers' work, 
 they were no more disposed to stand in the way 
 of events. No doubt Winthrop was relieved to 
 find on his return that Connecticut had gone on 
 obstinately in her course ; and no doubt also Leete 
 was no less relieved to impart the news. 
 
 The privy council's letter was no more than a 
 circular to the governors of the New England 
 colonies ; but as it was directed to New Haven 
 among the rest, that colony took this as an evi- 
 dence that the king had had no intention of ab- 
 sorbing them in the rival colony. A sounding 
 proclamation was issued at once. It rehearsed 
 the special orders of the council in regard to New 
 Haven, being careful to note the addition of his 
 majesty's sign manual " in red wax ; " it stated 
 the embarrassment which the colony was under 
 in fulfilling the king's directions by reason of the 
 refusal of some ill-disposed persons to pay their 
 legal taxes ; and it cautioned all such persons to 
 cease their opposition at once. It is almost pitiful 
 to see the eagerness with which the colony, which 
 had settled here in primitive independence, now 
 seized on this straw of royal recognition ; and, 
 however one may admit the necessity and benefit 
 of the union, he can hardly help wishing that the 
 manly little colony had not been forced into it.
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 185 
 
 Connecticut had succeeded in stirring up a 
 hornet's nest in almost every quarter. Her gen- 
 eral assembly had appointed agents for the colony, 
 with the powers of magistrates, in the New Haven 
 towns on the mainland and Long Island, in the 
 Dutch towns of Hempstead, Jamaica, Flushing, 
 and Westchester, and in the Narragansett or 
 Rhode Island country as far east as Wickford. 
 Stuyvesant had appeared before the commission- 
 ers at Boston, in September, 1663, to protest on 
 behalf of the Dutch ; and the commissioners, 
 while recommending a reference of the matter to 
 them at their next meeting, took ground against 
 any violation of the boundaries agreed upon in 
 the treaty of 1650. The people of the Narragan- 
 sett country were memorializing the Massachu- 
 setts general court. New Haven's protests found 
 a sympathetic audience in the majority of the 
 New England union. Connecticut hardly seemed 
 to have a friend. The state of affairs, however, 
 had one favorable aspect : each of the other par- 
 ties had too many interests of its own to attend 
 to for any unswerving support of New Haven. 
 Connecticut agreed not to make any present claim 
 of exclusive jurisdiction over the Dutch towns ; 
 and a more temporizing policy as to the Massa- 
 chusetts contest left New Haven finally isolated. 
 Nevertheless, that sturdy colony again resolved 
 in December to make no treaty with Connecticut 
 until affairs had been restored again to their origi-
 
 186 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 nal condition. It also ordered that distraint be 
 made for unpaid taxes. This last step brought 
 about a significant hint of a readiness to resist by 
 force. On the last day of the year, the Rossiters, 
 who had gone to Hartford and secured a Connecti- 
 cut constable and magistrates, created a terrible 
 hubbub in Guilford before daylight. Guns were 
 fired ; the inhabitants were roused and thrown 
 into great confusion; and assistance had to be 
 summoned from New Haven and Branford to keep 
 order. Though this was accomplished, the object 
 of the Rossiters was accomplished with it, for it 
 was agreed that tax collection and distraint should 
 be suspended for the present. 
 
 New Haven's position was now desperate. 
 There was no money in the treasury ; the towns 
 were divided within themselves; there was no 
 physical force to constrain the disloyal ; and the 
 authorities were either discouraged or faint- 
 hearted. Leete called a special session of the 
 general court in January, 1663 (4), and laid the 
 state of the case before it. It still stubbornly 
 voted not to treat ; and it named Messrs. Daven- 
 port and Street a committee to draw up its griev- 
 ances in writing. The committee's work is com- 
 monly known as " New Haven's Case Stated." 
 It is the most dignified and pathetic document in 
 the whole controversy. It stated the origin of the 
 colony ; its title by purchase ; its recognition by 
 the Dutch, by parliament, by the king, by the
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 187 
 
 united colonies of New England, and by Connec- 
 ticut herself ; the promises of Winthrop ; and the 
 turbulent and seditious practices of Connecticut 
 toward her sister colony, contrary to righteousness 
 and peace ; and it demanded that reparation be 
 offered for the past, and security for the future. 
 The document was in the form of a letter to the 
 Connecticut general assembly ; and it is to be re- 
 gretted that Connecticut's answer was by no means 
 so dignified. Its tone is that of triumph and ex- 
 ultation ; and its writers were evidently out of 
 patience with long waiting. There are indica- 
 tions, however, in a most amicable contempora- 
 neous correspondence between the two commit- 
 tees, that both parties had about accepted the fact 
 of union as inevitable, and had pretty well agreed 
 on its terms. At any rate, the New Haven gen- 
 eral court ceased from this time to do any impor- 
 tant business. 
 
 The inevitable conclusion was hastened by an 
 unexpected event. It was now March, 1664, the 
 month in which King Charles made his grant of 
 the territory then in New Netherland to his 
 brother, the Duke of York. The grant covered 
 the whole of Long Island, and the mainland from 
 Delaware Bay to the Connecticut River, thus in- 
 cluding both Hartford and New Haven within its 
 limits. Little as they liked Connecticut, the New 
 Haven people liked the duke less ; and the only 
 apparent security against his government, for both
 
 188 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 colonies, was in the charter of Connecticut. The 
 news of the grant was brought to Boston by the 
 fleet and army of Nichols in July ; and the down- 
 fall of the Dutch government at Manhadoes fol- 
 lowed in August. In the same month, Leete 
 called a meeting of his general court, and in- 
 formed them that their committee recommended 
 submission. With great confusion and dissatis- 
 faction, a vote to that effect was passed, then re- 
 considered, and then passed again in about the 
 same words ; but the people were still so stubborn 
 that the vote amounted to little. 
 
 In September, the New Haven delegates were 
 admitted for the last time, and against the pro- 
 test of Connecticut, to seats in the meeting of the 
 New England commissioners. In October, the 
 Connecticut general assembly appointed a com- 
 mittee to demand the submission of New Haven, 
 and to admit New Haven freemen as Connecticut 
 freemen ; and it also appointed Leete and other 
 New Haven leaders agents of Connecticut, with 
 the powers of magistrates, to administer justice, 
 and ordered all other officers to retain their places 
 and perform their duties until the next election. 
 In November, the representatives of Connecticut 
 attended a meeting of royal commissioners at New 
 York, to settle the limits between New York and 
 Connecticut. This erudite body assigned Long Is- 
 land to ' the Ducke off Yorke," and all plantations 
 lying eastward of a certain creek or river called
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 189 
 
 " Momoronack, which is reputed to be about 
 twelve miles to the east of Westchester," to Con- 
 necticut. This was accepted as the king's decision 
 by the much-enduring New Haven colony. The 
 general court, with " as many of the inhabitants 
 as was pleased to come," voted to submit, but "with 
 a salvo jure of our former right and claim, as a 
 people who have not yet been heard in point of 
 plea." Connecticut had renewed her first offers 
 of ample security for equality under the charter, 
 and in her answer to the notice of submission asked 
 that all unpleasant reflections might be " buried 
 in perpetual silence." When the general as- 
 sembly met at Hartford in March, 1665, deputies 
 from the former New Haven towns were present ; 
 the proceedings were harmonious ; and Leete and 
 three other New Haven leaders were chosen magis- 
 trates or assistants. The colony of New Haven 
 had ceased to exist, and ecclesiastical supremacy 
 had given way to democracy. 
 
 In October, 1665, in probable pursuance of 
 terms before agreed upon, the general assembly 
 ordered that two county courts be held at New 
 Haven in June and November. These introduced 
 trial by jury into the former New Haven territory, 
 while they preserved to the people all that could 
 be granted of their former autonomy. In May, 
 1666, the general assembly proceeded to divide 
 the commonwealth into four counties, the bound-
 
 190 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 aries of New Haven county extending " from the 
 east bounds of Guilford unto the west bounds of 
 Milford." This made a change in the common- 
 wealth's judicial system. Until 1665, the highest 
 judicial body was the particular court, composed 
 of the governor or deputy and the magistrates. 
 From 1665 until 1711, the particular court was 
 succeeded by the court of assistants, seven of the 
 twelve assistants chosen by the general assembly. 
 The superior court was introduced in 1711, and 
 the supreme court of errors and appeals, composed 
 of the governor and assistants, in 1784. From 
 1807 until 1855, the latter was composed of supe- 
 rior court judges sitting in bank, and, since 1855, 
 of district judges. The commonwealth's court 
 of assistants, however, did not sit at New Haven 
 until 1701. 
 
 Connecticut has played no small part in the 
 development of the American Union, and in the 
 peaceful conquest of the great western continent ; 
 and her part would have been sadly marred if the 
 integrity of her natural boundaries had been broken 
 by the continued existence of the separate colony 
 on the south. Her leaders of 1662-65 were bound 
 by every regard to the future of the common- 
 wealth to insist on the absqrption of New Haven ; 
 their insistence showed their foresight. And yet, 
 even though the commonwealth emerges from the 
 struggle with its natural outline unbroken, one
 
 THE CHARTER AND THE UNION. 191 
 
 may be pardoned a feeling of regret as New Haven 
 sinks beneath the surface after her persistent 
 fight for life. The county of New Haven does 
 not quite fill the void left by the republic of New 
 Haven.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 1662-1763. 
 
 BEFORE the grant of the charter, the general 
 court of Connecticut had begun to show the char- 
 acteristics of a real commonwealth government. 
 No exact point of time can be stated at which the 
 transformation took place ; but there is a plain 
 difference between the generally recommendatory 
 tone in which the court was in the habit of ad- 
 dressing the towns in 1 640, and the decidedly man- 
 datory tone into which it had grown in 1660. As 
 soon as the charter had given it the consciousness 
 of a legal title to existence and authority apart 
 from its town units, its drift in the assumption of 
 powers heretofore left to the towns became some- 
 what stronger, until the essential commonwealth 
 interests had been brought under its jurisdiction. 
 And yet it never lost the influence of the forces 
 which had founded the colony. The Connecticut 
 towns, while they were generally content to con- 
 fine their work to the matters of purely local in- 
 terest which had been left to them by the general 
 assembly, had never any hesitation in resisting, by 
 all peaceable means, any action of the supreme
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 193 
 
 legislative body which seemed to them unjust; 
 and the general assembly, in its turn, was always 
 disposed to treat such town resistance mildly, and 
 to seek for an accommodation rather than resort 
 to force. 
 
 During the century which followed the grant of 
 the charter, Connecticut had but nine governors, 
 excluding Andros. All of these, with the excep- 
 tion of Wolcott, who was dropped by reason of 
 accusations of extortion, served until death or ad- 
 vancing age compelled the choice of another ; and 
 as the elections were annual, the long terms of ser- 
 vice speak well for the satisfaction of the people 
 with the rulers of their choice, and for the conser- 
 vatism and " steady habits " of the Connecticut 
 people. 
 
 For some years after 1665 the colony went on 
 in comparative quiet, developing new towns in 
 every direction, and disturbed only by boundary 
 disputes with its neighbors, by King Philip's war, 
 and by the temporary recapture of New York by 
 a Dutch fleet and army in 1673-74. The latter 
 alarm was short-lived. The forces of New England 
 were set in array ; the English towns on Long 
 Island returned gladly to the jurisdiction of Con- 
 necticut for protection ; but peace between Eng- 
 land and Holland restored the province of New 
 York to the duke in 1674. The king issued a 
 new patent for the province, in which he not only 
 included Long Island, but the territory up to the 
 
 13
 
 194 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Connecticut River, which had been assigned to 
 Connecticut by the royal commissioners. The 
 assignment of Long Island was regretted, but not 
 resisted ; and the island which is the natural sea- 
 wall of Connecticut passed, by royal decree, to a 
 province whose only natural claim to it was that 
 it barely touched it at one corner. The revival of 
 the duke's claim to a part of the mainland was a 
 different matter, and every preparation was made 
 for resistance. In July, 1675, just as King Philip's 
 war had broken out in Plymouth, hasty word was 
 sent from the authorities at Hartford to Captain 
 Thomas Bull at Saybrook that Governor Andros 
 of New York was on his way through the Sound 
 for the purpose, as he avowed, of aiding the people 
 against the Indians. Of the two evils, Connecti- 
 cut rather preferred the Indians. Bull was in- 
 structed to inform Andros, if he should call at Say- 
 brook, thajb the colony had taken all precautions 
 against the Indians, and to direct him to the actual 
 scene of conflict, but not to permit the landing of 
 any armed soldiers. " And you are to keep the 
 king's colors standing there, under his majesty's 
 lieutenant, the governor of Connecticut ; and if 
 any other colors be set up there, you are not to 
 suffer them to stand. . . -. But you are in his 
 majesty's name required to avoid striking the first 
 blow; but if they begin, then you are to defend 
 yourselves, and do your best to secure his majesty's 
 interest and the peace of the whole colony of Con-
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 195 
 
 necticut in our possession." Andros came and 
 landed at Saybrook, but confined his proceedings 
 to reading the duke's patent, against the protest 
 of Bull and the Connecticut representatives. It 
 may have been thought that this success would 
 meet the approval of the Hartford authorities, 
 but they were made of sterner stuff. While com- 
 mending the officers and men engaged, they added 
 significantly : " We wish he had been interrupted 
 in doing the least thing under pretense of his hav- 
 ing anything to do to use his majesty's name in 
 commanding there so usurpingly, which might have, 
 been done by shouts, or sound of drum, etc., without 
 violence." This lesson of unhesitating resistance 
 was not lost on succeeding officers of the colony. 
 In October, 1693, Benjamin Fletcher, the hot- 
 tempered governor of New York, appeared at Hart- 
 ford with his majesty's commission to act as com- 
 mander-in-chief of the New England militia. In 
 spite of the assembly's protest, he ordered out the 
 militia, and went to the parade ground to review 
 them. The commanding officer was Captain 
 Wadsworth, who had saved the charter from An- 
 dros. Fletcher began to read his commission. 
 Wadsworth ordered the drums to beat ; and, says 
 Trumbull, " there was such a roaring of them that 
 nothing else could be heard." Fletcher angrily 
 demanded silence, and the drummers hesitatingly 
 complied. The instant the reading of the com- 
 mission was renewed, Wadsworth shouted, " Drum,
 
 196 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 drum, I say ! " Again the rattle began, and again 
 the governor struggled for silence. When he had 
 obtained it, Wadsworth turned to him and said, 
 " If I am interrupted again, I will make the sun 
 shine through you." He then gave final orders to 
 his drummers, and the governor retired without 
 having his commission read. 
 
 Connecticut suffered comparatively little from 
 the horrors of King Philip's war ; the lesson to 
 her Indians had been too sternly taught for that. 
 It is a little curious to notice how close the storm 
 of war came to her northern and eastern bound- 
 aries without overpassing them. There were burn- 
 ings and massacres through the western borders 
 of Massachusetts, and battles in Rhode Island ; 
 but the Connecticut men regularly fought outside 
 of their own colony. The colony, however, must 
 have been kept in a constant state of alarm by 
 the near approach of hostilities, and her troops 
 were freely furnished, and took an active part. 
 She kept in the field about one third of the New 
 England forces. It was Major Treat, with a Con- 
 necticut force, who relieved the Essex men at 
 Deerfield, and drove off the Indian besiegers of 
 Springfield and Hadley ; and in the great swamp 
 fight, Connecticut's contingent of three hundred 
 men lost eighty killed and wounded, or about half 
 the total loss. In sober, manly, and striking lan- 
 guage, the general assembly gave them a fitting 
 epitaph : " There died many brave officers and
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 197 
 
 sentinels, whose memory is blessed, and whose 
 death redeemed our lives. The bitter cold, the 
 tarled swamp, the tedious march, the strong fort, 
 the numerous and stubborn enemy they contended 
 with, for their God, king and country, be their 
 trophies over death. Our mourners, over all the 
 colony, witness for our men that they were not 
 unfaithful in that day." 
 
 Andros had come out as governor of New York 
 on its recovery from the Dutch in 1674. All the 
 letters of the Connecticut council, as the upper 
 house of the assembly was called under the char- 
 ter, show a standing distrust of Andros, which 
 was a fitting prelude to their intercourse ten years 
 later. Such distrust, in the case of an able man 
 as Andros seems to have been, was certainly in- 
 evitable. The state of affairs was worthy of no- 
 tice. The Empire State of New York has little 
 reason to envy the prosperity of the State of Con- 
 necticut in 1886 ; the case was far otherwise in 
 1674. At that time, an able, enterprising cava- 
 lier officer, sent out as governor of the duke's 
 province of New York, found his energies crippled 
 with the management of a territory consisting of 
 two fairly important towns, a few straggling set- 
 tlements on the Hudson, and some disaffected 
 New England townships on Long Island. This 
 western half of Connecticut was just the strip of 
 territory needed to make New York a province in 
 reality, and to enable him to do essential service
 
 198 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 against Ms majesty's enemies in Canada ; the 
 duke had at least a claim to it; and the royal 
 governor could not be expected to appreciate at 
 their full value the objections of a set of Hart- 
 ford Puritans to this most necessary absorp- 
 tion. A boozing, incompetent governor of New 
 York was an immense relief to the Connecticut 
 authorities : a man of Andres's abilities had to be, 
 and always was, dealt with at arm's length. His 
 offers of help against the Indians were accepted 
 cordially, but were always restricted to the exact 
 service required. The letters which passed be- 
 tween the two parties show a constant sense of 
 the real situation, in their mixture of distinguished 
 courtesy with occasional railing, und in the con- 
 stant readiness of Connecticut to bristle up in de- 
 fense of some point which the governor was al- 
 ways ready to assure them was not of the least 
 importance. The intercourse, however, gave Con- 
 necticut a very fair knowledge of Andres's char- 
 acter and methods, which must have been of ser- 
 vice in the coming struggle. 
 
 In the later years of Charles II., royal commis- 
 sioners, headed by Edward Randolph, gave New 
 England much distress, urging upon the home 
 government the general neglect of the navigation 
 acts, and the offensive independence of this quar- 
 ter of America. Massachusetts suffered most ; 
 and her charter, like the franchises of London, 
 was vacated on a writ of quo warranto. Charles
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 199 
 
 died in 1685, and his brother, James II., succeeded 
 him. In July, 1686, Governor Treat received 
 two writs of quo warranto against the colony of 
 Connecticut, issued the previous year, calling upon 
 it to show title for its exercise of political powers 
 or abandon them. In December came another. 
 In both cases, according to the colony's subse- 
 quent letter to King William, the time set for ap- 
 pearance had elapsed before the serving of the 
 writ, so that the colony could make no defense, 
 as perhaps was intended ; but an attorney was ap- 
 pointed, and every preparation made for what re- 
 sistance was possible. Andros had been succeeded 
 by Dongan as governor of New York in 1682 ; 
 and the king was represented in New England by 
 Joseph Dudley, a recreant Massachusetts man, as 
 president of the royal commissioners. Dudley un- 
 doubtedly did part of his work by endeavoring to 
 persuade Connecticut to surrender her charter 
 peaceably to the crown, promising to exert all his 
 influence to procure her one equally favorable. 
 The colony was not to be cajoled : aware of her 
 impotence for open resistance, she followed her 
 traditional policy, arguing and expostulating, 
 never yielding a jot, but not resorting to action 
 until the time for action was fully come. 
 
 In December, 1686, the Hartford authorities 
 were called upon to measure their strength again 
 with their old antagonist. Andros had landed at 
 Boston, commissioned as governor of all New
 
 200 CONNECTICUT, 
 
 England, and bent on abrogating the charters. 
 Following Dudley's lead, he wrote to Treat, sug- 
 gesting that by this time the trial of the writs had 
 certainly gone against the colony ; and that the 
 authorities would do much to commend the colony 
 to his majesty's good pleasure by entering a for- 
 mal surrender of the charter. The colony author- 
 ities were possibly as well versed in the law of the 
 case as Andros, and they took good care to do 
 nothing of the sort ; and, as the event showed, 
 they thus saved the charter. 
 
 The assembly met as usual in October, 1687 ; 
 but their records show that they were in profound 
 doubt and distress. Andros was with them, accom- 
 panied by some sixty regular soldiers, to enforce his 
 demand for the charter. It is certain that he did 
 not get it, though the records, as usual, are cau- 
 tious enough to give no reason why. Tradition is 
 responsible for the story of the charter oak. The 
 assembly had met the royal governor in the meet- 
 ing-house ; the demand for the charter had been 
 made ; and the assembly had exhausted the re- 
 sources of language to show to Andros how dear 
 it was to them, and how impossible it was to give 
 it up. Andros was immovable ; he had watched 
 that charter with longing eyes from the banks of 
 the Hudson, and he had no intention of giving up 
 his object now that the king had put him in power 
 on the banks of the Connecticut. Toward even- 
 ing the case had become desperate. The little
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 201 
 
 democracy was at last driven into a corner, where 
 its old policy seemed no longer available ; it must 
 resist openly, or make a formal surrender of its 
 charter. Just as the lights were lighted, the legal 
 authorities yielded so far as to order the precious 
 document to be brought in and laid on the table 
 before the eyes of Andros. Then came a little 
 more debate. Suddenly the lights were blown 
 out ; Captain Wads worth, of Hartford, carried off 
 the charter, and hid it in a hollow oak-tree on the 
 estate of the Wyllyses, just across the u riveret ; " 
 and when the lights were relighted, the colony was 
 no longer able to comply with Andres's demand for 
 a surrender. Although the account of the affair 
 is traditional, it is difficult to see any good grounds 
 for impeaching it on that account. It supplies, 
 in the simplest and most natural manner, a blank 
 in the Hartford proceedings of Andros which 
 would otherwise be quite unaccountable. His 
 plain purpose was to force Connecticut into a po- 
 sition where she must either surrender the charter 
 or resist openly. He failed : the charter never 
 was in his possession ; and the official records as- 
 sign no reason for his failure. The colony was 
 too prudent, and Andros too proud, to put the 
 true reason on record. Tradition supplies the gap 
 with an exactness which proves itself. 
 
 Having done all that men could do, Treat and 
 his associates bowed for the time to superior force. 
 Andros was allowed to read his commission, and
 
 202 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Treat, Fitz-John and Wait Winthrop, and John 
 Allyn received appointments as members of his 
 council for New England. John Allyn made 
 what the governor doubtless considered to be the 
 closing record for all time. But it is noteworthy 
 that the record was so written as to flatter An- 
 dros's vanity, while it really put in terms a decla- 
 ration of overpowering force, on which the com- 
 monwealth finally succeeded in saving her charter 
 from invalidation. It is as follows : 
 
 "At a General Court at Hartford, October 
 31st, 1687, his excellency, Sir Edmund Andross, 
 knight and Captain General and Governor of His 
 Majesty's territories and dominions in New Eng- 
 land, by order of His Majesty James the Second, 
 King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, 
 the 31st of October, 1687, took into his hands 
 the government of the colony of Connecticut, it 
 being by His Majesty annexed to Massachusetts 
 and other colonies under his excellency's govern- 
 
 ment "PINTS." 
 
 The government was destined to last far longer 
 than either the governor or his government. But, 
 while it lasted, Andres's government was bitterly 
 hated, and with good reason. The reasons are 
 more peculiarly appropriate to the history of 
 Massachusetts, where they were felt more keenly 
 than in Connecticut ; but even in Connecticut,
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 203 
 
 poor as was the field for plunder, and distant as it 
 was from the " ring " which surrounded Andros, 
 the exactions of the new system were wellnigh 
 intolerable to a people whose annual expense of 
 government had been carefully kept down to the 
 lowest limits, so that, says Bancroft, they " did 
 not exceed four thousand dollars ; and the wages 
 of the chief justice were ten shillings a day while 
 on service." The feeling in Connecticut is well 
 represented in the story of the answer made to 
 Andros himself, when he asked somewhat suspi- 
 ciously for the reason of the proclamation of a fast- 
 day : " Sir, this kind goeth not out but by prayer 
 and fasting." There were not lacking incitements 
 to premature insurrection ; there were letters 
 from hot-headed friends in England, telling them 
 that they were " but a company of hens " if they 
 did not revive their charter by force; and the 
 Andros party had private intelligence implicating 
 various leaders in some vague plot for a revolt. 
 But the people were, as ever, self-restrained. The 
 letters of Treat and Allyn to Andros are models of 
 courtesy, as of faithful stewards who thought only 
 of his interests. The colony waited patiently for 
 the precise moment when it could strike most ef- 
 fectively, and then it struck once and for all, with 
 all the strength that was in it. 
 
 April. 1689, came at last. The people of Bos- 
 ton, at the first news of the English Revolution, 
 clapped Andros into custody. May 9, the old
 
 204 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Connecticut authorities quietly resumed their func- 
 tions, and called the assembly together for the 
 following month. William and Mary were pro- 
 claimed with great fervor. Not a word was said 
 about the disappearance or reappearance of the 
 charter ; but the charter government was put into 
 full effect again, as if Andros ha'd never inter- 
 rupted it. An address was sent to the king, asking 
 that the charter be no further interfered with; 
 but operations under it went on as before. No de- 
 cided action was taken by the home government 
 for some years, except that its appointment of the 
 New York governor, Fletcher, to the command of 
 the Connecticut militia, implied a decision that the 
 Connecticut charter had been superseded. Late 
 in 1693, Fitz John Winthrop was sent to England 
 as agent to obtain a confirmation of the charter. 
 He secured an emphatic legal opinion from Attor- 
 ney General Somers, backed by those of Treby 
 and Ward, that the charter was entirely valid, 
 Treby's concurrent opinion taking this shape : " I 
 am of the same opinion, and, as this matter is 
 stated, there is no ground of doubt." The basis of 
 the opinion was that the charter had been granted 
 under the great seal ; that it had not been surren- 
 dered under the common seal of the colony, nor had 
 any judgment of record been entered against it ; 
 that its operation had merely been interfered with 
 by overpowering force ; that the charter therefore 
 remained valid ; and that the peaceable submission
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 205 
 
 of the colony to Andros was merely an illegal sus- 
 pension of lawful authority. In other words, the 
 passive attitude of the colonial government had 
 disarmed Andros so far as to stop the legal pro- 
 ceedings necessary to forfeit the charter ; and then 
 prompt action, at the critical moment, secured all 
 that could be secured under the circumstances. 
 William was willing enough to retain all possible 
 fruits of James's tyranny, as he showed by enforc- 
 ing the forfeiture of the Massachusetts charter ; but 
 the law in this case was too plain, and he ratified 
 the lawyers' opinion in April, 1694. The charter 
 had escaped its enemies at last, and its escape is a 
 monument of one of the advantages of a real democ- 
 racy. For fifty years, every man in the common- 
 wealth had felt the maintenance of the common- 
 wealth to be his own personal concern, and had been 
 willing not only to die for it, but to live for it, work 
 for it, and exercise the highest sort of self-control 
 for it. Out of this mass there had been evolved a 
 class of representative men, who were in the highest 
 degree capable of seeing and doing just what was 
 needed. Democracy had done more for Connecticut 
 than class influence had done for Massachusetts. 
 
 The settlement of the boundaries of the colony 
 was a longer and more fruitful source of dissension 
 than the legal government. On the west, the 
 agreement of 1664 was superseded in 1683 by a 
 new one between Connecticut and Governor Don- 
 gan of New York, Andros's successor, in which
 
 206 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the quadrilateral, at the southwest corner of Con- 
 necticut, first makes its appearance. It was agreed 
 that the starting point of the line should be Lyon's 
 Point, at the mouth of " Byram Brook," between 
 the towns of Rye and Greenwich ; thence up that 
 brook to the " wading place," where the common 
 road crossed it ; thence eight English miles north- 
 northwest into the country ; thence easterly to a 
 line parallel to the first, beginning twelve miles 
 east of Lyon's Point as the Sound runs, and to 
 a place in that line eight miles from the Sound ; 
 thence along this north-northwest line to a point 
 twenty miles from the Hudson ; thence northerly 
 to the Massachusetts border, by a line " parallel to 
 Hudson's River in every point." If the quadrilat- 
 eral first described came at any point nearer than 
 twenty miles to the Hudson, the other northerly 
 lines were to be run so much further to the east- 
 ward as to give New York an equivalent tract of 
 land. This threw Rye into New York, and recog- 
 nized New York's old claim that Connecticut was 
 to come no nearer to the Hudson than twenty 
 miles' distance. It also gave up the line agreed 
 upon in 1664, running north-northwest from Ma- 
 maroneck, crossing the Hudson near West Point, 
 and leaving the district east of it, including New- 
 burgh, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston, under Con- 
 necticut. It has since been rectified in various 
 points, and the proposed line parallel to the Hud- 
 son has been straightened, but otherwise it is the
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 207 
 
 basis of the present line. Rye revolted to Con- 
 necticut in 1697 ; but the king's confirmation of 
 the line of 1683 in 1700 forced the town to return 
 to New York. The whole line was established by 
 survey in 1725 and 1731, re-surveyed by New 
 York in 1860, agreed upon by both States in 1878 
 and 1879, and ratified by congress in 1880-81. It 
 should be added that the unnatural junction of 
 Long Island with New York in 1664 carried with 
 it the island called Fisher's Island, off the south- 
 east corner of Connecticut, which had been granted 
 to Winthrop by Connecticut in 1641 ; and it thus 
 gave the southern boundary of Connecticut its odd 
 appearance, running from the mouth of Pawcatuck 
 River, at the eastern end of the Sound, to the cen- 
 ter of the East River, at the western end. 
 
 The northern boundary of the colony was not 
 fully settled for more than a century. When Con- 
 necticut was settled, the Massachusetts southern 
 line was in the air ; and in 1642 that colony sent 
 two men, Woodward and Saffery, to run the line 
 according to the charter. The surveyors are said to 
 have been ignorant men; and Connecticut author- 
 ities call them lucus a non lucendo, " the mathe- 
 maticians." They began operations by finding 
 what seemed to them a point " three English miles 
 on the south part of the Charles River, or of any 
 or every part thereof : " thence the southern Mas- 
 sachusetts line was to run west to the Pacific 
 Ocean. The two mathematicians, however, either
 
 208 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 hesitating to undertake a foot journey to the Pa- 
 cific, or doubting the sympathy of casual Indians 
 with the advancement of science, and being suffi- 
 ciently learned to know that two points are enough 
 to determine the direction of a line, did not run 
 the line directly west. Instead, they took ship, 
 sailed around Cape Cod and up the Connecticut 
 River, and found what they asserted to be a point 
 in the same latitude as the first. In fact, they had 
 got some eight miles too far to the south, thus giv- 
 ing their employers far too much territory ; but 
 they had fulfilled their principal duty, which was 
 to show that Springfield was in Massachusetts. 
 An ex parte survey, and of such a nature, could 
 not of course be recognized by Connecticut. The 
 oblong indentation in Connecticut's northern boun- 
 dary is a remnant of the ignorance of Woodward 
 and Saffery ; for Massachusetts claimed a line run- 
 ning just north of Windsor, and Connecticut finally 
 reclaimed all but this oblong. She made ex parte 
 surveys of her own in 1695 and 1702, and then 
 both colonies appealed to the crown. This was 
 evidently a dangerous tribunal for both ; and in 
 1714 they agreed on a compromise line much as it 
 is at present. Connecticut received, in return for 
 her concessions, 107,000 acres of wild land in Mas- 
 sachusetts, which was sold for about $2,500 and 
 the proceeds given to Yale College. As surveys 
 became still more accurate, it was found that the 
 present towns of Enfield, Suflfield, and Woodstock,
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 209 
 
 which had fallen to Massachusetts by the agree- 
 ment of 1714, were really south of the line, so 
 that Massachusetts was governing territory outside 
 of her charter limits. In 1749 Connecticut ac- 
 cepted the petition of these towns to be restored 
 to her jurisdiction, and they have since been Con- 
 necticut towns. Massachusetts continued to claim 
 the towns, but did not attempt to enforce the 
 claim until 1804, when she finally abandoned it. 
 In 1822 and 1826, the line was run as it now is, 
 leaving the indentation to Massachusetts, perhaps 
 as a memorial to Woodward and Saffery. 
 
 " How the boundary on the east was ever fixed," 
 says Bowen, " seems a puzzle ; " and he cites, very 
 appropriately, Ruf us Choate's description of it in 
 one of its stages : " The commissioners might as 
 well have decided that the line between the States 
 was bounded on the north by a bramble bush, on 
 the south by a bluejay, on the west by a hive of 
 bees in swarming time, and on the east by five 
 hundred foxes with firebrands tied to their tails." 
 Connecticut claimed all the Narragansett country, 
 up to Narragansett Bay, by conquest from the 
 Pequots ; and Massachusetts, on the ground of her 
 essential assistance to Connecticut, claimed a divi- 
 sion of the spoils. Rhode Island was considered 
 an unchartered nonentity by both. In 1658 the 
 New England commissioners really gave judgment 
 against Connecticut, assigning the Mystic River as 
 the boundary between Massachusetts and Connec- 
 
 14
 
 210 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ticut, thus handing over the whole of Rhode Island 
 and the eastern part of the present State of Con- 
 necticut to the Bay colony. The present town- 
 ship of Stonington thus became a Massachusetts 
 town, and was called Southerton ; and the Ather- 
 ton Company, a Massachusetts association, whose 
 leader, Captain Atherton, had bought large tracts 
 of land in Rhode Island from the Indians, and 
 which had acknowledged the jurisdiction of Con- 
 necticut, now passed under that of Massachusetts. 
 The Connecticut charter in 1662, by carrying that 
 colony up to Narragansett Bay, instead of clearing 
 matters up, complicated them still further. Rhode 
 Island then had an agent in London, soliciting a 
 charter, which was granted in 1663 ; and it assigned 
 as the western boundary of that colony the Pawca- 
 tuck River from its mouth to its source, and thence 
 a due north line to the Massachusetts boundary. 
 To prevent a conflict, Winthrop had made an 
 agreement with the Rhode Island agent, which 
 was made a part of the Rhode Island charter, that 
 the Pawcatuck River should receive the additional 
 title of " alias Norrogansett or Narrogansett 
 River ; " and that, wherever the Connecticut char- 
 ter spoke of the Narragansett River, the Pawca- 
 tuck River should be taken and deemed to be the 
 one intended ! Connecticut at once repudiated 
 this action of Winthrop as ultra vires, erected a 
 town government at Wickford, and set the all- 
 penetrating power of the Connecticut constable to
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 211 
 
 work there. Then followed a period of great con- 
 fusion, Rhode Island arresting Connecticut town 
 officers, and vice versa, in the disputed territory, 
 and Connecticut preparing to make her claims 
 good by force, for the New England commission- 
 ers in 1664 had decided the dispute in her favor. 
 
 In the mean time, Randolph's royal commis- 
 sioners, whose history in New England was that of 
 a common and public nuisance, took the Narragan- 
 sett dispute under consideration in 1665, without 
 giving the parties any hearing or notice of it, and 
 decided it in their usual impartial fashion. They 
 decided that neither Connecticut nor Rhode Island 
 had the slightest claim to the territory in dispute ; 
 and they took it away from both, and erected it 
 into a separate territory, to be known as the King's 
 Province, belonging solely to his majesty. The 
 title of the Atherton Company to their land pur- 
 chases was decided in the same summary way : it 
 was adjudged null and void, and the settlers were 
 ordered to leave the King's Province. It adds to 
 the oddity of the decisions that no one seems to 
 have asked the commissioners to interfere. 
 
 The country in dispute was in reality almost a 
 wilderness, with very few settlers. Connecticut 
 therefore allowed the Randolph decision to go with 
 a protest, until it became obsolete as the royal 
 commissioners faded like an unhappy dream out 
 of New England's memory. From time to time 
 she appointed commissioners to meet those of
 
 212 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Rhode Island, though the meetings came to noth- 
 ing. Proclamations and arrests enlivened the lot 
 of the lonely dwellers in the Narragansett coun- 
 try; but settlement was retarded by the knowl- 
 edge that the settler had to buy into a lawsuit of 
 the most vexatious character. Rhode Island south- 
 west of Providence was thus practically unset- 
 tled except by Indians, when the events of King 
 Philip's war embittered the controversy by rein- 
 forcing the feeling of Connecticut men that the 
 Narragansett country rightfully belonged to them 
 by conquest as well as by charter. Their soldiers 
 had fought in the swamp fight at Kingston, where 
 the power of Philip was broken ; their patrolling 
 parties had afterwards scoured the country, and 
 swept it of Narragansetts ; and all the time Rhode 
 Island had looked idly on, and had never struck a 
 blow for the coveted territory, for her neighbors 
 or for herself. After renewed confusion, a new 
 set of royal commissioners, in 1633, decided every 
 point in the Narragansett controversy in favor of 
 Connecticut. The prospect for Rhode Island was 
 therefore dark. All of its present territory west 
 of Narragansett Bay and southwest of Providence 
 had been adjudged to Connecticut. All east of 
 the bay, if the grounds of this decision were to 
 hold good as a precedent, belonged to Plymouth. 
 And Massachusetts, to the north, was in waiting 
 with a variety of claims, and a general willingness 
 to act as residuary legatee of the late colony of
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 218 
 
 Rhode Island. It must have seemed certain that 
 the existence of the stout little colony was to be 
 limited to its first fifty years, and that its time had 
 come. But its salvation came from the inability 
 of its enemies to agree. The decision of the com- 
 missioners was not confirmed or considered by the 
 home government, owing to the troublous times 
 of James II. ; and Rhode Island was enabled to 
 deny its weight altogether. Then came Andros, 
 who took Rhode Island's view of the case, and put 
 her into possession of the disputed territory. She 
 held to it, in spite of intermittent attempts of Con- 
 necticut to exercise jurisdiction over it, and in 
 spite of a decision of the English attorney general 
 in 1696 in favor of Connecticut. Indeed, her per- 
 sistency, and the ugly possibility of an appeal to 
 England for a general decision, began to incline 
 Connecticut to a modification of her claims. Un- 
 der the charter of Rhode Island, her western boun- 
 dary was to be the Pawcatuck River to its head, 
 and thence due north to the Massachusetts line. 
 If the Pawcatuck River be followed up to its source, 
 as still given on Rhode Island maps, that point 
 will be found in a pond just east of where the 
 swamp fight took place, near Kingston, within a 
 half dozen miles of Narragansett Bay. A line due 
 north from this point would pass just west of 
 Providence, and would leave Rhode Island only a 
 narrow strip of territory on the west shore of the 
 bay. Connecticut, giving up her first claim to
 
 214 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 abut on the bay, now held to a literal interpreta- 
 tion of the Rhode Island charter ; and it is not 
 easy to see how her legal claim to the bulk of the 
 disputed soil could be gainsaid. Rhode Island, 
 however, was really fighting for her life ; and her 
 struggle was so persistent that Connecticut at last 
 abandoned her old claim. In 1703 commissioners 
 from both colonies agreed to follow the Pawcatuck 
 River up to a branch called the Ashaway, thence 
 a straight line to a point twenty miles due west of 
 the extremity of Warwick Neck in Narragansett 
 Bay, the northwest corner of the Atherton tract, 
 and thence due north to the Massachusetts line. 
 A subsequent attempt of Rhode Island to revive 
 her ancient claim to the Mystic River as her west- 
 ern boundary led Connecticut to renew her resist- 
 ance to the settlement of 1703 ; but the English 
 board of trade in 1723 reported in favor of the 
 moral claim of Rhode Island, and showed a disposi- 
 tion to make the dispute an excuse for uniting the 
 two colonies in a royal government. Connecticut 
 therefore joined in 1727-28 in running the line of 
 1703, which, slightly straightened in 1840, has 
 since remained the boundary. The legal grounds 
 of Connecticut's claim seem to have been good ; 
 but common justice to the different relations to 
 the territory in dispute, which was vital to Rhode 
 Island and only important to Connecticut, and 
 common justice also to the obstinate fight made 
 by the smaller colony, may fairly give reason for
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 215 
 
 satisfaction in the final settlement. But it should 
 not be forgotten that this was a case in which the 
 smaller colony, if sufficiently determined, as Rhode 
 Island evidently was, had a great advantage. She 
 was ready to risk everything on an appeal to Eng- 
 land ; for, if she lost this territory in default of an 
 appeal, she had little else to live for. In every 
 crisis of the controversy, therefore, Rhode Island 
 had a weapon in reserve to which Connecticut had 
 no shield, for the last thing she wished was to 
 come again under the general jurisdiction of an 
 English tribunal : she had too many larger inter- 
 ests, outside of the Narragansett country, which 
 such a tribunal would undoubtedly bring into 
 question, while Rhode Island had hardly anything 
 else to risk. This weapon, brought promptly and 
 resolutely into play by Rhode Island whenever it 
 was necessary, gave her a victory, to which she 
 was fairly entitled by circumstances, at any rate. 
 Two disputes as to the soil of the colony remain 
 to be stated. In 1635, just before the council of 
 Plymouth disbanded it undertook to divide up the 
 whole of New England into eight parcels, which it 
 distributed among its members. The only one 
 which gave any annoyance to Connecticut was that 
 of the Marquis of Hamilton, running from the 
 mouth of the Connecticut River to Narragansett 
 Bay, and extending sixty miles back into the coun- 
 try. Hamilton sent over an agent to examine his 
 grant; but, being a royalist, he was unable to
 
 216 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 make any serious effort to colonize during the com- 
 monwealth period. At the Restoration, his wife, 
 now Duchess of Hamilton, opposed the charter of 
 Connecticut ; and her claims were referred to the 
 royal commissioners for New England, who re- 
 ported against them in 1665, but in 1683 referred 
 a new claim to the king. The ground taken by 
 Connecticut was mainly that of limitation, that 
 the Hamilton family, having utterly neglected 
 to prosecute their claim to the territory for far 
 longer than twenty years, and until others had 
 settled and improved it, were debarred from en- 
 tering it now. On this ground, endorsed in 1696 
 by the law officers of the crown, the council of trade 
 finally decided in favor of Connecticut in 1697. 
 
