1638. Nov. 24.

the country. They had obtained their lands of the natives by a payment of clothes, tools, and utensils, added to a promise of protection from hostile tribes; a process which was repeated from time

Dec. 11.

Southhold.

1640. October.

Stamford. 1641.

1640.

to time, in successive extensions to the immediate neighborhood, and in detached settlements. Thus, under the auspices of the government at New Haven, Southhold was established near the eastern end of Long Island, by a company from Norfolk in England; Stamford was founded, fifteen miles west of the Connecticut town of Fairfield, chiefly by a party who had taken offence at Wethersfield; and an attempt Greenwich. was made at Greenwich, still nearer to the NewNetherland border. This frontier town was, however, for some time in revolt. Captain Patrick, from Watertown,2 the principal person among its settlers, took advantage of an alarm which prevailed of a rising of the Indians, to induce his neighbors to submit themselves to the Dutch; and, going to Fort Amsterdam, he, for himself and them, took an oath of allegiance to the States-General.3

April 9.

1642.

It was ordered that semiannual General Courts in April and in October should be "held at New Haven for the plantations in combination with April 6. this town," which as yet (if indeed Greenwich is to be

1 "They laid out too much of their stocks and estates in building of fair and stately houses, wherein they, at the first, outdid the rest of the country." (Hubbard, 334.)

2 See above, pp. 319, 464.

3 Brodhead, History of New York, 330. Patrick had lived in the Netherlands, where he married a Dutch wife. Winthrop says (II. 151): “This captain was entertained by us out of Holland (where he was common soldier of the Prince's guard) to exercise our men. We made him a captain and maintained him. After,

VOL. I.

a

51

1643.

Oct. 23.

included) were only the three that have been just mentioned. The next year Guilford determined to renounce an independence which experience had shown to be more dignified than convenient, and was received into the "combination"; and, in the record, the descripJuly 6. tion of the General Court as being held "for the plantations within this jurisdiction" now first occurs.1 Three months later, Milford annexed itself, and October. the colony of New Haven was fully constituted. On this occasion a difficulty occurred. Milford had formerly taken in, as free burgesses, six planters who were not in church-fellowship." New Haven could consent to no alliance on such a basis. She agreed that "the six freemen already admitted might continue to act in all proper particular town business wherein the combination was not interested," and might "vote in the election of Deputies to be sent to the General Courts for the combination or jurisdiction." But this was on condition that those Deputies should "always be church-members"; that "the six free bur gesses who were not church-members should not at any time thereafter be chosen either Deputies, or into any public trust for the combination"; that they should "neither personally, nor by proxy, vote at any time in the election of magistrates"; and that none should "be admitted freemen or free burgesses thereafter, at Milford, but church-members."2 By the next "GenOct. 27. eral Court for the jurisdiction" this arrange

ment was confirmed.

At the same time, rulers were chosen for the newly constituted community. Theophilus Eaton was elected Governor, with Stephen Goodyeare, of New Haven, for Deputy-Governor, and Thomas Gregson of the same town, William Fowler and Edmund Tapp of Milford,

1 N. H. Col. Rec., 96, 97. See above, 2 N. H. Col. Rec., 110.

p. 535.

and Thurston Rayner of Stamford, for magistrates. A system of judicial administration was instituted. Each plantation was to choose for itself "ordinary judges, to hear and determine all inferior causes." From the

"Plantation Courts" was to lie an appeal to the "Court of Magistrates" (consisting of the Governor, DeputyGovernor, and Assistants), who were also to have original jurisdiction in "weighty and capital cases, whether civil or criminal"; and from the latter tribunal appeals and complaints might be made, and brought to the General Court as the highest for the jurisdiction. In the determination of appeals, "with whatsoever else should fall within their cognizance or judicature," the Courts were to "proceed according to the Scriptures, which is the rule of all righteous laws and sentences."1

A list, taken in the same year, of "the planters" in the town of New Haven, exhibits the names of a hundred and twenty-two persons, including eight women. A reckoning of their family dependents swelled the number to four hundred and sixteen; but it is known that some of these never came to America. The aggregate property of the planters was rated at thirty-six thousand three hundred and thirty-seven pounds sterling.

