30

FIRST EXPLORERS.

[1631.

in 1796. Deer were not uncommon in Middlesex county up to 1765, when, in a time of deep snow, they appear to have been exterminated. The last moose seen in that part of the state is believed to have been one killed in 1770, in the southwestern part of Saybrook. Wild turkeys were numerous in the same neighbourhood till 1780; and continued to be seen, though more rarely, as late as 1790. A panther was shot in Windsor in 1767.

CHAPTER III. 1631-1636.

First Explorers of Connecticut River.-The Plymouth People invited to settle on its Banks.-Windsor Trading-bouse.--The Dutch Fort and Trading-house built at Hartford.-Reasons for settling the country on Connecticut River proposed to Massachusetts.-Objections made to the Project.-Those objections honourable to the character of the Colonists-Five men spend the winter of 1635-6 at Pyquag, or Wethersfield. -Three companies of Colonists form Settlements in 1636 at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, first called Newtown, Dorchester, and Watertown.-Lord Say-and-Seal and his associates send men to build Saybrook Fort.

Ir is uncertain whether Connecticut was first visited by the English or the Dutch. Both claimed to be the first explorers. The river and its fertile borders attracted the earliest attention. In 1631, one of the sachems living on that stream visited Plymouth and Boston, and earnestly solicited the governors of those settlements to send a colony to occupy the country. He stated that the land was exceedingly fruitful, and he promised to give them

eighty beaver-skins a year, and plenty of corn. The proposal, however, was not agreed to; and it was afterward ascertained, that the object of the Indians in making it was to secure the protection of the English against the Pequods, who, under Pekoath, their chief sachem, were at this time making war upon them.

The next year a small party went from Ply. mouth to Connecticut River, and selected a convenient spot for a trading-house in the present town of Windsor, near the mouth of Farmington River; and Governor Winslow and Mr. Bradford, of the Plymouth colony, proposed to Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, and his council, that they should join them in establishing such a house there, to secure the country against the designs of the Dutch, who were reported to be about carrying into execution a similar project. Governor Winthrop, however, declined participating in the plan; as. signing as his reasons that such a colony would in all probability be destroyed by the Indians, since only small vessels could cross the bar at the mouth of the river, and, during seven months of the year, the ice and the rapidity of the current would prevent all navigation. The Plymouth people then determined to proceed in the enterprise alone; and Governor Winthrop forthwith communicated to the Dutch governor information of the commis. sion which the English had to trade in New-Eng land. He shortly afterward received a very courteous reply, requesting him to take no measures until the question should be definitively settled be. tween Holland and England.

In 1633, Connecticut River was visited by sev.

32

WINDSOR THREATENED.

[1633.

eral vessels from Plymouth, and by a party of four men, led by John Oldham, of Dorchester, who crossed the country on foot. They were received with the greatest kindness by the sachem, and bought of him a quantity of the wild hemp which grew there, which was found to be better than that used by the English. In the mean time, the frame and other parts of a trading-house were prepared at Plymouth, which were shipped and brought into the river by William Holmes, with a chosen party of men, several Connecticut sachems being also on board the vessel. On reaching what is now called Hartford, they found that the Dutch had erected a small fort, mounting two guns, at the mouth of Lit. tle River, and Holmes was ordered by them not to proceed. He paid no attention, however, to this prohibition, but sailed fearlessly by; and, reaching Windsor, put up the trading-house, and surrounded it with a palisade. The ground had been previously purchased of the sachems by the Plymouth people.

The Dutch had likewise bought twenty acres at Hartford, not of the River Indians, who were regarded by the English as the rightful owners, but of a chief of their enemies the Pequods, named Nepuquash. Jacob Van Curter protested against the proceedings of Holmes, and some time after made an attempt to drive the English away, in obedience to the orders of the Dutch governor, Walter Van Twiller, who sent a military force for that purpose. The trading-house at Windsor was invested by seventy Dutch soldiers, who, however, committed no violence, but peaceably retired when they found that it could not be taken with. out bloodshed. If the soldiers were withdrawn in

consequence of orders from the Dutch governor, he deserves no little praise for his humanity.

The Rev. Thomas Hooker, a celebrated Puritan preacher in Chelmsford, England, had been silenced in 1630, and fled to Holland to avoid the fines and imprisonment with which he was threatened. Forty-seven conforming ministers near Chelmsford signed a petition in his favour to the Bishop of Lon. don, but without effect, notwithstanding that they declared him "to be for doctrine orthodox, for life and conversation honest, for disposition peaceable, and no wise turbulent or factious." The Earl of Warwick, president of the Plymouth Company, had often attended his preaching. In 1632, a large number of the people of Mr. Hooker emigrated to Massachusetts, hoping to induce him to follow them. They settled at Newtown (now Cambridge); and, having sent him an invitation to join them, in the following year he sailed from Holland in the ship Griffin, and landed at Boston on the 4th of September. He was accompanied by Mr. Samuel Stone, a lecturer at Torcester, in Northampton. shire, as his assistant; and in the same vessel came out the celebrated John Cotton, also John Haynes, Mr. Goffe, and two hundred others. He was elected by the people of Newtown to be again their pastor, with Mr. Stone for his assistant; and the first churches in Connecticut were, in the same manner, generally supplied with two ministers. The church at Newtown was organized on the 11th of October.

The first plan formed for the settlement of Con. necticut was proposed to the General Court of Massachusetts in the year 1634. A number of

34

A SETTLEMENT URGED. ! [1634.

the inhabitants of Newtown or Cambridge, of which the Rev. Mr. Hooker and his congregation were the principal, finding that the persecutions of the Puritans in England were driving more people to Massachusetts than could be well accommodated with land, or comfortably provided for in the then existing state of the country, were disposed to remove to some region more remote from the seacoast. Having heard from persons who had visited Connecticut River, of the size of that stream, the beauty of its banks, and the fertility of its meadows, they applied to the General Court for permission to remove to that attractive region.

To this request a strenuous opposition was made by many of their friends and towns-people, who represented it to be their duty to remain, as being a part of the one body constituting the colony, and for the good of the commonwealth, which they had promised with an oath to do all in their power to promote; adding that their departure would weaken the colony in the sight of its enemies, and tend to discourage many from leaving England to join them, whose arrival they desired and expected. Mr. Hooker had conceived so favourable an opin ion of the plan, that he employed all his eloquence to remove the objections against it; and, when the question was debated in the General Court in September, as it was with much warmth, he attended, and urged at length the various considerations which influenced his mind in favour of the project.

He insisted that the people had not land enough to feed their cattle, and were quite unable to offer accommodations to new colonists; that the planting of so many towns near each other was inju