 The other case, which kept the colony in trou- 
 ble for years and was finally extinguished by the 
 Revolution without any real decision, was the 
 claim of the Mohegan Indians. John Mason, one 
 of the founders of Windsor, afterwards settled 
 at Saybrook, was the military man of the colony. 
 The records generally refer to him as " the Ma- 
 jor." After the Pequot war, he and his family 
 seem to have had an hereditary friendship for the 
 Mohegans, which was a burden to the white par- 
 ties to it. The Mohegans seem to have made 
 treaties of land cession with prodigal generosity 
 when drunk, and to have lied about them circum- 
 stantially when sober. In 1640 they ceded their 
 lands to Connecticut by an instrument which gave
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 217 
 
 that colony power to establish plantations where 
 it would, reserving certain lands to the Indians, 
 and agreed to prevent other whites from settling 
 in their territory without the consent of the Con- 
 necticut magistrates. The territory covered New 
 London county and part of Windham ; and it 
 would be difficult to frame a more complete trans- 
 fer than that made by the Indians. Mason settled 
 at Norwich, in the Mohegan country, in 1659. 
 
 Two different stories were told by the Indians 
 about the deed of 1640. One was that it was 
 given to Ma^pn by Uncas when the latter was at 
 war with the Narragansetts ; and that it was only 
 to be used by Mason if Uncas were conquered, as 
 he was not. This story was varied from time to 
 time by another, quite inconsistent with the first, 
 but less severe upon their friend Mason. It was 
 that the deed of 1640 was understood by them 
 as a mere trusteeship in Mason, as a man who 
 understood the English people and English law, 
 and could maintain the rights of the Indians. 
 Mason's name is not even mentioned in the deed. 
 Nevertheless Mason seems to have accepted this 
 version. 
 
 In 1671, the year before his death, acting as if 
 the deed of 1640 had been made to him as trustee 
 instead of to the colony of Connecticut specifically, 
 Mason deeded back a large tract to them, entailing 
 it upon them and making it inalienable. In 1680, 
 again, Uncas obtained from Connecticut a confix-
 
 218 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mation of his remaining lands, expressly resigning 
 all jurisdiction over all of them. Within a year 
 or two he died ; his tribe was split into fragments ; 
 it was impossible to trace any legitimacy of blood ; 
 and the Indian claims fell into confusion worse 
 confounded. The grandson of Mason, and the 
 son of Mr. Fitch, the minister of Norwich, who 
 were fast friends of the Indians, made their cause 
 their own, and in 1705 they brought it to trial be- 
 fore a royal commission, headed by Governor Dud- 
 ley of Massachusetts, and composed of his party. 
 The trial was a curious one. If there was any 
 cause of action for the plaintiffs, it was impossible 
 to find it; the judges were determined to make 
 the case a point of attack on the charter of Con- 
 necticut ; and the defendant protested and refused 
 to appear, on the ground that the commission had 
 no powers to adjudicate the colony's title to exist- 
 ence. The commission decided against Connec- 
 ticut, and the colony appealed to the crown. From 
 that time the case dragged along until the Revo- 
 lution, decided again and again in favor of the 
 colony, and appealed by the Mason family, whose 
 personal interests had become interwoven with 
 the Mohegan claims. After the Revolution, the 
 Indians, content with the State's reservation, made 
 no further movement to reopen the case. 
 
 The commonwealth, its legal existence having 
 been maintained and secured and its boundaries 
 established, had a quiet and generally uneventful
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 219 
 
 history so long as peaceful relations with the 
 mother country were kept up. Buttressed on all 
 sides by other colonies, as in King Philip's war, it 
 suffered little from the colonial wars except in 
 men. But its immunity from immediate danger 
 had no effect in checking its readiness to make 
 common cause with the other colonies. Soldiers 
 were provided freely by the colony, and did their 
 part manfully. But the brief story of Connec- 
 ticut's colonial wars will fall better under the 
 financial history with which they are closely con- 
 nected.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 1636-1791. 
 
 IT was probably inevitable, under the circum- 
 stances of time and place, that the first effort to 
 establish a democratic commonwealth should be 
 complicated with an ecclesiastical system entirely 
 foreign to its real nature. Religious homogeneity 
 almost compelled it. To the first settlers in Con- 
 necticut, though not for the same reason as in 
 New Haven, civil and ecclesiastical affairs were 
 convertible terms. The township and the church 
 were coterminous : the town, by which term, as 
 distinguished from the territorial township, was 
 meant the body of voters within the township, 
 settled civil and ecclesiastical affairs indifferently 
 in the same town meeting; and as about all the 
 voters were at first church - members and agreed 
 closely in creed and methods, the dual system 
 produced little friction for a time. It was inevi- 
 table that lapse of time should disturb the origi- 
 nal homogeneity and bring trouble. The effort in 
 New Haven to put off the evil day by the practi- 
 cal absorption of the state in the church led to the 
 downfall of the commonwealth. The long contin-
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 221 
 
 ued efforts in Connecticut to reconcile church and 
 state under a free town system gave rise to diffi- 
 culties whose history might fill volumes, and task 
 the learning of an expert in church history. Ma- 
 ther, no mean expert, said of one of the opening 
 struggles that its origin was as obscure as that of 
 the Connecticut River. The attempt of a mere 
 layman to penetrate such a labyrinth must neces- 
 sarily be hazardous ; and we are to venture in 
 no further than relation is found to the peculiar 
 development of the commonwealth. 
 
 It will easily be seen that a reconciliation be- 
 tween churches which acknowledged no earthly 
 master, and a commonwealth legislature whose 
 final authority was to be supreme, was a work of 
 no little difficulty. The long and comparatively 
 successful maintenance of the concordat in Con- 
 necticut seems to have been due to the character 
 of Hooker and the impress which he left on the 
 ecclesiastical traditions of the colony. He and 
 Davenport were fair types of the methods of the 
 two colonies. Both were masterful men, even for 
 that time. Davenport applied his force directly, 
 and failed. Hooker relied on influence, and suc- 
 ceeded. Most of Hooker's successors, in spite of 
 an occasional slip into direct aggression, followed 
 his methods with like success. With no official 
 voice in legislation, and no direct appeal even to 
 their arbitration, there was hardly an important 
 piece of legislation which was not tested by their
 
 222 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 approval or disapproval ; and it is to their honor 
 that they were content with the substance of 
 power, based on the confidence of their people. 
 Only this mutual confidence made the concordat 
 possible. Many an act of the general assembly, 
 which seems an interference with the liberty of 
 the churches, was based in reality on the tacit 
 approval of the ecclesiastical element of the col- 
 ony. They were the voice of the ecclesiastical, 
 speaking through the civil power. 
 
 At the beginning, the Connecticut and New 
 Haven churches alike were Congregational and 
 Calvinistic. Each church claimed complete con- 
 trol of its own affairs. In cases of doubt or dis- 
 pute, it would submit to the decision of a council 
 of neighbor or allied churches ; but the selection 
 of the churches which were to form the council 
 was always a matter for mutual agreement, or 
 fresh disputes, between the two parties. The 
 church knew no superior. It was begun by a 
 common agreement in articles of faith by those 
 who proposed to become members. The ceremony 
 of the selection of the " seven pillars," already 
 described, was peculiar to the churches of New 
 Haven, Milford, and Guilford, and seems to have 
 been in their cases an expedient of the leaders for 
 the establishment of their politico-ecclesiastical 
 system. A well-organized Connecticut church 
 was at first supposed to have two ministers. One 
 was the pastor, whose duties were mainly the ex-
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 223 
 
 hortation, encouragement, and pastoral care of the 
 members ; the other was the teacher, whose work 
 was the doctrinal defense of the church and the 
 instruction of its people. The ruling elder was 
 the executive officer of the church ; but its success 
 depended largely on the cooperation of the ruling 
 elder with the pastor. The functions of the dea- 
 cons were those which have always been familiar 
 in those officers. Back of all of them was the 
 vote of the church, a Calvinistic democracy, un- 
 defined in its powers, and ready, on occasion, to 
 claim the full powers of an ecumenical council. 
 When the union had been completed, there were 
 fifteen of these churches in the colony : the Long 
 Island churches, organized in the same way, had 
 passed under the dominion of New York. 
 
 The first churches were mostly small. Those 
 of Hartford and New Haven were of course the 
 largest. The church of Wethersfield, when it 
 split and the defeated party removed to Stamford, 
 numbered but seven communicants, the orthodox 
 majority numbering four and the heterodox mi- 
 nority three. Pierson's church at Southampton, 
 on Long Island, numbered but sixteen. This 
 paucity of numbers, however, was due to the 
 promptness of the first settlers in organizing their 
 churches. The church really began with the set- 
 tlement. The first item in the Norwalk town 
 records provides for the restraint of wandering 
 swine ; the second, for the erection of a minister's 
 house ; the third, for a pound.
 
 224 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The first great church dispute, which rent the 
 Hartford church from 1654 until 1659, has been 
 so complicated with the names of the actors and 
 With doctrinal points, that one who is not a pro- 
 found theologian can hardly make anything of it. 
 There are indications, however, that an explana- 
 tion may be found in the effort to accommodate 
 the original church and state system to the chang- 
 ing conditions of the people, and that the actors, 
 however prominent, were merely floating on the 
 surface of opposing currents whose nature even 
 they did not understand quite clearly. Three 
 points are of interest : the church establishment ; 
 the connection of church and state, or rather 
 town ; and the change in the people, with its ef- 
 fects. 
 
 The first code of Connecticut, in 1650, required 
 that all persons should be taxed for church as well 
 as for state ; and the taxes for support of the min- 
 ister, and for other ecclesiastical purposes, were to 
 be levied and collected like other taxes. So long 
 as a trace of the establishment lasted, even down 
 to the adoption of the constitution of 1818, the 
 connection with the civil power continued. The 
 church society used the civil tax lists in levying its 
 rates ; the conditions of suffrage in society meet- 
 ings were the same as in civil town meetings ; and 
 the penalties for voting by unqualified persons 
 were the same. The civil power collected the 
 taxes for the church by distraint. If the church
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 225 
 
 refused or neglected to support its minister, the 
 general assembly settled the proper rate of main- 
 tenance and enforced it on the church ; and if a 
 church remained without a minister for more than 
 a year, the general assembly could name a proper 
 amount for ministerial purposes, and compel the 
 church to raise and expend it. The principle of 
 such connection was the ecclesiastical system of 
 the commonwealth from 1639 down to 1818 ; and 
 the successive " enfranchisements " of other sects 
 were simply permissions to them to use the secular 
 arm according to what had been at first the special 
 privilege of the establishment. 
 
 Considering the churches recognized in 1650 
 as established, the commonwealth forbade any 
 persons to form a new church within the colony 
 without consent of the general court and of the 
 neighboring churches. The man, therefore, who, 
 not being a member of one of the established 
 churches, found himself within the territory of 
 a church, was unable to vote in purely church 
 matters ; but he was compelled to vote taxes and 
 pay taxes for the support of a minister in whose 
 call he had had no voice. From their estab- 
 lishment, the churches had been strict in regard 
 to baptism, and their inquisitions into the per- 
 sonal experience of candidates for membership 
 were searching. As the numbers increased of 
 those who could not respond to such inquisitions 
 and were thus barred from the church, dissatis- 
 
 15
 
 226 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 faction must have increased with them. It often 
 took the shape of complaints that the children of 
 such persons were refused baptism ; but it may 
 be suspected fairly that the natural wish to share 
 in the control of the church whose expenses they 
 helped to pay had a great deal to do with it. 
 Either the right of suffrage must be restricted to 
 church -members, or all the voters must be let 
 into the church. In New Haven, church-member- 
 ship had swallowed democracy ; in Connecticut, 
 was democracy to swallow church-membership? 
 
 The Cambridge platform, adopted by a council 
 of the New England churches held at Cambridge, 
 Mass., in 1648, was intended to be the model for 
 the church system of New England, and it governed 
 the Connecticut churches for sixty years. Its im- 
 portance was more in its recognition of church in- 
 dependence than in any formulation of a creed. 
 But, in spite of its recognition of church indepen- 
 dence, there was in it the seed of state interference, 
 BO far at least as Connecticut churches were con- 
 cerned, for it insisted " that the magistrate is to 
 see that the ministry be duly provided for." In 
 Connecticut the magistrate was really the town ; 
 and the town's democracy would hardly be willing 
 to support the church without at least trying to 
 control it. The attempt was soon made by the 
 general court, as the mouthpiece of all the towns, 
 in the course of its efforts to settle the Hartford 
 difficulty.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 227 
 
 In February, 1657, the general court called for 
 a council of the New England churches at Boston, 
 to consider certain propositions of the general 
 court. The object of these propositions was well 
 understood to be the widening of church-member- 
 ship. The New Haven churches rejected the sugges- 
 tion of such a council, and the purely independent 
 element in Connecticut sympathized with them, 
 for the decision of such a council looked straight 
 to state interference as a means of enforcing it. 
 Nevertheless the council met, and sustained the 
 new rather than the old view. It declared that 
 baptized infants were bound, on arriving at years 
 of discretion, to " own the covenant " and become 
 formal church-members ; and that the church was 
 bound to accept them, if they were not of scandal- 
 ous life and understood the grounds of religion, 
 and was bound to baptize their children, thus con- 
 tinuing the chain of claims to church-membership 
 to all generations. This made church-membership 
 rather an affair of the head and of morals ; and it 
 was deeply execrated by the New Haven churches, 
 and by at least a strong minority of the Connecti- 
 cut churches, for it really gave every baptized per- 
 son a voice in church government. It was com- 
 monly known as the Half-way Covenant. 
 
 In 1664 the general court formally approved the 
 council's decision, and " commended "it to the 
 churches under its jurisdiction, which now covered 
 New Haven. So far as it ventured to do so, the
 
 228 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 general court thus made the Half-way Covenant, 
 with its loose system of admission to the church, 
 the ecclesiastical law of the commonwealth. But 
 it was from the first a political rather than an 
 ecclesiastical idea; it never was welcome to the 
 Connecticut churches, and some of them never 
 accepted it. 
 
 To return now to the Hartford difficulty, which 
 had been woven into every step of the progress 
 toward the Half-way Covenant. Its nominal be- 
 ginning was after the death of Hooker in 1647. 
 Goodwin, the ruling elder, wanted Michael Wig- 
 glesworth as Hooker's successor ; and Stone, the 
 surviving minister, refused to allow the proposition 
 to be put to vote. The Goodwin party, twenty- 
 one in number, including Deputy Governor Web- 
 ster, withdrew from the church ; the Stone party 
 undertook to discipline them ; a council of Con- 
 necticut and New Haven churches failed to recon- 
 cile the parties ; the general court kindly assumed 
 the office of mediator, and succeeded in making both 
 parties furious ; and finally a council at Boston in 
 1659 induced the Goodwin minority, now some 
 sixty in number, to remove to Hadley, Mass. 
 
 A larger struggle followed Stone's death in 1663. 
 There were now two young men, Whiting and 
 Haynes, in the places of Hooker and Stone ; and 
 the new incumbents, in addition to their opposi- 
 tion to one another, seem to have been about 
 equally tactless. Haynee headed the Half-way
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 229 
 
 Covenant party. He was supported by the church, 
 and the ratification of this form of church disci- 
 pline by the general court in 1664 strengthened his 
 position. Whiting, with those who still held to 
 the primitive doctrine of the necessity of individual 
 experience and strict investigation of it before ad- 
 mission to the church, was compelled to remain in 
 a church which must have seemed to him and his 
 party almost a heterodox body. Five years of this 
 sort of life was necessary to convince both parties 
 of the necessity of a compromise. 
 
 In May, 1669, the general court advised that all 
 persons approved in law and sound in the funda- 
 mentals of the Christian religion should "have 
 allowance of their persuasion and profession in 
 church ways ; " that is, that they should have lib- 
 erty to constitute another church within the town 
 limits. This innovation had evidently become in- 
 evitable. In October, Mr. Whiting appeared be- 
 fore the court, applied for permission to form a 
 new church, and received it. The Second Church 
 of Hartford was thus formed the next year by Mr. 
 Whiting and thirty-one families ; and the first 
 breach in the original identity of town and church 
 was accomplished. Further, as the members of 
 the new church necessarily received the privilege 
 of diverting their share of the taxes to the support 
 of their own church, the principle of this more 
 democratic precedent guided the slow emancipa- 
 tion of all the other sects down to 1818. But it
 
 230 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 is not a little odd to find that the new church, 
 founded as a protest against the Half-way Cove- 
 nant, adopted that practice from its very first 
 meeting. 
 
 However unwillingly the churches might accept 
 the Half-way Covenant, it could not but affect 
 their church -membership very seriously. The 
 number of " strict Congregationalists " steadily de- 
 creased, while the number of " large Congregation- 
 alists," leaning to Presbyterianism, was as steadily 
 increasing. " A church without a bishop, and a 
 state without a king," was still the theory ; but 
 the state had now a regulator in the shape of a 
 supreme legislature, and this was enough to bring 
 about a desire for a similar regulator for the 
 church. The general court evidently leaned to- 
 ward a council of the churches, much after the 
 fashion of a Presbyterian synod, as a fly-wheel 
 to keep the churches in harmony on points of fun- 
 damental importance, while allowing disagreement 
 on minor points. The ministers had been in the 
 habit of holding neighborhood meetings, and, after 
 the union, county meetings ; but these were volun- 
 tary, and their proceedings were limited to the 
 special objects for which they had been called. 
 This, however, was a germ for an establishment ; 
 and the absolute power of individual churches to 
 decide upon the qualifications of candidates for the 
 ministry, and certain scandals resulting therefrom, 
 furnished the occasion.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 231 
 
 In 1708 the general court directed that the 
 churches of each county should send their minis- 
 ters and " messengers," or-lay representatives, to 
 meet at their county town ; that the county assem- 
 blies should settle upon what they considered the 
 best system of church order ; and that delegates 
 from the county assemblies should meet at Say- 
 brook, at the coming Commencement, to draw up 
 for the general court's adoption a commonwealth 
 church system. 
 
 The synod met in September, adopted the Savoy 
 Confession as modified by the Boston synod of 
 1680, and formed the Saybrook platform as an 
 ecclesiastical system for the commonwealth. It 
 directed that " consociations " of neighboring 
 churches should be formed in each county ; that 
 a church, or an excommunicate person with the 
 consent of the church, should have the right to 
 bring disputes before the consociation ; that a 
 pastor or church refusing to be bound by the de- 
 cision of the consociation should be put out of 
 communion ; and that there should be an annual 
 meeting of delegates from all the consociations. 
 The scheme was at once ratified by the general 
 court, and the churches united by it were " owned 
 and acknowledged established by law ; " but per- 
 mission was reserved to any church to " soberly 
 differ or dissent from the united churches hereby 
 established." This was about the measure of 
 rights given to dissenters in England by the act
 
 232 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 of 1689, under William and Mary. The dissent- 
 ing churches were to be taxed for the support of 
 the established churches. The establishment was 
 a modified Presbyterianism. There was no formal 
 coercive power ; but the public provision for the 
 minister's support, and the withdrawal of it from 
 recalcitrant members, formed a coercive power of 
 no mean efficacy. With its adoption, the Congre- 
 gational churches of Connecticut passed into their 
 semi- Presbyterian stage of existence; indeed, to- 
 ward the end of the century, President Dwight 
 uses the terms " Congregational " and " Presby- 
 terian" as about convertible. 
 
 The Saybrook platform brought order at once 
 into the Connecticut system ; but worse than dis- 
 order came with it. The tendency of such an or- 
 derly system to a barren intellectualism, difficult 
 enough to resist at the best, became far stronger 
 when the church was dependent on the state for 
 material support. Within thirty years, the worst 
 symptoms of a purely state religion began to show 
 themselves, and it required all the vitality of the 
 churches, and a tremendous internal convulsion, 
 to banish them. The great revival of 1741, be- 
 ginning in the church of Jonathan Edwards at 
 Northampton, Mass., and intensified by the preach- 
 ing of Whitefield, Gilbert Tennant, and others, 
 struck the first blow at the hitherto secure position 
 of the Saybrook platform. Wandering revivalists 
 disturbed many of the ministers, and their com-
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 233 
 
 plaints found a sympathetic audience in the gen- 
 eral court. That body passed an act in 1742 
 which protected the churches rather more than 
 the Say brook platform had given any reason for 
 anticipating. It forbade under penalties the en- 
 trance of an ordained minister into the parish of 
 another minister to preach there without the invi- 
 tation of the settled minister and his church ; it 
 increased the penalty in the case of an unlicensed 
 person ; and it ordered any foreigner or stranger, 
 licensed or unlicensed, who should preach in vio- 
 lation of the act, to be sent as a vagrant from 
 " constable to constable " out of the colony. 
 
 The Connecticut churches had changed very 
 much since the time of Hooker, but not enough 
 to make it likely that such legislation as this 
 would pass unchallenged. Churches all over the 
 colony became divided within themselves ; the 
 " new lights," as the maintainers of freedom for 
 the new methods were called, were hurried by zeal 
 into the most fantastic doctrines and practices ; 
 and the colonial ecclesiastical system was again 
 all at sea. One church chose a minister, ordained 
 him, quarreled with him, silenced him, cast him 
 out of the church, and delivered him up to Satan, 
 and all within the space of a year. The extrav- 
 agance of the new lights afforded the " old lights " 
 a fair opportunity of proceeding to extremes with 
 a good grace. General court and assembly joined 
 in arresting, excommunicating, and prosecuting
 
 234 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ministers who violated the act and church-mem- 
 bers who went to hear them. When Whitefield 
 made a second tour through the colony in 1745, 
 the general court even denounced him by resolu- 
 tion as a promoter of errors and disorders, and 
 cautioned the ministers not to admit him to their 
 pulpits, and church-members not to listen to him. 
 Before 1748, the different consociations had ex- 
 pelled about all the "new lights" among their 
 ministers, one of the consociations remarking com- 
 placently in one case that it had now blown out 
 one new light, and that it meant to keep on until 
 it had blown out all the rest. 
 
 Meanwhile separations among the churches had 
 gone on apace. When a minister was disbarred 
 by any of the consociations, that portion of his 
 flock which agreed or sympathized with him left 
 their church with him, and organized a church of 
 their own. When a schism arose in a church from 
 any cause, it was not long before it ran into some 
 phase of the old and new light controversy, and a 
 separation took place. There were thus a number 
 of separate churches in the colony, and their posi- 
 tion was peculiar. From its foundation, the law 
 of the colony had been that any man who should 
 refuse to contribute according to his ability to the 
 support of the settled ministers should be com- 
 pelled to do so by levy and distraint, as in the case 
 of other taxes. At the same time, provision was 
 made, and in 1669 and 1708, as has been said, was
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 235 
 
 enacted into statute, that members of unestab- 
 lished churches might " have allowance of their 
 persuasion and profession in church ways or assem- 
 blies without disturbance." This, however, was 
 intended to secure quiet to licensed dissenting 
 churches, and to enable members of new Con- 
 gregational churches, when licensed by the gen- 
 eral court, to transfer their share of the taxes to 
 their own ministers. Unlicensed Congregational 
 churches were worse off than either, for they were 
 taxed for the support of the Established churches, 
 and were open to prosecution besides. 
 
 This arrangement had worked very fairly for 
 some sixty years. When a separation took place, 
 as in Hartford, it was ratified by the general 
 court, and the members of the new church paid 
 their rates only for the support of their own min- 
 ister. No one was legally a minister unless rec- 
 ognized by the general court, and then he was en- 
 titled to a measure of state support. About 1706 
 the ecclesiastical calm had been interrupted by 
 the Church of England. One of its missionaries 
 began to preach in Stratford, and in 1722 another 
 was permanently settled there. It was but natu- 
 ral that the members of this church should object 
 to supporting their own minister and paying rates 
 for the Congregational minister as well ; and they 
 had a strong disposition to appeal from the laws 
 of Connecticut to those of Great Britain, which 
 was the last thing the colony wanted. It is a
 
 236 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 tradition that the establishment of the Episcopal 
 Church in New Haven was secured by an offer to 
 pay the fines for dissidence, coupled with a de- 
 mand for a copy of the proceedings for transmis- 
 sion to the home government. In 1727 the gen- 
 eral court passed an act which cut the tie that 
 had so long bound town and church together. 
 Hitherto there had been but one church in a 
 town, unless the general court permitted a sepa- 
 ration. Now any society of the Church of Eng- 
 land might be formed in a town; its members 
 were thereupon excused from paying rates to the 
 settled or Congregational minister ; their obliga- 
 tion to pay taxes was transferred to their own 
 minister ; and the old church was to be known as 
 the " prime ancient society." The latter, however, 
 still retained the taxing power over all persons 
 not members of any church. In 1729 the act of 
 1727 was extended to cover the case of Quakers 
 and Baptists. 
 
 The new churches formed by the new-light 
 schism claimed to be Congregational: the tyran- 
 nical legislation of 1742 had taken them out of 
 the scope of the act of 1669, and their members 
 were still held bound for taxes to support the very 
 ministers from whom they had seceded. Some 
 congregations became nominal Baptists in order 
 to get the benefit of the act of 1729. Others 
 simply refused to pay, and the settled ministers 
 put every engine of the law in motion against
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 237 
 
 them. Their property was levied upon and sold 
 for a small fraction of its real value ; in default 
 of satisfaction by property, they were arrested 
 and taken to jail, with the scandalous accompani- 
 ment of the scenes naturally arising from a vio- 
 lent resistance ; and a faint flavor of the Inquisi- 
 tion began to pervade the ecclesiastical system of 
 the colony. When the cause of the new lights 
 took this form, the end was not far distant. One 
 church after another, on the occasion of almost 
 any dispute with its minister, took the opportu- 
 nity to repudiate the Saybrook platform, and to 
 reassert the primitive freedom of the churches ; 
 the number of malcontents was steadily increas- 
 ing; and about 1780 the general court gave up 
 the struggle and the Saybrook platform together. 
 In 1791 it practically granted the right of free in- 
 corporation to all religious bodies ; but persons 
 unconnected with any church were still required 
 to pay rates to the established Congregational or- 
 ganization until the constitution of 1818 made all 
 such contributions voluntary. 
 
 In spite of the act of 1727, other sects than the 
 Congregational were really exotics. It was not 
 until 1789 that the first Methodist society was 
 founded at Stratford, where the Episcopalians had 
 begun their organization. The Baptists and other 
 sects had existed in small numbers ; but all the 
 sects were weak, and membership in them was to 
 some extent a removal from the sympathies of the
 
 238 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mass of the people. To the Episcopalians, whose 
 church had lorded it at home as the Congrega- 
 tional church now lorded it in Connecticut, this 
 state of affairs must have been particularly exas- 
 perating. Their feeling of isolation was increased 
 v by the difficulty which they experienced in obtain- 
 hing a bishop. It was not until 1784 that Bishop 
 Seabury was consecrated by the Scottish bishops, 
 having failed of ordination at the hands of the 
 English bishops, on account of the necessity that 
 the candidate should take the oath of allegiance 
 to the crown. 
 
 For one reason or other, every dissenting sect 
 in Connecticut had its own grievances, and felt 
 itself to be more or less an alien to the common- 
 wealth. This worst political feature of any ec- 
 clesiastical restriction showed itself again and 
 again in local politics before the Revolution, still 
 more during the Revolution in the development 
 of the Tory party in the State ; and it was the ba- 
 sis of almost all party opposition after the Revo- 
 lution, until, coalescing with the rising tide of de- 
 mocracy, it overthrew the charter itself in 1818. 
 
 The establishment of Yale College, as it was 
 an essential part of the colony's ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem, may best find a place here. The Connecti- 
 cut general court, in establishing a free-school sys- 
 tem in 1644, had done so on the express ground 
 that it was " one chief project of that old deluder, 
 Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 239 
 
 Scriptures ; " and the selectmen of the towns 
 were cautioned, as a fundamental part of educa- 
 tion, to see to it that parents and masters gave 
 children weekly instruction in " some short ortho- 
 dox catechism." A college was evidently needed 
 as the capstone to the system ; and New Haven, 
 under the impulse of Davenport, began thinking 
 of such an institution in 1641. It was allowed to 
 slumber because of the protest of the leading men 
 of the Bay : they urged that all the resources of 
 all New England were barely enough to support 
 Harvard, and that an attempt to establish a new 
 institution would merely ruin both. In 1652 the 
 project was formally given up for the time, but 
 the New Haven authorities had been directed, 
 five years before, to reserve one of the home lots 
 for the college. 
 
 When the time seemed to have come, in 1698, 
 for reviving the project, the general synod of the 
 colony took the work in hand, intending to call 
 the new college " The School of the Church." 
 During the following year, the notion of church 
 control was given up; but ten ministers were 
 named as trustees. Their first meeting probably 
 took place in the year 1700 ; and it was later in 
 the same year that the famous meeting took place 
 at Branford, when each minister laid upon the 
 trustees' table his contribution of books, saying, 
 " I give these books for the founding of a college 
 in this colony." The whole number was about
 
 240 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 forty volumes : so small was the germ from which 
 has sprung one of the great institutions of learn- 
 ing of the United States. 
 
 In October, 1701, the general court chartered 
 the college, in order to enable it to hold lands and 
 receive gifts and bequests ; and an annual grant 
 amounting to about .60 sterling was voted to aid 
 in its support. The trustees fixed upon Saybrook 
 \as the place for the college, and Abraham Pierson. 
 as its first rector. But Mr. Pierson was settled 
 / as minister at Killingworth, and his people would 
 not consent to his removal. Until his death, the 
 library and students remained at Killingworth ; 
 but the Commencements took place at Saybrook. 
 The first of them was on the 13th of September, 
 1702, when Nathanael Chauncey, the first grad- 
 uate, took his degree. Degrees, apparently hon- 
 orary, were given at the same time to four others 
 who had already been graduated at Harvard. It 
 is a pleasing circumstance to record that a large 
 part of the instruction of the early classes had 
 been given by the trustees, in default of other in- 
 structors. 
 
 Mr. Pierson died in 1707, and Mr. Andrew was 
 chosen in his place. Part of the students went to 
 his residence at Milford, and the rest to Saybrook ; 
 and the college was thus divided until 1716. 
 When the trustees met at the Commencement of 
 1716, they found the college almost broken up. 
 Divided instruction and government, aided by the
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 241 
 
 eager struggles of other towns to obtain the final 
 location of the college, and crowned by an out- 
 break of smallpox, had scattered the students in 
 every direction, and there were the germs of half 
 a dozen possible colleges. In October the trus- 
 tees voted to fix the college at New Haven, and 
 persisted in spite of an opposition which divided 
 the whole colony and was carried into colonial 
 politics. In 1717 the general court endorsed the 
 removal, and voted a grant to aid in the erection 
 of buildings. All through these years, good friends 
 in England had been sending over books, the 
 foundation of the noble library which is now so 
 great an ornament to the college. One of these 
 benefactors was Elihu Yale, a man of New Haven 
 ancestry, who had gone into the East India trade 
 and become a " nabob." He had shown a strong 
 interest in the college ; and it would probably be 
 doing the excellent trustees no injustice if one 
 presumes them to have thought that his interest 
 would be increased if the institution were removed 
 to New Haven and named after him. At any 
 rate, the first Commencement held at New Haven, 
 in 1718, was marked by the adoption of the title 
 YALE COLLEGE, with a dedicatory memorial to 
 Mr. Yale. Yale started in the race long after 
 her rival at Cambridge ; and it is interesting to 
 speculate on the results of the equality which she 
 would have attained at the beginning, if Mr. Yale 
 had been able to carry out the generous intentions 
 
 16
 
 242 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 which he certainly felt for the college which bore 
 his name. Unfortunately, he died intestate before 
 he could do what he meant to do ; and the college 
 received no more aid from him. Never was human 
 distinction so cheaply purchased as that which has 
 perpetuated the otherwise almost unknown names 
 of John Harvard and Elihu Yale. 
 
 If a college were a living thing, one might fancy 
 \Yale drawing a long breath of satisfaction as it 
 dtruck its roots deep into its new soil. It had 
 found its proper place : New Haven would not be 
 New Haven without the college, nor would Yale 
 be quite Yale without New Haven. But its 
 troubles were by no means over. The dissatisfac- 
 tion at the removal would not down : there was 
 an irregular Commencement in progress at Weth- 
 ersfield while the college was receiving its new 
 name ; and an attempt by the sheriff to remove 
 the library from Saybrook led to a riot, in which 
 many of the books were lost. These difficulties 
 were healed by the prudence of the general court, 
 and Timothy Cutler, of Stratford, was chosen rec- 
 tor in Mr. Andrew's place. He proved to be a 
 most efficient and popular head ; but in 1722 the 
 good people of the colony were astounded to learn 
 that the new rector, one of the tutors, and two 
 neighboring ministers, had embraced Episcopacy, 
 and were going to England to be ordained. They 
 carried out their intention, and became the fathers 
 of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. But they
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 243 
 
 left the college in distress ; and it was not until 
 1725 that a successor to Mr. Cutler was found, in 
 the person of Rev. Elisha Williams. Under his 
 rectorship Yale at last began to prosper. Berke- 
 ley, subsequently Bishop of Cloyne, made his visit 
 to America, and recognized Yale's claims to a 
 leading educational place by gifts which were, for 
 the time, very munificent ; and Mr. Williams at 
 his resignation in 1739 left the college firmly es- 
 tablished. 
 
 His successor, Rev. Thomas Clap, of Windham, 
 was the first in the long line of distinctively Yale 
 presidents. His predecessors had been Connecti- 
 cut ministers, set for a time over a special work. 
 He sank everything else in his presidency. He 
 introduced the modern systems of cataloguing the 
 library ; he formulated the laws and customs of 
 the college ; and in 1745 he obtained a new char- 
 ter for " The President and Fellows of Yale Col- 
 lege." The day of the " collegiate school " had 
 gone by, and the real Yale College had fairly be- 
 gun its career. In 1750-52 the general court 
 aided in erecting Connecticut Hall, and allowed 
 President Clap to hold a lottery to complete the 
 work. In 1755, when disputes connected in one 
 way or other with the new-light controversy were 
 distracting the Connecticut churches, President 
 Clap showed his executive ability and promptness 
 by establishing Yale as a separate church, thus 
 removing it from the scene of active strife ; and
 
 244 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 further, in order to avoid any conflict over the 
 matter, he very shrewdly refused to ask the gen- 
 eral court for permission, claiming the right, as an 
 incorporated college, to do so. The opposition to 
 the college seized this opportunity to attack it 
 before the general court, on the ground that it was 
 " too independent ; " but President Clap appeared 
 as its attorney, and defended it successfully. He 
 seems to have been one of those college presidents 
 who, endowed by nature with abilities sufficient 
 for eminence in any department, have devoted 
 them all to the development of the college. 
 
 The college preacher who had been called in 
 1755, Rev. Naphtali Daggett, retained his posi- 
 tion until his death in 1780, having acted as pres- 
 ident for a time on the death of Mr. Clap in 1767. 
 During his professorship in 1779, the British made 
 their attack on New Haven. Among the hasty 
 levies which went out to oppose them was the 
 stout old college preacher, armed with his shot- 
 gun. When the others took to their heels, he 
 stood his ground, loading and firing in the most 
 unministerial fashion. A British detachment 
 charged him and captured him ; and the officer in 
 command inquired, not very gently, " What are 
 you doing here, you old fool, firing on his majes- 
 ty's troops ? " " Exercising the rights of war," 
 said the doctor, grimly. He was to be exercised 
 in the rights of war in a different way. In his 
 own words, " They damned me, those who took
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 245 
 
 me, because they spared my life. Thus, 'midst a 
 thousand insults, my infernal driver hastened me 
 along farther than my strength would admit in 
 the extreme heat of the day, weakened as I was 
 by my wounds and the loss of blood, which, at a 
 moderate computation, could not be less than a 
 quart. And when I failed in some degree through 
 faintness, he would strike me on the back with a 
 heavy walking-staff, and kick me behind with his 
 foot. At length, by the supporting power of God, 
 I arrived at the green in New Haven. ... I ob- 
 tained leave of an officer to be carried into the 
 Widow Lyman's and laid on a bed, where I lay 
 the rest of the day and the succeeding night, in 
 such acute and excruciating pain as I never felt 
 before." 
 
 President Ezra Stiles, called in 1777, was a 
 worthy successor to President Clap. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Timothy D wight in 1795, by Jeremiah 
 Day in 1817, by Theodore D. Woolsey in 1846, 
 by Noah Porter in 1871, and by Timothy Dwight 
 in 1886. Modern Yale began under President 
 Dwight, in 1795. Able as preceding presidents 
 had been, he was the first who reached a really 
 national reputation. At the same time the rising 
 opposition to Yale control in the State reacted by 
 intensifying its support, so that it was for the 
 time the ruling power. John Wood, in 1802, thus 
 describes the political structure of Connecticut, 
 from, a democratic standpoint : " This State has
 
 246 CONNECTICUT, 
 
 not formed any constitution since the Revolution ; 
 but ancient superstition and the prejudice of cus- 
 tom have established an hierarchy, which is di- 
 rected by a sovereign pontiff, twelve cardinals, a 
 civil council of nine, and about four hundred pa- 
 rochial bishops. The present priest, who may be 
 honored with the appellation of pope, is Timothy 
 D wight, President of Yale College. . . . The an- 
 nual Commencement at Yale College takes place 
 in September, a short time previous to the elec- 
 tion of the legislature. At this time, the presi- 
 dent is attended by his twelve cardinal members 
 of the corporation, the governor, the lieutenant 
 governor, and seven other senior members of the 
 first legislative house (which compose the lay 
 part), and the greatest part of the clergy. On 
 this occasion, the governor and other civilians are 
 subordinate to the president, and they feel deeply 
 impressed with a sense of their subordination, 
 knowing that he can kill or make alive at the 
 next annual election, that he emphatically holds 
 the keys which command their political damna- 
 tion or salvation. The pope, being thus sur- 
 rounded by his cardinals, his civil councils, and 
 his parochial bishops, determines the order and 
 detail of the ensuing election. Each one returns 
 home with a perfect understanding of the part he 
 is to act." He then goes on to draw a highly col- 
 ored picture of the manner in which the clergy, 
 the "parochial bishops," control the elections un- 
 der direction of Pope D wight.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. 247 
 
 All this was but a deeply prejudiced view of 
 the feeling which Connecticut, and particularly 
 the clergy, were coming to have toward the col- 
 lege. The little State's little college was fast be- 
 coming a national institution. Its former meagre 
 system, under which instruction was given by the 
 president and a few tutors, was giving place to 
 the organized staff of professors which now num- 
 bers a hundred. From the beginning of this cen- 
 tury, Yale's development has not only been strong, 
 natural, and healthy : it has also tended steadily 
 into university development. The original col- 
 lege has been the nucleus around which have been 
 clustered successive coordinated departments of 
 study. The Medical School was added in 1813; 
 the Theological School in 1822 ; the Law School 
 in 1824 ; the Sheffield Scientific School in 1847 ; 
 the Art School in 1864 ; and the Peabody Mu- 
 seum of Natural History in 1866. In 1886 the 
 title Yale College was changed to that of Yale 
 University. In its sphere, the State's develop- 
 ment has been limited by circumstances, while 
 that of the college has been free from necessary 
 limitations ; naturally, therefore, the devotion of 
 the State to the college has "not been able to keep 
 up the closely paternal relations which John Wood 
 found so exasperating in 1802. But the State and 
 city cannot but be proud of the institution which 
 Davenport conceived, Clap preserved, and Dwight 
 sent on its way to its present rank as a great uni- 
 versity.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 1640-1763. 
 
 A DEMOCRACY usually finds its vulnerable side 
 in financial errors, and any decadence in the qual- 
 ity of its individual units is most quickly reflected 
 here. Connecticut's success in repairing her own 
 blunders is an evidence that there was at least no 
 decadence in her colonial history. The common- 
 wealth shared with the other New England colo- 
 nies the early difficulties arising from want of me- 
 tallic currency, or from clumsy attempts to supply 
 the want by various attractive but fallacious ex- 
 pedients. At first, the little ready money which 
 the settlers brought with them served for their 
 trade with one another, while the Indian trade 
 was carried on by means of Indian money. It 
 soon became necessary to use the Indian money, 
 wampum, wampum - peage, or simply peage, in 
 traffic among the whites ; and it passed current 
 at the rate of six pieces, later four pieces, to the 
 penny, or a fathom for five shillings. The use 
 of this was not uncommon even during the early 
 years of the next century. In addition, there were 
 all sorts of substitutes for money: beaver-skins,
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 249 
 
 codfish, farm products, live stock, bullets, and nails 
 served either for small change or for large pay- 
 ments. Much of the legislation, in Connecticut 
 and in other New England colonies, which has 
 been stigmatized as a sort of sumptuary legisla- 
 tion, fixing prices for goods, was really intended 
 to put a legal value on them so that they might 
 serve as currency, either in liquidating private 
 debts or in paying taxes. In case of doubt, the 
 goods were " prysed," or appraised, by arbitrators 
 selected by the two parties. 
 
