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THE REV. SAMUEL PETERS’ LL. D.

GENERAL HISTORY

OF

CONNECTICUT,

FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT UNDER GEORGE FENWICK TO ITS LATEST PERIOD OF AMITY WITH GREAT BRITAIN PRIOR TO THE REVOLUTION;

INCLUDING

_A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY, AND MANY CURIOUS AND INTERESTING ANECDOTES_.

WITH AN APPENDIX, POINTING OUT THE CAUSES OF THE REBELLION IN AMERICA; TOGETHER WITH THE PARTICULAR PART TAKEN BY THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT IN ITS PROMOTION.

BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE PROVINCE.

LONDON: 1781.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, ADDITIONS TO APPENDIX, NOTES, AND EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS, VERIFYING MANY IMPORTANT STATEMENTS MADE BY THE AUTHOR.

BY

SAMUEL JARVIS McCORMICK.

NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1877.

COPYRIGHT BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1877.

PREFACE.

Though Connecticut be the most flourishing, and, proportionally, the most populous, province in North America, it has hitherto found no writer to introduce it, in its own right, to the notice of the world. Slight and cursory mention in the accounts of other provinces, or of America in general, has yet only been made of it. The historians of New England have constantly endeavored to aggrandize Massachusetts Bay as the parent of the other colonies, and as comprehending all that is worthy of attention in that country. Thus Governor Hutchinson says, in the preface of his history of that province, that “there was no importation of planters from England to any part of the continent northward of Maryland, excepting to Massachusetts, for more than fifty years after the colony began;” not knowing, or willing to forget, or to conceal, that Saybrook, New Haven, and Long Island, were settled with emigrants from England within half that period. Another reason for the obscurity in which the Connectitensians have hitherto been involved is to be found among their own sinister views and purposes: Prudence dictated that their deficiency in point of right to the soil they occupied, their wanton and barbarous persecutions, illegal practices, daring usurpations, etc., had better be concealed than exposed to public view.

To dissipate this cloud of prejudice and knavery, and to bring to light truths long concealed, is the motive of my offering the following sheets to the world. I am bold to assert that Connecticut merits a fuller account than envy or ignorance has yet suffered to be given it; and that I have followed the line of truth freely, and unbiased by partiality or prejudice. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised should I have placed the New-Englanders in a different light from that in which they have yet appeared: their characterizers have not been sufficiently unprejudiced, unawed by power, or unaffected by the desire of obtaining it, always to set them in a true one. Dr. Mather and Mr. Neal were popular writers, but, at the time they extolled the prudence and piety of the colonists, they suppressed what are called in New England unnecessary truths. Governor Hutchinson, who loved fame, and feared giving offense, published a few only of those truths, which failed not to procure him a proportionate share of popular distrust and odium. For my own part, I believe my readers will give me credit for having neither the favor nor the fear of man before me in writing this history of Connecticut. I discard the one; I court not the other. My sole aim has been to represent the country, the people, and their transactions, in proper colors. Too much, however, must not be expected from me. I am very sensible of many great defects in this performance, wherein very little assistance was to be obtained from publications of others. Mr. Chambers, indeed, who is writing “Political Annals of the Present United Colonies,” pursues that task with great pains and address. His researches have been of some use to me; but, as to the New England writers, error, disguise, and misrepresentations, too much abound in them to be serviceable in this undertaking, though they related more to the subject than they do. The good-natured critic, therefore, will excuse the want of a regular and connected detail of facts and events which it was impossible for me to preserve, having been deprived of papers of my ancestors which would have given my relation that and other advantages. I hope, therefore, for much indulgence, striking, as I have done, into a new and dark path, almost without a guide. If I have carried myself through it, though with some digressions, yet without incurring the danger of being accounted a deceiver, my disordered garb will, I presume, find an apology in the ruggedness of the road--my Scriptural phraseology be ascribed to the usage of my country.

For three generations my forefathers were careful observers of the proceedings of the Connecticut colonists; and if their papers and myself should continue in existence till a return of peace shall restore them to my possession, I trust the public will not be displeased with the design I have of committing them to the press. In the mean time, lest that event should never take place, I beg their acceptance of the present volume, which, whatever other historical requisite it may want, must, I think, be allowed to possess originality and truth (rare properties in modern publications), and, therefore, I hope, will not be deemed unworthy the public favor.

SECOND PREFACE.

Mr. James Hammond Trumbull, the author of the work entitled “The Blue Laws of Connecticut and New Haven, and the False Blue Laws invented by the Rev. Samuel Peters,” which has just made its appearance, attempts to throw discredit on the work of Dr. Peters, and represents it as a fiction, and a calumny upon the early settlers of Connecticut.

