THE PETTAQUAMSCUT PURCHASE 5 renders thanks" to the Most High who stirred up the barbarous heart of Cononicus to love me as his son to his last gasp."1 Here he went to see the little island called Nahigansett, "and about the place called Sugar Loaf Hill I saw it," he writes, "and was within a pole of it, but could not learn why it was called Nahigansett."2 Richard Smith had built a trading-house near Wickford, a few years before, and soon took control of the more southerly station which Roger Williams established. But little progress was made toward opening the country for settlement until the two great purchases, the first in 1657 by John Hull, the goldsmith of Boston, and his associates, called the Pettaquamscut purchase, and the second by the Humphrey Atherton Company in 1659.* The Pettaquamscut purchases extended over a period of several years, and were made with the consent of the colonies, while the Atherton Company, Potter declares, bought their land “in contravention of an express law of the colony," and, therefore, could not be recognized 1 Potter, Early History of Narragansett, p. 4. ▲ Ibid., p. 58. 8 Ibid., p. 275. 5 Ibid., p. 59. by the government. The two purchases covered portions of the same land, and endless strife resulted. Of the seven Pettaquamscut purchasers all except John Hull were settlers in Rhode Island. Wilson and Mumford were actually in the Narragansett country, and others came, or were in Newport, near by. The Atherton Company' seems to have been the speculation of absentee landlords. The younger Winthrop of Connecticut was one of its ruling spirits. Bradstreet, the Stantons, and Smiths were of the company. A recent writer thinks scant justice has been done these pioneers, whom the Pettaquamscut men regarded as such intruders, but he says they were all "anti-Rhode-Islanders in spirit."1 Members of this company at this early day declare that Rhode Island is "a rodde to those that love to live in order, — a road, refuge, asylum to evil livers. The public rolls record what malefactors, what capital offenders, have found it their unhallowed sanctuary." And, indeed, from the Connecticut point of view this was quite true, for the 1 Dr. Edward Channing, The Narragansett Planters, p. 13. 2 Ibid. CONFLICTING CLAIMS 7 founders of the three towns, Roger Williams at Providence, Mrs. Hutchinson and her associates at Portsmouth, and Samuel Gorton at Warwick, were all "capital offenders." In contrast to this Williams nobly expressed what came to be the ideal Rhode Island spirit, when he replied to the demand of Massachusetts to banish Quakers: "We have no law amongst us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words their minds and understanding concerning the things and ways of God as to salvation and our eternal condition." 1 Both companies undoubtedly expected large results from their land scheme. The Pettaquamscut purchasers bought their first large tract of land from the Indians for sixteen pounds and other considerations.2 How much the Indians understood of it all is very uncertain; especially of the terms of mortgage, which they did not fulfill. They were stirred to opposition, and in 1662 made a protest to the pretended "title to Point Jude and other lands adjoining." The Pettaquamscut purchasers, holding 1 Fiske, Beginnings of New England, p. 184. under Rhode Island law, were bound to support the royal charter of 1643, giving the land to Rhode Island; while the Atherton Company maintained the validity of the grant of 1631 confirmed in 1662, to the Earl of Warwick, by which Connecticut claimed it. So hot did the dispute become that two years later the King's commissioners appointed to settle it summarily took the country from both colonies claiming it, and erected it into a separate government called the King's Province. After 1666 the Governor and assistants of Rhode Island took the place of its own officers, which for two years had been appointed by the Crown. All this dissension naturally prevented the rapid growth of the country. A few years later the General Assembly at Newport (1672) appointed four commissioners "to goe over to Narragansett and to take view of such places there and there about that are fit for plantations." They were instructed to inform the English and Indians that "the Collony doth intend such lands shall be improved by peoplinge the same. 1 Potter, Early History of Narragansett, p. 62. R. I. C. R., vol. ii. p. 87. GEORGE FOX 9 So Rhode Island was taking the matter into her own hands. Instead of sending "assistants" to the General Assembly the Court of General Assembly went to Narragansett. On a May day in 1671 Governor Nicholas Easton, and the other officers of the Colony, met at the house of Mr. Jireh Bull in Pettaquamscut. A courier was dispatched through the country "to warne the inhabitants of this Plantation to attend to-morrow morning at six of the clock,"1 when among other business transacted Mr. Bull himself, Mr. Samuel Wilson, and Mr. William Hefernan were chosen justices.3 To this house in 1672, the following year, came a very different embassy. The Governor was the same and came again from Newport, but with him came a greater than his justices, George Fox, the saintly apostle of the Inner Light. Fox himself describes the meeting, which seems to have taken place at the Bull house, known to have been large and a usual place of assembly. "We had a meeting at a justice's," he writes, "where Friends never had any before. The meeting was very large, for the country 1 R. I. C. R., vol. ii. p. 39. a Ibid. |