 " Bay shillings," of the Massachusetts coinage 
 of 1652, became current in Connecticut soon after 
 their issue, in spite of the efforts of the Bay col- 
 ony to keep them at home. But clipping soon 
 put them into doubt, and the colonists were 
 driven back to primitive substitutes. The jour- 
 nal of Mrs. Knight, who passed through Connecti- 
 cut in 1704, tells us that there were then in use 
 in that colony four distinct sorts of currency. 
 " Pay " was barter, property at the prices which 
 the general court had affixed to it in acceptance 
 for taxes for that year. " Money " was metallic 
 currency, or wampum for the token money. " Pay 
 as money " was property, at rates fixed by the 
 parties, not by the general court. " Trust " was 
 a price, with time given. The court records often 
 speak of the first as " country pay," not because 
 the articles came from the country, as one might 
 suppose, but because its rates of value were fixed 
 I
 
 250 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 by the " country," a term often used for the col- 
 ony or state, and that in strict accordance with 
 good English precedents. Payment " in specie " 
 meant payment in articles specified by the agree- 
 ment, or, in default of that, in articles at rates 
 specified by the general court's acts. It was not 
 limited to money until gold and silver were made 
 the only legal tender. The " money " used in 
 larger payments was mainly Spanish pieces-of- 
 eight, that is, of eight reals, afterwards supplanted 
 by the Spanish milled dollar, each about equiva- 
 lent to six New England shillings ; and the per- 
 sistence of this equivalent value of six shillings to 
 the federal dollar long afterward is a curious sur- 
 vival of ancient values. As all these substitutes 
 varied in value or in price, and as the real money 
 was generally of somewhat doubtful quality, all 
 the difficulties of arithmetic were added to the 
 natural difficulties of trade ; and, as always hap- 
 pens under such circumstances, the sharpest and 
 least scrupulous reaped all the profit, while the 
 mass of the people, too busy with other things to 
 study the intricacies of finance, paid the piper. 
 Not content with this state of affairs, the colony 
 was imprudent enough to seek relief in the thorny 
 paths of paper money emissions. This part of 
 the commonwealth's history is intimately con- 
 nected with her wars. 
 
 The first set conflict of Connecticut with the 
 Canadian French came after the recovery of the
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 251 
 
 charter. The accession of William and Mary to 
 the English throne had been followed at once by 
 war between England and France, in which the 
 colonies were involved without any great desire for 
 it. Connecticut's position was peculiar. She was 
 shut off from any imminent danger by New York 
 and Massachusetts ; and yet she was in a position 
 from which she could give quicker and more ef- 
 fective aid to the exposed settlements of those 
 colonies than their centres of power could render. 
 Help from Hartford could reach Albany or the 
 towns of western Massachusetts sooner than it 
 could be sent from New York or Boston. Con- 
 necticut was therefore usually at war in defense 
 of her neighbors rather than of herself ; but her 
 aid was never given grudgingly or scantily. 
 
 At the first rumor of war, Connecticut had sent 
 Captain Bull to Albany with a detachment for 
 the defense of that place, and another detachment 
 to New York city for a similar purpose. Leisler 
 then held New York city, while the Albany dis- 
 trict was in a state of incipient rebellion against 
 him. Suddenly the French and Indians burst 
 into Schenectady, where no sufficient watch was 
 kept, massacred the people, and burned the place. 
 Bull had warned the people to keep a better 
 watch, but to no purpose. Leisler and his oppo- 
 nents both charged the calamity upon the false 
 security produced by the intrigues and promises 
 of the opposite party ; and all the thanks received
 
 252 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 by Connecticut came in the form of accusations 
 by both parties that she had encouraged the ras- 
 cals of the opposition. There is a good commen- 
 tary on her disinterestedness in the fact that De 
 Callieres' plan of campaign contemplated only an 
 attack on Albany and New York, with no design 
 on Connecticut. 
 
 In conjunction with the other New England 
 colonies and New York, Connecticut agreed to 
 take part in the land expedition up the Hudson, 
 which was to cooperate with Governor Phipps's 
 sea expedition against Quebec. Fitz John Win- 
 throp was placed in command of the joint forces, 
 with Milborn, Leisler's son-in-law, as commissary. 
 Milborn does not seem to have known enough to 
 provide food or transportation for the army ; and, 
 in default of these very necessary factors of suc- 
 cess, Winthrop was compelled to retreat. Leisler 
 took the side of his son-in-law, heaped volumes of 
 abuse upon Winthrop, and finally ordered him 
 under arrest. It is said that the Indians attached 
 to the army released him, "to the universal joy 
 of the army." The Connecticut general court ex- 
 pressed itself emphatically in his favor, and the 
 tone of Leisler's letters is enough to confirm their 
 judgment. For the remainder of the war, Con- 
 necticut's part was confined to furnishing troops 
 whenever any of her neighbors called for them. 
 
 The case was much the same in Queen Anne's 
 war, which broke out in 1702, but was aggravated
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 253 
 
 by the programme pursued by Governor Cornbury 
 of New York, a cousin of the queen, and Governor 
 Dudley of Massachusetts. Dudley's object was 
 to unite all the New England colonies under his 
 government ; but he was shrewd enough to per- 
 suade Cornbury that he meant merely to attach 
 Connecticut to New York. So Connecticut was 
 kept busy in satisfying the requisitions of her 
 neighbor governors for troops and material aid of 
 all kinds, while the two governors were all the 
 time planning to vacate the charter of Connecticut. 
 A bill for that purpose was brought before parlia- 
 ment, and was only defeated by the most untiring 
 efforts of Ashurst, the colony's agent. Dudley's 
 attempt to enforce the Mohegan claims, already 
 mentioned, was a part of the scheme. 
 
 Dudley's whole scheme proved abortive in 1705; 
 and the colony no doubt took great satisfaction, 
 when he next sent a request for troops in 1707, in 
 returning aflat refusal. Two years after, in 1709, 
 on a requisition from the queen for three hundred 
 and fifty men to attack Quebec, and for four hun- 
 dred more for a land expedition against Montreal, 
 Connecticut promptly filled her quota ; and about 
 one hundred of her men were among the dead who 
 were the principal result of the campaign. The 
 next year, three hundred men were raised and 
 took part in the capture of Port Royal. In the 
 following year, four hundred men were raised to 
 give stupid Hovenden Walker the pleasure of 
 wrecking them in Canadian waters.
 
 254 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Until 1709 the colony had fought through all 
 its work on a money basis, raising or lowering the 
 tax-rates from time to time as necessity required 
 or permitted. Its limit had now been reached. 
 The taxes had risen to seven or eight pence in the 
 pound, a ruinous rate for a poor and struggling 
 agricultural commonwealth, whose own govern- 
 mental expenses were kept down to the lowest 
 point. In June, 1709, "the great scarcity of 
 money, the payment of the public debts and 
 charges of this government, especially in the in- 
 tended expedition to Canada," led the general 
 court to order the issue of X 8,000 in paper cur- 
 rency. It was to be received at a premium of five 
 per cent, in payment of taxes ; no legal-tender 
 clause was inserted, as in other colonies ; and a 
 special tax of ten pence in the pound was ordered 
 for payment in two annual parts. Further levies 
 made it necessary to order the issue of X 11, 000 
 more in the same year, with the provision of a tax 
 for payment in six annual parts. From this time 
 the issues went on with bewildering rapidity. In 
 all cases it speaks well for the underlying good 
 sense of the authorities that provision was made 
 for special taxation for the redemption of each 
 issue ; but the evil consequences of such issues 
 could not be altogether avoided. The original 
 avoidance of the legal-tender feature lasted until 
 1718, and then it was introduced under a bashful 
 cover. Debtors who tendered bills of credit were
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 255 
 
 relieved from execution and imprisonment. Fur- 
 ther, counterfeiting had become alarmingly com- 
 mon ; and the general court had come to rely more 
 and more, in every emergency, on fresh emissions 
 of bills of credit. And in 1733 the once cautious 
 colony had become so demoralized as to establish 
 what was really a land-bank, issuing 30,000 in 
 bills, and dividing the amount in loans equally 
 among the five counties. In spite of continuous 
 efforts to provide in advance by taxation for the 
 redemption of each issue, the balance against the 
 colony was growing larger ; the purchasing power 
 of the paper was depreciating ; and, though this 
 effect was disguised from most people by the legal- 
 tender feature, yet there was not a man in the col- 
 ony who could not appreciate it, as it came in the 
 rise of prices of commodities : silver rose in price 
 from 8s. per ounce in 1708 to 18s. in 1732, and to 
 32s. in 1744. As usual, the price of labor lagged 
 behind in the rise, while the price of all that the 
 laborer ate or wore was rising faster, so that the 
 laborer paid the cost of most of the factitious in- 
 crease of business. The authorities themselves be- 
 came careless, so that, for the first time in its his- 
 tory, the accounts of the colony became so puzzling 
 during this period that it is practically impossible 
 to make anything out of them. The best that can 
 be made of them is that, down to 1740, 156,000 
 of paper had been issued, but that all but about 
 6,000 of this had been redeemed by taxation ;
 
 256 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and that there were still outstanding about 33,000 
 issued and loaned to the various counties, making 
 about 39,000 in all for which the colony was 
 now responsible. 
 
 From the time of Walker's luckless expedition 
 there was peace in the colony for nearly thirty 
 years, such peace as the colonists might have had 
 nearly always but for the fact of the existence 
 of a " home government." In 1739 this " home 
 government" saw fit to declare a war against 
 Spain, which swept France into its circle in 1744, 
 and was only ended by the peace of Aix-la-Cba- 
 pelle in 1748. It was only when the French took 
 part in it that the more northern colonies became 
 fully involved : until then, Oglethorpe and the 
 new colony of Georgia bore the brunt of the con- 
 flict. But the northern colonies did not altogether 
 escape : the home government had prepared an 
 entertainment for them, in Admiral Vernon's Car- 
 thagena expedition, more elaborate than Walker's 
 and almost as unlucky. Connecticut contributed 
 her proportion of the men, one thousand in num- 
 ber, whom New England sent to Carthagena, of 
 whom hardly a hundred returned ; and the ex- 
 penses of the armament called for a further issue 
 of 45,000 in paper, 8,000 to be applied to the 
 redemption of former issues, or " old tenor," and 
 23,000 to be loaned out, and the interest applied 
 to redemption purposes. This issue was called 
 "new tenor." In obedience to a demand of the
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 257 
 
 board of trade, the legal-tender provision was 
 struck out. The extension of the war to France 
 in 1744, and the brilliant and successful expedition 
 against Louisburg, brought fresh expense, which 
 Connecticut met by fresh issues of " new tenor," 
 bringing her whole emissions for the war up to the 
 enormous sum of 131,000, on a tax valuation of 
 a little more than 900,000 in 1743. These bills 
 soon began to depreciate in their turn, but never 
 fell quite so low as those of the old tenor ; at the 
 worst, one of the former was equal to three and a 
 half of the latter. Steadily enforced taxation, and 
 the receipt of some 29,000 in coin, which was 
 the colony's share of the parliamentary grant in 
 reimbursement of the expenses, were sufficient to 
 wipe out the outstanding paper, which had 
 amounted in 1751 to about 340,000, reckoning 
 both old and new tenor in old tenor, as was cus- 
 tomary. By 1756 the colony had pretty nearly 
 got iid of her paper. This consummation had 
 been helped by an act of parliament in 1751, for- 
 bidding the issue of legal-tender paper and of paper 
 currency of any kind, unless limited to the taxes 
 of the current year, or secured by taxes payable 
 within five years. It was also helped by the more 
 uncomfortable fact that the colony took advantage 
 of the depreciation of her own paper to redeem it 
 at about eleven per cent, of its face value. 
 
 Connecticut's experience with the treacherous 
 expedient of paper currency had not been sufficient 
 IT
 
 258 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 to guard her against all future resorts to it, but it 
 was sufficient to save her from its worst phases for 
 all time to come. In June, 1704, Queen Anne had 
 issued her proclamation, stating a table of values 
 for the various foreign coins then current in Great 
 Britain and the colonies. Such money, at the 
 English equivalents there named, now got the popu- 
 lar name of " proclamation money," or " lawful 
 money," the state of affairs being what would now 
 be called a resumption of specie payments. Dur- 
 ing the paper flood, the proclamation had been 
 little regarded, but it now came into operation. 
 When the French and Indian war broke out, Con- 
 necticut at once met its initial expenses by the 
 issue of paper payable within three years in " law- 
 ful money," with interest at five per cent., and 
 without any legal-tender clause ; and this policy 
 was followed steadily through the war. In all 
 cases, a tax was laid to redeem each emission ; the 
 paper, being of varying value according to the 
 amount of accrued interest, circulated very little as 
 currency ; and there was little depreciation or con- 
 fusion. The whole amount issued was 359,000, 
 and it all seems to have been paid at maturity or 
 before. 
 
 Connecticut took her full part in the warlike 
 operations for which all these issues were intended. 
 She had sent eleven hundred of her sons, and a 
 sloop of war of her own, on the expedition to 
 Louisburg in 1745, when the colonies, abandoning
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 259 
 
 all reliance on the shiftless home government, sur- 
 prised it and themselves by taking a fortress which, 
 by all military rules, should have been impregnable. 
 Her part in the French and Indian war has been 
 somewhat obscured by her strenuous opposition to 
 the plan of union devised at Albany in 1754, at 
 Franklin's suggestion, as if she had been an ob- 
 stacle to the efficient prosecution of the war. The 
 plan proposed a general government of the colonies 
 by a president-general and a grand council ; and 
 one secret of Connecticut's opposition to it seems 
 to have been its provision that all nominations of 
 commissioned officers, by land and sea, should be 
 by this central government. From the time of 
 Andros down, every attack on the charter of Con- 
 necticut, either by the crown or by neighbor col- 
 onies, had come in the form of an attempt to get 
 control of the colony's militia ; and the colony 
 had come in her turn to have an almost fanatical 
 determination to commission her own officers. It 
 was this, rather than any unreasonable democracy, 
 which led her into opposition to the plan which 
 always seemed to Franklin the fairest that could 
 have been devised for both parties. 
 
 At the beginning of the war, Connecticut was 
 called upon for one thousand men as her share of 
 the army which was to win the battle of Lake 
 George. The contingent of the much larger colony 
 of Massachusetts was but a trifle larger ; but Con- 
 necticut not only met the call at once, but author-
 
 260 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ized the governor to raise five hundred more, if 
 they should be needed. Her senior officer, Phineas 
 Lyman, was second in command of the army, of 
 which William Johnson, of New York, was com- 
 mander in chief. The fortune of the two halves 
 of the battle was similar in one respect. Major 
 Williams, of Massachusetts, who commanded the 
 routed advance party, was killed almost at the first 
 fire ; and it was Nathan Whiting, a New Haven 
 officer, who rallied the men and managed the re- 
 treat to the main body. Johnson, having been 
 wounded enough to justify him in retiring, left 
 the field at the beginning of the main action ; and 
 it was Lyman, of Connecticut, who for five long 
 hours carried on the fiercest conflict then on record 
 in colonial history, in which almost the entire 
 French regular force was put out of existence. 
 The real victor did not have even the satisfaction 
 of seeing his name misspelled in the " Gazette." 
 Johnson, according to President Dwight, had the 
 ineffable meanness to ignore him altogether in his 
 report, and to accept the honor of knighthood for 
 the victory which Lyman had won. The histories 
 have treated Lyman very much as his superior 
 officer did. 
 
 In the unfortunate campaigns of 1756 and 1757, 
 Connecticut regularly raised more than twice the 
 number of men assigned to her as her quota. 
 Her men underwent every vicissitude of the war ; 
 and her public men must have had a training in
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 261 
 
 democracy such as their fathers had never quite 
 enjoyed. In this war, the characteristics of de- 
 mocracy and aristocracy were for the first time 
 brought directly into contrast on American soil. 
 The Connecticut democracy had produced a class 
 of men of its own ; all were tested as to their 
 ability, advanced as they were competent to serve 
 the public, and then kept in office until they were 
 ready to retire to a well-won old age. Rotation in 
 office and favoritism were equally incomprehensible 
 to the Connecticut mind. Now it was brought to 
 meet the varying product of the English aristo- 
 cratic system: sometimes a gallant soldier, like 
 Howe or Wolfe ; sometimes a statesman of genius, 
 like Pitt ; more often an imbecile, like Webb or 
 Loudoun or " Mrs. Nabbycrombie," who owed to 
 family or court influence a position for which Con- 
 necticut would never have paid them more than 
 one year's salary. 
 
 Lyman, commissioned as major general, was 
 senior officer of the Connecticut troops, and Whit- 
 ing his second. Under them were most of the men 
 who afterwards became distinguished as the com- 
 monwealth's contribution to the defense of Ameri- 
 can independence, the most prominent of whom 
 was Israel Putnam. A native of Salem, Mass., of 
 which his forefather had been one of the first set- 
 tlers, he had removed to Pomfret, Conn., in 1739, 
 and it was near that place that his adventure with 
 the wolf gave him a reputation throughout the col-
 
 262 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ony for absolute fearlessness. Entering the war 
 as a lieutenant, he came out with the grade of 
 lieutenant colonel, having gained his advance, with 
 the thanks of the colony's legislature, through a 
 succession of wood-ranging adventures which would 
 need a volume for the telling. Lyman, however, 
 would have led Putnam in revolutionary rank and 
 success, but for his unfortunate trust to court 
 honor and gratitude. Going to England in 1763, 
 to secure a grant of land for the disbanded soldiers, 
 he lingered there for eleven years, in all that hope 
 deferred which maketh the heart sick ; returned 
 in 1774, broken in mind as well as in spirit; and 
 died in West Florida the following year. 
 
 The Connecticut troops were in all the cam- 
 paigns of 1758 ; they took their share in the awful 
 butchery of Ticonderoga, and in the second cap- 
 ture of Louisburg. The colony's efforts were so 
 exhausting that, when it was called on for 5,000 
 men in the following year, it shrank, for the first 
 time, from fulfilling it. The general court at first 
 resolved that it was impossible to raise more than 
 3,600 men, because of the efforts of the past three 
 years, and of the numbers of its citizens who had 
 enlisted in the royal provincial regiments or among 
 the boatmen. On the urgent request of the gov- 
 ernor, the number was increased to 4,000; and 
 another session, two months later, finally raised 
 this to 5,000, the number first called for. The 
 encouragement afforded by the capture of Quebec
 
 FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 263 
 
 made it easier to renew this effort the next year ; 
 and in 1761 it was called on for but two thirds the 
 usual number. In 1762 the colony was called on 
 for 1,000 men for the expedition to Havana. Ly- 
 inan had command of all the provincial forces, 
 2,500 in all ; and Putnam was now in command of 
 Lyman's own regiment. In this, as in the expedi- 
 tion against Carthagena, there was a great deal of 
 what was then known as " glory : " wounds, disease, 
 and death for the many ; booty, pleasure, and rep- 
 utation for the few. Only a handful of the men 
 who left Connecticut for the expedition ever re- 
 turned ; and this one event probably deprived the 
 colony of the services of many an officer whose ex- 
 perience would have been invaluable twelve years 
 later. 
 
 With the close of the French and Indian war, 
 Connecticut was brought at last into close practi- 
 cal relations with her sister colonies : the union 
 which she had rejected, through a somewhat ex- 
 treme provincialism, in 1754, had been forced on 
 her by circumstances, although it had not been put 
 on paper, or definitely expressed in its terms ; for 
 that, a more severe exigency was necessary. But 
 the pressure of well-understood common necessi- 
 ties had taught her people the duty of unselfish ex- 
 ertion for the common defense. She was now pre- 
 pared, as she had never been prepared before, to 
 take her place as a coordinated commonwealth in 
 an American union. Before turning to the process
 
 264 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 by which this was accomplished, it is proper to 
 notice the steps by which the colony, which was 
 to extend from Narragansett Bay to the Pacific 
 Ocean, was restricted to the limits with which she 
 entered the Union under the Constitution.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. WYOMING 
 AND THE WESTERN RESERVE. 
 
 THE century following the grant and establish- 
 ment of the charter was a period of quiet but al- 
 most uninterrupted growth for Connecticut. Com- 
 paratively undisturbed by wars or by the inter- 
 ference of the home government, with no royal 
 agent within her borders to frame indictments 
 against her policy and methods, and to press them 
 upon the king's attention, she went steadily on 
 her way to that which her people wanted most, 
 the undisturbed power of gaining a livelihood and 
 of worshiping God under democratic government. 
 Her charter had secured to them most of these 
 objects ; the obstacle to the attainment of the 
 rest was the unkindly nature of her soil. 
 
 In 1680 the colonial government sent, in answer 
 to a request of the board of trade for detailed in- 
 formation, a statement of the colony's condition. 
 Its quaint and sometimes apparently guarded lan- 
 guage carries in it many indications of the almost 
 hopeless weakness of the colony, and of the stout 
 hearts of the men who were maintaining it. The
 
 266 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 draft of the letter is from the hand of John Allyn. 
 He estimates the fighting men, or " trained bands," 
 of the colony, at 2,507, which might imply a pop- 
 ulation of between ten and twelve thousand, or 
 about three persons to the square mile, about 
 half the proportion of Nebraska in 1880. The peo- 
 ple had " little traffique abroad," and the bulk of 
 their trade was in " sending what provissions we 
 rays to Boston, where we buy goods with it, to 
 cloath vs." The country was mountainous, full of 
 rocks, swamps, hills and vales ; most that was fit 
 for planting had been taken up ; " what remaynes 
 must be subdued, and gained out of the fire as it 
 were, by hard blowes and for smal recompence." 
 The principal towns were Hartford, New London, 
 New Haven, and Fairfield, with twenty-six smaller 
 towns, in one of which " we have two churches." 
 The buildings, however, were not so bad, " for a 
 wilderness ; " they were of wood, stone, and brick, 
 many of them, says Allyn with pardonable pride, 
 " 40 foot long and 20 foot broad, and some larger : 
 three and four stories high." On second thoughts, 
 Allyn struck out these latter specifications, perhaps 
 fearing that such a picture of opulence might excite 
 the greed of the home government. The exports 
 were farm products, boards, staves, and horses, 
 mainly sent to Boston, but some small quanti- 
 ties to the West Indies, there to be bartered " for 
 suger, cotton wool and rumme, and some money." 
 Tobacco was grown for home consumption. There
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 267 
 
 were but twenty merchants in the colony, and 
 few of these had a foreign trade. There were 
 very few servants, and only about thirty slaves, 
 imported from Barbadoes at 22 each. The 
 largest ship of the colony was one of ninety tons ; 
 twenty-eight others ranged from eight to eighty 
 tons. Labor was scarce and dear ; wages were 2s. 
 and 2s. d. a day ; and provisions were cheap, 
 so that there was little necessity for poor relief. 
 Beggars and vagabonds " were not suffered," but, 
 when discovered, were bound out to service. 
 There were no duties imposed by the colony on 
 exports, and only a duty on imported wines, to be 
 used as a school fund. The property of the col- 
 ony was estimated for taxing purposes at about 
 110,000. But, in all such estimates, it should 
 be remembered that about two fifths of it was 
 more in the nature of a poll-tax, the tax being in- 
 creased according to a somewhat arbitrary sched- 
 ule of supposed wealth or position in the various 
 trades and professions, so that it took the place, 
 in part, of an income tax as well. 
 
 In spite of the poverty of the colony, its vitality 
 was shown by the steady increase in the number 
 of its towns. Allyn gives their number as twenty- 
 six in 1680. Six of these, Lyme, Haddam, .Sims- 
 bury, Wallingford, Derby, and Woodbury, had 
 been incorporated since the union of the two col- 
 onies ; and three more, Waterbury, Glastenbury, 
 and Plainfield, were to become towns before the
 
 268 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 end of the century. In the development of these 
 new towns there were two distinct processes, ac- 
 cording to the nature of the case. A speculator 
 or a company might buy lands from the Indians, 
 with the approval of the general court, in some lo- 
 cality outside of the bounds of any town. As soon 
 as the rates became sufficiently large to need the 
 extension of the general court's taxing power over 
 the little community, a committee was appointed 
 by that body to bound out the town : it was then 
 expected to choose constables, and send delegates 
 to the general court. The other process contin- 
 ually tended to become the only one. A town, 
 when first established, usually had extensive boun- 
 daries. Those persons who settled in the outflying 
 districts of the township found it more and more 
 troublesome, particularly in winter, to resort to 
 the old church for preaching. When there were 
 enough of such dissatisfied persons to support a 
 minister of their own, they applied to the general 
 court for permission to form a church. For the 
 church was really a territorial term, quite as much 
 so as the township ; and the setting off of a new 
 church meant the diminution of the area of the old 
 church, and the inclusion of all persons within the 
 new bounds in the new church. As this involved 
 a diminution of the resources of the old church, it 
 regularly met with strong opposition, and was 
 only successful after several petitions. The erec- 
 tion into a town followed at the discretion of the
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 269 
 
 general court. Plainfield may be taken as a com- 
 bination of the two processes. Originally settled 
 as " Quinnabaug plantation," it was important 
 enough in 1700 to become a town. The general 
 court therefore incorporated it, named it Plain- 
 field, and gave it, as was an essential step, a spe- 
 cial brand for its horses, in this case a triangle. 
 In May, 1703, some discension having arisen, the 
 court ordered the territory to be divided into two 
 parts, the western settlers to pay their rates for the 
 support of the eastern minister until they had " an 
 approved minister " of their own. Their choice 
 having been approved, the general court proceeded 
 in October to constitute the people of the western 
 half of Plainfield a distinct town, under the name 
 of Canterbury, with a horse brand of its own. 
 
 The charter seems to have contemplated a gen- 
 eral meeting of the governor, lieutenant governor, 
 assistants, and deputies as the general assembly, 
 still often called the general court ; and this was 
 the form which its meetings at first took. In 
 1678 the court ordered that the governor, lieuten- 
 ant governor, and assistants should be a council to 
 act for the commonwealth during the recesses of 
 the court. This was the prelude to the inevitable 
 introduction of a bi-cameral system. In 1698 the 
 general court ordered that the council should sit 
 as a separate house, and the deputies as the other, 
 and that laws should be passed only by the assent 
 of both houses ; and the arrangement went into
 
 270 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 force the next year. This change was followed 
 by the adoption of a double capital. Among the 
 first measures of conciliation proposed by Connec- 
 ticut to induce New Haven to accept the charter 
 was that New Haven should be made a coordinate 
 capital of the commonwealth, as well as county 
 town of a distinct county. New Haven's rejection 
 of the terms caused the former proposition to 
 lapse for the time ; but it was put into force in 
 1701. It was decided that the May session of the 
 general court should be held hereafter at Hart- 
 ford, and the October session at New Haven. 
 This arrangement lasted until 1873, when Hart- 
 ford was again made sole capital. 
 
 The long period of peace and compai'ative pros- 
 perity during the first half of the last century was 
 prolific in new towns. From 1700 until 1745 
 thirty of them were incorporated, very nearly as 
 many as were in existence in 1700. There was 
 an equally steady growth in population, though 
 all the figures for it must be mere estimates. It 
 is estimated by Bancroft at 17,000 for the year 
 1688, and by Trumbull at the same figures for 
 1713. In 1755 the board of trade estimated it 
 at 100,000 ; and Bancroft at 133,000, with 3,500 
 slaves. It is not possible to get nearer to the 
 truth ; but the constantly increasing quotas of 
 Connecticut to New England armies during the 
 years between 1690 and 1763 are enough to show 
 the growing population of the colony. At the
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 271 
 
 date last named, a comparison of Bancroft's esti- 
 mate for Connecticut with that for Massachusetts 
 (207,000), and for whites in Virginia (168,000), 
 will show that the seed planted on the banks of 
 the Connecticut had grown into one of the stateli- 
 est trees on the continent. It had grown so large 
 as to feel the cramping influence of its surround- 
 ings. 
 
 In 1762 all the soil of the colony had been al- 
 lotted to townships, and new towns formed after 
 that year were carved out of townships already 
 in existence. Long before that time, population 
 had begun to show a disposition to swarm. The 
 first effort in this direction was due to the boun- 
 dary settlement of 1713-14 between Connecticut 
 and Massachusetts. In consideration of certain 
 concessions in straightening the line, Massachu- 
 setts gave Connecticut a parcel of her western 
 lands. Some of these (60,000 acres, according to 
 the New York attorney general's report in 1752), 
 though then believed to be in Massachusetts, were 
 really in the district to be known as Vermont. 
 These lands were sold by Connecticut to private 
 parties, and their purchases drew off the atten- 
 tion of a considerable number of her people to 
 this territory. The erection of Fort Dummer in 
 1729 offered some promise of protection to set- 
 tlers, and those who had long owned these wild 
 lands began to think of settling upon them. At 
 first, a few young men were sent thither in the
 
 272 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 summer to work the land, returning home for the 
 winter. New York claimed jurisdiction over the 
 whole territory, under the iniquitous grant to 
 the duke, which had been extended up to the Con- 
 necticut River in defiance of the Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut charters. So far as these two 
 colonies were concerned, the claim had been given 
 up ; but New York still maintained it against 
 New Hampshire. Governor Wentworth, of New 
 Hampshire, insisted that the limits of his colony 
 extended as far west as the two colonies to the 
 south, though it is not easy to see on what ground. 
 He proceeded to make grants of land in the dis- 
 puted territory, very many of them to Connecti- 
 cut settlers. He cared for little except the pro- 
 ceeds of the sales, and left civil organization to 
 the settlers. The result was that the Connecti- 
 cut town system was again transferred to a wil- 
 derness, there to begin a struggle with the central- 
 ized system of New York. The Vermont towns 
 were even more independent than their proto- 
 types ; and their "independence and unbridled 
 democracy" formed one of the arguments by 
 which New York obtained a judgment in her fa- 
 vor from the home government. Connecticut 
 blood and town and personal names were strongly 
 represented in the " Hampshire Grants ; " indeed, 
 some of the towns in the grants held their first 
 town meeting in Connecticut before the removal 
 of their settlers. Ethan and Ira Allen, Warner,
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 273 
 
 the Chipmans, Chittenden, and a Lost of other 
 Connecticut men, took a leading place among those 
 who resisted the authorities of New York, with, 
 perhaps, a touch of hereditary bitterness ; and 
 when the territory erected itself into a State in 
 1777, it assumed the significant title of " New 
 Connecticut," the more appropriate name of Ver- 
 mont being substituted in the course of the year. 
 The details of the struggle are not within our 
 province. It need only be said that the New 
 York authorities seem to have found most embar- 
 rassment in dealing with the new and vigorous 
 form of local government which had become es- 
 tablished in the territory, and that the final 
 establishment of the State of Vermont may fairly 
 be claimed as another success of the Connecticut 
 town system. 
 
 Here dropping this extra-legal effort at com- 
 monwealth expansion, we come to the strictly le- 
 gal attempt to enforce the charter boundaries, and 
 its failure. The effort evidently arose from an 
 instinctive perception that the practical bounds 
 of the commonwealth would seriously cramp its 
 growth, and reduce its rank among the States, as 
 they have since done. The charter bounds ex- 
 tended west to the Pacific Ocean : this Would 
 have carried Connecticut over a strip covering the 
 northern two fifths of the present State of Penn- 
 sylvania. Stuart faithlessness interfered with this 
 doubly. Almost immediately after the grant of 
 
 18
 
 274 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the charter, Charles granted to his brother James 
 the Dutch colony of New Netherland, thus inter- 
 rupting the continuity of Connecticut. Rather 
 than resist the king's brother, Connecticut agreed 
 and ratified the interruption. In 1681 a more 
 serious interference took place. Charles granted 
 to Penn the province of Pennsylvania, extending 
 westward five degrees between the 40th and 43d 
 parallels of north latitude. The width of the 
 province would have been from the northern out- 
 skirts of Philadelphia to about the present city of 
 Utica in New York, thus taking in five degrees of 
 Connecticut's grant, and all western New York 
 except the lake-shore. Geographical knowledge 
 was not very profound ; and Penn seems to have 
 founded his capital city before discovering that he 
 had unluckily placed it too far to the south, out- 
 side of his own province and in the Baltimore 
 grant. What was to be done ? The solution of 
 the difficulty deserves more credit for its ingenuity 
 than for its ingenuousness, and Bancroft absolves 
 Penn from responsibility for it. The language of 
 his grant was from "the beginning of the 40th 
 parallel " to " the beginning of the 43d." What 
 was " the beginning of the 40th parallel " ? Evi- 
 dently, said the Pennsylvania argument, the 39th. 
 And " the beginning of the 43d " ? As clearly, 
 the 42d. Ergo, Pennsylvania extended south 
 from its present northern boundary to Annapolis, 
 taking in the city of Baltimore on the way. The
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 275 
 
 war having thus been carried into Africa, the of- 
 fer was made to compromise with the Baltimore 
 family on the present boundaries, from about 
 latitude 39 45' to latitude 42, and, after half a 
 century's struggle,. the compromise was adopted. 
 New York was more than satisfied with the ar- 
 rangement, as it carried her southern boundary a 
 full degree to the south ; and all the parties seem 
 to have ignored Connecticut. 
 
 The territory taken from Connecticut by the 
 Penn grant would be bounded southei'ly on the 
 present map by a straight line entering Pennsyl- 
 vania about Stroudsburg, just north of the Dela- 
 ware Water Gap, and running west through Hazel- 
 ton, Catawissa, Clearfield, and New Castle, taking 
 in all the northern coal, iron, and oil fields. It 
 was a royal heritage, but the Penns made no at- 
 tempt to settle it, and Connecticut until the middle 
 of the eighteenth century had no energy to spare 
 from the task of winning her home territory " out 
 of the fire, as it were, by hard blows and for small 
 recompense." This task had been fairly well done 
 by 1750, and in 1753 a movement to colonize in 
 the Wyoming country was set on foot in Wind- 
 ham county. It spread by degrees until the Sus- 
 quehanna Company was formed the next year, 
 with nearly 700 members, of whom 638 were of 
 Connecticut. Their agents made a treaty with the 
 Five Nations July 11, 1754, by which they bought 
 for < 2,000 a tract of land beginning at the forty-
 
 276 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 first degree of latitude, the southerly boundary of 
 Connecticut ; thence running north, following the 
 line of the Susquehanna at a distance of ten miles 
 from it, to the present northern boundary of 
 Pennsylvania : thence one hundred and twenty 
 miles west ; thence south to the forty-first degree 
 and back to the point of beginning. In May, 
 1755, the Connecticut general assembly expressed 
 its acquiescence in the scheme, if the king should 
 approve it ; and it approved also a plan of Samuel 
 Hazard, of Philadelphia, for another colony, to be 
 placed west of Pennsylvania, and within the char- 
 tered limits of Connecticut. The court might have 
 taken stronger ground than this ; for, at the meet- 
 ing of commissioners from the various colonies at 
 Albany, in 1754, the representatives of Pennsyl- 
 vania being present, no opposition was made to a 
 resolution that Connecticut and Massachusetts, 
 by charter right, extended west to the South Sea. 
 The formation of the Susquehanna Company 
 brought out objections from Pennsylvania, but 
 the company sent out surveyors and plotted its 
 tract. 
 
 Settlement was begun on the Delaware River 
 in 1757, and in the Susquehanna purchase in 
 1762. This was a temporary settlement, the set- 
 tlers going home for the winter. A permanent 
 venture was made the next year on the flats be- 
 low Wilkes Barre, but it was destroyed by the 
 Indians the same year. In 1768 the company
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 277 
 
 marked out five townships, and sent out forty set- 
 tlers for the first, Kingston. Most of them, in- 
 cluding the famous Captain Zebulon Butler, had 
 served in the French and Indian war ; and their 
 first step was to build the " Forty Fort." The 
 Penns, after their usual policy, had refused to sell 
 lands, but had leased plots to a number of men 
 on condition of their " defending the lands from 
 the Connecticut claimants." The forty Connecti- 
 cut men found these in possession when they ar- 
 rived in February, 1769, and a war of writs and 
 arrests followed for the remainder of the year. 
 The Pennsylvania men had one too powerful ar- 
 gument in the shape of a four-pounder gun, and 
 they retained possession at the end of the year. 
 Early in 1770 the forty reappeared, captured the 
 four-pounder, and secured possession. For a 
 time in 1771 the Pennsylvania men returned, put 
 up a fort of their own, and engaged in a partisan 
 warfare ; but the numbers of the Connecticut men 
 were rapidly increasing, and they remained mas- 
 ters until the opening of the Revolution, when 
 they numbered some three thousand. The Con- 
 necticut general court passed a resolution in 1771, 
 maintaining the claim of its colony to its charter 
 limits west of the Delaware. In 1774 it erected 
 the Susquehanna district into a town, under the 
 name of Westmoreland, making it a part of Litch- 
 field county, the farthest northwest of the origi- 
 nal counties ; and its deputies took their seats in
 
 278 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the Connecticut legislature. In 1776, Westmore- 
 land town was made a distinct county, and its civil 
 organization was complete. Connecticut laws and 
 taxes were enforced regularly ; Connecticut courts 
 alone were in session ; and the levies from the dis- 
 trict formed the twenty-fourth Connecticut regi- 
 ment in the Continental armies. The sordid, 
 grasping, long -leasing policy of the Penns had 
 never been able to stand a moment before the on- 
 coming wave of Connecticut democracy, with its 
 individual land-ownership, its liberal local govern- 
 ment, and the personal incentive offered to indi- 
 viduals by its town system. So far as the Penns 
 were concerned, the Connecticut town system sim- 
 ply swept over them, and hardly thought of them 
 as it went. But for the Revolution, the check oc- 
 casioned by the massacre, and the appearance of a 
 popular government in place of the Penns, nothing 
 could have prevented the establishment of Con- 
 necticut's authority over all the regions embraced 
 in her western claims. 
 
 In July, 1778, after the Continental Congress 
 had refused to allow the temporary return of the 
 able-bodied men whom the Westmoreland people 
 had sent freely into the army, the Tories and In- 
 dians, under John Butler and Brandt, fell upon 
 the almost defenseless settlement. They met no 
 unresisting victims. The old men and boys, the 
 town dignitaries who had been administering civil 
 affairs, mustered into rank, and only yielded and
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 279 
 
 fled after a loss of half their number. The women 
 and children were spared for the greater horrors 
 of the overland retreat to Connecticut ; and the 
 Connecticut possession vanished again into thin 
 air. Detached parties returned from time to 
 time, gathered scanty crops under constant dan- 
 ger from Indians, and kept alive the claims of in- 
 dividuals and of the commonwealth. But West- 
 moreland county, as it had been, was no more. 
 
 The articles of confederation went into force 
 early in 1781. One of their provisions empowered 
 congress to appoint courts of arbitration to decide 
 disputes between States as to boundaries. Penn- 
 sylvania at once availed herself of this, and ap- 
 plied for a court to decide the Wyoming dispute. 
 Connecticut asked for time, in order to get papers 
 from England ; but congress overruled the mo- 
 tion, and ordered the court to meet at Trenton in 
 November, 1782. After forty-one days of argu- 
 ment, the court came to the unanimous conclusion 
 that Wyoming, or the Susquehanna district, be- 
 longed to Pennsylvania and not to Connecticut. 
 It came to light, more than ten years afterward, 
 that the court had secretly agreed on two points 
 for its guidance : (1) whatever its decision might 
 be, it was to assign no reasons for it ; and (2) the 
 minority was to yield to the majority, in order to 
 make the decision unanimous. The knowledge of 
 these antecedent conditions takes away much of 
 the force of the decision ; but they were not
 
 280 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 known in 1782, and Connecticut yielded at once. 
 For this yielding, however, there were probably 
 reasons apart from the justice of the decision. 
 
 It was just at this time that the Western terri- 
 tory was the controlling question in politics. 
 Virginia, under a strained and very dubious inter- 
 pretation of her northern boundary, claimed the 
 whole Northwest, in addition to Kentucky. The 
 States whose western boundaries were fixed had 
 two points of objection : Virginia would get none 
 of this territory if the authority of the crown were 
 reestablished ; and they did not intend to spend 
 their blood and money in order to obtain the 
 Northwest for Virginia. Connecticut's western 
 claims, though based on a clear, not on a doubt- 
 ful, charter statement, were too much on a par 
 with those of Virginia to be easily separated from 
 them. There was an instinctive sense, outside of 
 Virginia, that the national existence of the United 
 States was bound up with the jurisdiction over 
 this Northwest territory ; and Connecticut's share 
 in the feeling was enough to balance even her 
 selfish interests. She even imperiled the latter 
 by yielding to the decision ; for it is hardly pos- 
 sible to reconcile the decision of 1782, which ig- 
 nored the charter, with the acceptance by congress 
 of the Connecticut cession of 1786, which im- 
 pliedly recognized the charter and the very claims 
 which had been rejected in 1782. There was no 
 bargain, for Pennsylvania in 1786 voted not to
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 281 
 
 accept the cession, on the ground that it recog- 
 nized the charter. Connecticut simply made way 
 intelligently, if somewhat regretfully, for the 
 coming nationality. 
 