Mr. Trumbull seems to have spared no trouble in his researches to show that no such laws as the “Blue Laws” represented by Dr. Peters were in existence, and to impress this more forcibly upon the public he gives the laws of 1639, 1650, and 1656; when, had he looked more carefully at the doctor’s “History of Connecticut,” he would have found he alluded to them in these words: “The laws made by the independent Dominion, and nominated the Blue Laws by the neighboring colonies, were never suffered to be printed;” nevertheless, Mr. Trumbull shows that there were laws at that time equally repugnant, though clothed in more subtile phraseology, but pointing to the same result, and that these laws were rigidly enforced.

Dr. Peters’s “History of Connecticut” was published in London, in 1781, and possibly there are not twenty persons living who have ever read it. As its truthfulness was unpalatable to the Connecticut colony, the issue that came to this country, I believe, was publicly burnt, and the court prohibited the republishing of the work in the State; consequently it has become a very rare work, so much so that in March, 1877, a copy, at a sale of old works, brought the fabulous price of one hundred and fifteen dollars, demonstrating the fact that but few remained in existence.

The appearance, therefore, of Mr. Trumbull’s work gives the public but one side of the case; under these circumstances I have been induced to republish the work from the original copy belonging to Dr. Peters, using notes and quotations from writers and authors of high repute, and from documents and manuscripts written before the Revolutionary War, which have come into my possession since Mr. Trumbull’s work has appeared, and which, I believe, will show the unbiased public that Mr. Trumbull has not been guided solely by unselfishness in attempting to wipe out the ridicule entailed on Connecticut by the early Blue Laws; but he still retains a little of the fanaticism, bigotry, and spleen, so justly attributed to his ancestor, who was the cause of driving Dr. Peters from his native country; and he would now attempt to cast discredit upon a work that was well received in the State by the intelligent portion of the community, and indorsed as a true history.

In writing of the “Blue Laws,” Prof. De Vere, of the University of Virginia, in his volume on “Americanisms,” published in 1872, says, “They are confirmed without a doubt.” The late Rev. A. B. Chapin, in his article published in the _Churchman_ of Hartford, Connecticut, August 19, 1876, entitled “Was the History of Connecticut a Fabrication?” says, “If Dr. Peters had had my advantages he might have been a worse historian for Connecticut than he has been already.” I might continue such quotations from persons of equally high standing, but my object is to let the work stand upon its merits, giving it to the public as it left the author’s hands, merely adding such portions as I find in the unpublished manuscripts in my possession, relating chiefly to the doctor himself, and the cause of his having to leave the country; also to the action taken by the colony of Connecticut for the relief of the destroyers of the teas in Boston.

It has not been for the purpose of obtaining a character for the work, which it did not before possess, that I again bring it before the public; but that they may have both sides of the case for their view, joined with that of defending my ancestor, the author, a good and venerable old clergyman, who was driven from his country, and his large estates sequestrated, for obeying “the laws of his God, the laws of his country, and the dictates of his conscience, by the fanatics of Connecticut,” and from the unjust and unwarrantable attacks of Mr. Trumbull.

S. J. MCCORMICK.

GENERAL HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.

After several unsuccessful attempts to form settlements in the southern part of North America, in which little more had been done than giving the name of Virginia, in compliment to the virgin Queen Elizabeth, to the country, a patent was obtained in 1606, from James I., by Sir Thomas Gates and associates, for all lands there between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude; and, at the patentees’ own solicitation, they were divided into two companies;[1] to the former of which were granted all the lands between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of north latitude, and to the latter all those between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees. A part of the coast of the territory last mentioned being explored in 1614, and a chart presented to the then Prince of Wales, afterward Charles I., it received from him the appellation of New England.

In the mean time, however, notwithstanding the claim of the English in general to North America, and the particular grant to Sir Thomas Gates and associates, above mentioned, the Dutch got footing on Manhattan or New York Island, pushed up Hudson’s River, as high as Albany, and were beginning to spread on its banks when, in 1614, they were compelled by Sir Samuel Argal to acknowledge themselves subjects of the King of England, and submit to the authority of the Governor of Virginia.[2]

For the better enabling them to accomplish their American undertakings, the Plymouth Company, in 1620, obtained a new patent, admitting new members of rank and fortune. By this they were styled “The Council, established at Plymouth, for planting and governing the said country called New England;” and to them were now granted all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and extending east and west from the Atlantic ocean to the South Sea, except such as were then actually possessed by any Christian prince or people.[3]

Not long afterward, the patentees came to the resolution of making a division of the country among themselves by lot, which they did in the presence of James I. The map of New England, etc., published by Purchas in 1625, which is now become scarce, and probably the only memorial extant of the result, has the following names on the following portions of the coast:

Earl of Arundel, } Sir Ferdinando Gorges, } Between the rivers St. Croix and Earl of Carlisle, } Penobscot.

