BOOK I. ed, were about to build upon the river: but governor Winthrop declined the motion: he objected that it was not 1633. proper to make a plantation there, because there were three or four thousand warlike Indians upon the river; and because the bar at the mouth of it was such, that small pinnaces only could enter it at high water; and because that, seven months in the year, no vessels could go into it, by reason of the ice, and the violence of the stream.

The Plymouth people therefore determined to undertake the enterprise at their own risk. Preparations were made for erecting a trading house, and establishing a small company upon the river. In the mean time, the master of a vessel from Massachusetts, who was trading at New-Netherlands, shewed to Walter Van Twiller, the Dutch governor, the commission which the English had to trade and settle in New-England; and that his majesty the king of England, had granted all these parts to his own subjects. He therefore desired that the Dutch would not build at Connecticut. This appears to have been done at the direction of governor Winthrop; for, in consequence of it, the Dutch governor wrote a very complaisant letter to him, in which he represented, that the lords, the States General, had granted the same country to the West-India company. He requested therefore, that the English would make no settlements at Connecticut, until the affair should be determined between the court of England, and the States General.* This appears to have been a piece of policy in the Dutch governor, to keep the English still, until the Dutch had got a firm footing upon the river.

Several vessels, this year, went into Connecticut river to trade. John Oldham, from Dorchester, and three men. September with him, also travelled through the wilderness to Connecticut, to view the country, and trade with the Indians. The sachem upon the river made him most welcome, and gave him a present in beaver. He found that the Indian hemp grew spontaneously in the meadows, in great abundance: he purchased a quantity of it; and, upon trial, it appeared much to exceed the hemp which grew in England.

William Holmes, of Plymouth, with his company, having prepared the frame of a house, with boards and materials for covering it immediately, put them on board a vessel, and sailed for Connecticut. Holmes had a commission from the governor of Plymouth, and a chosen company to accomplish his design. When he came into the river, he found that the Dutch had got in before him, made a light fort, and planted two pieces of cannon: this was erected Winthrop's Journal, p. 55.

at the place since called Hartford. The Dutch forbid Book I. Holmes' going up the river, stood by their cannon, ordered him to strike his colours, or they would fire upon him: but he was a man of spirit, assured them that he had a commission from the governor of Plymouth to go up the river, and that he must obey his orders: they poured out their threats, but he proceeded, and landing on the west side of the river, erected his house a little below the mouth of the Plymouth little river, in Windsor.* The house was covered with house ethe utmost dispatch, and fortified with palisadoes. The Windsor, sachems, who were the original owners of the soil, had Oct. 1633. been driven from this part of the country, by the Pequots; and were now carried home on board Holmes' vessel. Of them the Plymouth people purchased the land, on which they erected their house. This, governor Wolcott says, Dutch was the first house erected in Connecticut. The Dutch, house at about the same time, erected a trading house at Hartford, Hartford. which they called the Hirse of good hope.§

rected at

from the

It was with great difficulty that Holmes and his compa- Troubles My erected and fortified their house, and kept it afterwards. the The Indians were offended at their bringing home the ori- Dutch and ginal proprietors, and lords of the country, and the Dutch Indians. that they had settled there, and were about to rival them in trade, and in the possession of those excellent lands upon the river: they were obliged therefore to combat both, and to keep a constant watch upon them.

The Dutch, before the Plymouth people took possession of the river, had invited them, in an amicable manner, to trade at Connecticut; but when they were apprised that they were making preparations for a settlement there, they repented of the invitation, and spared no exertions to prevent them.

On the 8th of June, the Dutch had sent Jacob Van Curter, to purchase lands upon the Connecticut. He made a purchase of about twenty acres at Hartford, of Nepuquash, Oct. 25. a Pequot captain. Of this the Dutch took possession in October, and on the 25th of the month, Curter protested Dec. 1634. against William Holmes, the builder of the Plymouth house. Some time afterwards, the Dutch governor, Walter Van Twiller, of fort Amsterdam, dispatched a reinforcement to Connecticut, designing to drive Holmes and his company from the river. A band of seventy men, under arms, with banners displayed, assaulted the Plymouth * Manuscripts of governor Wolcott.

+ Prince's Chron. part ii. sec. 2, p. 94, 95, 96.

In his manuscripts.

Smith represents this house as built ten years before it was. Hist. of New-York, p. 2.

BOOK I. house, but they found it so well fortified, and the men who kept it so vigilant and determined, that it could not be taken without bloodshed: they therefore came to a parley, and finally returned in peace.

Trade in fur.

The Dutch were always mere intruders. They had no right to any part of this country. The English ever denied their right, and when the Dutch placed a governor at NewNetherlands, and the court of England made complaint of it to the States General, they disowned the affair, and said it was only a private undertaking of an Amsterdam West-India company. King James the first commissioned Edward Langdon to be governor, at New-Netherlands, and named the country New-Albion. The Dutch submitted to the English government, until the troubles in England, under the administrations of king Charles the first and the long parliament.* Taking the advantage of the distraction of those times, they again usurped and established their government, until they were reduced by king Charles the second, in 1664. They gave great trouble to both the colonies of Connecticut and New-Haven.