 The cession of 1786 of course put an end to all 
 Connecticut's ambitions of commonwealth expan- 
 sion : she was to be forever restricted to the terri- 
 tory lying between Massachusetts and Long Is- 
 land Sound, and between Rhode Island and New 
 York. And yet the legal title of Connecticut to 
 the territory which she gave up by this cession 
 was beyond dispute. It has been suggested that 
 the crown made the grant under ignorance, sup- 
 posing that North America was far narrower than 
 it proved to be. But the Plymouth council, when 
 it gave up its charter in 1635, notified the king 
 that their grant was " through all the main land, 
 from sea to sea, being near about three thousand 
 miles in length" There was not a geographer in 
 England but knew that the Connecticut grant, in 
 its turn, was three thousand miles long. It was 
 adduced as a prior grant by the English com- 
 missioners against the French in 1752, in order to 
 assert title across the Mississippi. Its validity was 
 recognized by the Albany congress of 1754, Penn- 
 sylvania being represented. The establishment 
 of the Mississippi as a boundary line between the 
 colonies and Spain was founded on these western 
 charters of indefinite extent. The peace of 1783, 
 which laid claim to the Mississippi as a western
 
 282 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 boundary for the United States, was a renewed 
 affirmation of the charters which had carried the 
 claims of the United States up to that river. Fi- 
 nally, the acceptance of the Connecticut cession 
 by the United States in 1786 was a renewed con- 
 firmation of the charter's validity, on which the 
 further claim of the United States was based. 
 The fact that Connecticut had yielded to the 
 erection of the new colony of New York was of 
 interest only to the two colonies involved, Con- 
 necticut and New York ; no third party, as Penn- 
 sylvania, could gain or lose any rights thereby. 
 
 It would have been absurd to ask Connecticut 
 to surrender a claim so sound in law, and so for- 
 tified by repeated recognitions, without any rec- 
 ompense. Her proposition, that she should re- 
 serve a tract of about the same length and width 
 as the Wyoming grant, west of Pennsylvania, in 
 northeastern Ohio, was accepted ; and this was 
 the tract known as the Western Reserve of Con- 
 necticut. It contained about three and a half 
 millions of acres. In 1792 some five hundred 
 thousand acres in the western part of the Reserve 
 were devoted to the relief of those persons who 
 had been burned out and plundered by the Brit- 
 ish: this was known as the "Fire Lands." The 
 rest was sold under the direction of a legislative 
 committee, and the proceeds were devoted to the 
 school fund of the commonwealth. It was not 
 very productive until Senator James Hillhouse
 
 COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT. 283 
 
 was appointed sole commissioner in 1810. He 
 held the position for some fifteen years, and in- 
 creased the principal to nearly $2,000,000, with 
 an annual income of over $50,000. This principal 
 still remains intact. 
 
 The unfortunate Wyoming settlers, deserted by 
 their own State, and left to the mercy of rival 
 claimants, had a hard time of it for years. The 
 militia of the neighboring counties of Pennsylva- 
 nia was mustered to enforce the writs of Pennsyl- 
 vania courts ; the property of the Connecticut 
 men was destroyed, their fences were cast down, 
 and their rights ignored ; and the " Pennamite 
 and Yankee War " began. The Yankees were evi- 
 dently getting the worse, and their friends at 
 home were not deaf to their grievances. The old 
 Susquehanna Company was reorganized in 1785- 
 86, and made ready to support its settlers by force. 
 New Yankee faces came crowding into the dis- 
 puted territory. Among them was Ethan Allen, 
 and with him came some Green Mountain Boys, 
 the promise and potency of more, and pungent 
 memories of the manner in which Vermont had 
 solved a similar difficulty with New York. It was 
 an open secret that the intention was to organize 
 a new State, and weary Pennsylvania and con- 
 gress into a recognition of it. Its constitution had 
 been drafted, and its state officers tacitly agreed 
 upon. 
 
 Pennsylvania in 1786 passed an accommodation
 
 284 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 act, by which the lands of actual settlers were 
 confirmed to them, and the district was erected 
 into the county of Luzerne. Unfortunately, there 
 were dissensions between the old settlers and the 
 new-comers of the Wyoming district, and Penn- 
 sylvania suspended the accommodation act in 
 1788, and repealed it in 1790. There were re- 
 newed struggles, and in 1799 the act was sub- 
 stantially reenacted, and the controversy came to 
 an end. The settlement had the result of car- 
 rying into Pennsylvania a large infusion of Con- 
 necticut blood, the source of the prevalence of 
 Connecticut names in this part of Pennsylvania.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 THE close of the French and Indian war marks 
 the period when Connecticut's democratic consti- 
 tution began to influence other commonwealths. 
 Her charter was an object-lesson to all of them. 
 It was the standard to which their demands grad- 
 ually came up ; and their growing demands upon 
 the crown caused an equally steady approximation 
 toward the establishment of a local democracy 
 like that which Connecticut had kept up for a 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 The passage of the Stamp Act by the English 
 Parliament was met at once by a protest from the 
 Connecticut general assembly, followed by in- 
 structions to its agent in London to insist firmly 
 on " the exclusive right of the colonies to tax 
 themselves and on the privilege of trial by jury," 
 as rights which " they never could recede from." 
 It had good reason to speak plainly, for the prin- 
 ciple of the act struck more heavily at Connecti- 
 cut than at any other colony except Rhode Is- 
 land. No other colonies had been so completely 
 free from any appearance of royal interference as
 
 286 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 these ; and Connecticut's lack of commerce had 
 prevented it from feeling even those forms of 
 royal interference which the commercial interests 
 of Rhode Island had brought upon it. To Con- 
 necticut the act was simply intolerable, and she 
 not only spoke but made ready for action. 
 
 Jared Ingersoll, of New Haven, was sent to 
 London as special agent to remonstrate against 
 the passage of the act. When his mission had 
 failed, he accepted the office of stamp agent for 
 Connecticut, by advice of Franklin, and set out 
 for home. He found things there in a ferment. 
 The governor and some of the leading men were 
 willing to submit, rather than risk the loss of the 
 charter, but the instinct of the democracy taught 
 it that this was the time to put its charter priv- 
 ileges into security forever. The ministers were 
 preaching against the act ; the towns were order- 
 ing their officers to disregard it, promising to hold 
 them harmless ; Trumbull had become the head 
 of a popular movement ; and volunteer organiza- 
 tions, calling themselves " Sons of Liberty," were 
 patrolling the country, overawing those who were 
 inclined to support the home government, and 
 making ready to resist the execution of the law. 
 Ingersoll seems to have been sufficiently impressed 
 with the strength of the home government to be 
 willing to avoid a conflict ; and he meant now to 
 execute faithfully the office which he had accepted 
 only to make its provisions more tolerable to his
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 287 
 
 countrymen. The meeting between him and them 
 was that of the flint and steel. The Sons of Lib- 
 erty were out and in waiting for him as he rode 
 from New Haven to Hartford ; and he entered 
 the capital under the escort of a thousand horse- 
 men, fanners and freeholders, who had compelled 
 him to resign his office. He had not lost his head 
 or shown any craven frailty : he had simply made 
 up his mind that he had gone far enough in an 
 unpleasant duty, and that " the cause was not 
 worth dying for." He had, however, carried his 
 resistance up to the verge of temerity ; and, as he 
 rode on his white horse at the head of the trium- 
 phant mob, he said afterward that he realized 
 at last what the book of Revelation meant by 
 "Death on the pale horse, and hell following 
 him." 
 
 Governor Fitch died in 1766, and, after a three 
 years' service of William Pitkin, Jonathan Trum- 
 bull, the first " war governor " of Connecticut, 
 succeeded him. He held the office until 1783 ; he 
 was the trusted associate of "Washington, and the 
 latter's familiar way of addressing him when ask- 
 ing his advice or assistance is said to have been 
 the origin of the popular phrase "Brother Jona- 
 than." The family has been one of the most 
 noted in the history of the commonwealth. It 
 has included Governor Jonathan Trumbull, his 
 sons John (the painter), Jonathan, governor from 
 1798 until 1809, and Joseph, commissary general
 
 288 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 of the Revolutionary army ; John Trumbull, the 
 author of " McFingal ; " Benjamin Trumbull, the 
 author of one of the standard histories of the 
 State ; James Hammond Trumbull, the recognized 
 authority on the Indian languages and the history 
 of the State ; his brother, H. C. Trumbull, a 
 leader in missionary and Sunday-school work ; and 
 ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois. The 
 reign of the Trumbulls was ushered in brilliantly 
 by the governor. In him the people had found 
 the man they needed, and doubt and hesitation 
 fled before him. 
 
 The rapid succession of events which followed 
 the Boston Tea Party the Boston Port Bill, the 
 Massachusetts Act, and the preparations of Massa- 
 chusetts for active resistance met prompt sym- 
 pathy and support in Connecticut. The non-im- 
 portation agreement had been universally signed 
 in 176869, and, if contemporary accounts are to 
 be trusted, was kept far more faithfully in Con- 
 necticut than in some of her neighbor colonies. 
 Unofficial preparations, with the quiet approval of 
 the official authorities, were now made, so that, 
 when hostilities began, Connecticut was the first 
 colony to take her place abreast of Massachusetts. 
 In all this there was not one iota of change in 
 the traditional policy of the colony. In the pro- 
 ceedings which led to the loss or serious modifica- 
 tion of the Massachusetts charter in 1691, Con- 
 necticut had taken no part with the attacked col-
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 289 
 
 ony, partly because the latter had no intentions of 
 real resistance, and partly because such resistance, 
 under the circumstances into which Massachusetts 
 had got herself, was evidently hopeless. In 1728 
 likewise, when Massachusetts was engaging in a 
 war of annoyances with her royal governors, Con- 
 necticut had instructed her London agent to take 
 no part with Massachusetts, but to secure the 
 colony's maintenance of her charter quite inde- 
 pendently of her. The Connecticut general as- 
 sembly had a great trust confided to it, and it was 
 not disposed to risk it in Quixotic enterprises of 
 this sort. In 1769-70 Massachusetts had at last 
 been wrought up to concert pitch : her people ev- 
 idently meant to fight ; there was a fair chance of 
 success, since the other colonies showed their in- 
 tention of supporting her ; the enterprise was neces- 
 sary, was no longer Quixotic, and Connecticut went 
 into it heart and soul. Nothing in the history of 
 this commonwealth is so noteworthy as the pre- 
 vailing characteristic of its people, their judicial 
 power of estimating the chances of success, their 
 self-restraint under every provocation until the 
 chances seem to be reasonably good, and their un- 
 reserved abandonment to action when the time 
 for action seems to have fully come. It is Con- 
 necticut tradition that the first step of the gen- 
 eral assembly in 1763 was to appoint three of its 
 ablest men to argue in favor of the right of parlia- 
 ment to tax the colonies, and three fairly matched 
 
 19
 
 290 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 opponents to argue against it ; that the argument, 
 consuming several days, took place before the as- 
 sembly under a pledge of secrecy from all con- 
 cerned ; and that its result was the unanimous 
 agreement of the members against the right of 
 parliament, and in favor of the lawfulness of resist- 
 ance. The story is fairly typical of the Connecti- 
 cut way of looking at questions of the kind, its 
 determination to anchor tenacity of purpose fast 
 in legality of object, and to insist first on being 
 right. One may well speculate as to the results 
 on American history if such a people, instead of 
 being cribbed into four thousand square miles of 
 territory, had been able to impress their character- 
 istics on the population of the magnificent domain 
 which was theirs by charter. 
 
 At first, the preparations for resistance were 
 made by the towns, which acted, in the traditional 
 Connecticut fashion, as if they were little com- 
 monwealths in themselves. They met, voted sol- 
 emn condemnation of the ministry, appointed 
 committees of safety, and appropriated money to 
 buy arms and powder. Every town sent its con- 
 tribution to the poor of Boston, and every com- 
 mittee felt bound also to send a long letter of con- 
 dolence. The general assembly then began prepa- 
 rations to direct the storm. In May and October, 
 1774, it appointed military officers where they 
 were needed ; directed every military company in 
 the colony to be drilled, with fines for non-attend-
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 291 
 
 ance ; and sent delegates to the Continental Con- 
 gress. The recommendations of that body against 
 importing or exporting goods from or to Great 
 Britain were endorsed by the general assembly, 
 and were faithfully carried out. But it is, again, 
 a curious survival of primitive conditions that the 
 towns thought it necessary for them also to meet 
 and endorse the action of congress and the assem- 
 bly. The town republics, which had given birth 
 to the commonwealth, were still conscious of an 
 abundant vitality. 
 
 The battle of Lexington led to the first offen- 
 sive movement by the Americans ; and it is a sin- 
 gularly fitting testimony to Connecticut's readi- 
 ness to help Massachusetts, that, while the latter 
 was defending herself, this offensive movement 
 for her relief, the capture of Ticonderoga and its 
 stores, came from Connecticut. The general as- 
 sembly refrained from officially sanctioning it ; 
 but it was undertaken with its approval, and it 
 paid the bills for the expedition two years after- 
 ward. The opportunity for the venture was of- 
 fered by the close connection which had so long 
 existed between Connecticut and Vermont. Silas 
 Deane and ten associates, having assurances of 
 the assembly's approval, took the money, some 
 800, out of the treasury, giving their receipts 
 therefor ; took a party of Connecticut volunteers 
 to Vermont ; raised a force among the kindred 
 spirits of that region ; and made the capture
 
 292 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 which brought encouragement and relief to the 
 blockading army before Boston. 
 
 Long before this, however, the men of Connec- 
 ticut had been in motion for Boston. The first 
 message from the governor to Putnam, announ- 
 cing the fight at Concord and Lexington, found 
 the veteran at work in his field. He left the plow 
 in the furrow, galloped to the governor's resi- 
 dence, and received orders to go to Boston forth- 
 with. He rode thither in eighteen hours, without 
 dismounting, and was followed by the volunteers 
 of his colony, many of whom had undergone train- 
 ing in the French and Indian war. With Put- 
 nam, as leading officers, were David Wooster and 
 Joseph Spencer, also veterans ; they were com- 
 missioned by congress as brigadier-generals, and 
 Putnam as major-general. It is a little curious 
 that Arnold, though a Connecticut man by birth, 
 did not receive any special recognition from the 
 colony, his commissions and employments being 
 mainly from Massachusetts. 
 
 The general assembly ordered the emission of 
 100,000 in bills of credit, to provide for the 
 equipment of eight regiments, which were ordered 
 to be enlisted from the militia. One result of the 
 far-sighted preparations of the commonwealth was, 
 that, when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, 
 and the ammunition of the fort's defenders con- 
 sisted of but sixty-three half-barrels of powder, 
 thirty-six of them were a present from the colony
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 293 
 
 of Connecticut. Like all the other New England 
 colonies, she sent men who were unaccustomed to 
 discipline, and were not easily brought under 
 prompt military obedience ; but Bunker Hill was 
 enough to show that they could at least fight 
 when placed before an enemy. If there was a 
 flag in the line, it was theirs ; they held the rail 
 fence until the retreat was secured ; and their 
 leader, Putnam, put his own life at stake again 
 and again in the effort to check the retreat at 
 Bunker Hill, and at every step on the road off the 
 peninsula. Indeed, it is a mooted question 
 whether, in the general confusion of the day, Put- 
 nam should not be considered the commander of 
 the American forces engaged. 
 
 The colony itself was comparatively safe from 
 invasion except on the coast, where there was an 
 attack on Stonington by a British vessel. Never- 
 theless, those who had not gone to the seat of war 
 were not disposed to remain idle. Connecticut 
 was practically unanimous on the great question ; 
 New York was badly divided, and the Tories there 
 were men of influence and determination. The 
 man of most influence among them was Riving- 
 ton, the publisher of the "New York Gazette," 
 the Tory newspaper organ. Early in September, 
 1775, Captain Isaac Sears, having raised a troop 
 of Connecticut horsemen, rode into New York 
 city, raided the " Gazette " office, and carried off 
 the types and apparatus. Early in 1776 Gen-
 
 294 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 eral Lee seized New York city with some 1,200 
 Connecticut troops, and held it until Washington's 
 army was transferred thither after the evacuation 
 of Boston. Then Putnam was put in command 
 of the city and its environs, and drove off the Eng- 
 lish fleet. One of the ornaments of the city had 
 been an equestrian statue of King George, cast in 
 lead and gilt. Just a week after the adoption of 
 the Declaration of Independence, this was carried 
 off by night to the house of Oliver Wolcott, in 
 Litchfield county, and there cast into bullets, 
 making 42,088 cartridges. 
 
 While the zeal of the people thus outran official 
 discretion, the Connecticut authorities also had all 
 that they could attend to, though in a soberer 
 way. Governor Trumbull's correspondence with 
 Washington had already assumed that close and 
 confidential cast which it maintained throughout 
 the contest. The assembly was busily engaged in 
 raising men, and providing for their support by 
 the issue of bills and by taxation. It is not too 
 much to say that for a time almost the entire bur- 
 den of the struggle lay upon Connecticut ; and 
 the unflinching manner in which it was met and 
 sustained is made more conspicuous by the fact 
 that the colony was not individually menaced as 
 were colonies which refused to bear any fair pro- 
 portion of the burden. The Department of the 
 North, in 1775, had 2,800 men in the field ; 2,500 
 of these were Connecticut troops. When Wash-
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 295 
 
 ington's army settled down around New York, 
 more than half of his force of 17,000 men had 
 been contributed by Connecticut. It was not 
 wonderful that Washington should write to the 
 governor that he had " full confidence in your 
 most ready assistance on every occasion, and that 
 such measures as appear to you most likely to ad- 
 vance the public good, in this and every instance, 
 will be most cheerfully adopted ; " nor that he 
 should speak of the assembly in such terms as 
 these : " I have nothing to suggest for the consid- 
 eration of your assembly ; I am confident they 
 will not be wanting in their exertions for support- 
 ing the just and constitutional rights of the colo- 
 nies." Even Washington's emphasis had some- 
 thing of reserve and self-restraint about it ; and 
 his unreserve in this case derives additional force 
 from his well-grounded complaints of the action of 
 colonial authorities in general. 
 
 One of the captains of Knowlton's Connecticut 
 regiment was Captain Nathan Hale, a graduate of 
 Yale in 1773, a young man of fine personal pres- 
 ence and of high intelligence. His family was 
 settled in Coventry, Conn. ; and his ancestor had 
 been the first minister of Beverly, Mass. While 
 Washington was lying near Fort Washington, af- 
 ter the retreat from Long Island, it became im- 
 peratively necessary for him to obtain accurate 
 intelligence from the British camp. He called 
 for a volunteer from the younger officers of the
 
 296 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 army, and Hale was the only one who offered him- 
 self. His offer was accepted, and his mission had 
 been accomplished with skill and success, when 
 he was recognized by a Tory relative in the Brit- 
 ish lines, who sent word to headquarters that an 
 American spy was at work in the camp. Adver- 
 tised and described throughout the lines, he yet 
 had sufficient address to make his way as far as 
 the outposts before he was arrested. The testi- 
 mony of his relative convicted him, and he was 
 hanged on the following morning. Not so much 
 his fate, as the manner of it, exasperated the peo- 
 ple of the commonwealth. He was denied the 
 company of a minister ; the poor consolation of a 
 written message home was refused ; and it was 
 the common report that the reason for this bar- 
 barity of punishment was that " the rebels might 
 not know that they had a man in their army who 
 could die with such firmness." In the traditional 
 Connecticut spirit, having undertaken the work, 
 he did not flinch from its consummation. His last 
 words were : " If I had ten thousand lives, I 
 would lay them down in defense of my country." 
 The words meant something in his mouth. 
 
 On the coast, the preponderant navy of the 
 king was very annoying, but principally in its at- 
 tacks on chicken-roosts and sheepfolds. Yankee 
 ingenuity exerted itself to get rid of the annoy- 
 ance. David Bushnell, another young graduate 
 of Yale, of the class of 1775, living at Saybrook,
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 297 
 
 stimulated by the necessity of the case, brought 
 out his " American Turtle," which was to antici- 
 pate the modern system of torpedoes, and blow the 
 British fleet out of water. The Turtle contained 
 a magazine of explosives, and a connected system 
 of clock-work, and could be kept under the control 
 of the operator on shore, so as to rise and fall at 
 his will. The first attempt, made by a person 
 unfamiliar with the mechanism, resulted in a tre- 
 mendous explosion, not under the vessel aimed at, 
 but near enough to put the naval officers into a 
 terrible fright. Another attempt had better suc- 
 cess, and this increased the terror. Still another, 
 in 1777, gave rise to the panic among the British 
 forces at Philadelphia which Hopkinson celebrated 
 in his " Battle of the Kegs." Long afterward, in 
 1813, on a similar occasion, the too impertinent 
 intrusion of the British fleet on the shores of Con- 
 necticut was rebuked and checked in the same 
 fashion. A British vessel was allowed to capture 
 a vessel in which explosives had been connected 
 with a clock-work. The Ramillies barely escaped 
 destruction, and her angry commander inflicted a 
 bombardment on the offending town, Stonington, 
 demanding as the price of exemption that the in- 
 habitants should promise to set no more torpedoes 
 afloat, a demand which was promptly refused. 
 
 The interior of the commonwealth, secure alike 
 by its distance from the seat of war, by the uni- 
 versal loyalty of its population, and by the primi-
 
 298 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 tive simplicity of a people who knew all their 
 neighbors for miles, and could detect any one at- 
 tempting an escape, was a most excellent place for 
 the detention of prisoners. The jails, the public 
 buildings, and even the private houses of the 
 northern townships, were made places of deposit 
 for prisoners of war or for political prisoners. 
 Hither came the Tory officials of New York, the 
 prisoners from Long Island, and others ; and the 
 lenity of their treatment stood in strong contrast 
 with the condition of the Americans who returned 
 from the horrible prison-hulks of the British forces, 
 starved, diseased, and treated with every shade of 
 heathenish cruelty short of absolute cannibalism. 
 Their return home is particularly creditable to the 
 colonists in that it seems to have made no differ- 
 ence in their treatment of their own prisoners, or 
 rather guests. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the substantial 
 unanimity of the people had been secured by 
 strong, if unofficial, measures. The authorities 
 winked assiduously at the operations of the town 
 committees who made it their special business to 
 see that Tories recanted, left the town, or were 
 placed where they would do the least harm. We 
 have no means of ascertaining exactly how far i't 
 was necessary for these committees to go. Terrible 
 accounts of their doings, of their riotous proceed- 
 ings, tarrings and featherings, etc., are given us 
 by the Rev. Samuel Peters, a Tory clergyman of
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 299 
 
 the Church of England, who was driven from the 
 colony during the opening troubles, and afterwards 
 took a terrible revenge by publishing a " History " 
 of Connecticut in London. But Peters stands also 
 as the only authority for the phenomena at Bel- 
 lows' Falls, where the water of the Connecticut 
 River runs so swiftly that an iron crowbar cannot 
 be forced into it, but floats on the surface ; for the 
 inhumanity, to give it no worse name, of Hooker, 
 in giving to the Connecticut Indians Bibles infected 
 with the smallpox, so as to put them out of the 
 way of the rising young colony ; for the amusing 
 manner in which the inhabitants of Windham, 
 alarmed by the noise of an invading army, kept 
 guard against it all night, finding in the morning 
 that it was no more than a flying column of frogs 
 on the way to water ; for those singular members 
 of the Connecticut fauna, the " whapperknocker " 
 and the " cuba," whose untamable ferocity, so well 
 known to all naturalists, the veracious " Doctor " 
 takes pleasure in describing from personal obser- 
 vation ; and for such a mass of other lies as Mun- 
 chausen himself might have been proud to father. 
 Unless this mass of fiction is also to be taken on 
 Peters's authority, it is difficult to see how his 
 authority is to count for much as to the asserted 
 mistreatment of Connecticut Tories. 
 
 Outside of Peters's statements, and the vague 
 newspaper stories current at that day, the strongest 
 case made against the Connecticut fathers of the
 
 300 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 republic is in their use of the Simsbury copper- 
 mines as a place of confinement for Tories " and 
 other notorious offenders." The existence of cop- 
 per at Simsbury was suspected as early as 1705 ; 
 and the town leased the mines to various compa- 
 nies, who brought over miners from Germany and 
 spent their money freely, but got little of it back. 
 The ore contained from fifteen to twenty per cent, 
 of copper, but was too refractory to do more than 
 lure speculators into bankruptcy through assayers' 
 reports. Governor Belcher wrote in 1735 that he 
 had spent $75,000 there since 1721. Coins, called 
 " Granby coppers," from the residence of the coiner 
 in the neighboring town of Granby, were made 
 from the metal in 1737-39 ; but the copper was so 
 nearly pure, and so much in demand for jewelers' 
 alloy, that they have almost disappeared. In 1773 
 mining ceased, and the colony spent about $375 in 
 fitting up the mine as a prison. The main shaft 
 was near the top of a small hill ; and the buildings 
 at the mouth, the wall surrounding them, and the 
 naked hill sloping down in front of it, must have 
 added a shade of horror to the unknown future in 
 the mind of the Tory who was approaching it. 
 Certain it is that hardly anything was so dreadful 
 to the Tory mind as the prospect of incarceration 
 at Simsbury. In 1781 congress applied for per- 
 mission to use it as a prison for state offenders ; 
 but the almost immediate cessation of hostilities 
 relieved the national authority from any such ne- 
 cessity.
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 301 
 
 The number confined here, both of ordinary of- 
 fenders and of Tories, probably never exceeded 
 thirty at any one time ; but the number of insur- 
 rections and escapes was disproportionately great, 
 showing that even copper-mines will not a prison 
 make. The shaft was nearly a hundred feet deep ; 
 but the cells were in the galleries, none of them 
 more than sixty feet below the surface. In spite 
 of the frequent escapes, public confidence in the 
 security of the place was unimpaired, and it was 
 the ordinary state prison from 1790 until 1827, 
 when the new prison at Wethersfield took its 
 place. In defense of the establishment of the 
 prison in such a location, it may be urged that 
 such a step was not considered improper anywhere 
 at the time ; that the terrors of the place were 
 more in imagination than in reality; that the 
 health of the prisoners was good and was not af- 
 fected unfavorably by their location ; and that 
 special practices of that time must not be judged 
 by the more civilized theory of a later era. So 
 late as 1807, a traveler who visited it could go no 
 further in reprehension than to say : " For myself, 
 I cannot get rid of the impression that, without 
 any extraordinary cruelty in its actual operation, 
 there is something very like cruelty in the device 
 and design." How much more lenient must have 
 been the judgment of a sound Whig of 1775 when 
 he saw a Tory consigned to the Simsbury New- 
 gate!
 
 302 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Patriotic solicitude must have been reinforced 
 by religious intolerance. The Episcopal Church 
 had always been an alien in Connecticut. Its 
 founders had broken away from the Established 
 or Congregational Church ; their success had di- 
 minished the resources of the latter ; their minis- 
 ters had to cross the ocean to be ordained, and to 
 take a special oath of allegiance to the crown ; 
 they were his majesty's opposition in a colony 
 which liked neither majesty nor opposition ; and 
 they were strongly suspected of a design to reduce 
 this, with the other colonies, to some form of 
 episcopacy. The latter belief, which had a special 
 weight in bringing about the final revolution, was 
 increased in Connecticut by the fact that, when- 
 ever the Episcopal Church had come into collision 
 with the colonial authorities, its first and most ef- 
 fective weapon had always been a threat of appeal 
 to the home government. There was probably 
 hardly a man in Connecticut who, being a Whig 
 and a Congregationalist, did not believe that every 
 Episcopalian was either an open or a secret Tory, 
 and that the Episcopalian ministers were their 
 leaders and guides. The Episcopal churches in 
 the colony were shut, and the ministers were si- 
 lenced, except Rev. John Beach, an Episcopalian 
 missionary at Reading and Newtown, who persisted 
 in praying for the king as usual, in spite of rough 
 treatment at the hands of the Whigs. For the 
 time, the Episcopal Church in Connecticut was BUS-
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 303 
 
 pended, and its members were almost outlawed, 
 for the colonial authorities would give them only 
 a grudging protection. The reestablishment of 
 peace brought the reestablishment of the Church ; 
 and, thirty years later, the sons of its members 
 had the pious satisfaction of disestablishing the 
 Church which had persecuted their fathers. 
 
 The connection between the Episcopalians of 
 Connecticut and of New York city had always 
 been close, and it cannot be supposed that the suf- 
 ferings of the Connecticut Tories had been looked 
 at with indifference in New York. As the tide of 
 war rolled off through the Jerseys toward Phila- 
 delphia, stripping Connecticut of a large portion 
 of its able-bodied men, the time seemed to have 
 come for a blow that should teach the Congrega- 
 tional colony that its enemies had still some of the 
 terrors of war at their command. Tryon, the 
 royalist governor of New York, with a force of two 
 thousand men and twenty-five vessels, sailed east- 
 ward through Long Island Sound, and landed at 
 Saugatuck, about twenty miles from Danbury, 
 where a considerable amount of Continental and 
 State stores had been gathered. A hasty march 
 overland brought them to Danbury, April 26, 
 1777, where they destroyed not only the stores, 
 but the bulk of the town, carefully sparing Tory 
 property. There were some Continental soldiers 
 in the neighborhood, and two officers of rank, 
 Wooster and Arnold. The latter rallied all the
 
 304 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 men available, regulars and militia, and headed 
 Tryon on his retreat, at Ridgefield. In the battle, 
 Wooster was mortally wounded, and Tryon broke 
 through and resumed his way to the Sound. Ar- 
 nold kept up the pursuit until the British took 
 refuge on the shipping and sailed away. The ex- 
 pedition was followed by one from New Haven in 
 retaliation. Colonel Meigs crossed the Sound with 
 nearly two hundred men in whaleboats to Sag 
 Harbor, attacked the place a little after midnight, 
 captured it, and burned twelve vessels, with a 
 large amount of stores. He then recrossed the 
 Sound with ninety prisoners, and without losing a 
 man. 
 
 In the mean time Connecticut had become a 
 State. In May, 1776, the people had been formally 
 released from their allegiance to the crown ; and 
 in October the general assembly passed an act 
 assuming the functions of a State. The important 
 section of the act was the first, as follows : " That 
 the ancient form of civil government, contained in 
 the charter from Charles the Second, King of Eng- 
 land, and adopted by the people of this State, shall 
 be and remain the civil Constitution of this State, 
 under the sole authority of the people thereof, in- 
 dependent of any King or Prince whatever. And 
 that this Republic is, and shall forever be and re- 
 main, a free, sovereign, and independent State, by 
 the name of the State of Connecticut." The form 
 of the act speaks what was doubtless always the
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 305 
 
 belief of the people, that their charter derived its 
 validity, not from the will of the crown, but from 
 the assent of the people. And the curious language 
 of the last sentence, in which " this Republic " de- 
 clares itself to be " a free, sovereign, and indepen- 
 dent State," may serve to indicate something of 
 the appearance which state sovereignty doubtless 
 presented to the American of 1776-89. It is not 
 safe to take " the United States "of 1887 as ex- 
 actly equivalent, in the eyes of the people, to 
 "the United States" of 1776-89. The nation 
 was born ; but its constituent units were often 
 painfully unconscious of the birth. 
 
 The main theatre of war continued to be out- 
 side of the State ; but her troops shared in all its 
 dangers and hardships. The one great business 
 of the State authorities was to fill up the State's 
 quota of men and provide for their maintenance ; 
 that of the towns was to fill up their quotas, and 
 to follow the ever- shifting continental currency by 
 changing the necessary salaries as it changed. No 
 one can follow the town records without receiving 
 an increased respect for the persistent devotion of 
 the people to the common cause. There seems to 
 have been little attempt to shift burdens to the 
 shoulders of others ; but each town accepted its 
 share as a necessary fact, and strained every en- 
 ergy to meet it. It would have been hardly pos- 
 sible that such devotion should have been purely 
 unselfish ; the fact was that, safe as the State was 
 20
 
 306 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 in general, there was hardly a moment when it 
 was not exposed to the possibility of harassing par- 
 tisan warfare. The British headquarters in New 
 York city were so near, and transportation by 
 ship was so easy, that the whole coast of the State 
 was exposed. In addition to the services of her 
 regular levies, the purely State troops were com- 
 pelled to serve tours of duty on the coast ; and 
 detachments were posted in the various exposed 
 towns. Putnam had been in command of the 
 American forces, and his headquarters had been 
 at Peekskill, within supporting distance of the 
 new post at West Point, whose importance he had 
 been the first to see and secure. He removed his 
 headquarters to Reading in 1778, and from that 
 place fulfilled his old duty, while aiding in the de- 
 fense of the exposed portions of his own State. It 
 was during this period of service that he met with 
 the adventure at Horse Neck, which is one of the 
 best known of his eventful life, though it was 
 probably one of which he thought the least. One 
 of the most urgent needs of the " rebels " was 
 salt. It was made roughly at various places on 
 the coast, and, with all its inevitable impurities, 
 was grateful enough to the people. One of these 
 salt-works was at Horse Neck, and a British force 
 came up from New York to destroy it. Putnam 
 delayed so long in providing for his men's retreat 
 that his only way of escape was to plunge on horse- 
 back down a long flight of stone steps, his baffled 
 pursuers reining in at the top and contenting
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 307 
 
 themselves with firing ineffectually at him as he 
 went. 
 
 Early in the winter of 1779-80, Putnam under- 
 took a visit to his home in Pomfret, but was 
 struck with partial paralysis on his journey. He 
 never recovered from it, but was disabled until 
 his death in 1790. Washington thus lost the ser- 
 vices of one on whom he had always leaned 
 largely. He was perhaps the most uneducated 
 officer in the army ; his name was synonymous in 
 the British view with bad manners and coarse- 
 ness ; his portrait is that of a gross, heavy man, 
 as far removed as possible from the popular no- 
 tion of the Connecticut Yankee ; but his prompt 
 decision, natural intelligence, and unswerving de- 
 termination were just the qualities that would rec- 
 ommend him equally to his men and to the com- 
 mander-in-chief. They are shown in his letter of 
 the previous year to Try on, in a case in which the 
 latter had threatened retaliation. If it is not gen- 
 uine, it is a most skillful forgery, for it speaks the 
 voice of Putnam in every line. It is as follows : 
 
 " SIR : Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in your 
 King's service, was taken in my camp as a spy. 
 He was tried as a spy ; he was condemned as a 
 spy ; and you may rest assured, sir, he shall be 
 hanged as a spy. I have the honor to be, &c. 
 
 ISRAEL PUTNAM. 
 His Excellency, GOVERNOR TRYON. 
 
 P. S. Afternoon. He is hanged."
 
 308 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The Fourth of July in 1779 fell on Sunday, and 
 the people of New Haven had made arrangements 
 to celebrate the Declaration of American Inde- 
 pendence on the day after. Before the exercises 
 had fairly begun, the town was thrown into con- 
 sternation by the news that Tryon's fleet and 
 forces, numbering 3,000 men in some forty-eight 
 vessels, had dropped anchor near West Haven at 
 five o'clock that morning, and were on the march 
 for New Haven. They came in two detachments, 
 of 1,500 men each, one marching from West Ha- 
 ven, the other attacking and capturing a small 
 fort at Black Rock on its way. The first detach- 
 ment met some resistance, and entered the town 
 by the Derby Road. By one o'clock in the after- 
 noon all resistance had been overcome, and the 
 invaders had met at the green, then an unsightly 
 common. The town was given up to plunder un- 
 til the following morning, when the British retired 
 as suddenly as they had come. They had been 
 guilty of many acts of the most barbarous cruelty, 
 the accounts of which are preserved in tradition 
 or print ; they had inflicted a money loss of some 
 25,000, but the buildings of the college and the 
 other public edifices were undamaged. 
 
 Sailing along the coast, Tryon landed at Fair- 
 field, July 8, and destroyed that place. Here 
 public and private buildings alike were fired. 
 The same was the case at the village of Green's 
 Farms the next morning; and then the British
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 309 
 
 commander called off his dogs for a little space. 
 They crossed the Sound to Huntington Bay, and 
 remained there until July 11. Recrossing the 
 Sound to Norwalk, they spent the day in the work 
 of destruction. When they took their departure, 
 the quiet little town had disappeared but for the 
 smoke of its torment, which hung over the spot 
 where it had been. By this time the population 
 of the interior was mustering to meet Tryon at 
 his next landing, and he prudently retired to 
 headquarters. He had inflicted upon Connecti- 
 cut a loss of about 250,000, as appeared by 
 the proven claims for which the general assembly, 
 as before stated, allotted 500,000 acres of north- 
 western lands in 1792. But he had not broken 
 the spirit of the people ; and his own loss in men, 
 nearly three hundred, was enough to convince 
 him that such attacks were no longer to take rank 
 as purely plundering expeditions, but were to be 
 attended with some danger to life and limb. 
 Such knowledge was sufficient to appease his 
 martial ardor, and he vexed Connecticut very 
 little more. 
 
 Tryon had been so injudicious as to give special 
 protection to the property of Tories in his work ; 
 and the Tories had been so imprudent as not only 
 to receive the protection but to exult in it. A few 
 of them had taken the inevitable next step, by 
 retiring with Tryon's fleet; but others had the 
 weakness or folly to remain. In May, 1778, the
 
 310 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 general assembly had begun the process of confis- 
 cation against avowed or absconding Tories, under 
 the euphemism of " settling their estates ; " the 
 Tryon episode naturally had the effect of stimu- 
 lating the energy of the State authorities in en- 
 forcing the process, and of provoking even a more 
 bitter feeling of the Whigs against those Tories 
 who retained their former dwelling-places. Some 
 of the names which had been most influential in 
 the history of the colony disappeared at this time 
 from the records of the State, and their property 
 passed into other hands. But some of the former 
 holders remained, and their influence in subse- 
 quent politics is a fair witness to the clemency of 
 Connecticut. Dr. Peters himself returned to his 
 former parish in 1806, for a visit, and found that 
 even his " History " had been condoned. He died 
 at New York in 1826 ; and his nephew was gov- 
 ernor of Connecticut in 1831-32. 
 
 The Connecticut authorities had been indefati- 
 gable in raising and provisioning troops, and her 
 people had been equally earnest in offering their 
 services. In the number of men contributed she 
 stood second of the States with 31,939 men, Mas- 
 sachusetts being first with 67,907. Considering 
 differences of population, and more especially dif- 
 ferences in immediate danger, Connecticut's quota 
 stands out well beside the 25,678 of Pennsylva- 
 nia, the 17,781 of New York, the 6,417 of South 
 Carolina, or the 2,679 of Georgia. In general
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 311 
 
 orders of June 16, 1782, Washington spoke of the 
 Connecticut Brigade as " composed of as fine a 
 body of men as any in the army ; " and he ex- 
 pressed a wish for a general review of the men, to 
 decide the relative proficiency of the Connecticut 
 men. In another order, issued two days after- 
 ward, he thus expressed his high opinion of the 
 State's line : " The General informs the Army he 
 had great occasion to be satisfied at the review of 
 the Second Connecticut Brigade yesterday, espe- 
 cially with the soldier-like and veteran appearance 
 of the men, and the exactness with which the fir- 
 ings were performed. He felt particular pleasure 
 in observing the cleanliness and steadiness of the 
 second Regiment under arms." And the historian 
 of the commonwealth may be pardoned for taking 
 a "particular pleasure" in noting the fact, that, 
 with the exception of a briefer compliment to a 
 Massachusetts brigade, this is the only instance in 
 Washington's Revolutionary orders of su%h public 
 commendation of any State's quota. In almost 
 all cases Connecticut men were drafted into ser- 
 vice outside of the State, to make good the defi- 
 ciencies of less zealous States. She had, in addi- 
 tion, to maintain almost all the defense of her own 
 borders, and that while Long Island Sound Was 
 under complete control of the enemy's ships. Her 
 success in so doing almost stopped civilized life 
 around the Sound. The Connecticut Tories were 
 driven to Long Island, while the Long Island Whigs
 
 312 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 crossed into Connecticut ; and the waters of the 
 Sound were harassed by almost continual skir- 
 mishing. When the French forces were quartered 
 within the State, her people enjoyed a season of 
 comparative tranquillity. When they were with- 
 drawn for the march on Yorktown, which was 
 planned by Washington and the French leaders 
 in a meeting at Wethersfield, Arnold, now in the 
 British service, made his raid on New London, 
 and the State, as usual, was compelled to meet the 
 shock almost unsupported. 
 
 Arnold, a native of Norwich, knew the country 
 around New London well, and its defenseless con- 
 dition was no secret to him. Two small works 
 had been thrown up, forts Trumbull and Gris- 
 wold ; but the former was open at the rear, and 
 had a garrison of but twenty-three men, who were 
 ordered to retreat to the other fort at the approach 
 of danger. Colonel William Ledyard was in com- 
 mand of both forts. Arnold's landing on the 
 morning of September 6, 1781, seems to have 
 been a surprise to every one in the town ; and his 
 1,700 men were at work on both sides of the river 
 before any effective preparations could be made 
 to meet him. Indeed, no such preparations could 
 have been made, even with a day's notice ; there 
 were no troogs to draw upon. Fort Trumbull 
 was taken with a rush : Ledyard drew in his men 
 to Fort Griswold ; and while Arnold reserved to 
 himself the congenial task of burning the town,
 
 THE STAMP ACT AND THE REVOLUTION. 313 
 
 its dwellings, warehouses, and shipping, the next 
 in command, on the other side of the river, was 
 directed to storm Fort Griswold. 
 
