Connecticut (Colony). THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF CONNECTICUT, £1636-166 63 PRIOR TO THE UNION WITH NEW HAVEN COLONY, MAY, 1665; TRANSCRIBED AND PUBLISHED, (IN ACCORDANCE WITH A RESOLUTION By J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL, COR, SEC. CONN. HIST. SOCIETY; COR. MEMB. N. YORK HIST. SOCIETY, ETC. HARTFORD: BROWN & PARSONS. At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at Hartford, in said State, on the first Wednesday of May, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine: Resolved, That the Secretary of State be authorized to purchase for the use of the State, two hundred and fifty copies of a publication of the Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, prior to the union with New Haven colony, under the Charter of 1662. Provided, that such publication shall be made with the approval, and under the supervision of the Secretary, and shall be authenticated by his official certificate as a true and literal copy of the original record; and provided also, that the expense of the same shall not exceed two dollars per copy; and that the literal copy of the original record, above specified, be deposited with the Secretary of State, for the use of the State. Resolved, That the copies so purchased be distributed by the Secretary, as follows; one copy to the town clerk of each town in this State, to be preserved in his office, for the use of the town; one copy to the Governor and to each of the State Officers of this State; one copy to the Governor of each of the several states and territories, of the United States; one copy to the library of Congress; and the remainder of said two hundred and fifty copies, to be deposited in the office of the Secretary of State, subject to the disposal of the General Assembly. PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY & CO., HARTFORD, CONN. PREFACE. THE early annals of a State require no formal introduction to the descendants of its founders. If the transcriber have well accomplished the task which a love of the olden time impelled him to undertake, and which the liberality of the Legislature supplied, in part, the means of prosecuting, no doubt can exist as to the favorable reception of the volume now presented to the citizens of Connecticut. The value which may attach to it must, of course, mainly depend upon the degree of confidence entertained in its accuracy as a 'true, full and literal copy of the original Record.' The professions or assurances of the transcriber, could do little to impart such confidence; nor could they give additional weight to the certificate of official authentication, or to such internal evidence of reliability as, it is hoped, a careful perusal of the volume may supply. A notice of the condition and arrangement of the original records, and of the plan adopted by the transcriber in the construction of this work, may not, however, be deemed inappropriate. The first volume of the Colony Records is in three parts, originally bound in as many separate volumes. The first of these consists of the records of the General and Particular Courts, commencing with the session held at Newtown, (Hartford,) April 26th, 1636, (by the magistrates commissioned by Massachusetts, to 'govern the people at Connecticut,"*) and closing with the December session of the Court of Magistrates, 1649. Next following, (separated by a few blank pages from the Court Records,) are the records of Wills • The commission "to severall persons, to govern the people at Connecticutt for the space of a year [then] next coming," was granted by the General Court of Massachusetts, March 3d, 1635(6,)—after consultation with John Winthrop, then lately "appointed governor by certain noble personages and men of quality, interested in the said River, which are yet in England." The commissioners named were Roger Ludlow Esq., William Pincheon Esq., John Steele, William Swaine, Henry Smith, William Phelps, William Westwood and Andrew Ward. See the commission, at length, in Hazard's State Papers, Vol. I, p. 321. 39X677 |