The people of New-Plymouth had carried on a trade upon Connecticut river for nearly two years before they erected a trading house. They found the country to be excellent and the trade profitable; but that, were there a house and company to receive the commodities which were brought down from the inland country, the profits would be much greater. The country abounded with beaver. The Dutch purchased not less than ten thousand skins an1633. nually. Plymouth and Massachusetts people sometimes sent, in a single ship, for England, a thousand pounds sterling worth of otter and beaver skins. The extent of Connecticut river, the numerous Indians upon it, and the easy communication which they had with the lakes, and natives of Canada, gave an extensive opening for a trade in furs, skins, corn, hemp and all kinds of commodities which the country afforded.

Indians in

Nov. and

Dec.

This was a year of great sickness at Plymouth. They lost twenty of their people. Some of them were their principal and most useful inhabitants.

Mortality It was a dreadful year to the Indians in the Massachuamong the setts. Two sachems with a great part of their Indians died. The small pox, which spread among them, was the occasion of the mortality. The people of Massachusetts shewed them great kindness in their distress. Several towns received their children to prevent their taking the infection, and to nurse and save them if they had taken it; Poug, vol. ii. p. 222.

but the most of them died, notwithstanding all the care and Book I. pains which could be exercised towards them. When their own people forsook them, the English, who lived near them, went to their wigwams and ministered to them. Some families spent almost their whole time with them. One Englishman buried thirty of their dead in one day.*

CHAPTER III.

The state of the country of Connecticut when the settlement of the colony commenced. Its trees and fruits. Its animals. Number, situation, genius, manners, arms, utensils and wars of the Indians.

WHEN the English became first acquainted with that tract comprised within the settled part of Connecticut, it was a vast wilderness. There were no pleasant fields, nor gardens, no public roads, nor cleared plats. Except in places where the timber had been destroyed, and its growth prevented by frequent fires, the groves were thick and lofty. The Indians so often burned the country, to take deer and other wild game, that in many of the plain, dry parts of it, there was but little small timber. Where lands were thus burned there grew bent grass, or as some called it, thatch, two, three and four feet high, according to the strength of the land. This, with other combustible matter, which the fields and groves produced, when dry, in the spring and fall, burned with violence and killed all the small trees. The large ones escaped, and generally grew to a notable height and magnitude. In this manner the natives so thinned the groves, that they were able to plant their corn and obtain a crop.

The constant fall of foliage, with the numerous kinds of weeds and wild grass, which annually died and putrified on the lands, yielded a constant manure, and exceedingly enriched them. Vegetation was rapid, and all the natural productions of the country luxuriant.

1633.

It abounded with the finest oaks of all kinds, with ches- Trees. nut, walnut and wild cherry trees, with all kinds of maple, beech, birch, ash and elm. The butternut tree, buttonwood, basswood, poplar and sassafras trees, were to be found Winthrop's Journal, p. 59.

Natural

fruits.

BOOK I. generally upon all tracts in Connecticut. White, yellow and pitch pine, white and red cedar, hemlock and spruce, grew plenteously in many places. In the north and northwestern part of the colony were excellent groves of pine, with spruce and fir trees. The white wood tree also, notable for its height and magnitude, making excellent boards and clapboards, was the natural growth of the country. In some towns white wood trees have grown in great abundance. All other kinds of small trees, of less utility, common to New-England, flourish in Connecticut. The country abounded with a great variety of wild fruit. In the groves were walnuts, chesnuts, butternuts, hazlenuts and acorns in great abundance. Wild cherries, currants and plumbs, were natural productions. In the low lands, on the banks of the rivers, by the brooks and gutters, there was a variety and plenty of grapes. The country also abounded with an almost endless variety of esculent and medicinal berries, herbs and roots. Among the principal and most delicious of these were strawberries, blackberries of various kinds, raspberries, dewberries, whortleberries, bilberries, blueberries and mulberries. Cranberries also grew plenteously in the meadows, which when well prepared furnish a rich and excellent sauce. Juniperberries, barberries and bayberries, which are of the medicinal kind, grow spontaneously in Connecticut. The latter is an excellent and useful berry, producing a most valuable tallow. It is of a beautiful green, and has a fine perfume. Beside these, there was a profusion of various other kinds of berries of less consideration. Some even of these, however, are very useful in various kinds of dyes and in certain medicinal applications.

Medicinal

vegetables.

The earth spontaneously produced ground nuts, artichokes, wild leeks, onions, garlicks, turnips, wild pease, plantain, radish, and other esculent roots and herbs.

Among the principal medicinal vegetables of Connecticut are the blood root, seneca snakeroot, liquorice root, dragon root, pleurisy root,* spikenard, elecampane, solomon's seal, sarsaparilla, senna, bittersweet, ginseng, angelica, masterwort, motherwort, lungwort, consumption root, great and small canker weed, high and low centaury, sweet and blue flag, elder, maidenhair, pennyroyal, celan

Esclepias decumbens.

This is the Geum Urbanum of Linnæus. It is known in Britain by the name of Herb Bennet, or common Avens. Dr. Buchhave, from long experience, recommends it as much superior to the Peruvian bark, in the cure of periodical and other diseases. Medical commentaries by a society of Physicians in Edinburgh, vol. vii. p. 279 to 288. He represents three ounces of this root, as equal to a pound of the cortex.