Lord Keeper, } Sir William Belassis, } Between Penobscot and Sagadahoc Sir Robert Mansell, } river.

Earl of Holderness, } Earl of Pembroke, } Lord Sheffield, } Sir Henry Spelman, } Sir William Apsley, } Between Sagadahoc and Charles Captain Love, } river. Duke of Buckingham, } Earl of Warwick, } Duke of Richmond, } Mr. Jennings, } Dr. Sutcliffe, }

Lord Gorges, } Sir Samuel Argal, } Between Charles River and Narraganset. Dr. Bar. Gooch. }

In the above map, no names appear on the coast north of the river St. Croix, i. e., Nova Scotia, which was relinquished by the patentees in favor of Sir William Alexander; the coast west of Narraganset is not exhibited by Purchas, so that it is uncertain whether the division above mentioned extended to that or not. Probably, it was not then sufficiently explored. However, in 1635, the patentees, from the exigency of their affairs, thinking a surrender of their patent to the king, with reservation of their several rights with regard to the property of the land, an advisable measure, a new division of the coast was struck out, consisting of twelve lots, extending to and comprising lands on the west side of Hudson’s River, and, of course, the Dutch settlement at Manhattan. The following is an account of these lots:

1. From the river St. Croix to Pemaquid. 2. From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc. 3. The land between the rivers Amarascoggin and Kenebec. 4. From Sagadahoc along the sea-coast to Piscataqua. 5. From Piscataqua to Naumkeak (or Salem). 6. From Naumkeak, round the sea-coast by Cape Cod to Narraganset. 7. From Narraganset to the half-way bound, between that and Connecticut River, and so fifty miles up into the country. 8. From the half-way bound to Connecticut River, and so fifty miles into the country. 9. From Connecticut River along the sea-coast of Hudson’s River, and so up thirty miles. 10. From the thirty miles’ end to cross, up forty miles eastward. 11. From the west side of Hudson’s River thirty miles up the country toward the fortieth degree, where New England beginneth. 12. From the end of the thirty miles up the said river, northward thirty miles further, and from thence to cross into the land forty miles.--(“Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay.”)

These divisions were immediately, on the above-mentioned surrender, to be confirmed by the king to the proprietors, and proposed to be erected into so many distinct provinces, under one general Governor of New England. It is certain that this plan was not then carried into execution in the whole. Several, if not all of the lots were formally conveyed to their respective owners previous to the resignation of the patent. How many were confirmed by the king is not known; there is positive evidence of but one--to Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

The eighth and ninth lots nearly form the province of Connecticut, taking its name from the great Indian king who reigned when the English made their first inroads into the country.

But before I give an account of this event, it may be proper to premise a few particulars concerning the Dutch, already spoken of as having seated themselves on New York Island and the banks of Hudson’s River, and also concerning the settlements formed by the English in and near the Massachusetts Bay.

The same year which established the Council of Plymouth, established also the Dutch West India Company, to whom the States of Holland are said to have granted, the year after, all the lands between Capes Cod and Henlopen.

Under their encouragement and support the Dutch at New York were induced to look upon the act of Argal with contempt; accordingly, they revolted from the allegiance he had imposed upon them, cast off the authority of their English Governor, and proceeded in their colonizing pursuits under one of their own nation; in which they seemed to have employed their wonted industry, having, before the year 1637, erected a fort on the spot where Hartford now stands.

A party of Brownists, who in 1619 are said to have obtained a grant of land from the Virginia Company, set sail on the 6th of September in the following year for Hudson’s River; but making on the 11th of November the harbor of Cape Cod instead of the place of their destination, and finding themselves not in a fit condition to put to sea again at such a late season of the year, they ranged along the coast till a commodious situation presented itself, when they disembarked, and founded the colony of New Plymouth.