 The British soldier is a noble animal ; but the 
 notion that he will not strike an enemy who is 
 "down" should be relegated to the ante-Buffon- 
 ian period of natural history. Badajos was nei- 
 ther the first nor the last witness to the contrary ; 
 and too many British officers have put on record 
 their impressions of the British soldier in the mo- 
 ment of victory for us to be surprised at such a 
 little matter as happened at Fort Griswold. The 
 unusual circumstance in this case was that the of- 
 ficer in command was the greatest brute, appar- 
 ently, of the storming party. After an obstinate 
 resistance, in which Ledyard exhausted every 
 means of defense, and all the British officers of 
 high rank had been carried off dead or dying, the 
 storming party, of which a Major Bromfield was 
 now left in command, poured in. " Who com- 
 mands this fort? " called Bromfield. "I did, sir; 
 but you do now," said Ledyard, offering his sword. 
 Bromfield, infuriated by the unexpected slaugh- 
 ter, seized the sword and plunged it into Led- 
 yard's breast. With such an example from one 
 in authority, the soldiers' instincts came out at 
 their worst ; the defenders were bayoneted where- 
 ever they sought refuge, until all but about twenty- 
 five of the one hundred and fifty men in the fort 
 were killed or desperately wounded. The fire of 
 rage dying out for want of sound material, was
 
 314 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 revived by the collection of the wounded ; and 
 thirty-five of these were placed in a cart and 
 rolled down the slope, among rocks and stumps, 
 to be dashed to pieces at the bottom for the amuse- 
 ment of the soldiers. The plea has been offered 
 that the laws of war allowed military execution of 
 the sort upon a fort which persisted in a hopeless 
 defense; but this point of the laws of war has 
 probably never been so strained before as in this 
 case, and, in any event, the wounded have com- 
 monly been held exempt. 
 
 As Arnold passed out of New London harbor, 
 the Revolutionary struggle passed away with him. 
 It had been a time of sudden and tremendous 
 growth, this transformation of the colony into a 
 State, of the disappearance of old ideas and of old 
 loyalty, of burnings and plunderings, of life-long 
 separations through the fortune of war, of family 
 and social disintegration, of heavy taxation amid 
 stringent poverty, of great burdens manfully 
 borne ; but the fancy is almost forced to picture, 
 as the crowning episode of the war, the old com- 
 monwealth sitting among the ruins which her re- 
 creant son had wrought, and watching him as he 
 sailed away to be worse and less than a foreigner 
 to her forevermore. It may be only a natural 
 shrinking from an unnatural crime, or it may be a 
 remnant of ancient controversies, which has made 
 the historians of Connecticut so careful to note the 
 fact that Arnold was by blood a Rhode Island 
 man.
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 THE relations of Connecticut to the articles of 
 confederation were peculiar. For a century and 
 a half, the full energy of the commonwealth had 
 been at work to maintain the autonomy secured 
 by the charter, and to exclude from the soil of 
 Connecticut every vestige of authority not owning 
 the people of Connecticut as its legitimate source. 
 From this standpoint, the articles, with their ex- 
 press and tacit attempts to reserve and strengthen 
 state sovereignty, were the exact representatives 
 of Connecticut feeling. The vote in favor of them 
 would have been practically unanimous in 1781, 
 the year in which they went into effect. 
 
 Other considerations soon compelled attention. 
 One of the first results of the adoption of the ar- 
 ticles, as has been stated, was the ousting of Con- 
 necticut from her western claims, with the excep- 
 tion of a reservation which seemed pitiful alongside 
 of Virginia's royal reservation for the satisfaction 
 of her debts and obligations. Instead of the main- 
 tenance of vast claims in the Northwest, her busi- 
 ness was now to secure her independence of her
 
 31 6 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 nearer neighbors : and this was difficult enough. 
 The desolation wrought by the Revolutionary con- 
 flict, with the features peculiar to it in this quarter 
 of America, was of continuing effect : the towns 
 of the Connecticut coast were poverty-stricken, 
 their merchants were bankrupt ; there was no 
 energy to spare among the people for the revival 
 of foreign commerce, and the imports of the State 
 were of necessity made through Boston or New 
 York. Here they found no amicable treatment, 
 under the provisions of the articles of confedera- 
 tion which allowed each State to levy taxes on im- 
 ports. Something like one third of the expenses 
 of the New York government were paid by taxa- 
 tion levied so as to be borne by imports into Con- 
 necticut ; even this burden was not enough to de- 
 velop a domestic commerce in the subordinate State; 
 and the only resource available was the poor one 
 of turning to pay, in like manner, one third of the 
 expenses of the Massachusetts government. State 
 sovereignty was very fine in theory ; but a state 
 sovereignty bottomed on the sole power of the 
 State was found by Connecticut to be a very poor 
 resource for her. It was not long before the lead- 
 ing minds of Connecticut were ready to give up 
 this naked and deceptive state sovereignty for 
 state rights, bottomed on the guaranty of a na- 
 tional power. 
 
 In February, 1781, just before the articles actu- 
 ally went into effect, congress notified the States
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 317 
 
 that it would be absolutely necessary for them to 
 surrender to congress a limited power to levy taxes 
 on imports, in order to satisfy the public debt. It 
 was essential that every state legislature should 
 agree to this, and the assent of Connecticut, with 
 all but one of the other States, was balked by the 
 veto of the smallest of the States, Rhode Island. 
 Before Rhode Island could be reasoned with, Vir- 
 ginia repealed her assenting act, and the veto 
 was made more positive. For the next half-dozen 
 years the position of Connecticut was unchanged : 
 her people, instinctively willing for national taxa- 
 tion, were moved by what may seem an unreason- 
 able jealousy of the Society of the Cincinnati, and 
 were unwilling to see a national taxing power 
 under its control or in its interest. For this, how- 
 ever, there was some excuse. The feeling of the 
 military authorities toward the privates of the 
 Revolutionary armies would seem odd to men of 
 the present day. To Washington, for example, it 
 was always the officers who were the " gentlemen 
 of the army ; " the privates were food for powder, 
 well enough off with rations, clothes, and glory. 
 When " half -pay for the army " was proposed by 
 congress in 1778, it was only for the commissioned 
 officers; $80 apiece in continental money at the 
 end of the war was thought a quite liberal provi- 
 sion for the insignificant privates. It may very 
 easily be seen that such notions as these were not 
 likely to be popular in an ultra-democratic State
 
 318 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 like Connecticut ; and it is probable that her Rev- 
 olutionary privates were as bitter in their opposi- 
 tion to the Society of the Cincinnati as those who 
 had not entered the army at all. It was not " the 
 old leaven of Silas Deane," as Hamilton thought, 
 but the instincts of democracy, that fought against 
 caste distinctions in the army, as elsewhere. 
 
 In April, 1783, a still more limited proposition 
 to grant taxing powers to congress, with a recom- 
 mendation to change the basis of contribution from 
 land to number of inhabitants, was sent out to the 
 States. Connecticut assented at once, with New 
 Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, 
 North and South Carolina ; but the other States 
 assented so slowly or so grudgingly that the proposi- 
 tion hung fire. When New York gave it the coup 
 de grace in 1786, Connecticut had been on the side 
 of the proposed reformation in every vote. She sent 
 no representatives to the Annapolis Convention of 
 1786 ; and Knox attributes her neglect or refusal 
 to " jealousy." With all respect to his judgment, 
 it must be noted that the meeting of that body 
 took place in the height of the anti- Cincinnati ex- 
 citement ; that this seed of discontent was removed 
 before the Philadelphia Convention met ; and that 
 Connecticut's delegates to that body showed that 
 her previous "jealousy" had been of a nature to 
 which neither Knox nor any other typical Revolu- 
 tionary officer could do substantial justice, much 
 less deal kindly with it.
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 319 
 
 In May, 1787, the general assembly of Connec- 
 ticut appointed William Samuel Johnson, Roger 
 Sherman, and Oliver Ellsworth delegates to the 
 federal convention at Philadelphia, with instruc- 
 tions to meet the delegates of the other States, and 
 " to discuss upon such alterations and provisions, 
 agreeably to the general principles of republican 
 government, as they shall think proper to render 
 the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies 
 of government and the preservation of the Union." 
 The convention met May 14 ; a majority of the 
 States were ready for business May 25 ; and Ells- 
 worth attended May 28, Sherman May 30, and 
 Johnson June 2. From the first appearance of 
 Ellsworth the Connecticut delegation was in the 
 thick of every struggle. It has been said that its 
 members " aspired to act as mediators " in the 
 convention ; if so, the aspiration was justified by its 
 fruits, for the ability of the delegates was reinforced 
 by the peculiar position of their State. Sherman, 
 though of Massachusetts by birth, was of that 
 family which has always been strong in the Con- 
 necticut Valley, and has since blossomed into new 
 power in Ohio. Johnson, of the Stratford blood 
 which had introduced Episcopacy into Connecticut, 
 was yet a devoted and trusted Whig throughout 
 the Revolution. Ellsworth, subsequently chief 
 justice of the United States and of his State, was 
 of a Windsor family. The three were probably 
 the ablest lawyers in the State, represented all
 
 320 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 shades of opinion in it, and all its territorial divi- 
 sions, and were united only in the desire for a 
 good national government. No interest in the 
 State could claim more than one of them ; they be- 
 longed to the whole State and to the Union. 
 
 The attitude of Connecticut has been repre- 
 sented as that of a " small State," intent only on 
 obtaining every possible reservation of state sover- 
 eignty. Such a representation is grossly unfair. 
 There was no reason for it a priori. The State 
 had nothing to gain by it. Her territorial limits 
 were distinctly closed for the future ; and she was 
 wisely and justly determined that the new govern- 
 ment should not take the form proposed by Vir- 
 ginia, a congress of two houses, both chosen by the 
 States in direct proportion to population, with a 
 president and judiciary appointed by this congress, 
 so that a caucus, or " deal," by a few large States 
 would give them absolute control of the govern- 
 ment in all its branches. This latter proposition 
 would in reality have been the greatest of calami- 
 ties for a real development of national spirit and 
 power. Connecticut desired a sound and practical 
 national government, and the path to it was 
 marked out for her delegates by their own com- 
 monwealth's development and history for one hun- 
 dred and fifty years. 
 
 Through this long period, Connecticut had been 
 the only colony, with the exception of Rhode 
 Island (unrepresented in this convention), which
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 321 
 
 had had a governor and council, chosen by majority 
 vote and by almost universal suffrage ; her dele- 
 gates were therefore quite prepared for the pro- 
 position that at least a part of the new federal 
 government should be chosen in much the same 
 way. On the other hand, in the development of 
 new towns, Connecticut had always been careful 
 to maintain the substantial equality of each town- 
 ship in at least one branch of her government ; 
 her delegates were therefore quite prepared for the 
 proposition that at least a part of the new federal 
 government should similarly recognize the equality 
 of the States. Her combination of commonwealth 
 and town rights had worked so simply and natu- 
 rally that her delegates were quite prepared to 
 suggest a similar combination of national and state 
 rights as the foundation of the new government. 
 The circumstances were enough to clear their 
 mental vision, to enable them to look calmly and 
 judiciously at every new proposition, and to make 
 them real "mediators." This is the crowning 
 glory of the system which Hooker inaugurated 
 in the wilderness, and of the commonwealth of 
 Connecticut. For a century and a half, she had 
 been maintaining the rudimentary form of that 
 mixture of the national and federal elements which 
 are now united in our federal government and give 
 it its strength. This system had bred up a race of 
 public men who were accustomed to it. Their 
 
 chosen men went as delegates to the convention, 
 21
 
 322 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and were urged at every step in the line which 
 Hooker had marked out for them, and which their 
 commonwealth had been making straight for them 
 for a hundred and fifty years. It is hardly too 
 much to say that the birth of the constitution was 
 merely the grafting of the Connecticut system on 
 the stock of the old confederation, where it has 
 grown into richer luxuriance than Hooker could 
 ever have dreamed of. 
 
 The proceedings of the convention, in dealing 
 with the legislative, executive, and judicial ele- 
 ments of the constitution, are so voluminous and 
 complicated, and Sherman, Ellsworth, and Johnson 
 made up so large a part of almost every debate, 
 that the reader of the convention's proceedings 
 may easily become confused, and will be apt to 
 conclude that, able as these men were, they simply 
 contributed detached portions of the work ; and 
 thus the essential service of the Connecticut com- 
 monwealth may be altogether lost sight of. It is 
 far better to fix the attention on one point of time, 
 the most critical, perhaps, of the convention, and 
 thus to see how the whole force which had been 
 accumulating for one hundred and fifty years came 
 in at the right time to turn the convention into the 
 exact track which made permanent success pos- 
 sible, against the desires of the mass of the mem- 
 bers. It should be remembered, also, that Con- 
 necticut delegates had strong grounds of appeal to 
 the confidence of their fellows through the course
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 323 
 
 of the commonwealth in the public affairs of the 
 previous half-dozen years. She was evidently dis- 
 interested, with no selfish schemes to work for and 
 no selfish object to gain. Her population gave 
 her respect in the eyes of the large States. Her 
 democracy gave the small States confidence in her. 
 Her position was one of unusual advantage ; but 
 it would have been worthless but for the long years 
 of preparation which had been begun in the three 
 little towns on the banks of the Connecticut. 
 
 The two plans which came to the front in the 
 opening hours of the convention the "Virginia 
 Plan," presented by Randolph, and the " Jersey 
 Plan," presented by Patterson are usually de- 
 scribed as respectively the " National " and the 
 "State Sovereignty" plans. Nothing could be 
 more misleading than such a classification ; neither 
 had anything of the spirit of nationality in it. The 
 Virginia plan, giving control of both houses of 
 congress to numbers, and control of the executive 
 and judiciary to the two houses, was merely a 
 scheme to secure the bulk of the spoils to the com- 
 bination of a few large States ; the Jersey plan, 
 continuing the articles of confederation, with the 
 power of coercing insubordinate States, was a 
 counter-scheme to insure the safety of the small 
 States against the large ones. The futility of the 
 appellation " national " may be seen in the disgust 
 with which the large-State men looked at their own 
 plan when Connecticut had forced a really national
 
 824 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 element into it. They no longer loved their off- 
 spring. 
 
 The discussion of the two plans ran on through 
 the month of June. Between the two parties, and 
 belonging to neither, was Connecticut, and her 
 unswerving position was first made public on the 
 llth of June. Here were two sets of States: one 
 voting steadily for proportional representation in 
 both of two houses, the other voting as steadily for 
 a single house and absolute State equality in that. 
 In the first class were usually Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, and Georgia; in the second, New York, 
 New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. It is odd 
 that great expectations of coming immigration 
 kept the Southern States in the column of " large " 
 States, while New York, without a thought of her 
 coming western expansion, posed contentedly as a 
 " small " State. The discussions of the successive 
 items of the rival plans were conducted daily in 
 committee of the whole house, and Connecticut 
 seized the opportunity to declare her position, June 
 11. On motion of Sherman, slightly amended by 
 King, it was voted that representation in the first 
 branch of the national legislature should be pro- 
 portional, not equal. This was a "large State" 
 proposition, but Connecticut voted for it, placing 
 herself in the large-State column, and making the 
 vote seven in favor, three against, and one (Mary- 
 land) divided. Then Sherman, seconded by his
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 325 
 
 own colleague Ellsworth, as if to make the attitude 
 of their State more pronounced, moved that each 
 State have a vote in the second branch (the sen- 
 ate). This was a practical incorporation of the 
 small-State proposition, and the large States voted 
 it down, six to five. From this time on, the pro- 
 position of State equality in the upper, and pro- 
 portionate representation in the lower house of 
 congress was renewed again and again by the Con- 
 necticut delegates, was commonly cited as " the 
 Connecticut proposal," and was regularly voted 
 down by six to five until July 2. This steady 
 vote of Connecticut with the small States made 
 that a minority not to be disregarded; and, as 
 passion rose higher until a public threat was made 
 that the small States would confederate and find a 
 foreign power which would take them by the hand 
 for their protection, the cool, deliberate, and per- 
 sistently offered compromise of Connecticut be- 
 came harder to resist. On the 2d of July, the 
 large-State delegates showed the first symptoms of 
 breaking, by referring the Connecticut proposal to 
 a committee of one from each State. We have no 
 means of knowing the proceedings of the commit- 
 tee, but they must have been interesting. It is 
 only known that Franklin's influence was cast for 
 the Connecticut proposal ; and that it was reported 
 favorably, July 5. The report met a storm of 
 opposition. Madison " only restrained himself 
 from animadverting on the report from the re-
 
 326 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 spect he bore to the members of the committee." 
 Wilson angrily exclaimed that the committee had 
 exceeded their powers. On the 7th of July, North 
 Carolina came over to the Connecticut proposal, and 
 the report of the committee was at last adopted 
 by a vote of six States for it, Pennsylvania, Vir- 
 ginia, and South Carolina against it, and Massa- 
 chusetts and Georgia divided. The great question 
 was settled, and the Connecticut proposal went on 
 the 26th of July to a committee of detail, which 
 reported the constitution of the senate, much as it 
 was finally adopted. 
 
 With this achievement, Connecticut's work in 
 the convention was really finished. Her delegates 
 constantly lent the great weight of their legal 
 ability and strong common sense, reinforced by 
 the general confidence in them, to the subsequent 
 debates ; but their leadership, assumed unwillingly 
 and only from a sense of duty, was dropped as 
 soon as the occasion which called for it was over. 
 The system of complete local liberty, with a 
 limited but concentrated central power, under 
 which the Connecticut river towns had filled out 
 their boundaries and had struggled desperately 
 but vainly for expansion abroad, had passed into 
 a wider field, where it was to have a wider success. 
 Governor Huntington was a hearty supporter of 
 the proposed constitution ; the assembly unani- 
 mously called a convention to consider it ; and 
 that body met at Hartford, and ratified the consti-
 
 ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 327 
 
 tution, January 9, 1788, by a vote of one hundred 
 and twenty-eight to forty. Ellsworth and John- 
 son received the deserved honor of being chosen as 
 the State's first representatives in the senate of the 
 United States; and the commonwealth of Con- 
 necticut became merged in the greater common- 
 wealth of the United States, its own lineal suc- 
 cessor.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 THE development of Connecticut under the 
 constitution has been a cui'ious bni natural conse- 
 quence of her preceding history. All her institu- 
 tions had tended to the development of an abound- 
 ing individualism among her people. Thrown 
 into any situation, a Connecticut party set at once 
 about organizing civil government, and the indi- 
 vidual began the promptest and most efficient pre- 
 parations for taking care of himself. It was the 
 institutions of the commonwealth, not any wonder- 
 ful or elaborate system of common schools, that 
 made the people of Connecticut what they were ; 
 for the hopes of early years, for a thorough com- 
 mon-school system, have only been realized in 
 recent times. Until the new era in popular edu- 
 cation came in, the ordinary Connecticut citizen 
 had what would now be considered a very meagre 
 education ; but he had something much better in 
 the thoroughly learned lesson of looking out for 
 himself. Further, the constant application of this 
 lesson, under the necessities of the people, had de- 
 veloped the class of what are often called " house-
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 329 
 
 hold industries " very considerably before the close 
 of the last century. Farmers and their sons did 
 not lose the evenings or rainy days : these were 
 spent in making nails and other iron products, or 
 anything which would sell. All this, continued 
 through generations, took the place of the techni- 
 cal education which is now finding its way into 
 our school systems. The consequence has been, 
 during the last seventy years, the development of 
 the modern Connecticut mechanic out of the Con- 
 necticut agriculturist of the last century, and the 
 transformation of the commonwealth into a great 
 industrial community. 
 
 The devastation of the Revolution had rather 
 checked than stopped the internal development of 
 the commonwealth. New towns were erected even 
 during the heat of the war, and while so many of 
 the old towns were under plunder and fire; and 
 the attainment of peace was like the throwing 
 down of a dam the new towns numbering two 
 in 1784, five in 1785, thirteen in 1786, and ten be- 
 tween that year and the close of the century. It 
 was estimated by the convention of 1787 that the 
 State then had a population of 202,000, exceeded 
 only by Virginia (600,000), Massachusetts 
 (352,000), Pennsylvania (341,000), Maryland, 
 (254,000), and New York (238,000). In the as- 
 signment of representatives in congress before the 
 first census, ten were given to Virginia, eight each 
 to Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, six to New
 
 330 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 York and Maryland, and Connecticut, North Caro- 
 lina, and South Carolina were put on a level with 
 five each. When the first census was taken it was 
 found that the population of the State was 237,946, 
 making its rank eighth among the States. The 
 second census, in 1800, gave it the same relative 
 rank with a population of 251,002. 
 
 Almost all the interests of this population were 
 agricultural. The commonwealth was not that 
 scene of busy activity which it is to-day, with 
 streams of raw material pouring into it from every 
 side, springs of manufactured product bubbling 
 up in every acre, and outflowing in freight bound 
 to every part of the world. In 1790, the activity 
 was altogether local. The whole commonwealth 
 was dotted with towns ; but these were the little 
 centres of small agricultural circles, with very 
 little surplus for exportation beyond that which 
 was necessary for the support of their own people. 
 The green in the heart of the town had its church, 
 and leading to it was a street, with wooden houses, 
 usually comfortable, but often unpainted, and sel- 
 dom representing any great amount of luxury. 
 Each local circle was able to raise most of what 
 was needed for its people ; exchanges among the 
 people made up special deficiencies ; and the peri- 
 patetic tailor, shoemaker, or other workmen com- 
 pleted whatever was lacking in the simple life of 
 a simple people. Pay was still usually in kind, 
 so that each little circle was able to keep its own
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 331 
 
 affairs in motion without much reference to its 
 neighbors. When any unusual surplus was to be 
 exported, it was put into some shape, such as 
 cattle, which could be most easily transported. 
 Mules for the Southern or West Indian market 
 were a common form ; and a drove of mules on its 
 journey was very likely to be a Connecticut pro- 
 duct. The story is told of John Randolph, that, 
 seeing a drove of mules passing through Washing- 
 ton, he pointed it out to Tracy, one of the Con- 
 necticut senators, and said, in his genial way, 
 " Tracy, there go a lot of your constituents." 
 " Ye-es," said Tracy, " going down to Virginia 
 to teach school." 
 
 If the occupations of the people were agricul- 
 tural, their institutions went far to insure them 
 against any of that tendency toward stagnation 
 which had long been associated with the common 
 notion of purely agricultural peoples. The Con- 
 necticut citizen of the early years of this century 
 was a busy man, in some respects, for the common- 
 wealth or the town was continually calling on him 
 to take part in political life. Let us try to follow 
 out the political relations of the citizen before the 
 adoption of the constitution of 1818. Most of his 
 public concerns were with the town. He had 
 gained a Ipgal residence there by being born in it, 
 by being received by a vote of some town meeting, 
 by the approval of the selectmen, the town's ex- 
 ecutive committee, or by being chosen to some
 
 332 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 office by the town. Unless having thus acquired 
 residence, he was in the town only on sufferance. 
 If there had been any reason to apprehend that he 
 would become a charge on the town, it would have 
 been the duty of the selectmen to send him to his 
 own town if he had one in the State, to send him 
 out of the State if he belonged to another State, or 
 to hold bis entertainer responsible for him. Sup- 
 posing him to have acquired residence, he had be- 
 come a voter, on arriving at the age of twenty-one, 
 by reason of having a freehold estate of an annual 
 value of $7, or a personal estate on the tax list of 
 8134, by being approved by the selectmen as a 
 person of good moral character, and by taking 
 the freeman's oath. Twice a year, as a voter, he 
 attended the town elections for representatives 
 in the general assembly, at which also the new 
 voters formally took the freeman's oath. At the 
 September meeting, he, with all the other freemen 
 of the State, voted for twenty names, as candidates 
 for the council or upper house of the assembly, at 
 the election to follow in April. The total number 
 of votes cast for all persons was transmitted by 
 the town officers to the assembly ; that body 
 counted them and published the twenty names 
 which stood highest on the whole vote of the State ; 
 and at the election in April, when the freemen 
 came to vote for representatives again, he voted 
 for twelve of the published list to be of the council 
 for the following year. In May, the general as-
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 333 
 
 serably counted the April vote from all the towns, 
 and announced the names of the fortunate twelve 
 who stood highest and were elected. After cast- 
 ing his votes for the council, the freeman voted for 
 governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary, and treas- 
 urer ; and the votes were sent in like manner to 
 Hartford, to be counted in May under direction 
 of the assembly. Members of congress were 
 chosen in the same way as councilors. The free- 
 men voted for eighteen names in April; the assem- 
 bly counted the votes in May, and declared the 
 eighteen names which stood highest ; the freemen 
 voted for seven of these eighteen in September ; 
 and the assembly declared the seven elect in the 
 following month. Such were the limitations which 
 the popular vote had imposed upon itself under 
 the charter. 
 
 The occasion of counting the votes was still 
 known by its primitive name of the general elec- 
 tion, though it had long ceased to be anything 
 more than a canvass of votes already cast, and now 
 returned to the general assembly as a canvass- 
 ing body. Until about 1836 it was an occasion 
 of solemn import and unusual magnificence. The 
 governor, if he was not a Hartford man, was met 
 on the outskirts of the capital, the day before that 
 of the great ceremonial, by a company of cavalry, 
 and escorted to his lodgings. When he was noti- 
 fied, on the next morning, that the representa- 
 tives had organized and chosen their speaker, he
 
 334 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 and they, with the council, the sheriffs of the 
 whole commonwealth with white staves, and the 
 clergy, marched in procession to the first church, 
 escorted by the governor's foot-guards and horse- 
 guards. At the church, the election sermon was 
 delivered by the preacher appointed for that ser- 
 vice. It was no brief or trivial performance. The 
 election sermon of President Stiles, in 1783, made 
 up 120 pages of about 300 words each, though he 
 certainly added matter before publication. At the 
 end of the church services the procession returned 
 to the state house ; the votes were counted by a 
 committee of the assembly ; the governor, lieu- 
 tenant-governor, secretary, treasurer, and coun- 
 cil for the year were announced, and the general 
 election was over. An election ball occupied the 
 evening. The theory of the commonwealth still 
 was, until 1818, that our supposititious voter was 
 present and voting for commonwealth officers ; 
 but it had long since ceased to be the case. He 
 made one of the spectators occasionally ; but, as a 
 rule, he heard of the festivities from others. 
 
 The town was the political body which came 
 nearest him. Its annual meeting fell in Decem- 
 ber, when town officers were chosen ; and a formi- 
 dable list it was and still is. There were select- 
 men not more than seven in number, a town 
 clerk, a town treasurer, constables, surveyors of 
 highways, fence-viewers, listers, collectors, leather- 
 sealers, grand jurors, tithing-men, hay -wards,
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 335 
 
 chimney-viewers, gaugers, packers, and sealers of 
 weights and measures, besides any other officers 
 whom the peculiar circumstances of the town re- 
 quired. Many of these offices have since fallen 
 from their once high estate, and combinations of 
 voters are sometimes formed with the improper 
 purpose of choosing unseemly persons to fill 
 them ; but in their time they were both ancient 
 and honorable. At all events, the multitude of 
 offices and the annual term of office together 
 made the opportunities of public service exceed- 
 ingly numerous, and the prohibition against refus- 
 ing office under penalty of fine in default of good 
 excuse, brought all citizens into the supply of 
 available material for public service. One conse- 
 quence was, that there were few freemen of Con- 
 necticut who passed through life without at some 
 time filling an office on the summons of their fel- 
 lows. The town meeting, properly warned and 
 limited in its action to the subjects specified in the 
 warning, was a political school in which the free- 
 man received his training ; the multitude of minor 
 offices provided higher courses for almost all the 
 freemen ; and from the two together the people 
 received an uncommonly good political education 
 and a sense of personal interest in public affairs. 
 
 After all, the main features of the system were 
 the town meeting, the constables, and the select- 
 men. The democratic element was supplied by 
 the town meeting; the element of dictatorship,
 
 336 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 which seems to lurk somewhere in democracy, 
 was in the selectmen ; and the constables repre- 
 sented the commonwealth. The powers of the 
 town meeting were rather more clearly defined 
 than those of the selectmen, probably for the rea- 
 son that the latter could be held to a stricter per- 
 sonal responsibility. The town meeting repre- 
 sented the popular force ; when it adjourned, the 
 selectmen were almost the autocrats of the town 
 until the next town meeting. It is worthy of note 
 that such powers have so seldom been abused or 
 betrayed, and that men, often active business 
 men, could have been found for more than two 
 centuries, as they still are found, to manage with- 
 out fee or reward the complicated, difficult, and 
 sometimes dangerous affairs of a Connecticut 
 town. 
 
 The registration of births, marriages, and deaths 
 was with the town clerk ; licenses to marry came 
 from him ; and deeds and leases of lands within 
 the township were registered with him. The pro- 
 bate judge was a town officer ; and the mass of 
 business of this nature, a county affair outside of 
 the influence of the New England system, was 
 here purely a town matter. Indeed, it may quite 
 safely be said that about all the relations which 
 the citizen holds to the county in other States 
 than those of New England, and very many of the 
 relations which he holds to the State itself, he 
 held in Connecticut to the town only. His little
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 337 
 
 town republic hemmed him and his interests in on 
 every side, and it was but seldom that he became 
 conscious that there was a larger and a still larger 
 republic which also claimed his allegiance and in- 
 terest. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the description of 
 the Connecticut freeman's political position in 
 1810 is vitally incorrect for his successor of 1887. 
 It has been altered mainly by the increase in the 
 number of cities, New Haven, Hartford, Bridge- 
 port, Norwich, Waterbury, Middletown, Meriden, 
 New London, and South Nor walk, with their 
 introduction of stronger municipal powers, and by 
 the erection of " boroughs," or semi-cities, in the 
 more thickly settled portions of the townships. 
 All these steps are detractions from the original 
 powers of the towns, and are a tendency to diminish 
 the citizen's dependence on the township. They 
 have not yet been very serious, though attempts 
 to extend the drift in this direction are often re- 
 newed. The essential thing to be remembered is, 
 that changes in the commonwealth's constitution 
 have affected the status of the towns very little. 
 The original constitution was changed into the 
 charter, and this into the constitution of 1818 ; 
 but these changes were mainly of the common- 
 wealth, and the relative position or the absolute 
 powers of the towns were hardly changed by any 
 of them. To a remarkable degree the relations 
 of the Connecticut citizen to his town are the 
 22
 
 338 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 same as those of his forefather when the first 
 towns were planted. More than in any other 
 New England State, the original vigor of the Con- 
 necticut town has enabled it to keep pace with 
 the growing power of the commonwealth. 
 
 Hartford and New Haven were cities at the be- 
 ginning of the century, having been incorporated 
 in 1784, but both were very far from our notions 
 of a city. They were little centres of less than 
 4,000 population, and the communication between 
 them for passengers, mails, and traffic was sup- 
 plied by two stages a week, leaving on Wednes- 
 days and Saturdays. Each had a few weekly 
 newspapers, some shops with a very miscellane- 
 ous stock in trade, and hardly any other evi- 
 dence of city life. Incomes were derived, even in 
 the cities, directly or mediately, from agriculture 
 for the most part, and they were not large : it was 
 rumored, with some natural hesitation, that Pier- 
 pont Edwards, the commonwealth's leading law- 
 yer, enjoyed a revenue of $2,000 per annum from 
 his practice, but this could not be taken as a stand- 
 ard. There were few who were very rich, and 
 few who were very poor ; and the life of the whole 
 commonwealth was a little fuller than, but almost 
 as equable and placid as when there were but 
 three towns in it. Banks and insurance companies 
 came into existence only during the twenty years 
 1790-1810. 
 
 New Haven had an advantage over Hartford in
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 339 
 
 its foreign commerce, which had begun to revive 
 before the Revolutionary war, and had received 
 a further impetus from the peace. Its "Long 
 Wharf," 3,500 feet in length, whose greedy maw 
 had swallowed all that private enterprise, lotteries, 
 and commonwealth aid could offer it, was not fin- 
 ished until after 1802 ; but it was in active use 
 long before it could be called finished, and it was 
 the headquarters of foreign trade. Its merchants 
 had their own local spirit, and their " wharf law " 
 for the punishment of local offenses ; and their 
 ships went all over the world, hardly any of them 
 returning without a contribution of material for the 
 wharf. Thence sailed Isaac Hull, as the captain 
 of a New Haven West Indiaman, long before he 
 thought of meeting the Guerriere. Thither came 
 the Neptune in 1799, with the richest cargo yet 
 imported, its profits being a quarter of a million, 
 and the duties on the cargo being nearly $70,000. 
 And here came out again the old feeling of the 
 " town-born " against the " interlopers," who had 
 come into the town to share in its prosperity. It 
 is said that one of the town-born New Haven cap- 
 tains, being forced to a jetson during a storm at 
 sea, cautioned his men to throw over only the 
 goods of " interlopers." But the influence of the 
 college, with that of foreign commerce and result- 
 ing wealth, did much to raise New Haven above 
 the general level of the commonwealth ; and city 
 life in the modern sense had its closest approxi-
 
 340 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mation here. The town poor were no longer sold 
 at auction. Geese and cattle were banished from 
 the Green, and that part of the city began to take 
 on some of the beauty which has since made it so 
 notable a spot. The city went a step beyond its 
 contemporaries in beginning a cemetery on modern 
 lines, abandoning the nakedly ugly New England 
 burying-ground. There was even an earnest but 
 vain effort to obtain a permanent supply of water 
 in 1804. 
 
 While Hartford was in most respects more pro- 
 vincial than its rival, having only a small trade in 
 West India rum and molasses, its atmosphere was 
 for some reasons much more literary. Perhaps 
 some of this tendency came from its more frequent 
 communication with the outside world, through its 
 natural position as a stopping-place on the road 
 from New York to Boston. Since 1772, a stage 
 passed each way once a week. Here were the 
 .writers so long known collectively as " the Hart- 
 ford wits," Lemuel Hopkins, Humphreys, Alsop, 
 Trumbull, the author of " McFingal," and Theo- 
 dore Dwight, a younger brother of Dr. Dwight; 
 here they were succeeded by Percival, Brainard, 
 and Mrs. Sigourney, followed by the more recent 
 writers who have maintained Hartford's position 
 in the world of secular literature ; and here were 
 always strong ministers, able successors of the 
 leaders of the first migration. Noah Webster was 
 as yet known rather as a grammarian than as a
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 341 
 
 lexicographer. Connecticut society, however, was 
 strongly tinged with a curious provincialism in 
 the times about 1800. Things were done and 
 said without special criticism which would nowa- 
 days be thought unpardonable. The pastor of the 
 First Church was Nathan Strong, the writer of the 
 hymn so familiar in our hymn-books, " Swell the 
 anthem, raise the song." In 1790 he and one of 
 the leading members of his flock entered into part- 
 nership for the purpose of managing a distillery. 
 The enterprise was a failure ; and, as imprison- 
 ment for debt was still the law, the junior partner 
 prudently sought refuge outside of the common- 
 wealth's jurisdiction. The ministerial partner, 
 however, stood his ground, remaining within doors 
 on week-days, and appearing on Sundays, when 
 the writ did not run, to minister to his indulgent 
 parishioners. When the financial difficulty had 
 been settled, the pastor's troubles were over. He 
 continued his ministry until his death in 1816, 
 and was made a doctor of divinity by the College 
 of New Jersey in 1801. And the poems of the 
 Hartford wits, largely devoted to political strug- 
 gles, have in them a great deal more of the blud- 
 geon than of the rapier. One must speculate on 
 the mental constitutions of the audience which 
 could cut out a high niche for the author of such 
 poetry as this, which was to be sung to a famil- 
 iar hymn-tune, as the first of a dozen similar 
 stanzas, describing a Democratic meeting :
 
 342 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Ye tribes of Faction, join 
 
 Your daughters and your wives ; 
 Moll Gary 's come to dine, 
 And dance with Deacon Ives. 
 Ye ragged throng 
 Of Democrats, 
 As thick as rats, 
 Come join the song. 
 
 Sporadic efforts had been made in the agricul- 
 tural districts of the State to introduce some pro- 
 ducts which should be more profitable than the 
 cereals which were the staple. The silk-culture 
 had been introduced about 1732, and in 1747 
 Governor Law wore the first coat and stockings 
 made of New England silk. In 1758 the work 
 was taken up by President Stiles of Yale, and by 
 Dr. Aspinwall of Mansfield. The former wrote 
 up the industry, and wore gowns of Connecticut 
 silk at Commencement ; the latter put the indus- 
 try at Mansfield and its neighborhood on a foun- 
 dation which has not since been lost. One of its 
 outgrowths has been the silk-works developed by 
 the mechanical and artistic genius of the brothers 
 Cheney, at Manchester, near Hartford, beginning 
 in a modest attempt to make the lower grades of 
 silk, and rising to higher grades through the inven- 
 tion of improved machinery. 
 
 Attempts had been made since about 1736 to 
 introduce woolen manufactures as a development 
 of sheep-raising, and these were revived after the 
 Revolution. With help from the general assembly,
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 343 
 
 a manufactory of woolens was established at 
 Hartford after the peace. Its product was mainly 
 of the pepper-and-salt variety, but it was good and 
 popular ; and a suit of the factory's broadcloth 
 was worn by President Washington at the open- 
 ing of Congress in 1790. In 1802 a long step was 
 taken in advance. David Humphreys, of Derby, 
 formerly Washington's aide, now American min- 
 ister to Spain, sent home a flock of one hundred 
 merino sheep. The improved wool soon built up 
 a manufactory at Humphreysville, near Derby ; 
 and a suit of broadcloth from it was worn by 
 President Madison at his inauguration in 1809. 
 From this beginning, the industry has grown and 
 flourished in the State ; and it had not gone far 
 before its influence was felt in politics. 
 
 The Connecticut delegates in the Convention of 
 1787 had claimed that theirs was even then a 
 manufacturing State. This was rather a desire 
 than a fact. Since the time of Wintbrop, whose 
 attainments in natural science had led him all over 
 the commonwealth in the effort to establish an 
 iron - manufacture, this branch of industry had 
 been carried on with more or less success. One 
 of the first ventures at New Haven had been the 
 establishment of the " iron workes ; " and the 
 erection of furnaces was encouraged by the as- 
 sembly and by towns, through remission of taxes 
 and otherwise, all through the eighteenth century. 
 In 1716 the State encouraged the erection of a
 
 844 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 slitting-mill by Fitch & Co. by giving it a legal 
 monopoly of the business for fifteen years. But, 
 after all, the normal condition of iron produc- 
 tion was that of a household industry. Each fur- 
 nace was meant to furnish enough iron for a 
 neighborhood ; and the people of the neighbor- 
 hood, using the intervals from agricultural employ- 
 ment in winter or at night, converted the iron into 
 articles for domestic use, with a surplus of such 
 things as nails for exportation. There was not 
 yet enough stimulus in the industry to affect the 
 purely agricultural character of the community 
 seriously, but it was a preparation for the future. 
 The development of the iron district of the 
 northwestern part of Connecticut, about 1730, 
 had been carried to a considerable extent before 
 the Revolution, and it seemed likely to make the 
 commonwealth a mining and manufacturing com- 
 munity. The deposits in Salisbury and its vicin- 
 ity were abundant, and the supply of wood, then 
 the universal fuel, was plentiful. Encouraged by 
 the Revolution, the production became of great 
 importance. The cannon for the army and navy, 
 the heavy chains which barred the rivers, the ma- 
 terials for gun-barrels and other military equip- 
 ments for the Revolutionary armies, came from 
 the works at Salisbury, which were never reached 
 by the enemy. The workmen considered the 
 Salisbury iron superior to anything else which 
 could be obtained, at home or from abroad, and
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 345 
 
 its reputation seems to have been deserved. It is 
 still highly valued, and 38,000 tons of it were pro- 
 duced in 1880. Valuable as was the supply, it 
 was not destined to work a revolution in the eco- 
 nomic life of the people. When the time came 
 for the real race, it was found that other States 
 had a superior advantage in the bounty of nature, 
 which had combined their iron-beds with adjacent 
 beds of coal ; and Connecticut was compelled to 
 yield to circumstances and turn to other industries. 
 Before the final industrial revolution came on, 
 the commonwealth was convulsed by a political 
 revolution, caused partially by the first movements 
 of manufactures, and in its turn a moving cause of 
 subsequent developments. Connecticut had been 
 Federalist from the first, and the Connecticut 
 Federalist had become almost a peculiar type. 
 Many influences aided the development. The al- 
 most exclusively agricultural employment of the 
 people rendered them very susceptible to the per- 
 sonal influence of leading men, and community 
 of religious belief strengthened this influence. 
 The leading men were often connected directly or 
 indirectly with commercial interests, which were 
 patronized by the Federal party ; or they were 
 leaders in the Congregational Established Church, 
 the natural enemy of Jeffersonian doctrine and 
 prejudices. The new Democratic party therefore 
 found in Connecticut a phalanx impenetrable to 
 all its efforts to move it. Jefferson's attempt to
 
 346 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 establish a governmental influence in the State in 
 1801, by removing Elizur Goodrich, the Federal- 
 ist collector of the port of New Haven, and ap- 
 pointing in his place Samuel Bishop, the vener- 
 able father of a rising young Democratic politi- 
 cian, merely made the Connecticut Federalists 
 furious without converting them ; and their feel- 
 ing was increased by the embargo, which shut up 
 eighty vessels in the harbor of New Haven alone, 
 and nearly ruined the commerce of the port. Even 
 after the national downfall of the Federal party 
 in 1800, when other States yielded and chose 
 Democratic electors, Connecticut and Delaware 
 were the only States which chose Federal electors 
 at every presidential election, so long as there 
 were Federalists to vote for. 
 