2

In Connecticut, whose constitution did not permit the immediate re-election of a Governor, the choice Magistrates of for that office in three successive years fell Connecticut. upon John Haynes, George Wyllys, and John

1 N. H. Col. Rec., 112-116.

2 Ibid., 91-93.- De Vries romances on New Haven. In the Journal of his Third Voyage, he writes: "We arrived the next evening [June 4, 1639] at Roodeberg [Red Hill, New Haven], a fine harbor, and found that the English were building a fine town, having already erected upwards of three hundred houses and a handsome church."

1641-1643.

(Collections of the New York Historical Society, Second Series, I. 261.)

3 George Wyllys was the possessor of a good landed property in Warwickshire. In 1636 he sent over twenty servants, to prepare a residence for him at the place soon afterwards called Hartford. In 1638 he came over, and in the next two years was chosen a magistrate. In 1641 he was Deputy

2

3

Haynes again, while Wyllys, Ludlow, and Hopkins successively filled the second place. These four gentlemen were always Assistants when they occupied no higher position; and their colleagues in the magistracy were mostly the same from year to year. The connection of Pynchon's settlement1 with the lower towns was of brief duration, and had not been well defined even while it lasted. There had been disagreements with him from the first, and Massachusetts had always regarded his plantation as lying within her territory as described by the charter. At length, on a petition of Pynchon and his company to the General Court at Boston, Springof Springfield field (as it was now called, instead of Agawam, the Indian name which it had hitherto borne) was recognized as falling within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts; and commissioners were appointed" to lay out the south line" of that Colony, to be joined by such as Connecticut might designate for the purpose.5

Separation

from Con

necticut.

1641.

June 2.

4

After three years, this loss to Connecticut was more than made up by two additions. A company consisting of "about forty families," from Lynn in Massachusetts, "finding themselves straitened,' "6 had bought 1640-1641. land of the Indians on the south side of Long Island, near its eastern end, and there begun a plantation which they called Southampton. For a while they formed an independent community; but, learning from expe

Governor; in 1642, Governor; and in 1643 and 1644, a magistrate again. March 9, 1645, he died, leaving a greatly honored name.

1 See above, p. 454.

2 For establishing the constitution in 1639, it was only "the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield" who came together. (Conn. Col. Rec., 21.)

3 Ibid., 13, 19.

4 Winthrop, I. 285.

5 Mass. Col. Rec., I. 320, 323. I believe that the petition of Pynchon and his friends is the earliest document in which the name Springfield occurs. Hutchinson says (I. 95), that Pynchon's English home had been at Springfield, near Chelmsford, in Essex. 6 Winthrop, II. 4.

Southampton.

1644.

rience the disadvantages of this condition, they entered into an agreement to "associate and join themselves Accession of to the jurisdiction of Connecticut"; and their Deputies were admitted to the General Court of Oct. 25. that colony.' A more important accession was that of the settlement at Saybrook. On condition of receiving the avails, for ten years, of certain duties to be collected from all vessels passing out of the river, and of certain taxes on the domestic trade in beaver and on live stock, Fenwick conveyed the fort, with its armament and "appurtenances," and the "land upon the river," except such as was already private property, to "the jurisdic- of Saybrook. tion of Connecticut." 2 He further covenanted to obtain for that jurisdiction the property of "all the lands from Narragansett River to the fort of Saybrook, mentioned in a patent granted by the Earl of Warwick to certain nobles and gentlemen, if it came into his power." 3

Dec. 5.

The government of Connecticut was not less tender than that of New Haven of the rights of the Indians. Strict laws protected them from ill treatment on The Connectthe part of the whites; and, to disabuse them of icut Indians, imaginary grounds of dissatisfaction, purchases of the same tracts were often repeated. Still they were restless, and from time to time occasioned alarms. The Connecticut people were hardly dissuaded by those of New Haven from sending a hundred men to August.

1 Conn. Col. Rec., 112. For a "Copy of the Combination of Southampton with Hartford," see Ibid., 566.

2 Ibid., 119, 266, 568.

3 For this important clause of the agreement, see Conn. Col. Rec., 268. It has been greatly misunderstood. Trumbull, generally so exact, says (History, I. 150, comp. 118, 237): "The colony, on the whole, paid Mr. Fenwick sixteen hundred pounds sterling, merely for the jurisdiction right,

1639.

or for the old patent of Connecticut.” And in this statement he has been too confidingly followed by recent writers. Indeed, he had been preceded by Hutchinson, who says (I. 97, note): "The Connecticut people purchased the title of the Lords of Mr. Fenwick." The truth is, no such purchase was made; and that there was none, was the occasion of much subsequent inconvenience and litigation.