Seven years afterward a party of Puritans procured a grant of the lands from Merrimack River to the southernmost part of Massachusetts Bay. They made their first settlement at Naumkeak, by them now named Salem, and a second at Charlestown. Great numbers of the Puritans followed their brethren to New England, so that, within a few years, was laid the foundation of Boston and other towns upon the Massachusetts coast.[4]

Thus far had colonization taken place in the neighboring country when, in 1634, the first part of the English adventurers arrived in Connecticut from England[5] under the conduct of George Fenwick, Esq., and the Rev. Thomas Peters, and established themselves at the mouth of the Connecticut River, where they built a town, and which they called Saybrook, a church, and a fort.[6]

In 1636 another party proceeded from Boston under the conduct of Mr. John Haynes and the Rev. Thomas Hooker, and in June settled on the west bank of the Connecticut River, where Hartford now stands, notwithstanding the Dutch had found their way thither before them.[7]

A third party of English settlers in Connecticut were headed by Mr. Theophilus Eaton and the Rev. John Davenport, who left England early in the year 1637, and, contrary to the advice of the people of Massachusetts Bay, who were very desirous of their settling in that province, fixing themselves in the July following on the north side of a small bay wherein the river Quinnipiack empties itself, forty miles southwest of Hartford, and there built the town of New Haven.[8]

Thus, within the space of three years, was Connecticut seized upon by three distinct English parties, in three different places, forming a triangle; by what authority I will now beg leave to inquire.

In favor of the first, it is alleged that they purchased part of the lands belonging to the Lords Say and Brook, which land included the eighth and ninth lots, and had been assigned to them by the Earl of Warwick, who, about the year 1630, obtained a grant of the same from the Council of Plymouth, and a patent from the king, and that Fenwick was properly commissioned to settle and govern the colony.

Neal, Douglas, and Hutchinson, speak of the grant and assignment with the greatest confidence, but make no reference where either may be consulted.

They were very willing to believe what they said, and wished to palm it upon the credulity of their readers as a fact too well established to need proof. I shall endeavor to show the futility of their assertions; indeed, Mr. Hutchinson himself inadvertently gives reason to doubt the truth of them, writing of the transactions of 1622: “The Earl of Warwick,” says he, “we are assured, had a patent for the Massachusetts Bay about the same time, but the bounds are not known.” It will appear presently that a part of the territory in question was, in 1635, granted to the Marquis of Hamilton. Now, taking these several items together, the Council of Plymouth are represented to have granted not only to Massachusetts Bay in 1622, but also, in 1630, a region of vast extent, including Connecticut, to the Earl of Warwick; and then, in 1635, they have regranted the best part of the latter to the Marquis of Hamilton. There is an infeasibility in this supposition that, without proof, will deprive it of all credit among persons who have no particular interest in the support of it.

True it is that Fenwick and his associates were properly authorized to settle upon lands belonging to Lords Say and Brook; but that the lands they did settle upon were the property of the Earl of Warwick is not only without proof, but against it.

It seems to be generally agreed that the Lords Say and Brook were understood to have a right to lands upon Connecticut River, but that river being five hundred miles long, and running through the greatest part of New England, the situation of their property was by no means pointed out; whether it lay at the mouth, the middle, or the northern end, was equally unascertained.

The settlers, indeed, established themselves at the mouth, but without showing their right to the spot; they licentiously chose it. There never has been produced any writing of conveyance of the land in question from the Council of Plymouth to the Earl of Warwick, or from the Earl of Warwick to the Lords Say and Brook, and therefore their title to it must be deemed not good in law. By a letter from Lord Say to Mr. Vane, in 1635, it appears that he (Lord Say), Lord Brook, and others, had thought of removing to New England, but were not determined whether to join the adventurers in Boston or settle a new colony.--(Hutchinson’s “History,” vol. i., p. 42.)

If Connecticut had been assigned to Lords Say and Brook by the Earl of Warwick, as it is pretended was done in 1631, it is very strange that those lords should have been in doubt in 1635 where to fix themselves in New England, since interest and ambition, as well as fertility of soil, would naturally have led them to settle in Connecticut, where they had land of their own, and where a settlement was already begun, and bore a very promising appearance. Hence, it seems but reasonable to suppose that if Lords Say and Brook were entitled to any land on Connecticut River it could not lie within the province of Connecticut; and, if their claims were derived from the Earl of Warwick, it may fairly be concluded that their property lay much higher up the country, since the coast appropriated to the Earl of Warwick by Purchas is that at or about Cape Ann. Lords Say and Brook, therefore, might have a right to send Fenwick, Peters, etc., to colonize on the north parts of Connecticut River, but not southwardly, at the mouth of it; and their neglect of the colony at Saybrook may easily be accounted for, by supposing that they were sensible the settlers had fixed upon a wrong site--an idea corroborated by this circumstance, that Fenwick some years after sold his property there for a mere trifle, when he might have sold it dear if his title had been good.

But, it may be asked, who were the real proprietors of the eighth and ninth lots?

It is asserted that, on the Council of Plymouth’s resignation of their patent to Charles I. in 1635, that monarch granted the latter to the Earl of Stirling.