 The Episcopal Church had begun to raise its 
 head again after the Revolution, though it was 
 still feeble. Every such symptom of revival, of 
 course, seemed to the Congregationalist Whig 
 simply a revival of Toryism. When the Episco- 
 palians and other dissatisfied elements in New 
 Haven won a substantial victory at the first city 
 election in 1784, Dr. Stiles's diary takes it as a 
 victory of the Tories, and adds, as a natural result 
 the next month, " this day town-meeting voted to 
 re-admit the Tories." The connection with Tory- 
 ism became dimmed in time ; but the grievances 
 of the dissatisfied element, the Episcopalians, the 
 " New Lights," the Sandemanians, and other secta-
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 347 
 
 ries, remained unabated. In 1791, the act which 
 seemed to Congregationalists the summit of reli- 
 gious freedom was passed : it allowed any dissent- 
 ing society to tax for the support of its own min- 
 ister, and remitted the town tax to such as should 
 lodge a certificate of their dissenting membership 
 with the clerk of an Established Church. This 
 was far from satisfactory to the dissenters. They 
 were discontented that all persons not members of 
 any church were still subject to taxation for the ex- 
 clusive benefit of the Established Church ; they as- 
 serted that the privilege of certificate was thwarted 
 by the authorities on little or no legal pretext; 
 and they complained that the treasury of the com- 
 monwealth was still put by the assembly at the 
 service of Yale College, to the exclusion of any 
 other denominational interest. 
 
 Finding that the dissenters were not content 
 with what had no doubt seemed large concessions, 
 and welded together more strongly by the national 
 supremacy of their opponents and the ruinous 
 embargo policy, the dominant party of Connecti- 
 cut redoubled its resistance to change. The Con- 
 necticut Democrats considered the charter, re- 
 adopted in 1776 by the assembly, as the corner- 
 stone of their opponents' power. It had, they 
 said, left the powers of government so undefined 
 that the upper house, or council, consisting of 
 but twelve members, had gained an extreme influ- 
 ence ; that seven of the council, a majority, were
 
 348 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 lawyers, able to "appoint all the judges, plead 
 before those judges, and constitute themselves a 
 supreme court of errors to decide in the last resort 
 on the laws of their own making; " and that these 
 same men had complete control of the election 
 machinery of the State. They demanded a con- 
 stitution under which the legislative, judicial, and 
 executive powers should be separated. In August, 
 1804, a convention of Democrats, or Republicans, 
 was held at New Haven, and endorsed the pro- 
 gramme for the autumn elections. The Federal 
 majority rose higher than ever, and the assembly 
 at its first meeting took steps to punish those mal- 
 contents whom it could reach. It deprived of 
 their commissions five justices of the peace who 
 had been delegates to the New Haven Convention, 
 and censured one of its own members who had 
 spoken too warmly in their behalf. The offending 
 member, when called upon to rise and receive his 
 reprimand from the speaker, interposed the in- 
 genious point of order that there was no rule to 
 prevent his receiving it seated ; and the evident 
 embarrassment of the speaker and assembly iu 
 dealing with the point took away much of the dig- 
 nity of the punishment. 
 
 The rapid passage of the embargo difficulties 
 into open war with Great Britain brought Con- 
 necticut Federalism into the broader field of New 
 England Federalism. The first conflict with the 
 general government came on the employment of
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 349 
 
 the militia of the State. The Constitution gives 
 congress, and an act of congress gave the Presi- 
 dent, the power to call out the militia of the 
 States in three distinctly denned emergencies, 
 to execute the laws of the Union, to suppress in- 
 surrections, or to repel invasions. As the regular 
 army was drawn off to invade Canada, the Presi- 
 dent called on the States for militia to do garrison 
 duty in its place. The Connecticut governor, 
 Griswold, asked in reply for a specification of the 
 reason for the call, for the law that was to be exe- 
 cuted, the insurrection that was to be suppressed, 
 or the invasion that was to be repelled ; and it 
 is not easy to see how his question was to be an- 
 swered or evaded. At all events, no effective an- 
 swer was made. Connecticut provided a special 
 force of 2,600 men for her own defense, but en- 
 tered her protest, through the assembly, that " the 
 war was unnecessary." The incidents of the war 
 had little to do with Connecticut, with the excep- 
 tion of the blockade of New London by British 
 vessels, and the constant danger of attack there or 
 elsewhere, against which the State was compelled 
 to defend herself, as the general government 
 seemed unable or unwilling to do so. In April, 
 1814, a British force landed at Saybrook and de- 
 stroyed some stores ; and in August the Stonington 
 militia beat off a squadron which attempted to land 
 there, killing and wounding seventy-five men, with 
 the loss of but a few wounded of their own num-
 
 350 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 ber. All the credit due to the State's persistent 
 defense of her own borders was taken away, how- 
 ever, by a charge which Decatur made without 
 even offering evidence for it. Having been foiled 
 several times in attempting to put to sea, he 
 declared that warning of his attempts had been 
 given from the shore by blue-lights ; and the 
 name " Blue-light Federalist " was at once used 
 by the administration party as a good title for the 
 dominant party of Connecticut. It was shown, on 
 the other hand, that blue-lights were entirely un- 
 necessary, since Decatur had never taken proper 
 care to keep British emissaries out of his district ; 
 but he seems to have gone on the assumption that 
 a failure by Decatur necessarily implied treachery 
 on the part of somebody else. 
 
 It is unnecessary to go very far into the origin 
 and history of the Hartford Convention, for Con- 
 necticut had no more special connection with that 
 body than to furnish a meeting-place for it. The 
 grievances which led to it, the neglect of the de- 
 fense of the coast by the general government, and 
 the preponderance of Southern interest in the gov- 
 ernment, were common to Connecticut with the 
 other New England States ; but there may have 
 been a reason for the selection of the place. 
 Nearly twenty years before, in 1796, there ap- 
 peared in the " Connecticut Courant," at Hartford, 
 a series of articles signed " Pelham." Written 
 with consummate ability, and apparently from a
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 351 
 
 profound prescience of the difficulties which the 
 Union was to encounter, the articles attempted to 
 show that the Southern slave-system made a per- 
 manent Union impossible, and that the Northern 
 States should prepare for separate national exist- 
 ence. The tone of the Hartford Convention's rec- 
 ommendations for constitutional changes have so 
 much of the spirit of these articles that one is dis- 
 posed to think that, if " Pelham " was not a dele- 
 gate, he was at least a close adviser, and that the 
 desire for his advice was one reason for the selec- 
 tion of the place. 
 
 Connecticut's delegates to the convention were 
 Chauncey Goodrich, James Hillhouse, John Tread- 
 well, Zephaniah Swift, Calvin Goddard, Nathaniel 
 Smith, and Roger Minot Sherman, the ablest men 
 of the dominant party. The convention met with 
 closed doors in the building in which the council 
 of the commonwealth had been accustomed to 
 meet, and Democratic leaders at Hartford and 
 Washington looked for the outcome with appre- 
 hension. The Episcopal rector (afterward bishop), 
 Chase, declined to offer prayer at its morning 
 session, explaining that he knew of no form of 
 prayer for rebellion. A fussy Federal officer con- 
 tributed much to the excitement at first ; but the 
 substitution of Colonel Jesup preserved the peace, 
 except that a squad of soldiers would now and then 
 march around the building during the sessions, 
 their fifes playing the " Rogue's March." With
 
 352 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 the exception of such little touches of nature as 
 this, the proceedings of the convention are rather 
 a part of national than of local history. 
 
 The endorsement of the convention's recommen- 
 dations by the general assembly apparently left 
 the Federalist control of the State complete. In 
 reality, it was at death's door. The Methodist 
 Church had been established in the State in 1789, 
 and had extended with rapidity. It shared in the 
 grievances of the dissenting sects, and reinforced 
 their demands for abatement. Finally, the Demo- 
 cratic party of the State came to the decision to 
 make common cause with the dissenters of all 
 sects, and to fight the political battle on that 
 ground. In January, 1816, a convention at New 
 Haven nominated Oliver Wolcott for governor, and 
 Jared Ingersoll for lieutenant-governor. Wolcott 
 had been a Federalist, Adams's secretary of the 
 treasury, and had been accused by the Democratic 
 newspapers of resorting to arson to cover up frauds 
 in his office. He had since been engaged in busi- 
 ness in New York city. The adoption of his 
 name indicates another element in the alliance. 
 The manufactures of the State, particularly in 
 wool, demanded protection by tariff, and had only 
 a Democratic congress to look to for it. Wolcott 's 
 nomination was to give them confidence. Inger- 
 soll was the Episcopal end of the ticket. Thus 
 prepared, the " toleration party," as it called it- 
 self, went into the election. The dominant party,
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 353 
 
 alarmed by the prospect, hurried to make conces- 
 sions, but it was too late. Ingersoll was elected, 
 and Wolcott barely defeated. In 1817 both were 
 elected, with a two-thirds majority of the assem- 
 bly. The first step was to put all sects on an 
 equality as to taxation ; the next, to repeal the 
 " Stand-up Law," passed by the Federalists in 
 1801, by which votes were to be cast in town- 
 meeting by rising, not by secret ballot ; and the 
 next, in June, 1818, to call a State convention to 
 frame a constitution. The convention met Au- 
 gust 26, at Hartford, with a Democratic majority 
 of only ten out of two hundred members, just 
 enough to compel mature deliberation and wise de- 
 cision. It adopted the present constitution Septem- 
 ber 15, which was ratified by a slender majority 
 October 5. The Democrats were rather more dis- 
 satisfied with it than the Federalists, and many of 
 them voted against it. 
 
 The constitution provided for a government to 
 consist of a governor, lieutenant-governor, treas- 
 urer, secretary, and comptroller, as State officers, 
 and a general assembly composed of a senate and 
 a house of representatives. The State officers were 
 to be chosen annually by ballot, the general assem- 
 bly to choose when no candidate should receive a 
 majority vote. The representatives were to be 
 chosen by the towns, the proportion of each town 
 to be " as at present practiced and allowed." The 
 erection of a new town was not to reduce the rep- 
 M
 
 354 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 reservation of the town or towns from which it 
 was formed, without the consent of the old towns, 
 and new towns were to have one representative 
 only. The senate was to be chosen by districts, 
 the districts at first numbering twelve, and, since 
 1828, not less than eighteen or more than twenty- 
 four. The meetings of the general assembly were 
 to be annual, and held alternately at Hartford and 
 New Haven. Since 1873, Hartford has been the 
 sole capital ; and, since 1875, the State officers 
 and senators hold office for two years, though 
 sessions of the assembly and elections for represen- 
 tatives and half of the senate are still annual. 
 The courts were to be a supreme court of errors, 
 a superior court, and inferior courts to be consti- 
 tuted by the assembly. The supreme and superior 
 court justices were to hold office during good be- 
 havior ; their term of office was limited to eight 
 years in 1856. Voters were to be white males of 
 twenty-one years or over, and, as the conditions 
 were simplified in 1845 and 1855, were to have re- 
 sided in the State for one year and in the town for 
 six months, were to have sustained a good moral 
 character, and to be able to read. The selectmen 
 of each town were to enforce the suffrage and 
 election laws of the State. 
 
 Religious profession and worship were to be free 
 to all, and no sect was to be preferred by law. No 
 person was to be compelled to join, associate with, 
 support, or remain a member of, any religious
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 355 
 
 body ; and all religious bodies were to be entirely 
 equal before the law. Thus ended the connection 
 of church and state in Connecticut. 
 
 One consequence of the establishment of the 
 constitution was the founding of two new colleges. 
 An Episcopal academy had been incorporated at 
 Cheshire in 1801, but it had been impossible to 
 obtain for it a college charter from the general 
 assembly. In 1823 the assembly chartered it as 
 Washington College, locating it at Hartford. Its 
 first commencement was held in 1827, with ten 
 graduates. Its connection with its church has be- 
 come closer during the intervening years, and its 
 work, in conjunction with the related Theological 
 Seminary until 1851, has been of the greatest ser- 
 vice in the training of clergymen. In 1845 its 
 name was changed to Trinity College. Its prop- 
 erty is now valued at over a million dollars, and 
 its buildings are among the finest in Hartford. Its 
 presidents have been : Bishop Brownell, 1823-31 ; 
 Dr. Wheaton, 1831-37 ; Dr. Silas Totten, 1837- 
 48; Dr. John Williams, 1848-53; Dr. D. R. 
 Goodwin, 1853-60; Dr. Samuel Eliot, 1860-64; 
 Dr. J. B. Kerfoot, 1864-66 ; Dr. Abner Jackson, 
 1867-74 ; Dr. T. R. Pynchon, 1874-83 ; and Dr. 
 George W. Smith, 1883. The Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church in the State also desired an institution 
 for higher education, and it obtained a charter for 
 Wesleyan University without difficulty in 1829, 
 placing it at Middletown. Its presidents have
 
 856 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 been: Dr. Wilbur Fisk, 1831-39; Dr. Stephen 
 Olin, 1839-41 ; Dr. Nathan Bangs, 1841-42 ; Dr. 
 Stephen Olin, 1842-51 ; Dr. A. W. Smith, 1851- 
 ST ; Dr. Joseph Cummings, 1857-75 ; Dr. Cyrus 
 D. Foss, 1875-80 ; and Dr. John W. Beach, 1880. 
 Its work and resources have increased until its 
 productive funds are now about $700,000, and the 
 annual income from them about $40,000. 
 
 The constitution has remained fairly satisfactory 
 during the subsequent growth of the State, except 
 that the representation of the towns has frequently 
 given control of the general assembly to a minority 
 of the popular vote ; and efforts have been made, 
 though as yet without success, to equalize repre- 
 sentation. Whatever may be the present defects 
 of the constitution, it certainly was a great advance 
 on the charter. It seems to have lifted from the 
 shoulders of the people a load which, however 
 slight, had been sufficient to hamper them in their 
 course up to that time. The original organization 
 of society and government had been exceedingly 
 democratic in 1637 and 1662 ; and the constitu- 
 tion of 1818 had only brought it into line with the 
 development of democracy, which had passed be- 
 yond the charter. Labor had never been disre- 
 garded or degraded, but mechanical labor had 
 never been considered as quite on a level with 
 agricultural. The diary of John Cotton Smith, 
 the last Federalist governor, is sprinkled with 
 notes of his labor among his men in the harvest
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 357 
 
 field and in the other departments of farm work ; 
 and he was but a representative of his class. On 
 the other hand, there are such cases as that of 
 Roger Sherman, who came into New Milford a 
 shoemaker, and lived to be a senator of the United 
 States ; but they were as uncommon in Connecti- 
 cut before 1818 as that of Smith was common. 
 The mechanic was primd facie vulgar, and his 
 ability was shown by getting out of his class 
 into law or into agriculture, not by increasing his 
 wealth in it. There were mechanics, and good 
 ones, in Connecticut before 1818 ; but the State 
 only began to be a distinctly mechanical common- 
 wealth when the constitution of 1818 had lifted 
 all men into equality, and the mechanic was for 
 the first time on an equality with the Congrega- 
 tional farm-owner. 
 
 Even under colonial conditions the mechanical 
 genius of Connecticut had begun to develop the 
 manufacture of the easier forms of hardware ; and 
 with this development came the first appearance 
 of the peddler with his wagon. About 1770 the 
 manufacture of tinware was begun in Berlin, 
 eleven miles south of Hartford. This was the be- 
 ginning of the industry with which the name of 
 Connecticut was to be so closely associated, the 
 production of " Yankee notions." The peddlers 
 carried the manufactures of this and neighboring 
 towns over the country in wagons, exchanging 
 them for local products and reaping a double profit
 
 358 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 on the exchange. Transactions of a darker dye 
 than any legitimate profit were also laid to the 
 account of these peddlers: their malignant in- 
 genuity was debited with the introduction of 
 wooden nutmegs, bass-wood hams, oak-leaf cigars, 
 and similar frauds. Undoubtedly there was much 
 fraudulent work : the loose conditions of such a 
 trade, when ignorance on one side was always 
 tempting any latent dishonesty on the other, would 
 make some fraud inevitable. But the essence of 
 the accusation was in the rivalry of local trade, in 
 the jealousy of unsuccessful competitors, provoked 
 by the sudden success of Connecticut workmen in 
 their new field. They had found a sphere in 
 which the niggardliness of nature could not check 
 them. The lack of coal as fuel might weigh 
 heavily against the value of their iron-mines, but 
 the ingenuity of the workmen was a possession 
 which could not be taken from the commonwealth. 
 From the little beginning at Berlin has grown up 
 a great system of towns, in the district along the 
 Naugatuck and Connecticut rivers, devoted to the 
 manufacture of hardware, of brass goods, of any- 
 thing and everything in which the accuracy, skill, 
 and ingenuity of the workman can make up for 
 the distance of the place of manufacture from the 
 source of the raw material and from the places of 
 sale. Here are Ansonia, Waterbury, New Britain, 
 Meriden, and a bewildering maze of other towns, 
 all of which have been developed by water-power
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 359 
 
 and human ingenuity ; older places like Hartford, 
 New Haven, and Norwich have felt the reflex in- 
 fluence and joined in the race ; and quite new 
 places, like Bridgeport, have sprung to life and 
 activity under the impulse derived from the first 
 tin pail made at Berlin. Before that time, every 
 enterprising man kept his eyes keenly on the be- 
 nevolence of Nature, and looked to the use of some- 
 thing produced in the commonwealth which he 
 could improve for sale ; since that time, such men, 
 no longer heeding local resources, have scoured 
 the world for materials, have brought them to 
 Connecticut and passed them through the crucible 
 of Connecticut ingenuity, and have found in the 
 results a mine richer than the Spaniard's longings 
 could compass. 
 
 The clock manufacture in Connecticut, with its 
 adjuncts or derivatives, is an excellent example of 
 the manner in which the mechanics of the com- 
 monwealth have made their ingenuity of public 
 service. Wooden clocks, of the old high pattern, 
 were made at Waterbury as long ago as 1790. 
 About 1793 Eli Terry went thence to Plymouth 
 and began a manufacture of his own by water- 
 power, his first patent of improvements being taken 
 out in 1797. About 1814 he introduced the new 
 and far more convenient pattern of smaller mantel 
 clocks. Chauncey Jerome began the manufacture 
 of brass clocks about 1821, and with this the 
 modern field of Connecticut ingenuity was opened.
 
 360 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 The parts of the clocks were soon made inter- 
 changeable, so that one workman could give his 
 entire time to the production of each part, while 
 increased production made the whole clock far 
 cheaper ; and the application of machinery to the 
 production of the parts soon made prices still 
 cheaper. In 1840 the value of the clocks pro- 
 duced in the State, almost entirely for home con- 
 sumption, was over a million dollars, and the 
 manufacturers were ready to reach out after foreign 
 trade. So low had they driven cost and prices 
 that their first exports paid more than 2000% 
 profit. The story goes that the first cargo of Con- 
 necticut clocks for the English market was invoiced 
 so low, in spite of this abnormal profit, that the 
 custom-house officers, suspecting undervaluation, 
 enforced their right to take the cargo at its invoice 
 value. This suited the exporters so well that they 
 immediately shipped another cargo, which met the 
 same fate. A third cargo staggered the custom 
 house, and it went out of the clock business. 
 Since that time the world has been supplied with 
 machine-made Connecticut clocks and watches. 
 
 The little streams which fall into Long Island 
 Sound are easily dammed, have abundance of wa- 
 ter, and have been utilized from the first as a 
 source of power. When Dr. Howe, of New York, 
 invented his machine for making pins at one oper- 
 ation, his most urgent need was for competent 
 mechanics. These could be found only among
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 361 
 
 the Connecticut men who had been working on 
 brass clocks, and the manufacture of pins was es- 
 tablished at Derby and Birmingham in 1835 and 
 1838. The making of pins brought with it the 
 establishment of brass-mills for the production of 
 the necessary wire ; and the surplus of this pro- 
 duction added the manufacture of about every- 
 thing into which brass plate and wire could be 
 stamped or twisted. Thus a constantly widening 
 field has been offered for the peculiar talents of 
 the Connecticut workman. " He is usually a 
 Yankee of Yankees by birth, and of a tempera- 
 ment thoughtful to dreaminess. His natural bent 
 is strongly towards mechanical pursuits, and he 
 finds his way very early in life into the work- 
 shop. Impatient of the fetters which trade soci- 
 eties forge for less independent minds, he delights 
 to make his own bargain with his employer, and, 
 whatever be the work on which he is engaged, 
 bends the whole force of an acute but narrow in- 
 telligence to scheming means for accomplishing it 
 easily. Unlike the English mechanic, whom, a 
 different education and different circumstances 
 have taught to believe his own interest ill served 
 by facilitating the operations of the workshop, the 
 Connecticut man is profoundly convinced to the 
 contrary. He cherishes a fixed idea of creating a 
 monopoly in some branch of manufacture by es- 
 tablishing an overwhelming superiority over the 
 methods of production already existing in that
 
 362 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 branch. To ' get up ' a machine, or a series of 
 machines, for this purpose, is his one aim and am- 
 bition. If he succeeds, supported by patents and 
 the ready aid which capital gives to promising 
 novelties in the States, he may revolutionize an 
 industry, forcing opponents who produce in the 
 old way altogether out of the market, while bene- 
 fiting the consumer and making his own fortune 
 at the same time. The workshops of Massachu- 
 setts, Rhode Island, and especially of Connecticut, 
 are full of such men. Usually tall, thin, reflec- 
 tive, and taciturn, but clever, and, above all 
 things, free, the equals, although mechanics, of 
 the capitalist upon whose ready alliance they can 
 count, they are an element of incalculable value 
 to American industry. Their method of attack- 
 ing manufacturing problems is one which, intelli- 
 gently handled, must command markets by si- 
 multaneously improving qualities and cheapening 
 prices. We ourselves certainly aim, as they do, 
 at the specialization of manufacture, but one 
 scarcely treads upon the threshold of clock-land 
 before feeling how much more universally the sys- 
 tem is being applied in the States than here [in 
 England]. Tools and processes which we are 
 inclined to consider as exceptionally clever are the 
 commonplaces of American shops ; and the de- 
 termination to do nothing by hand which can be 
 dnne by a machine is a marked characteristic of 
 the workmen there, while it scarcely exists among 
 operatives here."
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 363 
 
 This description, by a competent English ob- 
 server (Mr. Daniel Pigeon), has been extracted 
 and inserted in spite of the unjust characteriza- 
 tion of the workman's intelligence as " narrow," 
 for the sake of the clearer view which is always 
 gained by an observation from the outside. The 
 characteristics which he notes are not at all con- 
 fined to the clock and brass industries : wherever 
 human ingenuity, in the peculiar form it has taken 
 in Connecticut, can enable a manufactory to com- 
 pete successfully with its more favorably situated 
 rivals, the attempt has been made to localize it 
 in the commonwealth. When Eli Whitney, of 
 New Haven, had been robbed of the profits of his 
 wonderfully simple invention of the cotton-gin, he 
 turned his attention to the manufacture of arms. 
 The United States government wanted a supply of 
 firearms, and Whitney, without any facilities for 
 making them, took the contract for the work, rely- 
 ing justly on Connecticut ingenuity to find a way. 
 Everything had to be created ; but the means on 
 which he relied and with which he succeeded were 
 the persistent substitution of machinery for hand- 
 work, the encouragement of invention, and the 
 use of equivalent parts, so that each part could 
 be made by the thousand and yet any part would 
 fit the others. The completion of the contract es- 
 tablished a successful arms-factory at Whitney- 
 ville, near New Haven. Here, in 1848, Samuel 
 Colt began the manufacture of his revolver, which
 
 364 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 he had invented while a boy of fifteen, during a 
 voyage to India, and had patented in 1836. In 
 1850 he removed to Hartford, and the Sharp's 
 Rifle Company followed him the next year. The 
 Winchester Arms Company of New Haven has 
 since taken another variety of work. There have 
 been times when contending armies have both 
 been armed from the little State of Connecticut ; 
 and yet the State itself has furnished hardly a 
 particle of the raw material, its entire contribu- 
 tion being the ingenuity of its workmen and the 
 mechanical genius of its inventors. 
 
 It would be unjust to leave it to be inferred 
 that this mechanical ingenuity has been narrow 
 in its scope or narrowing in its results. Putting 
 aside such cases as those of Whitney and Good- 
 year, in which invention has been applied to the 
 broadest and most useful fields, the later records 
 of the commonwealth have been crowded with the 
 names of men who have owed their rise to genius 
 of this type, and have done no discredit to any 
 employment to which the commonwealth has seen 
 fit to call them. To specify would necessarily be 
 to do injustice to those whose names would have 
 to be omitted. One must hold to the general 
 statement that many of the best public servants 
 of the commonwealth, since its great industrial 
 revolution began, have owed their rise to their 
 success in some branch of mechanical industry. 
 Connecticut manufacturers have regularly risen
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 365 
 
 from the ranks, and when they have been trans- 
 ferred from private to public business, they have 
 held their own well in the inevitable comparison 
 with their professional rivals. 
 
 The character of the Connecticut workman has 
 led to a peculiar kindness of relations between 
 himself and his employer. It would be impossi- 
 ble to go into particulars of the thoughtfulness of 
 Connecticut employers for their employees, of the 
 well - understood equality of relations between 
 them, and of the consideration of employees for 
 the necessities of employers, without seeming to 
 advertise those few establishments that must be 
 selected for illustration. Any one who will take 
 the trouble to examine for himself into the rela- 
 tions between the real Connecticut workman and 
 his employers need not go far into the State be- 
 fore being satisfied. The institutions which 
 Hooker founded still retain their influence over 
 the descendants of the first settlers. 
 
 And yet one cannot but feel some fear for the 
 future of the Connecticut mechanic, and, with 
 him, of Connecticut industries. The tendency of 
 the organization of industry is so strongly toward 
 forms of combination of labor which cannot but 
 be a drawback upon complete individual initiative, 
 that it must be reflected in Connecticut. Indeed, 
 it has already begun to affect the relations between 
 employer and employed. The report of the Con- 
 necticut Labor Bureau for 1885 shows, in its
 
 366 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 accounts of the grievances alleged by employees, 
 and of the remedies which they suggest, a spirit 
 which has not been common in the State hereto- 
 fore. Whether it is justified or not, is not the 
 question : the main fact is that it exists, and that 
 there is danger that it may result in forms of labor 
 which would be fatal to individualized production. 
 Other commonwealths, more favored by nature, 
 may continue to produce with success under sys- 
 tems which substitute combined for individualized 
 labor. But Connecticut has no such advantage ; 
 her long lead in the industrial race has come 
 purely from the high individual ability of her 
 workmen, and any tendency which operates against 
 this element of prosperity cannot but affect the 
 welfare of the commonwealth. 
 
 The reputation of the Connecticut workman 
 has been so long established that one is apt to 
 think of the commonwealth of the last century as 
 only a smaller edition of the Connecticut of the 
 present. It has seemed advisable, therefore, to 
 lay sti-ess upon the fact that the Connecticut of 
 the present is the creation of this century : that 
 Connecticut was almost as much an agricultural 
 commonwealth in 1810 as she is now a mechani- 
 cal and manufacturing commonwealth. How far 
 the forward step which democracy in the State 
 took in 1818 was a cause or only a symptom of 
 the revolution which followed so rapidly, is more 
 than any one can say ; but it is difficult to resist
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 367 
 
 the conviction that the relation between them was 
 an intimate one. 
 
 Apart from the peculiarly State features of the 
 industrial development, at least one feature of it 
 has had a national and international influence, as 
 Mr. E. E. Hale has pointed out. The Connecticut 
 Joint Stock Act of 1837, framed by Mr. Theodore 
 Hinsdale, a manufacturer of the commonwealth, 
 introduced the corporation in the form under 
 which we now generally know it. Its principle 
 was copied by almost every State of the Union, 
 and by the English Limited Liability Act of 1855 ; 
 and the effects of its simple principle upon the in- 
 dustrial development of the whole modern world 
 are quite beyond calculation. All that can be 
 done here is to notice the wide influence of a single 
 Connecticut manufacturer's idea, and to call at- 
 tention to this as another instance of the close 
 connection of democracy with modern industrial 
 development. 
 
 The census of 1880 showed that the population 
 of Connecticut was 622,700, of which 492,708 was 
 native and 129,992 foreign. From the eighth 
 State in order of population in 1790, it had fallen 
 to twenty-eighth in 1880. Of this population, 
 112,915 were at work in the 4,488 factories of the 
 State, the capital of these being $120,480,275, 
 the annual wages $43,501,518 ; value of mate- 
 rials $102,183,341, and that of the finished pro- 
 duct $185,697,211. The manufacture of firearms,
 
 368 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 clocks, India-rubber goods, wagons and carriages, 
 hardware, britannia and table ware, cutlery, cot- 
 ton and woolen goods, machinery, and sewing- 
 machines were the leading industries ; but patent 
 industries, in which Connecticut leads all the 
 States, are the most numerous sources of her pros- 
 perity. The assessed valuation of the State was 
 8228,791,267 for real estate, and 198,386,118 for 
 personal property, these of course representing 
 a much larger real value. With 1.24% of the 
 population of the United States, its people held 
 3.24% of the national registered bond-debt. There 
 were in 1885 eighty -four savings-banks, with 
 256,097 depositors, and deposits amounting to 
 $92,481,525 ; ten stock fire-insurance companies, 
 with assets of $24,040,193 ; seventeen mutual 
 fire-insurance companies, with assets of $1,195,297 ; 
 and nine life-insurance companies, with gross re- 
 ceipts of $110,839,326 and liabilities of $99,321,- 
 018. There were twenty-two railroads, with a 
 length of 974 miles, and a total value of about 
 $90,000,000. Their general management has been 
 excellent: in 1884 they carried 16,957,574 pas- 
 sengers, of whom but one was fatally injured. 
 
 Agriculture still occupied about 45,000 persons, 
 with a capital of about $125,000,000 invested in 
 30,598 farms, containing 1,642,188 acres of im- 
 proved and 811,353 acres of unimproved land. 
 The average size of the farms had decreased from 
 106 acres in 1850, 99 acres in 1860, and 93 acres 
 in 1870, to 80 acres in 1880.
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 369 
 
 The commonwealth government still remains a 
 comparatively simple one. The annual revenues 
 and expenditures are about a million and a half. 
 About one third of this is drawn from the towns 
 by taxation, another third from taxes on railroad 
 companies, and the bulk of the remainder from 
 taxes on mutual fire-insurance companies and sav- 
 ings-banks. The total debt, December 1, 1885, 
 was $4,271,000 ; and the permanent school fund, 
 $2,028,124. The principal items of expenditure, 
 outside of interest on the debt, were about $200,000 
 each for judicial expenses, common schools, and 
 humane institutions, and about $100,000 each for 
 legislative expenses and the militia. 
 
 Before closing this brief summary of the ma- 
 terial progress of the commonwealth during the 
 century, a still briefer space may fairly be given 
 to its political history during the same period. At 
 the beginning of the century, as has been said al- 
 ready, Connecticut was a steadily Federalist State, 
 and it continued so until the election of 1818, or 
 as long as the Federal party existed. In presiden- 
 tial elections it has been the steadiest in its gen- 
 eral opposition to the national Democratic party. 
 It has cast its electoral vote for Federal, Whig, or 
 Republican candidates at every election except five : 
 1820, 1836, 1852, 1876, and 1884. But the popu- 
 lar majorities have always been very slight ; and 
 the feeling of the minority party that it had " a 
 fighting chance " in the State has been kept up by 
 
 24
 
 370 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 its share of success in the frequently recurring 
 State elections. The pluralities have usually been 
 exceedingly small. In the election of 1884 the 
 Democratic vote was 67,182 and the Republican 
 65,898, so that the Democratic plurality, which de- 
 cided the State's electoral vote, was but 1,284, and 
 there was a scattering vote besides of 4,179, or 
 over thrice the deciding plurality. 
 
 The completeness of town supremacy over 
 local concerns gave rise to two incidents in the 
 political history of the State, which those who 
 treat of it would willingly pass over in silence, if 
 that were possible. At the very outset of the anti- 
 slavery struggle in 1831 the free negroes of the 
 United States determined to establish a college 
 for their young men, with a mechanical depart- 
 ment. New Haven was fixed upon as the location, 
 partly by reason of its academic atmosphere, and 
 partly by reason of the State's advantages for 
 mechanical education. The announcement raised 
 a storm of opposition in New Haven. The city 
 officers and voters, in public meeting, denounced 
 the project, and directed every means to be taken 
 to defeat it. Such action was at once fatal to the 
 proposed college, and it came to nothing. Early 
 in 1833, Prudence Crandall, a young Quaker girl 
 of Windham county, wrote to Garrison that she 
 proposed to turn her girls' school at Canterbury 
 into a school for colored children. The change 
 was carried out during the year, and raised a more
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 871 
 
 angry local storm than that which had been met 
 in New Haven. A town meeting declared the 
 school a nuisance ; the pupils were insulted on the 
 streets ; the vagrant act was invoked against 
 them without success ; and at last the leaders of 
 the opposition went to the general assembly, and 
 obtained the passage of an act forbidding the in- 
 troduction into the State of negroes from another 
 State, for purposes of instruction, without the 
 written consent of the selectmen of the town. 
 Under the act Miss Crandall was arrested, and by 
 the advice of her friends went to jail for a night. 
 Trial after trial failed to convict her ; and " boy- 
 cotting," as it is now called, was brought into play 
 in its most aggravated forms. Even her church 
 took part, and excluded her from attendance with 
 her pupils. Finally, all other means having 
 failed, her house was broken open at midnight by 
 a mob, the inmates were turned out of doors, and 
 the house and its contents were ruined. Miss 
 Crandall then gave up her enterprise. 
 
 One would not care to be retained for the de- 
 fense in the consideration of the Crandall episode ; 
 he can only wonder that Connecticut men could 
 have been guilty of the persecutions which were 
 inflicted upon a girl whose pictured countenance 
 is almost a sufficient plea for her. But there are 
 some points which should be brought to the reader's 
 attention as essential to a just judgment. The 
 commonwealth of Connecticut was a most unfor-
 
 372 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 tunate place for such an experiment, simply be- 
 cause of its peculiar local constitution. On the 
 one hand, it was a great responsibility upon a little 
 Windham county town to assume the burden of an 
 odium which far larger places would not have 
 ventured to take up at the time. Towns in other 
 States might shirk responsibility by pleading that 
 such an establishment was the work of a superior 
 power ; in a Connecticut town it must be taken 
 as the act and deed of the town itself. On the 
 other hand, the universal feeling in the State, that 
 a town should have the amplest liberty of control 
 in its local affairs, made it easy for the town's con- 
 trolling influence to get from the general assembly 
 the act recognizing its selectmen's right to decide 
 on this question, an act whose form was so closely 
 in accord with the general tenor of the Connecti- 
 cut system that legislators must have felt it dif- 
 ficult to find objections to it, even if they disliked 
 its new principle. Popular passion had thus a 
 strong impelling force and a temptingly clear 
 field before it, and the opportunity thus afforded 
 may do something to explain the whole affair. At 
 least, the second consideration should do something 
 to exonerate the people of the commonwealth at 
 large. 
 
 With the exception of these unpleasant features, 
 the political history of the commonwealth has 
 been uneventful, and the only friction yet notice- 
 able is in some points in which the old forms of
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 373 
 
 local government have seemed to become too nar- 
 row for the commonwealth's growth. Most of the 
 dissatisfaction has come from the constitution of 
 the general assembly. The representation of the 
 political units of the State in it has always been 
 somewhat peculiar, owing to the survival of the 
 original elements. The lower house has never 
 been considered a popular body : it is the histori- 
 cal representative of the towns, with all their 
 original feeling of town equality. A majority of 
 the lower house need not represent anything ap- 
 proaching a popular majority. The senate was 
 intended to represent the popular majority, but 
 the twenty-four districts from which its members 
 are selected have offered too tempting a prize for 
 gerrymandering to be resisted. In other States, it 
 is the apportionment of the lower house which is 
 usually subjected to this process ; in Connecticut, 
 it is the senate. The party which finds itself in 
 a majority on the popular vote, and yet in a mi- 
 nority in the lower house, is apt to charge injustice 
 there also. And yet the historical student, how- 
 ever much he may regret unequal apportionment 
 in the senate, cannot but regret any attempt to 
 disturb the ancient apportionment in the lower 
 house. It is one of the few remnants of the origi- 
 nal constitution of the commonwealth, and speaks 
 too plainly the history of Connecticut to be will- 
 ingly abandoned.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CONNECTICUT IN THE WAR FOB THE UNION. 
 
 Now that the heat and passion of the war for 
 the Union have so far died away, it must be ad- 
 mitted that the hasty rush into hostilities was 
 largely due to the prevalent belief in the seceding 
 States that the North and West would not fight. 
 The belief rested on different grounds as to the 
 two sections. The West would not fight because 
 it was in her interest to secure peaceable use of the 
 Mississippi, and thus mutual interest was to guard 
 the South from an enemy for whom it had consider- 
 able respect. The manufacturing regions of the 
 North would not fight because they dared not ; 
 and if they should attempt to fight, the South 
 would ask no better or safer amusement than a 
 conflict with them. History should have taught 
 all men more wisdom : the Flemish artisan had 
 long ago shown the world how his craft could fight 
 upon occasion, and the Northern mechanics only 
 repeated and emphasized the lesson. The aversion 
 to war as an abstract principle was strongest 
 among such as the typical Connecticut workman. 
 He could see no use in it ; it was not in the line
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 375 
 
 of his training or ambitions ; it interfered seriously 
 with all that he longed to do in the world. All 
 this really made him a more dangerous enemy, 
 for when he was forced into warlike occupation 
 he went to work at it with a peculiar determina- 
 tion to finish the matter and get rid of it as soon 
 as possible. But the average Southerner's opinion 
 was undoubtedly voiced by Governor Hammond of 
 South Carolina, when he said that the " manual 
 laborers and operatives of the North" were "es- 
 sentially slaves," " the mudsills of society," the 
 difference being that " our slaves are hired for 
 life and are well compensated ; yours are hired 
 by the day and not cared for." Above others, he 
 would probably have been amused by the notion 
 of an actual regiment of Connecticut mechanics 
 and tin-peddlers as a possible element in the deci- 
 sion of the great question. 
 
 It is a fair instance of the commonwealth's in- 
 difference to military glory that her militia system 
 was so completely out of gear in 1861 that she 
 was unable to provide even the single regiment of 
 militia assigned to her in the first call of President 
 Lincoln. Up to the last moment her people were 
 intensely busy with the machinery and mechani- 
 cal industries which had given them so large a 
 place in the material development of the country. 
 
 A remarkable feature of the war was the group 
 of " war governors " who directed the energies of 
 their States during the struggle, and stand out
 
 376 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 above the mass of those who have occupied the 
 office. To this group Connecticut made a notable 
 contribution in the person of her war governor, 
 William A. Buckingham, of Norwich, one of the 
 class of manufacturers and business men who have 
 so often served the commonwealth. January 17, 
 1861, he issued his proclamation to the militia of 
 the State, warning them that their services might 
 be needed at any moment, and urging them to be 
 "ready to render such service as any exigency 
 might demand." The ranks of the militia were 
 not filled as they should have been ; but the pru- 
 dent governor, on his personal responsibility, or- 
 dered the quartermaster to buy equipments for 
 5,000 men. They did good service just when they 
 were most needed. 
 
 In the spring of 1861, Governor Buckingham 
 was reflected by a vote of 43,012 to 41,003 for 
 James C. Loomis. April 16, he called for a regi- 
 ment of volunteers, as there was not even a regi- 
 ment of organized militia to fill President Lincoln's 
 call on the commonwealth. The step was un- 
 authorized by law, but the governor relied on the 
 general assembly to validate it at the coming ses- 
 sion. In this he represented the people exactly, 
 for they had caught fire at the capture of Sumter. 
 More than five times the State's quota volunteered, 
 fifty-four companies instead of ten. But the 
 curious feature of the case, as illustrating the 
 survival underneath of the primitive constitution
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 377 
 
 of the commonwealth, is the way in which the 
 work was done. The commonwealth was met by 
 an emergency utterly unprovided for by law ; the 
 legislature was not in session, and the governor 
 was the only available representative of common- 
 wealth power. All this apparent chaos did not 
 disturb the people in the least. They fell back at 
 once upon the resources of their town system, as 
 they would have done in 1637. Town meetings 
 all over the State met and exercised their re- 
 served powers to tide over the crisis. Money was 
 voted to support the families of volunteers, and to 
 insure a prompt response to the governor's call. 
 By tens and fifteens and twenty-fives, the little 
 towns poured in their contributions of men ; the 
 cities and large towns sent larger numbers, and 
 added larger contributions of money ; and soon 
 the governor was justified in going to Washing- 
 ton and inducing the administration to accept 
 three regiments from Connecticut instead of one. 
 
 When the legislature met in May, it ratified the 
 governor's acts, and appropriated $2,000,000 for 
 military expenses. Extra pay, to the amount of 
 $30 a year, was voted to each enlisted man during 
 the war, besides support for families of volunteers, 
 six dollars per month for the wife and two dollars 
 per month for each child under fourteen. The 
 support was to continue until the expiration of 
 the term of enlistment, even though the soldier 
 should die before that time. Beyond such general
 
 378 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 acts as these, it may be said with considerable 
 accuracy that the commonwealth organization did 
 little, and had little to do, for the conduct of the 
 war : the war was managed, as far as Connecticut 
 was concerned, by the towns, just as in the Ameri- 
 can Revolution. Many of them are still stagger- 
 ing under the load of debt which bears witness to 
 their unselfish devotion to the cause. 
 
 All through the war, the votes of the two great 
 parties remained about as close as in 1861. The 
 minority contained a " peace party," and its pro- 
 ceedings, raising of peace flags, etc., were a con- 
 stant exasperation to the people. The legislature 
 met it in a fashion quite characteristic of Connec- 
 ticut. It voted that any such flag was a " nui- 
 sance," to be abated by any constable or justice of 
 the peace of a town, or by the sheriff of the 
 county. Even here, however, unofficial represen- 
 tatives of the towns were usually first to abate 
 the nuisance, as the town committees of safety 
 had done nearly a century before. 
 
