ciple and live and act in disregard of God and duty. And our judgment in respect to the present state of society, compared with what it was fifty years ago, will vary according as we direct our view to one or the other of these classes. Evil abounds; it is, in some respects, peculiarly rife and virulent. But good also abounds, and is, I believe, yearly gaining ground and rising to a higher tone of enterprise and action. If it be not so, of what use is the immense increase of religious books, and of religious reading, which distinguishes our day, and of the multiplied efforts to diffuse the influence of truth and piety among all classes of the community, and through the world? NOTE I. p. 66. The first newspaper published in Connecticut was the Connecticut Gazette, at New Haven, Jan. 1, 1755, by James Parker. This was continued but a short period. The second, called the New London (or Connecticut) Gazette, was first published at New London, by Timothy Green, in 1758. The third, is the Connecticut Courant, first published at Hartford, by Thomas Green, in 1674.-Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. 6: 76. The first printing press erected in New England, was set up in Cambridge 1639. The first thing which was printed was the freeman's oath; the next was an Almanac made for New England; the next was the Psalms newly turned into metre. The last thing which issued from this press, was the second edition of Eliot's Indian Bible, in 1685. Some reliques of this press, it is said, were in use a few years since, in the printing office at Windsor, Vermont. Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. 7: 19. The following is a list of the names of all persons holding land in Hartford, in February 1639. At that time it appears that all the lands of the inhabitants were recorded in a book, and we have every reason to suppose this to be a perfect list. The ancient orthography is retained. John Hayes Edward Hopkins George Willes Thomas Wells John Mainard Nathaniel Barden Thomas Upson John Crow Nicholas Clerk William Butler Nathaniel Richards William Rusco John Taylcoatt Richard Goodman Matthew Marvin Timothy Standly Richard Webb Edward Stebbins |