 The first Connecticut regiment did not reach 
 Washington until May 13. To compensate for the 
 delay, it came perfectly prepared, even to 50,000 
 rounds of ammunition, and rations and forage for 
 twenty days. The second and third regiments 
 followed within a day or two, all in the same con- 
 dition of complete preparation. The three took 
 part in the battle of Bull Run. They led the ad- 
 vance, opened the battle, were not demoralized,
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 379 
 
 and covered the retreat, a pretty fair record for 
 " mudsills " in their first battle. To illustrate the 
 business habits which the Connecticut men carried 
 into war-making, it is worth while to note that, 
 when they marched back into their quarters near 
 Washington, they not only brought their own 
 camp equipage in perfect condition, but the camp 
 equipage of three other regiments, and two pieces 
 of artillery, which they had found abandoned and 
 had thoughtfully taken possession of on the way. 
 The three regiments were three-months' men, but 
 their members reenlisted almost to a man ; and 
 the high character of these first Connecticut rep- 
 resentatives in the field may be estimated from 
 the fact that more than five hundred of them be- 
 came commissioned officers during the war. 
 
 Call after call was made for troops, and the old 
 commonwealth kept her quota more than full. 
 She had in the service at various times twenty- 
 eight regiments of infantry, two regiments and 
 three batteries of artillery, and one regiment and 
 a squadron of cavalry, numbering 54,882 volun- 
 teers of all terms of service, or, if the terms are 
 all reduced to a three - years' average, 48,181 
 three-years' men, 6,698 more than her quota. For 
 a State with but about 80,000 voters, and about 
 50,000 able-bodied men on her militia rolls in 
 1861, the percentage of volunteers is very high ; 
 indeed, not more than one or two States excelled 
 it. There were 97 officers and 1,094 men killed
 
 380 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 in action, 48 officers and 663 men who died from 
 wounds, 63 officers and 3,246 men who died from 
 disease, and 21 officers and 389 men who were re- 
 ported missing. 
 
 The men who filled the Connecticut rolls were 
 to an unusual degree typical of the best elements 
 of the commonwealth's history. Many of the 
 names show that their possessors were of foreign 
 blood or birth, but the mass of them are those 
 which have been familiar to the State since its co- 
 lonial foundation. It was peculiarly appropriate 
 that almost the first victim should have been Theo- 
 dore Winthrop of New Haven, for he drew his 
 blood from Connecticut's first governor, John 
 Winthrop. To one who has followed the history 
 of the State with any close attention, the rolls of 
 her regiments are productive of a curious sensa- 
 tion. He finds the same names which he has seen 
 again and again in the town histories ; he can al- 
 most tell from the recurring names on the rolls the 
 town from which each company was enlisted ; and 
 it sometimes seems as if the dead soldiers of the 
 Pequot or King Philip's war had sprung to life 
 again to answer the cry of a new country. And 
 yet the alien names, whose owners made up so 
 large a part of the State's military history, are as 
 fair a reason for satisfaction, for they are a stand- 
 ing proof that Connecticut's catholic spirit of hos- 
 pitality has been met by a loyal adoption of the 
 institutions and spirit of the old commonwealth.
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 381 
 
 Any attempt to enumerate the contributions 
 of Connecticut to the military and naval service 
 of the United States must be embarrassing. It 
 would seem unfair to omit the names, like those 
 of Grant and Sherman, of men who drew their 
 blood from Connecticut, and their powers for good 
 from the institutions of her founders ; and yet such 
 a list would stretch out far beyond the space 
 which could possibly be given to it. But even 
 though the attention is confined to the common- 
 wealth's more direct contributions, the list is long 
 enough to be embarrassing. To the navy, Con- 
 necticut contributed its secretary, Gideon Welles, 
 rear admirals Andrew H. Foote of New Haven, 
 and F. H. Gregory of Norwalk, and commodores 
 John Rogers and C. R. P. Rogers of New London, 
 and R. B. Hitchcock. In the army, Winthrop has 
 been mentioned already. Among the Connecti- 
 cut major-generals were Alfred H. Terry of New 
 Haven, Darius N. Couch of Norwalk, John Sedg- 
 wick of Cornwall Hollow, J. K. F. Mansfield of 
 Middletown, Jos. A. Mower of New London, J. 
 R. Hawley of Hartford, H. W. Birge of Norwich, 
 and R. O. Tyler of Hartford; and among the 
 brigadier-generals, Nathaniel Lyon of Eastford, 
 G. A. Stedman of Hartford, O. S. Ferry of Nor- 
 walk, Daniel Tyler and Edward Harland of Nor- 
 wich, and A. von Steinwehr of Wallingford. So 
 large a contribution of distinguished officers is 
 doubly remarkable as coming from so small a
 
 382 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 State, and from a State which did not enter the 
 conflict out of any diseased passion for military 
 glory, but simply out of the national necessity of 
 the case. If we should attempt to pass below the 
 higher grades of officers, the list of Connecticut 
 men who fought their way into command of regi- 
 ments or companies, in the service of their own or 
 other States, would be almost endless. Common- 
 wealth and towns have marked their gratitude to 
 their representatives in the war. They have 
 shown that a commonwealth's aversion to war is 
 entirely compatible with the most unyielding stub- 
 bornness when it is forced upon her, and that the 
 eminence of her sons in the arts of peace can 
 never again be taken as a safe indication that they 
 are easy victims for attack. It was with no small 
 pride that the people of Connecticut watched the 
 close of the war, as one of her children held Lee's 
 army in an iron grasp on the James, while 
 another was moving up irresistibly from the far 
 South, sweeping up the remaining forces of the 
 Confederacy into a great net, from which there 
 was no escape. And the military historian of the 
 commonwealth may well be permitted to close 
 this chapter for her : 
 
 " The first great martyrs of the war Ells- 
 worth, Winthrop, Ward, and Lyon were of Con- 
 necticut stock. A Connecticut general, with Con- 
 necticut regiments, opened the battle of Bull Run 
 and closed it; and a Connecticut regiment was
 
 IN TEE WAR FOR TEE UNION. 883 
 
 marshaled in front of the farm-house at Appomat- 
 tox when Lee surrendered to a soldier of Connec- 
 ticut blood. A Connecticut flag first displaced the 
 palmetto upon the soil of South Cai'olina ; a Con- 
 necticut flag was first planted in Mississippi ; a 
 Connecticut flag was first unfurled before New 
 Orleans. Upon the reclaimed walls of Pulaski, 
 Donelson, Macon, Jackson, St. Philip, Morgan, 
 Wagner, Sumter, Fisher, our State left its inefface- 
 able mark. The sons of Connecticut followed the 
 illustrious grandson of Connecticut as he swung 
 his army with amazing momentum from the fast- 
 nesses of Tennessee to the Confederacy's vital 
 centre. At Antietam, Gettysburg, and in all the 
 fierce campaigns of Virginia, our soldiers won 
 crimson glories ; and at Port Hudson they were 
 the very first and readiest. . . . On the banks of 
 every river of the South, and in the battle-smoke 
 of every contested ridge and mountain-peak, the 
 sons of Connecticut have stood and patiently 
 struggled. In every ransomed State we have a 
 holy acre on which the storm has left its emerald 
 waves, three thousand indistinguishable hillocks 
 on lonely lake and stream, in field and tangled 
 thicket." 
 
 If the writer of the foregoing paragraph had 
 repeated the stately dirge of the general court of 
 two hundred years ago, it would have been but a 
 just connection between the spirit of the fathers 
 and of their children : " The bitter cold, the tarled
 
 384 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 swamp, the tedious march, the strong fort, the 
 numerous and stubborn enemy they contended 
 with, for their God, king, and country, be their 
 trophies over death. . . . Our mourners, over all 
 the colony, witness for our men that they were 
 not unfaithful in that day."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ONE can hardly study the history of the com- 
 monwealth of Connecticut without receiving a 
 stronger sense of the impression which institutions 
 can make upon a people. Of course, the institu- 
 tions of the commonwealth of 1639 were but the 
 embodiment of the natures of the people who 
 framed them ; they were made as they were be- 
 cause their people could not live comfortably under 
 any others. But the original people, few as they 
 were in number and feeble in resources, were act- 
 ing for a multitude whom none of them could have 
 numbered. Indirect as the connection may seem, 
 there is not an individual in the commonwealth, 
 or indeed in the United States, who does not owe 
 something to the will of Thomas Hooker and his 
 people that democracy should be the rule of their 
 commonwealth. 
 
 Some one has said that nothing in our national 
 system has been permanently good or successful 
 unless it was originally drawn from the State 
 systems. The idea is very far from fanciful, and 
 in it is one of the claims of Connecticut to a place 
 among the commonwealths which have strongly 
 
 25
 
 386 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 influenced the national development of the United 
 States. The facts that the Massachusetts Court 
 of Assistants, in 1630-34, was determined to ignore 
 the towns in the new government, that the towns 
 found it difficult to compel recognition without a 
 conflict with the church, and that there was a 
 wilderness to the southwest, were not particularly 
 important in themselves ; but in them was the 
 germ of the American Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives, and of the principles on which the 
 American commonwealths were at last united into 
 one federal system. The judicial position given 
 by circumstances to the Connecticut delegates in 
 the convention of 1787 would have been of no 
 value whatever if the delegates had not had some- 
 thing in their hands to offer for the convention's 
 consideration, and that something the institutions 
 of Connecticut had been brooding over for a hun- 
 dred and fifty years. There was probably not a 
 public man in Connecticut in 1787 who was not 
 prepared to accept the peculiar federative idea of 
 the constitution, if it should be presented to him ; 
 his commonwealth democracy had prepared him 
 for it. The selection of their ablest representa- 
 tives to go to Philadelphia was only a step in the 
 evolution of those who were competent to suggest 
 the idea, not simply to accept it. They were but 
 the medium of communication ; behind them was 
 the history of the commonwealth for a century and 
 a half, and behind that the primitive democracy.
 
 CONCLUSION. 887 
 
 It would be difficult to find anything new to say 
 of the virtues and force of the Puritan of 1630-60, 
 who, as Macaulay puts it, " brought to civil and 
 military affairs a coolness of judgment and an 
 immutability of purpose which some writers have 
 thought inconsistent with religious zeal, but which 
 were in fact the necessary effects of it." Nowhere 
 is this combination of coolness of judgment and 
 firmness of purpose more notable than in the early 
 history of Connecticut. And yet it had its draw- 
 backs. Such an ecclesiastical system as theirs is 
 always spoken of as if it were an intrusion of reli- 
 gion into civil affairs. In fact, it is really ob- 
 jectionable in that it always turns out to be just 
 the opposite, an intrusion of civil affairs into 
 religion. Even in founding a democracy, the 
 makers of Connecticut made it one in which He 
 whose kingdom is not of this world would have 
 been quite out of place. The perfection of a ma- 
 chine is in its power to correct its own errors. 
 After all, the crowning testimony to the perfection 
 of the political machine which was set going on the 
 banks of the Connecticut is that it did not allow 
 religion and democracy to corrupt one another 
 permanently, that it eliminated the evils of their 
 junction as they appeared, and that it severed the 
 unnatural bond of union just as soon as it could be 
 done. 
 
 Finally, the Connecticut system was one which 
 developed high individual energy and capacity,
 
 388 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 though in later times, when the spread of democ- 
 racy among all the American commonwealths has 
 given all men the same privileges, it has shown 
 itself most prominently in the development of the 
 Connecticut mechanic. Government never was, 
 to the Connecticut man, an institution against 
 which he was to lean for rest ; or which he was to 
 use for the purpose of evading the consequences of 
 his own heedlessness ; or which was to swallow up 
 his personality. It was to him a thing of special 
 purpose, to be restricted to its narrowest effective 
 limits, and to be worked, like any other machine, 
 to its highest capacity within its proper limits. 
 He saw in government of any sort his creature, 
 not his maker. If his fellows saw in him the ca- 
 pacity to act as a part of the governmental machine, 
 he would sink his own personality in it ; but the 
 act was voluntary, a sacrifice for the sake of the 
 commonwealth, not an involuntary absorption into 
 a higher personality. In these later days, when 
 the individual is withering at a rate faster than 
 seems to be altogether convenient, when it is be- 
 lieved that democracy and individualism are no 
 longer quite convertible terms, there may be a use- 
 ful lesson in the record of the commonwealth of 
 Connecticut, unbroken success so far as she has 
 followed out her fundamental principle, embarrass- 
 ment and danger only so far as she has allowed it 
 to be infringed.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF 1639. 
 
 (Abbreviations only are modernized.) 
 
 FORASMUCH as it hath pleased the Allmighty God by 
 the wise disposition of his diuyne providence so to Or- 
 der and dispose of things that we the Inhabitants and 
 Residents of Windsor, Harteford and Wethersfield are 
 now cohabiting and dwelling in and vppon the River of 
 Conectecotte and the Lands thereunto adioyneing ; And 
 well knowing where a people are gathered togather the 
 word of God requires that to mayntayne the peace and 
 vnion of such a people there should be an orderly and 
 decent Gouerment established according to God, to or- 
 der and dispose of the affayres of the people at all sea- 
 sons as occation shall require ; doe therefore assotiate 
 and conioyne our selues to be as one Publike State or 
 Commonwelth ; and doe, for our selues and our Suc- 
 cessors and such as shall be adioyned to vs att any tyme 
 hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation 
 togather, to mayntayne and presearue the liberty and 
 purity of the gospell of our Lord Jesus which we now 
 professe, as also the disciplyne of the Churches, which ac- 
 cording to the truth of the said gospell is now practised
 
 890 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 amongst vs ; As also in our Ciuell Affaires to be guided 
 and gouerned according to such Lawes, Rules, Orders 
 and decrees as shall be made, ordered & decreed, as fol- 
 loweth : 
 
 1. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that there 
 shall be yerely two generall Assemblies or Courts, the 
 first on the second thursday in Aprill, the other the sec- 
 ond thursday in September, following ; the first shall be 
 called the Courte of Election, wherein shall be yerely 
 Chosen from tyme to tyme soe many Magestrats and 
 other publike Officers as shall be found requisitte ; 
 Whereof one to be chosen Gouernour for the yeare en- 
 sueing and vntill another be chosen, and noe other Mag- 
 estrate to be chosen for more than one yeare ; provided 
 alwayes there be sixe chosen besids the Gouernour ; 
 which being chosen and sworn according to an Oath re- 
 corded for that purpose shall haue power to administer 
 justice according to the Lawes here established, and for 
 want thereof according to the rule of the word of God ; 
 which choise shall be made by all that are admitted free- 
 men and haue taken the Oath of Fidellity, and doe co- 
 habitte within this Jurisdiction, (hauing beene admitted 
 Inhabitants by the major part of the Towne wherein 
 they liue) l or the mayor parte of such as shall be then 
 present. 
 
 2. It is Ordered, sentensed and decreed, that the 
 Election of the aforesaid Magestrats shall be on this 
 manner : euery person present and quallified for choyse 
 shall bring in (to the persons deputed to receaue them) 
 one single paper with the name of him written in yt 
 whom he desires to haue Gouernour, and he that hath 
 
 1 Inserted at a later period.
 
 APPENDIX. 891 
 
 the greatest number of papers shall be Gouernour for 
 that yeare. And the rest of the Magestrats or publike 
 Officers to be chosen in this manner : The Secretary 
 for the tyme being shall first read the names of all that 
 are to be put to choise and then shall seuerally nominate 
 them distinctly, and euery one that would haue the per- 
 son nominated to be chosen shall bring in one single 
 paper written vppon, and he that would not haue him 
 chosen shall bring in a blanke ; and euery one that hath 
 more written papers than blanks shall be a Magestrat 
 for that yeare ; which papers shall be receaued and told 
 by one or more that shall be then chosen by the court 
 and sworne to be faythfull therein ; but in case there 
 should not be sixe chosen as aforesaid, besids the Gou- 
 ernor, out of those which are nominated, then he or they 
 which haue the most written papers shall be a Mage- 
 strate or Magestrats for the ensueing yeare, to make vp 
 the foresaid number. 
 
 3. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that the Sec- 
 retary shall not nominate any person, nor shall any per- 
 son be chosen newly into the Magestracy which was not 
 propownded in some Generall Courte before, to be nom- 
 inated the next Election ; and to that end yt shall be 
 lawfull for ech of the Townes aforesaid by their depu- 
 tyes to nominate any two whom they conceaue fitte to 
 be putte to Election ; and the Courte may ad so many 
 more as they iudge requisitt. 
 
 4. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed that noe 
 person be chosen Gouernor aboue once in two yeares, 
 and that the Gouernor be alwayes a member of some ap- 
 proved congregation, and formerly of the Magestracy 
 within this Jurisdiction ; and all the Magestrats Free-
 
 392 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 men of this Commonwelth : and that no Magestrate or 
 other publike officer shall execute any parte of his or 
 their Office before they are seuerally sworne, which 
 shall be done in the face of the Courte if they be pres- 
 ent, and in case of absence by some deputed for that 
 purpose. 
 
 5. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that to the 
 aforesaid Courte of Election the seuerall Townes shall 
 send their deputyes, and when the Elections are ended 
 they may proceed in any publike searuice as at other 
 Courts. Also the other Generall Courte in September 
 shall be for makeing of lawes, and any other publike oe- 
 cation which conserus the good of the Commonwelth. 
 
 6. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that the Gou- 
 ernor shall, either by himselfe or by the secretary, send 
 out summons to the Constables of euery Towne for the 
 cauleing of these two standing Courts, one month at lest 
 before their seuerall tymes : And also if the Gouernor 
 and the gretest parte of the Magestrats see cause vppon 
 any spetiall pccation to call a generall Courte, they may 
 giue order to the secretary soe to doe within fowerteene 
 dayes warneing : and if vrgent necessity so require, vp- 
 pon a shorter notice, giueiiig sufficient grownds for yt 
 to the deputyes when they meete, or els be questioned 
 for the same ; And if the Gouernor and Mayor parte of 
 Magestrats shall ether neglect or refuse to call the two 
 Generall standing Courts or ether of them, as also at 
 other tymes when the oecations of the Commonwelth re- 
 quire, the Freemen thereof, or the Mayor parte of them, 
 shall petition to them soe to doe : if then yt be ether 
 denyed or neglected the said Freemen or the Mayor 
 parte of them shall haue power to giue order to the
 
 APPENDIX. 393 
 
 Constables of the seuerall Townes to doe the same, and 
 so may meete togather, and chuse to themselues a Mod- 
 erator, and may proceed to do any Acte of power, which 
 any other Generall Courte may. 
 
 7. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed that after 
 there are warrants giuen out for any of the said Gen- 
 erall Courts, the Constable or Constables of ech Towne 
 shall forthwith give notice distinctly to the inhabitants 
 of the same, in some Publike Assembly or by goeing or 
 sending from howse to howse, that at a place and tyme 
 by him or them lymited and sett, they meet and assem- 
 ble themselues togather to elect and chuse certen dep- 
 utyes to be att the Generall Courte then following to 
 agitate the afayres of the commonwelth ; which said 
 Deputyes shall be chosen by all that are admitted In- 
 habitants in the seuerall Townes and haue taken the 
 oath of fidellity ; prouided that non be chosen a Deputy 
 for any Generall Courte which is not a Freeman of this 
 Commonwelth. . 
 
 The foresaid deputyes shall be chosen in manner 
 following : euery person that 5s present and quallified as 
 before expressed, shall bring the names of such, written 
 in seuerall papers, as they desire to haue chosen for 
 that Imployment, and these 3 or 4, more or lesse, being 
 the number agreed on to be chosen for that tyme, that 
 haue greatest number of papers written for them shall 
 be deputyes for that Courte ; whose names shall be en- 
 dorsed on the backe side of the warrant and returned 
 into the Courte, with the Constable or Constables hand 
 vnto the same. 
 
 8. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that Wynd- 
 sor, Hartford and Wethersfield shall haue power, ech
 
 394 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Towne, to send fower of their freemen as their deputyes 
 to euery General! Courte ; and whatsoeuer other Townes 
 shall be hereafter added to this Jurisdiction, they shall 
 send so many deputyes as the Courte shall judge meete, 
 a resonable proportion to the number of freemen that 
 are in the said Townes being to be attended therein ; 
 which deputyes shall haue the power of the whole 
 Towne to giue their voats and alowance to all such 
 lawes and orders as may be for the publike good, and 
 unto which the said Townes are to be bownd. 
 
 9. It is Ordered and decreed, that the deputyes thus 
 chosen shall haue power and liberty to appoynt a tyme 
 and a place of meeting togather before any Generall 
 Courte to aduise and consult of all such things as may 
 concerne the good of the publike, as also to examine 
 their owne Elections, whether according to the order, 
 and if they or the gretest parte of them find any such 
 election to be illegall they may seclud such for present 
 from their meeting, and returne the same and their re- 
 sons to the Courte ; and if yt proue true, the Courte 
 may fyne the party or partyes so intruding and the 
 Towne, if they see cause, and giue out a warrant to 
 goe to a newe election in a legall way, ether in parte or 
 /n whole. Also the said deputyes shall haue power to 
 fyne any that shall be disorderly at their meetings, or 
 for not comming in due tyme or place according to ap- 
 poyntment; and they may returne the said fyues into 
 the Courte if yt be refused to be paid, and the Tres- 
 urer to take notice of yt, and to estreete or levy the 
 same as he does other fynes. 
 
 10. It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that euery 
 Generall Courte, except such as through neglect of the
 
 APPENDIX. 895 
 
 Gouernor and the greatest parte of Magestrats the Free- 
 men themselves doe call, shall consist of the Gouernor, 
 or some one chosen to moderate the Court, and 4 other 
 Magestrats at lest, with the mayor parte of the deputyes 
 of the seuerall Townes legally chosen ; and in case the 
 Freemen or mayor parte of them, through neglect or re- 
 fusall of the Gouernor and mayor parte of the mage- 
 strats, shall call a Courte, yt shall consist of the mayor 
 parte of Freemen that are present or their deputyes, 
 with a Moderator chosen by them : In which said Gen- 
 erall Courts shall consist the supreme power of the 
 Commonwelth, and they only shall haue power to make 
 lawes or repeale them, to graunt leuyes, to admitt of 
 Freemen, dispose of lands vndisposed of, to seuerall 
 Townes or persons, and also shall haue power to call 
 ether Courte or Magestrate or any other person what- 
 soeuer into question for any misdemeanour, and may for 
 just causes displace or deale otherwise according to the 
 nature of the offence ; and also may deale in any other 
 matter that concerns the good of this commonwelth, ex- 
 cepte election of Magestrats, which shall be done by the 
 whole boddy of Freemen. 
 
 In which Courte the Gouernour or Moderator shall 
 haue power to order the Courte to giue liberty of spech, 
 and silence vnceasonable and disorderly speakeings, to 
 put all things to voate, and in case the voate be equall 
 to haue the casting voice. But non of these Courts 
 shall be adiorned or dissolued without the consent of 
 the maior parte of the Court. 
 
 11. It is ordered, sentenced and decreed, that when 
 any Generall Courte vppon the occations of the Com- 
 monwelth haue agreed vppon any summe or summes of
 
 396 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 mony to be leuyed vppon the seuerall Townes within 
 this Jurisdiction, that a Committee be chosen to sett out 
 and appoynt what shall be the proportion of euery 
 Towne to pay of the said leuy, provided the Committees 
 be made vp of an equall number out of each Towne. 
 
 14th January, 1638, the 11 Orders abouesaid are 
 voted. 
 
 [Until 1752, the legal year in England began March 
 25 (Lady Day), not January 1. All the days between 
 January 1 and March 25 of the year which we now call 
 1639 were therefore then a part of the year 1638; so 
 that the date of the Constitution is given by its own 
 terms as 1638, instead of 1639. The whole document 
 may be found in Connecticut Public Records, I. 20-25.]
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 1. The general histories of the United States : BANCROFT, Hit- 
 DEETH, BRYANT and GAT, SCHOULEB, MCMASTER, PITKIN, 
 HOLMES, et als. 
 
 2. PALFREY'S History of New England ; SAVAGE'S Winthrop's 
 History of New England ; BRADFORD'S New England Chronol- 
 ogy ; HUBBARD'S General History of New England ; OLIVER'S 
 Puritan Commonwealth, chapter ii, (Episcopalian view) ; BACK- 
 cs's History of New England (Baptist view) ; CHURCH'S History 
 of King Philip's War ; DRAKE'S French and Indian War in New 
 England ; Mass. Hist. Soc. Publications, particularly GARDEN- 
 ER'S Relation of the Pequot Wars, and VINCENT'S True Rela- 
 tion; MATHER'S Magnalia Christi ; BACON'S Genesis of the New 
 England Churches ; FELT'S Ecclesiastical History of New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 3. DOYLE'S American Colonies ; LODGE'S English Colonies in 
 America ; FORCE'S Colonial Tracts. 
 
 4. HUTCHINSON'S History of Massachusetts ; ARNOLD'S His- 
 tory of Rhode Island; BARTLETT'S Records of Rhode Island; 
 HALL'S History of Vermont; BRODHEAD'S History of New 
 York ; O'CALLAGHAN'S History of New Netherlands ; 2 O'CAL- 
 LAG HAN'S Documentary History of New York (Leisler Adminis- 
 tration) ; HAZARD'S Pennsylvania Archives ; SHEAFER'S Histori- 
 cal Map of Pennsylvania ; REGENTS' Report on the Boundaries 
 of the State of New York ; BOWEN'S Boundary Disputes of Con- 
 necticut ; PRIME'S History of Long Island ; THOMPSON'S His- 
 tory of Long Island ; WOOD'S First Settlement of Long Island 
 Towns. 
 
 5. The general histories of Connecticut : TRUMBULL, DWIGHT, 
 HOLLISTER, and CARPENTER and ARTHUR ; ATWATER'S History
 
 398 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 of New Haven ; LEVERMOEE'S Republic of New Haven ; LAM- 
 BERT'S History of New Haven Colony ; Colonial Records of Con- 
 necticut, edited by J. H. TRUMBULL and C. J. HOADLT ; Colo- 
 nial Records of New Haven, edited by HOADLY ; BARBER'S 
 Connecticut Historical Collections. 
 
 6. Connecticut Historical Society Proceedings, particularly 
 HOOKER'S Letter to Winthrop, BULKELEY'S People's Right to 
 Election, HOADLY'S Public Seal of Connecticut, The Hartford 
 Church Controversy, and Correspondence of Silas Deane ; New 
 Haven Historical Society Papers, particularly BACON'S Civil 
 Government in New Haven, TROWBRIDGE'S History of the Long 
 Wharf, BRONSON'S Connecticut Currency, WHITAKER'S Early 
 History of Southold, GOODRICH'S Invasion of New Haven, DEX- 
 TER'S Memoranda on the Regicides, TROWBRIDGE'S Ancient 
 Houses in New Haven, BEARDSLEY'S Mohegan Land Contro- 
 versy, E. C. BALDWIN'S Branford Annals, S. E. BALDWIN'S 
 New York Boundary Line, BRONSON'S Early Government of 
 Connecticut, and DEXTER'S Early Relations between New Neth- 
 erland and New England ; Connecticut Valley Historical Society 
 Papers, particularly the Review of PETERS'S History ; PERCIVAL'S 
 Geology of Connecticut. See also the Introduction to PALFREY ; 
 DE FOREST'S Indians of Connecticut ; 2 HAZARD'S State Papers 
 (New England Commissioners) ; BRODHEAD'S Government of 
 Sir Edmund Andros. 
 
 7. J. H. TRUMBOLL'S Notes on the Constitutions of Connecti- 
 cut, and True Blue Laws ; PETERS'S General History of Connec- 
 ticut ; HINMAN'S Code of 1650, and Antiquities of Connecticut; 
 FOWLER'S Local Law in Connecticut ; BACON'S Contributions to 
 the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut ; BEARDSLEY'S History 
 of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut ; JOHNSTON'S Genesis of 
 a New England State (Connecticut). 
 
 8. MINER'S History of Wyoming; H. M. HOYT'S Brief of the 
 Wyoming Title, with the very complete bibliography at page 101, 
 the volume being the fairest and best account of the contro- 
 versy that I have found. 
 
 9. PHELPS'S History of the Newgate of Connecticut; ELLIOT'S 
 Debates ; President DWIGHT'S Travels in New England and 
 New York ; WOOD'S Administration of John Adams ; GOOD- 
 EICH'B Recollections of a Life-Time ; DWIGHT'S History of the
 
 APPENDIX. 399 
 
 Hartford Convention ; ADAMS'S New England Federalism 
 (Gould's letter); J. H. TRUMBULL'S Defence of Stonington; 
 BUSHXELL'S Historical Estimate of Connecticut (in his Work 
 and Play); BISHOP'S History of American Manufactures; An 
 Historical and Industrial Review of Connecticut (1884); E. E. 
 BALE'S Brown Univ. Address ; EVEREST'S Poets of Connecticut ; 
 FRENCH'S Art and Artists in Connecticut; CROFFCT and MOR- 
 RIS'S History of Connecticut during the Recent War. 
 
 10. STUART'S Hartford in the Olden Time ; TRUMBULL'S His- 
 tory of Hartford County (the first volume has been used most 
 largely ) ; WALKER'S 250th Anniversary of the First Church of 
 Hartford ; STILES'S History of Ancient Windsor, and Supple- 
 ment ; HALL'S History of Norwalk ; CAULKINS'S History of New 
 London, and History of Norwich ; HUNTINGTON'S History of 
 Stamford ; MEAD'S History of Greenwich ; GARDINER'S Notes on 
 East Hampton (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Pub., 1869) ; HOLLAND'S His- 
 tory of Western Massachusetts ; MORRIS'S Early History of 
 Springfield, Mass. ; COTHREN'S History of Ancient Woodbury ; 
 CHAPIN'S History of Glastenbury ; LARNED'S History of Wind- 
 ham County ; KILBOURNE'S Biographical History of Litchtield 
 County ; WOODRUFF'S History of Litchfield ; BRONSON'S His- 
 tory of Waterbury ; ROY'S History of Norfolk ; DAVIS'S History 
 of Wallingford and Meriden ; TAINTOR'S Records of Colchester ; 
 PHELPS'S History of Simsbury, Granby, and Canton ; BOYD'S 
 Annals of Winchester; ANDREWS'S History of New Britain; 
 FOWLER'S History of Durham ; TODD'S History of Redding ; 
 SHARPE'S History of Seymour; ORCUTT'S History of Wolcott, 
 and History of Torrington; DEXTER'S New Haven in 1784, and 
 Town Names in Connecticut. 
 
 11. KINGSLEY'S Historical Discourse, New Haven, 1838; 
 BACON'S Historical Discourses, New Haven, 1838; WOOLSEY'S 
 Historical Discourse, Yale College, 1850; Litchfield County 
 Centennial Addresses, 1851 ; FIELD'S Centennial Address, Mid- 
 dletown, 1853; OILMAN'S Historical Address, Norwich, 1859; 
 W. L. KINGSLEY'S Yale College : A Sketch of its History. 
 
 12. ALLEN'S Biographical Dictionary; SPARKS'S Library of 
 American Biography ; WINTHROP'S Life and Letters of Win- 
 throp (senior) ; Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., ser. 5, vol. 8 (Winthrop 
 Papers) ; New York Hist. Soc. Coll., ser. 2, vol. ii. ; MOORS'*
 
 400 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Memoir of Eaton ; STILES'S History of the Regicides ; WARREN'S 
 Three Judges ; STUART'S Life of Jonathan Trumbull ; BEARDS- 
 LET'S Life of William Samuel Johnson ; HUMPHREYS'S Life of 
 Putnam ; CUTLER'S Life of Putnam ; WOLCOTT Memorial ; 
 HOLMES'S Life of President Stiles ; SPRAGUE'S Life of President 
 Dwight ; WESTCOTT'S Life of John Fitch ; GOODWIN'S Genea- 
 logical Notes ; FLANDERS' or VAN SANTVOORD'S Lives of the 
 Chief Justices (for Ellsworth) ; LOSSING'S or SANDERSON'S Lives 
 of the Signers (for Sherman, Huntington, Williams, and Wol- 
 cott); WARD'S Life of Percival; PIERCE'S Life of Goodyear; 
 HOWE'S Eminent Mechanics ; HOPPIN'S Life of A. H. Foote ; 
 STOWE'S Men of Our Time (for W. A. Buckingham).
 
 THE GOVERNORS OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 These were chosen annually until 1876, and thereafter for two 
 years. Until John Winthrop's second election, immediate reelec- 
 tion was forbidden. 
 
 1639-40, 
 1640-41, 
 1641-42, 
 1642-43, 
 1643-44, 
 1644-45, 
 1645-46, 
 1646-47, 
 1647-48, 
 1648-49, 
 1649-50, 
 1650-51, 
 1651-52, 
 1652-53, 
 1653-54, 
 1654-55, 
 1655-56, 
 1656-57, 
 1657-58, 
 1658-59, 
 1659-76, 
 1676-83, 
 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynes. 
 George Wyllys. 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynes. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 John Haynea. 
 Edward Hopkins. 
 Thomas Welles. 
 John Webster. 
 John Winthrop. 
 Thomas Welles. 
 John Winthrop. 
 William Leete. 
 
 1683-87, Robert Treat. 
 1687-89, (Andros.) 
 1689-98, Robert Treat. 
 1698-1707, Fitz John Winthrop. 
 1707-24, Gurdon Saltonstall. 
 1724-41, Joseph Talcott. 
 1741-50, Jonathan Law. 
 1750-54, Roger Wolcott. 
 1754-66, Thomas Fitch. 
 1766-69, William Pitkin. 
 1769-84, Jonathan Trumbull. 
 1784-86, Matthew Griswold. 
 1786-96, Samuel Huntington. 
 1796-98, Oliver Wolcott. 
 1798-1809, Jonathan Trumbnll. 
 1809-11, John Treadwell. 
 1811-13, Roger Griswold. 
 1813-17, John Cotton Smith. 
 1817-27, Oliver Wolcott. 
 1827-31, Gideon Tomlinson. 
 1831-33, John S. Peters. 
 1833-34, H. W.Edwards.
 
 402 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 1834-35, Samuel A. Foote. 1866-67, 
 
 1835-38, H. W. Edwards. 1867-69, 
 
 1838-42, W. W. Ellsworth. 1869-70, 
 
 1842-44, C. F. Cleveland. 1870-71, 
 
 1844-46, Roger S. Baldwin. 1871-73, 
 
 1846-49, Clark Bissell. 1873-76, 
 
 1849-50, Joseph Trumbull. 1876-79, 
 
 1850-54, Thomas H. Seymour. 1879-81, 
 
 1854-55, Henry Button. 1881-83, 
 
 1855-57, W. T. Minor. 1883-85, 
 
 1857-58, A. H. Holley. 1885-87, 
 
 1858-66, W. A. Buckingham. 1887-89, 
 
 Joseph R. Hawley. 
 James E. English. 
 Marshall Jewell. 
 James E. English. 
 Marshall Jewell. 
 Charles R. Ingersoll. 
 R. D. Hubbard. 
 Charles B. Andrews. 
 H. B. Bigelow. 
 Thomas M. Waller. 
 Henry B. Harrison. 
 Phineas T. Lounsbury.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 AEEECROMBIE, Gen. James, 261. 
 
 Adams, Prof. H. B.,135. 
 
 Agawam, 56. 
 
 Agriculture, 3, 330, 338, 342, 357, 368. 
 
 Albany, N. Y., 251, 259, 276. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, 272, 283. 
 
 Allen, Ira, 272. 
 
 Allyn, John, 81, 160, 202, 266. 
 
 Alsop, Richard, 340. 
 
 Andrew, Samuel, 340. 
 
 Andrews, William, 92. 
 
 Andros, Sir Edmund, 125; at Say- 
 brook, 194, 195 ; in New York, 197 ; 
 in Connecticut, 199 ; at Hartford, 
 200; supports Rhode Island, 213; 
 downfall, 203. 
 
 Annapolis Convention, 318. 
 
 Ansonia, 358. 
 
 Argal, Captain, 146. 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, 40, 292, 303; at 
 New London, 312, 314. 
 
 Aspinwall, Dr. William, 342. 
 
 Assistants, in Massachusetts, 65 foil., 
 386 ; in Connecticut, 172, 190, 269. 
 
 Atherton Company, 211, 214. 
 
 BACON, Dr. Leonard, 98. 
 Ballot, the, 77. 
 Bangs, Dr. Nathan, 356. 
 Banks, 338, 368. 
 Baptism, 225. 
 Baptists, the, 236. 
 Barbadoes, 267. 
 " Battle of the Kegs," 297. 
 Beach, Rev. John, 302. 
 Beach, Dr. John W., 356. 
 Belcher, Gov. Jonathan, 300. 
 Bellows' Falls, 299. 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 242. 
 Berlin, 357, 358. 
 Birge, Gen. H. W., 381. 
 Birmingham, 361. 
 Blake, Admiral, 155. 
 Block Island, 31. 
 Blok, Adrian, 7. 
 "Blue Laws," 105. 
 
 Blue-lights, 350. 
 
 Boundaries : disputes, 114 ; with the 
 Dutch, 148 ; under the charter, 168, 
 173, 273 ; with New York, 193, 205, 
 207 ; with Massachusetts, 207, 209, 
 271 ; with Rhode Island, 209 foil. 
 
 Boroughs, 337. 
 
 Boston, 84, 116, 203, 266, 288, 292. 
 
 Boteler, Lady Alice, 112, 117. 
 
 Brainard, J. G. C., 340. 
 
 Brandt, 278. 
 
 Branford, admission to New Haven, 
 106; settlement, 138; meeting at, 
 239. 
 
 Brass, 361 foil. 
 
 Bridgeport, 337, 359. 
 
 Bromfleld, Major. 313. 
 
 Brooke, Lord, 8, 110, 168. 
 
 Brotherton tribe, the, 54, 55. 
 
 Brownell, Bishop, 355. 
 
 Buckingham, Gov. Wm. A., 376. 
 
 Buildings, 124. 
 
 Bull, Captain Thomas, 194, 196, 251. 
 
 Bull Run, 378-9, 382. 
 
 Bunker Hill, 292. 
 
 Bushnell, David, 296. 
 
 Butler, John, 278. 
 
 CABOTB, the, 7, 11, 145. 
 
 Capital city, 174, 270, 354. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., 60. 
 
 Cambridge platform, the, 226. 
 
 Canonchet, 28, 53. 
 
 Canterbury, 370. 
 
 Carlisle Grant, the, 8. 
 
 Carthagena expedition, the, 256. 
 
 Cassasinamon, 51. 
 
 Cemeteries, 340. 
 
 Charter, the, 170 foil., 199, 201, 202, 
 
 204, 347, 356. 
 
 Charter Oak, the, 25, 123, 200, 204. 
 Chase, Bishop, 351. 
 Chauncey, Nathanael, 240. 
 Cheevers, Ezekiel, 92. 
 Cheneys, the, 342. 
 Cheshire, 355.
 
 404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chipmans, the, 272. 
 
 Chittenden, Gov. Thomas, 272. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, 209. 
 
 Church and commonwealth, 77, 221, 
 224, 228, 232, 233, 347, 354-355, 
 387. 
 
 Church and town, 6, 59, 220, 224, 229, 
 236, 268. 
 
 Church of England, the, 235, 236, 242 ; 
 in the Revolution, 302 ; after the 
 Revolution, 346 ; in 1818, 352. 
 
 Cincinnati, the Society of the, 317. 
 
 Cities, 337, 338. 
 
 Clap, Pres. Thomas, 243. 
 
 Clocks, 359 foil. 
 
 Coal, 345, 358. 
 
 Colt, Samuel, 363. 
 
 Commerce, 339. 
 
 Common lands, 95, 97. 
 
 Confederation, articles of, 315. 
 
 Congregational Church, the, 60, 222, 
 230, 345 ; see Establishment, the. 
 
 Congress, 320 foil. 
 
 Congressmen, election of, 333. 
 
 Connecticut River, the, 2, 7, 8, 17, 23, 
 272, 358 ; imposts, 115, 143, 153. 
 
 Connecticut, position and boundaries, 
 1 ; area, 2 ; products, 3 ; harbors, 4 ; 
 granted to Plymouth Company, 7 ; 
 title, 8, 11 ; commonwealth of, 12 ; 
 settlement, 20 ; constitution, 63 ; 
 seal, 73; motto, 74; territorial 
 claims, 102 ; social conditions, 128 ; 
 colonial policy, 129, 289; regicides 
 in, 165; charter, 166 foil., 285 ; the 
 Andros episode, 199 ; in 1680, 265 ; 
 population, 270 ; final territory, 281 ; 
 in the Revolution, 294, 310 ; becomes 
 a State, 304 ; influence in forming 
 the constitution, 320 foil., 386; in- 
 dustrial development, 328 foil. ; 
 politics, 345, 369 foil. ; in the war of 
 1812, 349 foil. ; in the war for the 
 Union, 374 foil. 
 
 Constables, 78, 79, 135, 174, 180, 181, 
 210, 268, 335. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, the, 
 319 f olL 
 
 Constitution of 1639, adopted, 63 ; ori- 
 gin, 73 ; provisions, 74 and Appen- 
 dix ; democratic nature, 79. 
 
 Constitution of 1818, 337, 353, 357. 
 
 Convention of 1787, the, 319 foil., 386. 
 
 Copper, 3, 300. 
 
 Cornbury, Edward Hyde, Lord, 253. 
 
 Corporation Act, the, 367. 
 
 Cotton, John, 17, 65, 69. 
 
 Cotton-gin, the, 363. 
 
 Couch, Gen. D. N., 381. 
 
 Council, the, 269, 332. 
 
 Counties, 189, 190. 
 
 Country pay, 249. 
 
 Courts, 57, 190, 354 ; in New Haven, 
 
 93, 104. 
 
 Covenant, owning the, 227. 
 Crandall, Prudence, 370. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 154, 155, 164. 
 "Cuba, "the, 299. 
 Cummings, Dr. Joseph, 356. 
 Cutler, Rev. Timothy, 242. 
 
 DAQOETT, Rev. Naphtali, 244. 
 
 Danbury, 303. 
 
 Darley, Henry, 110. 
 
 Dartmouth College, 55. 
 
 Davenport, Rev. John, 82, 92, 221 ; 
 his "fundamental orders," 90; re- 
 moval to Boston, 160 ; dealings with 
 the regicides, 164 ; on the union 
 with Connecticut, 175 foil. ; pro- 
 posal of a college, 239. 
 
 Day, Pres. Jeremiah, 245. 
 
 Deane, Silas, 291. 
 
 Debt, 369. 
 
 Decatur, Commodore Stephen, 350. 
 
 Delaware Company, formed, 146 ; fail- 
 ure, 147. 
 
 Democracy in Massachusetts, 64, 132 ; 
 In Connecticut, 63, 70, 77, 79, 141, 
 205, 220, 226, 261, 318, 356, 366, 
 385^387. 
 
 Democratic party, 345-48, 352,353, 369. 
 
 Deputies, 76, 80, 172, 268. 
 
 Derby, 267, 343, 361. 
 
 Dissenters, 231, 234, 238, 346,347, 352. 
 
 Dixon, Jeremiah, 92. 
 
 Dongan, Gov. Thomas, 199, 205. 
 
 Dorchester, 17, 24. 
 
 Dudley, Joseph, 199, 218, 253. 
 
 Dummer, Fort, 271. 
 
 Dutch, the, in Connecticut, 7, 14, 16, 
 21, 23, 30. 51 ; fort at Hartford, 122, 
 148, 154 ; intercourse with New 
 England, 144; treaty of Hartford, 
 148 ; conquered, 188, 193, 260. 
 
 Dutch West India Company, the, 145, 
 147. 
 
 Dwight, Pres. Timothy, 232. 
 
 Dwight, Pres. Timothy, 245. 
 
 Dwight, Theodore, 340. 
 
 EAST Hampton, L. I., 135, 138. 
 
 Eaton, Rev. Samuel, 88. 
 
 Eaton, Theophilus. 84, 92, 138 ; house, 
 
 89 ; " magistrate," 93 ; governor. 
 
 103 ; death, 158 ; family, 159. 
 Ecclesiastical affairs, 220 foil., 387. 
 Edwards, Pierpont, 338. 
 Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 232. 
 Election laws, 77, 332, 354. 
 Election sermon, 334. 
 Eliot, John, 19, 54. 
 Eliot, Dr. Samuel, 355. 
 Ellsworth, Col. E. ., 381.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Ellsworth, Oliver, 319, 325, 327. 
 
 Endicott, John, 32. 
 
 Episcopal Church (see Church of 
 
 England). 
 Establishment, the, 231, 234, 237, 345, 
 
 347. 
 
 FAIBPIELD, 20, 44, 135, 308. 
 
 Farmington, i35. 
 
 Feake, Robert, 150. 
 
 Federal party, 345-346, 350, 352. 
 
 Feldspar, 4. 
 
 Feawick, George, 8, 110; comes to 
 
 Saybrook, 112 ; commissioner, 113 ; 
 
 sells Saybrook, 115 ; death, 117. 
 Fenry, Gen. O. S., 381. 
 Financial affairs, 248 foil. 
 Fire-arms, 363-364. 
 "Fire Lands," 282, 309. 
 Fish, 5. 
 
 Fisher's Island, 140, 207. 
 Fitch, Gov. Thomas, 287. 
 Fitch, John, 126. 
 Fitch, Rev. James, 54, 113, 218. 
 Five Nations, the, 27. 
 Fletcher, Gov. Benjamin, 195, 204. 
 Foote, Admiral A. H., 381. 
 " Forty Fort," 277. 
 Foss, Dr. Cyrus, 356. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 259, 286, 325. 
 Free burgesses, 91, 103. 
 Free planters, 86, 91, 92, 103, 177. 
 French in Connecticut, the, 312. 
 French wars, 250 foil. 
 Fugill, Thomas, 92. 
 
 GALLOP, John, 31. 
 
 Gardiner, Lyon, 33, 112. 
 
 Garret, Hermon, 51. 
 
 Garrison, W. L., 370. 
 
 General Assembly, 269, 290, 354, 373. 
 
 General Court, 34, 57, 58 ; powers, 75 ; 
 organization, 78; (see General As- 
 sembly.) 
 
 General election, 333. 
 
 George, battle of Lake, 259. 
 
 Gilbert, Matthew, 92. 
 
 Goddard, Calvin, 351. 
 
 Goffe, William, 163 foil. 
 
 Gold, 4. 
 
 Gold, Nathan, 80. 
 
 Goodrich, Chauncey, 351. 
 
 Goodrich, Elizur, 346. 
 
 Goodwin, Dr. D. R. , 355. 
 
 Goodwin, William, 123, 228, 
 
 Goodyear, Charles, 364. 
 
 Goodyear, Stephen, 102, 103. 
 
 Gookin, Daniel, 54. 
 
 Gorges grant, 8. 
 
 Governor, election of, 76, 77 ; reelec- 
 tion, 77 ; in New Haven, 93, 104. 
 
 Granby coppers, 3, 300. 
 
 Grant, Gen. U. 8., 381. 
 
 Greenfield Hill, 44. 
 
 Green's Farms, 308. 
 
 Greenwich, 150. 
 
 Gregory, Commodore F. H., 381. 
 
 Griswold, Fort, 312, 313. 
 
 Griswold, Gov. Roger, 349. 
 
 Groton, 37, 52. 
 
 Guilf ord, 43 ; origin, 83 ; people, 84 ; 
 purchase, 87 ; settlement, 88 ; or- 
 ganization, 93. 
 
 HADDAM, 267. 
 
 Hadley, Mass.,164, 228. 
 
 Hale, Captain Nathan, 295. 
 
 Hale, Rev. E. E., 367. 
 
 Halfway Covenant, the, 227. 
 
 Hamilton grant, the, 8, 9, 215, 216. 
 
 Hammond, Gov. James H., 375. 
 
 Hampshire grants, the, 272. 
 
 Hardware, 357. 
 
 Harland, Gen. Edward, 381. 
 
 Hartford, 6, 7, 11, 15, 22, 34, 56; 
 
 democracy in, 73 ; town clerks, 81 ; 
 
 early topography, 120 ; treaty of, 
 
 148 ; made the capital, 174 ; church, 
 
 223, 224 ; city, 337, 338, 340, 341 j 
 
 manufactures, 358 foil. 
 Hartford wits, the, 340, 341. 
 Hartford Convention, the, 350-352. 
 Harvard College, 239. 
 Hasselring, Sir Arthur, 110. 
 Havana, 263. 
 Hawley, Gen. J. R., 381. 
 Haynes, John, 18, 21, 80, 123; death, 
 
 158. 
 
 Haynes, Rev. Joseph, 228. 
 Hazard, Samuel, 276. 
 Hempstead, L. I., 139. 
 Hillhouse, James, 282, 351. 
 Hillhouse, William, 82. 
 Hinsdale, Theodore, 367. 
 Hitchcock, Commodore R. B., 381. 
 Holland, 145, 154, 193. 
 Holmes, William, 15. 
 Hooker, Rev. Thomas, 18, 299 ; letter 
 
 to Winthrop, 58, 70 ; democracy, 69, 
 
 73 ; sermon of 1638, 72 ; house, 123 ; 
 
 death, 158; influence, 221, 321, 322, 
 
 365,385. 
 Hopkins, Edward, 80, 114, 123 ; death, 
 
 158. 
 
 Hopkins grammar schools, 158. 
 Hopkins, Lemuel, 340. 
 Hopkinson, Francis, 297. 
 Horse brand, 269. 
 Horse Neck, 306. 
 Howe, George, Lord, 261. 
 Howe, John J., 360. 
 Hudson, Henry, 145. 
 Hull, Captain Isaac, 339. 
 Humphreys, David, 340, 343.
 
 406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Humphreysville, 343. 
 Huntingtou, Gov. Samuel, 326. 
 Huntington, L. I., 107, 135, 138. 
 Hutchmson, Gov. Thomas, 66. 
 Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 51, 84. 
 
 INDIAN tribes, 26. 
 
 Industrial development, 323 foil. 
 
 Ingersoll, Jared, 286. 
 
 Ingersoll, Jared, 352. 
 
 Insurance, 338, 368. 
 
 Interlopers, 339. 
 
 Iowa, 11. 
 
 Iron, 3, 343-345, 358. 
 
 JACKSON, Dr. Abner, 355. 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 80, 345, 346. 
 Jerome, Chauncey, 359. 
 Jesup, Col. T. S., 351. 
 Johnson, Sir William, 259. 
 Johnson, William 8., 319, 327. 
 Judges' Cave, the, 164. 
 Jury, trial by, 189. 
 
 KEEPOOT, Dr. J. B., 355. 
 Kieft, Gov. William, 146. 
 Killingworth, 240. 
 King Philip's war, 196. 
 King's Province, 211. 
 Kingston, Pa., 277. 
 Kingston, R. I., 212, 213. 
 Knight, Mrs., 249. 
 Knox, Gen. Henry, 318. 
 
 LABOR Bureau, Connecticut, 365. 
 Land, 75, 95 ; in New Hampshire, 94 ; 
 
 individual ownership of, 96. 
 Laud, 83, 108. 
 
 Law, Gov. Jonathan, 81, 342. 
 Lawrence, Henry, 110. 
 Lead, 3. 
 Ledyard, 52. 
 
 Ledyard, Col. William, 312, 313. 
 Lee, Gen. Charles, 294. 
 Leete, Gov. William, 102, 162, 183, 189. 
 Lefflngwell, Thomas, 113. 
 Legal tender, 254, 257, 258. 
 Legislature, 57(see General Assembly). 
 Lefsler, 251. 
 Lexington, 291. 
 Liberty, Sons of, 97. 
 Limestone, 4. 
 Limited Liability, 367. 
 London Company, 7. 
 Long Island, 2, 137, 148, 168 ; becomes 
 
 a part of New York, 188, 194 ; in 
 
 the Revolution, 311. 
 Long Wharf, the, 339. 
 Loomis, James C., 376. 
 Loudoun, the Earl of, 261. 
 Louisburg, 258, 262. 
 Ludlow, Roger, 18, 19, 56, 80, 154. 
 
 Luzerne county, 284. 
 
 Lyman, General Phineas, 260, 262. 
 
 Lyme, 267. 
 
 Lynn, Mass., 137. 
 
 Lyon, General Nathaniel, 381. 
 
 McFnJQAL, 288. 
 
 Macaulay, 387. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 106. 
 
 Madison, James, 325. 
 
 Magistrates, 70, 76, 77 ; mode of elec- 
 tion, 78 ; in New Haven, 93. 
 
 Malbon, Richard, 92. 
 
 Manchester, 342. 
 
 Mansfield, 342. 
 
 Mansfield, Gen. J. K. P., 381. 
 
 Manufactures, 343, 345, 352, 357 foil. 
 
 Marble, 4. 
 
 Mason, John, 34, 113, 172, 216. 
 
 Massachusetts Bay, 14, 17, 18, 61 ; 
 democracy in, 64, 65 ; charter, 65, 
 67, 131, 198 ; laws, 69 ; relations 
 with Connecticut, 129 ; relations to 
 the New England union, 142-152; 
 boundary disputes, 207, 271 ; in the 
 Revolution, 288. 
 
 Maverick, Rev. John, 18, 19. 
 
 Mayflower, the, 63. 
 
 Mechanics, 357 foil., 361 foil., 374 folL, 
 388. 
 
 Meigs, Col. Return J., 304. 
 
 Meriden, 337, 358. 
 
 Methodist Church, 237, 352. 
 
 Miantonomoh, 28, 36, 47, 48, 50. 
 
 Middletown, 2, 135, 136, 337, 355. 
 
 Milborn, 252. 
 
 Milford, 83. 240 ; origin, 83 ; people, 
 84 ; purchase, 87 ; settlement, 88 ; 
 organization, 93 ; burgesses, 103. 
 
 Militia, 375. 
 
 Mohawks, 27. 
 
 Mohegan, 29. 
 
 Mohegans, 53, 216. 
 
 Momaugin, 87. 
 
 Money, 248. 
 
 Monk, Gen., 163. 
 
 Mononotto, 43, 46. 
 
 Montowese, 87. 
 
 Montreal, 253. 
 
 Montville, 54. 
 
 Mower, Gen. Jos. A., 381. 
 
 Mules, 331. 
 
 NAILS, 3. 
 
 Narragansett Bay, 14, 173, 210. 
 
 Narragansett Indians, 28, 32, 46, 51, 
 
 53, 212. 
 
 Naugatuck River, 358. 
 Navigation Act, 155. 
 Neptune, the, 339. 
 New Amsterdam, 14; becomes New 
 
 York city, 188.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Newark, N. J., 107, 138. 
 
 New Britain, 358. 
 
 New Connecticut, 273. 
 
 New England, 1. 
 
 New England union, 102, 114, 116, 
 143 ; difficulties with the Dutch, 147, 
 152; nullification by Massachusetts, 
 157 ; failure, 132, 157. 
 
 Newgate, 301. 
 
 New Hampshire, 271. 
 
 New Haven, 2, 5, 10, 26, 61 ; origin, 
 S3 ; people, 84 ; settlement, 86 ; 
 purchase, 87 ; early topography, 88 ; 
 covenant, 89 ; constitution, 90 ; leg- 
 islation, 98 ; name, 101 ; confeder- 
 ation, 102 ; organization, 103 ; en- 
 ters New England Union, 104 ; the 
 Delaware venture, 146; phantom 
 ship, 155 ; proposal to migrate, 156 ; 
 the regicides, 163 ; proclaims Charles 
 II., 167 ; included in Connecticut 
 charter, 173; resists, 175; weak- 
 ness, 175 foil. ; yields, 188, 189; Yale 
 at. 241 ; British at, 244, 308 ; capital, 
 270 ; city, 337-340 ; embargo, 346 ; 
 convention, 348 ; manufactures, 358 ; 
 proposed negro college, 370. 
 
 " New lights," 233, 236. 
 
 New London, 5, 40, 135, 140, 337, 349 ; 
 Arnold's raid, 312. 
 
 Newman, Robert, 92. 
 
 New Milford, 357. 
 
 New tenor, 256. 
 
 Newtown (Cambridge), 17. 
 
 New York, 193, 197, 205, 207, 282 ; 
 boundary, 272 ; in the Revolution, 
 293, 303, 306 ; in the confederation, 
 316, 318. 
 
 New York city, 127, 188. 
 
 Northampton, Mass., 232. 
 
 Norwalk, 135, 136, 223, 309. 
 
 Norwich, 48, 113, 135, 141, 217, 337, 
 358. 
 
 " Notions," 357. 
 
 Nullification, the first, 157. 
 
 OCCOM, Samson, 55. 
 
 Ohio, 127. 
 
 Oldham, John, 17, 31. 
 
 Old tenor, 256. 
 
 Olin, Dr. Stephen, 356. 
 
 Owning the covenant, 227. 
 
 PALMEB, Nathan, 307. 
 Paper currency, 250 foil. 
 Parsons, J. C., 127. 
 Patents, 362, 368. 
 Patrick, Capt., 36, 42, 45, 150. 
 Pawcatuck River, the, 210, 213. 
 Peace party, the, 378. 
 Peage, 248. 
 Peddlers, 357. 
 
 Peekskill, N. Y., 306. 
 
 " Pelham," 350. 
 
 Penn, William, 274. 
 
 Pennamites and Yankees, 283. 
 
 Pennsylvania, 127, 273, 274, 284 (see 
 Wyoming). 
 
 Pequot country, the, 3, 59, 139, 209. 
 
 Pequot Hill, 37. 
 
 Pequot war, the, 34 foil. 
 
 Pequots, the. 16, 28, 32, 42, 46, 52, 209. 
 
 Percival, J. G., 340. 
 
 Peters, Gov. John S., 310. 
 
 Peters, Rev. Samuel, 105 ; his " His- 
 tory," 298; his "natural" history, 
 299 ; returns to Connecticut, 310 ; 
 death, 310. 
 
 Peters, Rev. Thomas, 113. 
 j Philadelphia, 274. 
 
 Philip's war, King, 196. 
 
 Phillips, Rev. George, 18, 19. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 19. 
 
 Pierson, Rev. Abraham, 54, 107, 138. 
 
 Pierson, Rev. Abraham, 240. 
 
 Pillars, the seven, 90, 92. 
 
 Pins, 361. 
 ! Pitkin, Gov. William, 287. 
 
 Pitt, William, 261. 
 
 Plainfield, 267, 269. 
 
 Plymouth Company, the, 6, 7, 8, 137, 
 215. 
 
 Plymouth colony, the, 14, 16; demo- 
 cracy, 63. 
 
 Pomfret, 261, 307. 
 
 Population, 270, 329, 330, 367. 
 
 Ponderson, John, 92. 
 
 Porter, Pres. Noah, 245. 
 
 Port Royal, 253. 
 
 Presbyterianism, 230, 232. 
 
 Prices, regulation of , 100. 
 
 Prison-ships, 298. 
 
 Probate courts, 75, 336. 
 
 Proclamation money, 258. 
 
 Proprietors, 97. 
 
 Prudden, Rev. Peter, 88. 
 
 Puritans, the, 387. 
 
 Putnam, Gen. Israel, 261, 263, 292, 
 306,307. 
 
 Pynchon, Dr. I. R., 355. 
 
 Pynchon, William, 18. 
 
 QUAKERS, the, 175, 236 
 Quebec, 253, 262. 
 Quinnipiack, 85. 
 Quo warranto, 199. 
 
 RAILROADS, 368. 
 
 Randolph, Edward, 198, 211. 
 
 Randolph, John, 331. 
 
 Rasieres, De, 14. 
 
 Rates, 13T. 
 
 Reading, 302, 306. 
 
 Regicides, the. 163 foil.
 
 408 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Republican party, the, 369. 
 
 Reserve, the Western, 1'27, 282, 315. 
 
 Revolver, the, 363. 
 
 Rhode Island, 209 foil., 317. 
 
 Richmond grant, the, 8. 
 
 Ridgefield, 304. 
 
 Rivington, James, 293. 
 
 Roads, 125. 
 
 Rogers, Commodore C. R. P., 381. 
 
 Rogers, Commodore John, 381. 
 
 Rossiter, Bray, 178. 
 
 Rossiter, John, 178. 
 
 Roxbury, 18. 
 
 Ruyter, Admiral de, 155. 
 
 SACHEM'S Head, 44. 
 
 Saffery, 207. 
 
 Salem, Mass., 261. 
 
 Salisbury, 344. 
 
 Saltonstall, Gov. Gurdon, 80. 
 
 Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 110. 
 
 Sandemanians, the, 346. 
 
 Sassacus, 29, 30, 32, 46. 
 
 Saugatuck, 303. 
 
 Say and Sole grant, the, 8, 9, 23, 109, 
 
 168. 
 Saybrook, 2, 23, 33, 135, 240, 349; 
 
 name, 112 ; sold to Connecticut, 115 ; 
 
 Commencement at, 242. 
 Saybrook platform, the, 231 foil., 237. 
 Schenectady, N. Y., 251. 
 Schools, 101, 267, 282, 328, 369. 
 Seabury, Bishop, 238. 
 Sears, Isaac, 293. 
 Sedgwick, Gen. John, 381. 
 Selden, John, 79. 
 Selectmen, 76, 238, 332, 335, 354. 
 Senate, 77, 354 ; of the United States, 
 
 326. 
 
 Sequin, 33. 
 Sharp's rifle, 364. 
 Sheep, 342, 343. 
 Sherman, Gen. W. T., 381. 
 Sherman, Roger, 319, 324, 327, 357. 
 Sherman, Roger Minot, 351. 
 Sigourney, Mrs. L. H., 340. 
 Silk, 342. 
 Silver, 4. 
 
 Simsbury, 3, 267, 300. 
 Six Nations, the, 27. 
 Slaves, 267. 
 Slitting-mill, 344. 
 Smith, Dr. A. W., 356. 
 Smith, Dr. G. W., 355. 
 Smith, Gov. John Cotton, 356, 
 Smith, Nathaniel, 351. 
 Society, church and, 60. 
 Somers, John, 204. 
 " Sons of Liberty," 97, 286. 
 Southampton, L. I., 135, 138, 223. 
 Southerton, 210. 
 South Norwalk, 337. 
 
 Southold, L. I., purchased, 88 ; ad- 
 mission to New Haven, 106, 138; 
 feeling in, 179. 
 
 " Sow business," the, 68. 
 
 Specie, 250. 
 
 Spencer, Gen. Joseph, 292. 
 
 Springfield, founded, 20, 25, 56 ; be- 
 comes a Massachusetts town, 58, 143, 
 208. 
 
 Stamford, purchased, 87 ; feeling in, 
 
 Stamp Act, the, 285 foil. 
 
 " Stand-up Law," the, 353. 
 
 State prison, the, 300. 
 
 State sovereignty, 304, 305, 315, 316, 
 
 323. 
 
 Stedman, Gen. G. A., 381. 
 Steinwehr, Gen. A. von, 381. 
 Stiles, Pres. Ezra, 245, 334, 342, 346. 
 Stirling grant, the, 137. 
 Stone, Capt, 30. 
 Stone, Rev. Samuel, 18, 19, 35, 123, 
 
 228. 
 
 Stonington, 37, 210, 293, 297, 349. 
 Story, Judge, 66. 
 Stoughton, William, 42. 
 Stratford, 135, 235, 237. 
 Strong, Rev. Nathan, 341. 
 Stuyvesant, Gov. Peter, 147, 151, 185. 
 Suffrage, 60, 75, 173, 174, 224 ,226, 332, 
 
 353, 354 ; in New Haven, 91, 226 ; in 
 
 Massachusetts, 66. 
 
 Susquehanna Company, the, 275, 283. 
 Swamp fight, the, 196, 212. 
 Swift, Zephaniah, 351. 
 
 TALCOTT, John, 57. 
 
 Talcott, Joseph, 80. 
 
 Tatobam, 29. 
 
 Taxation, 78 ; in kind, 100, 249, 369 ; 
 lists, 136, 137, 267, 368 ; church, 224, 
 229, 231, 237, 354 ; and paper cur- 
 rency, 254 foil. 
 
 Tennant, Rev. Gilbert, 232. 
 
 Terry, Eli, 359. 
 
 Terry, Gen. A. H., 381. 
 
 Thames River, the, 5, 35. 
 
 Ticonderosra, 262, 291. 
 
 Tinware, 357. 
 
 Toleration party, the, 352-53. 
 
 Tories, 97, 298, 300, 302, 309, 310, 346. 
 
 Totten, Dr. Silas, 355. 
 
 Town-system, the, 6, 12, 58, 61, 75, 79, 
 134. 135, 192, 268, 290, 305 ; in Mas- 
 sachusetts, 66, 67 ; in New Haven, 
 84, 102, 177 ; in Vermont, 272 ; in 
 Pennsylvania, 278. 
 
 " Town-born," 339. 
 
 Township, the, 220, 268. 
 
 Tracy, Uriah, 331. 
 
 Treadwell, John, 351. 
 
 Treat, Gov. Robert, 196, 199-201.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 Treby, 204. 
 
 Trinity College, 355. 
 
 Trumbull, Benjamin, 288. 
 
 Trumbull, Fort, 312. 
 
 Trumbull, Gov. Jonathan, 286, 294. 
 
 Trumbull, Gov. Jonathan, 81, 287. 
 
 Truinbull, J. H., 71, 288. 
 
 Trumbull, John, 287. 
 
 Trumbull, John, 288, 340. 
 
 Trumbull, H. C., 288. 
 
 Trumbull, Lyman, 288. 
 
 Tryon, Gov. William, 303, 307, 309. 
 
 Turner, Nathaniel, 92, 94. 
 
 Tyler, Gen. Daniel, 381. 
 
 Tyler, Gen. R. O., 381. 
 
 UNCAS, 29, 35, 46, 53, 217. 
 
 Underbill, Captain John, 38. 
 
 Union, the American, 62, 263. 
 
 Union, the New England, 102, 114, 116, 
 143 ; difficulties with the Dutch, 147, 
 152; nullification by Massachusetts, 
 157 ; failure, 132, 157. 
 
 United colonies, the, 49. 
 
 Utica, N. Y., 274. 
 
 VAN COKLEAR, John, 15. 
 Vane, Gov. Harry, 32, 33. 
 Van Tromp, Admiral, 155. 
 Van Twiller, Gov. Walter, 15. 
 Vermont, 127, 136, 271, 273, 291. 
 Vernon, Admiral, 256. 
 Virginia, 280, 315, 320, 323. 
 
 WADSWORTH, Captain Joseph, 195, 201. 
 
 Walker, Admiral Hovenden, 253. 
 
 Wallingford, 267. 
 
 Wampum, 248. 
 
 Ward, 204. 
 
 Warham, Rev. John, 18, 19. 
 
 Wars, 250 foil. 
 
 Warwick grant, 8, 9, 109, 115, 118. 
 
 Warwick Neck, 214. 
 
 Washington College, 355. 
 
 Washington, George, 294, 295, 311 , 317, 
 
 343. 
 
 Waterbury, 267, 337, 358, 359. 
 Water power, 360. 
 Watertown, 17. 
 Webb, Gen., 261. 
 Webster, Gov. John, 228. 
 Wells, Thomas, 80. 
 Welles, Gideon, 381. 
 Wentworth, Gov. Benning, 272. 
 Wentworth, Strafford, Earl of, 108, 
 
 115. 
 
 Wesleyan University, 355. 
 Westchester, 180. 
 
 Western Reserve, the, 127, 282, 315. 
 West Haven, 308. 
 Westmoreland, 277, 279. 
 West Point, N. T., 306. 
 
 Wethersfield, 11, 21, 22, 33, 56, 312 ; 
 dissensions in, 93, 134, 164, 223; 
 commencement at, 242 ; State pri- 
 son, 301. 
 
 Whalley, Edward, 163 foil. 
 
 " Whapperknocker," the, 299. 
 
 Wharf, the Long, 339. 
 
 Wheaton, Dr., 355. 
 
 Wheelock, Ebenezer, 55. 
 
 Whitfield, Rev. Henry, 88. 
 
 Whitefield, Rev. Henry, 232, 234. 
 
 Whiting, John, 81. 
 
 Whiting, Joseph, 81. 
 
 Whiting, Nathan, 260. 
 
 Whiting, Rev. Joseph, 228. 
 
 Whitney, Eli, 363. 
 
 Whitneyville, 363. 
 
 Wickford, R. I., 185, 210. 
 
 Wigglesworth, Rev. Michael, 228. 
 
 William and Mary, 208, 251. 
 
 Williams, Dr. John, 355. 
 
 Williams, Rev. Elisha, 242. 
 
 Williams, Roger, 32. 
 
 Wilson, James, 326. 
 
 Winchester Arms Co., 364. 
 
 Windham, 299. 
 
 Windsor, 11, 15, 22, 25, 56. 
 
 Winslow, Gov. Edward, 14. 
 
 Winthrop, Fitz John, 160, 202, 204, 
 252. 
 
 Winthrop, Jr., John, 8, 23, 77, 80, 110, 
 343 ; at Pequot, 140 ; governor, 160 ; 
 sent to England, 166; obtains a 
 charter, 177 foil., 210. 
 
 Winthrop, Sr., John, 14, 58, 110; let- 
 ter to Hooker, 66. 
 
 Winthrop, Theodore, 380. 
 
 Winthrop, Wait, 202. 
 
 Wolcott, Henry, 158. 
 
 Wolcott, Jr., Henry, 71. 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, 294. 
 
 Wolcott, Oliver, 352. 
 
 Wolfe, Gen. James, 261. 
 
 Wood, John, 245. 
 
 Woodbury, 267. 
 
 Woodward, 207. 
 
 Wool, 342, 343. 
 
 Woolsey, Pres. T. D., 245. 
 
 Wooster, Gen. David, 292, 303, 304. 
 
 Wyllys, George, 81. 
 
 Wyllys, Hezekiah, 81. 
 
 Wyllys, Samuel, 81. 
 
 Wyllys Family, the, 123, 161, 201. 
 
 Wyoming, migration to, 127 ; settle- 
 ment, 275 foil. ; massacre, 278 ; 
 failure, 279. 
 
 TALK College, 101, 238 folL ; Univer- 
 sity, 247. 
 Yale, David, 158. 
 Yale, Elihti, 241. 
 " Yankee Notions," 357.
 
 &mericatt Commontoealtfja, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HORACE E. SCUDDER. 
 
 A series of volumes narrating the history of such 
 States of the Union as have exerted a positive influ- 
 ence in the shaping of the national government, or 
 have a striking political, social, or economical history. 
 
 The commonwealth has always been a positive force 
 in American history, and it is believed that no better 
 time could be found for a statement of the life inher- 
 ent in the States than when the unity of the nation 
 has been assured ; and it is hoped by this means to 
 throw new light upon the development of the country, 
 and to give a fresh point of view for the study of 
 American history. 
 
 This series is under the editorial care of Mr. Hor- 
 ace E. Scudder, who is well known both as a student 
 of American history and as a writer. 
 
 The aim of the Editor will be to secure trustworthy 
 and graphic narratives, which shall have substantial 
 value as historical monographs and at the same time 
 do full justice to the picturesque elements of the sub- 
 jects. The volumes are uniform in size and general 
 style with the series of " American Statesmen " and 
 "American Men of Letters," and are furnished with 
 maps, indexes, and such brief critical apparatus as 
 add to the thoroughness of the work. 
 
 Speaking of the series, the Boston Journal says: 
 " It is clear that this series will occupy an entirely new 
 place in our historical literature. Written by compe- 
 tent and aptly chosen authors, from fresh materials, 
 in convenient form, and with a due regard to propor- 
 tion and proper emphasis, they promise to supply 
 most satisfactorily a positive want."
 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 "VIRGINIA." 
 
 Mr. Cooke has made a fascinating volume one which it will 
 be very difficult to surpass either in method or interest. . . . True 
 historic insight appears through all these pages, and an earnest 
 desire to do all parties and religions perfect justice. The story 
 of the settlement of Virginia is told in full. ... It is made as 
 interesting as a romance. The Critic (New York). 
 
 No more acceptable writer could have been selected to tell the 
 story of Virginia's history. Educational Journal of Virginia 
 (Richmond, Va.). 
 
 " OREGON." 
 
 The long and interesting story of the struggle of five nations 
 for the possession of Oregon is told in the graphic and reliable 
 narrative of William Barrows. ... A more fascinating record 
 has seldom been written. . . . Careful research and pictorial skill 
 of narrative commend this book of antecedent history to all in- 
 terested in the rapid march and wonderful development of our 
 American civilization upon the Pacific coast. Springfield Re- 
 publican. 
 
 There is so much that is new and informing embodied in this 
 little volume that we commend it with enthusiasm. It is written 
 with great ability. Magazine of American History (New York). 
 
 " MARYLAND." 
 
 With great care and labor he has sought out and studied origi- 
 nal documents. By the aid of these he is able to give his work a 
 value and interest that would have been impossible had he fol- 
 lowed slavishly the commonly accepted authorities on his subject. 
 His investigation in regard to toleration in Maryland is particu- 
 larly noticeable. New York Evening Post. 
 
 A substantial contribution to the history of America. Maga- 
 zine of American History, 
 
 " KENTUCKY." 
 
 Professor Shaler has made use of much valuable existing ma- 
 terial, and by a patient, discriminating, and judicious choice has 
 given us a complete and impartial record of the various stages
 
 through which this State has passed from its first settlement to 
 the present time. No one will read this story of the building of 
 one of the great commonwealths of this Union without feelings of 
 deep interest, and that the author has done his work well and im- 
 partially will be the general verdict Christian at Work (New 
 York). 
 
 A capital example of what a short State history should be. 
 Hartford Courant. 
 
 " KANSAS." 
 
 In all respects one of the very best of the series. . . . His work 
 exhibits diligent research, discrimination in the selection of ma- 
 terials, and skill in combining his chosen stuff into a narration 
 that has unity, and order, and lucidity. It is an excellent presen- 
 tation of the important aspects and vital principles of the Kansas 
 struggle. Hartford Courant. 
 
 " MICHIGAN." 
 
 An ably written and charmingly interesting volume. . . . For 
 variety of incident, for transitions in experience, for importance 
 of events, and for brilliancy and ability in the service of the lead- 
 ing actors, the history of Michigan offers rare attractions ; and 
 the writer of it has brought to his task the most excellent gifts 
 and powers as a vigorous, impartial, and thoroughly accomplished 
 historian. Christian Register (Boston). 
 
 "CALIFORNIA." 
 
 Mr. Royce has made an admirable study. He has established 
 his view and fortified his position with a wealth of illustration 
 from incident and reminiscence. The story is made altogether 
 entertaining. ... Of the country and its productions, of pioneer 
 life and character, of social and political questions, of business 
 and industrial enterprises, he has given us full and intelligent ac- 
 counts. Boston Transcript. 
 
 It is the most truthful and graphic description that has been 
 written of this wonderful history which has from time to time 
 been written in scraps and sketches. Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 NOW READY. 
 
 Virginia. A History of the People. By JOHN ESTEN 
 COOKE, author of "The Virginia Comedians," 
 "Life of Stonewall Jackson," "Life of General 
 Robert E. Lee," etc. 
 
 Oregon. The Struggle for Possession. By WILLIAM 
 BARROWS, D. D. 
 
 Maryland. By WILLIAM HAND BROWNE, Associate 
 of Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 Kentucky. By NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER, S. D.., 
 Professor of Palaeontology, Harvard University, re- 
 cently Director of the Kentucky State Survey. 
 
 Michigan. By Hon. T. M. COOLEY, LL. D. 
 
 Kansas. By LEVERETT W. SPRING, Professor of Eng- 
 lish Literature in the University of Kansas. 
 
 California. By JOSIAH ROYCE, Instructor in Philoso- 
 phy in Harvard University. 
 
 New York. By Hon. ELLIS H. ROBERTS. 2 vols. 
 
 Connecticut. By ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, author of a 
 " Handbook of American Politics," Professor of 
 Jurisprudence and Political Economy in the Col- 
 lege of New Jersey. 
 
 IN PR E PAR A TION. 
 
 Tennessee. By JAMES PHELAN, Ph. D. (Leipsic). 
 
 Pennsylvania. By Hon." WAYNE McVEAGH, late At- 
 torney-General of the United States. 
 
 Missouri. By LUCIEN CARR, M. A., Assistant Curator 
 of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology. 
 
 Ohio. By Hon. RUFUS KING. 
 
 New Jersey. BY AUSTIN SCOTT, Ph. D. Professor 
 of History in Rutgers College. 
 Others to be announced hereafter. Each volume, 
 
 with Maps, i6mo, gilt top, $1.25.
 
 Statesmen. 
 
 A Series of Biographies of Men conspicuous in the 
 Political History of the United States. 
 
 EDITED BT 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 
 The object of this series is not merely to give a 
 number of unconnected narratives of men in Ameri- 
 can political life, but to produce books which shall, 
 when taken together, indicate the lines of political 
 thought and development in American history. 
 
 The volumes now ready are as follows. 
 
 John Quincy Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 Alexander Hamilton. By HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
 John C. Calhoun. By DR. H. VON HOLST. 
 Andrew Jackson. By PROF. W. G. SUMNER. 
 John Randolph. By HENRY ADAMS. 
 James Monroe. By PRES. DANIEL C. OILMAN. 
 Thomas Jefferson. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 Daniel Webster. By HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
 Albert Gallatin. By JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS. 
 James Madison. By SYDNEY HOWARD GAY. 
 John Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 John Marshall. By A. B. MAGRUDER. 
 Samuel Adams. By JAMES K. HOSMER. 
 Thomas H. Benton. By THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 Henry Clay. By Hon. CARL SCHURZ. 2 vols. 
 
 IN PRESS. 
 Patrick Henry. By MOSES COIT TYLER. 
 
 IN PREPARA TION. 
 George Washington. By HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
 
 2 vols. 
 Martin Van Buren. By HON. WM. DORSHEIMER. 
 
 Others to be announced hereafter. Each volume, 
 <6mo, gilt top, $1.25.
 
 ESTIMATES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "JOHN QUINCY ADAMS." 
 
 That Mr. Morse's conclusions will in the main be those of 
 posterity we have very little doubt, and he has set an admirable 
 example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting narrative, 
 just proportion, and judicial candor. New York Evening 
 Post. 
 
 Mr. Morse has written closely, compactly, intelligently, fear- 
 lessly, honestly. New York Times. 
 
 "ALEXANDER HAMILTON." 
 
 The biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and dignified through- 
 out. He has the virtue rare indeed among biographers 
 of impartiality. He has done his work with conscientious care, 
 and the biography of Hamilton is a book which cannot have 
 too many readers. It is more than a biography ; it is a study 
 in the science of government. St. Paul Pioneer-Press. - 
 
 "JOHN C. CALHOUN." 
 
 Nothing can exceed the skill with which the political career 
 of the great South Carolinian is portrayed in these pages. The 
 work is superior to any other number of the series thus far, and 
 we do not think it can be surpassed by any of those that are to 
 come. The whole discussion in relation to Calhoun's position 
 is eminently philosophical and just. The Dial (Chicago). 
 
 "ANDREW JACKSON." 
 
 Prof. Sumner has, ... all in al!, made the justest long esti- 
 mate of Jackson that has had itself put between the covers of a 
 book. New York Times. 
 
 One of the most masterly monographs that we have ever had 
 the pleasure of reading. It is calm and clear. Providence
 
 "JOHN RANDOLPH." 
 
 The book has been to me intensely interesting. ... It fa 
 rich in new facts and side lights, and is worthy of its place in 
 the already brilliant series of monographs on American States- 
 men. Prof. MOSES COIT TYLER. 
 
 Remarkably interesting. . . . The biography has all the ele- 
 ments of popularity, and cannot fail to be widely read. Hart- 
 ford Courant. 
 
 "JAMES MONROE." 
 
 In clearness of style, and in all points of literary workman- 
 ship, from cover to cover, the volume is well-nigh perfect. 
 There is also a calmness of judgment, a correctness of taste, 
 and an absence of partisanship which are too frequently want- 
 ing in biographies, and especially in political biographies. 
 American Literary Churchman (Baltimore). 
 
 The most readable of all the lives that have ever been written 
 of the great jurist. San Francisco Bulletin. 
 
 "THOMAS JEFFERSON." 
 
 The book is exceedingly interesting and readable. The at- 
 tention of the reader is strongly seized at once, and he is carried 
 along in spite of himself, sometimes protesting, sometimes 
 doubting, yet unable to lay the book down. Chicago Standard. 
 
 The requirements of political biography have rarely been 
 met so satisfactorily as in this memoir of Jefferson. Boston 
 journal. 
 
 "DANIEL WEBSTER." 
 
 It will be read by students of history ; it will be invaluable as 
 a work of reference ; it will be an authority as regards matters 
 of fact and criticism ; it hits the key-note of Webster's durable 
 and ever-growing fame ; it is adequate, calm, impartial ; it is ad- 
 mirable. Philadelphia Press. 
 
 The task has been achieved ably, admirably, and faithfully. -* 
 Boston Transcript.
 
 "ALBERT GALLATIN." 
 
 It is one of the most carefully prepared of these very valu- 
 able volumes, . . . abounding in information not so readily ac- 
 cessible as is that pertaining to men more often treated by the 
 biographer. . . . The whole work covers a ground which the 
 political student cannot afford to neglect. Boston Correspon- 
 dent Hartford Courani. 
 
 Frank, simple, and straightforward. New York Tribune, 
 
 "JAMES MADISON." 
 
 The execution of the work deserves the highest praise. It is 
 very readable, in a bright and vigorous style, and is marked by 
 unity and consecutiveness of plan. The Nation (New York). 
 
 An able book. . . . Mr. Gay writes with an eye single to truth. 
 The Critic (New York). 
 
 "JOHN ADAMS." 
 
 A good piece of literary work. ... It covers the ground 
 thoroughly, and gives just the sort of simple and succinct ac- 
 count that is wanted. Evening Post (New York). 
 
 A model of condensation and selection, as well as of graphic 
 portraiture and clear and interesting historical narrative. 
 Christian Intelligencer (New York). 
 
 "JOHN MARSHALL." 
 
 Well done, with simplicity, clearness, precision, and judg- 
 Bient, and in a spirit of moderation and equity. A valuable ad- 
 dition to the series. New York Tribune. 
 
 "SAMUEL ADAMS." 
 
 Thoroughly appreciative and sympathetic, yet fair and criti- 
 cal. . . . This biography is a piece of good work a clear and 
 simple presentation of a noble man and pure patriot; it is 
 written in a spirit of candor and humanity. Worcester Spy. 
 
 A brilliant and enthusiastic book, which it will do every 
 American much good to read. The Beacon (Boston). 
 
 # * < For sale by all booksellers. Sent, post-paid, OH re~ 
 ceipt of price by the Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.