70

CLOSE OF THE WAR.

[1638.

ford and Windsor. About twenty chief warriors had fled for refuge beyond the Hudson to the Mohawks, with Sassacus and Mononotto, taking with them about 500 pounds' worth of wampum: but they were all killed by them except Mononotto. Sassacus's scalp was sent to Connecticut in the

autumn.

At length a number of Pequod warriors came to Hartford, and offered to be the servants of the English if they would spare their lives. This was promised them; and the court took them under their protection. The court then requested Uncas and Miantonimoh to meet the Pequods at Hartford; and they came on the 21st of September, 1638, when a firm covenant was made with them for the division of the surviving Pequods (about 200, besides women and children) among the Mohe. gans and the Narragansets (80 to Miantonimoh, 20 to Ninigret, and 100 to Uncas), for a permanent peace, an appeal to the English in case of difficulty between the Indians, and the mutual forgiveness of all injuries. The Pequods were not to inhabit their own country, nor to be called Pequods again, but to be known by the names of the nations to whom they were given. Neither Narragansets nor Mohegans were to have any of the Pequod country without the consent of the English. Pequods were to pay an annual tribute of a fathom of wampum for every sannop or warrior, half a fathom for every young man, and a hand for every male papoose (or child). A public thanksgiving was observed in all the towns for the establishment of peace.

The

The following winter was one of great scarcity.

The fields had been much neglected, in consequence of the absence of the men during the war; and clothes as well as food were at high prices. The court contracted with Mr. Pyncheon to buy 500 bushels of corn of the Indians, and forbade others to purchase of them at the time, lest the price should be raised. A committee was appointed to bring a vessel load from Narraganset: but the winter was remarkably cold, and the price rose to twelve shillings a bushel. In the midst of the distress, a committee was sent about eighty miles up the river, to Pocomtock (now Deerfield in Massachusetts), and the people had the pleasure of seeing, in the spring, fifty canoes come down at a time, laden with corn, to Windsor and Hartford, which they received with lively gratitude to God.

The court felt it necessary to pay their war debt, and provide for the complete arming of all the men in the colony, and laid the first tax, which amounted to 550 pounds.

On the 8th of March Captain John Mason was appointed major-general of the militia of Connecticut. The military staff was delivered to him by Mr. Hooker; and doubtless, as Trumbull remarks, "it was performed with that propriety and dignity which were peculiar to himself, and best adapted to the occasion." The general was directed to instruct the soldiers in each town in discipline ten times a year, and was paid £40 annually. Laws were passed the same year for the protection of the Indians in all their rights, and for the preservation of peace.

72

SETTLEMENT OF NEW-HAVEN. [1638.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Davenport and his Company arrive at Boston from England. -They are urged to settle in Massachusetts.-A Committee of their number visit Winnipiack.-The Settlement of NewHaven begun there in 1638.-The "Plantation Covenant" formed.-Purchases of Land by the new Colony.-The Character and Objects of the Founders.-Planting of Milford, Guilford, Fairfield, and Stratford.

NEW HAVEN, the most beautiful city in Connecticut, and probably in America, distinguished above others in the state by the number of its inhabitants and as the seat of Yale College, was first settled in 1638. The settlers were a band of pious Englishmen, consisting in part of the Rev. Mr. Davenport and his congregation, and including a number of men of wealth, in which respect they differed from the colonies which had preceded them.

Mr. Davenport had arrived in Boston the preceding year, in company with Mr. Samuel Eaton, Theophilus Eaton, Esq., Edward Hopkins, Esq., Mr. Thomas Gregson, and a considerable number of persons besides, who had left England to escape persecution, and to take up their abode in America. Mr. Davenport had been distinguished in England as a minister of great learning and piety. Messrs. Eaton and Hopkins had been successful merchants in London, and the former had resided three years in India, where he held the office of deputy-gov. ernor. Great exertions were made in Massachu. setts to induce this wealthy company to remain in

that colony. The people of Cambridge proposed to relinquish to them their whole town, and the General Court to give them any place which they might select: but they preferred to penetrate farther into the interior of the country. Having heard favourable reports of the land west of Connecticut River, made by persons who had traversed it in pursuit of the Pequods, Messrs. Davenport, Eaton, and Hopkins requested their friends in Connecticut to purchase for them, of the native proprietors, all the land to Hudson River; and this object was partly accomplished by the next autumn, when Mr. Eaton went to explore the country with some of his party.

That highly respectable company appear to have had several reasons for not remaining in Massachusetts. Mr. Davenport held the opinion that no reformation in the church had ever been carried farther than where it was left by those who intro. duced it; and he probably thought that the system adopted in the new colonies was defective in some points not likely to be improved. He was a decided opponent of Antinomian doctrines, which at that time had progressed in Boston. Besides, he and his associates were apprehensive that the king would soon send out a governor-general of NewEngland, to whose authority they did not wish to be subject. Fully resolved on making a new settlement at a distance from the others, in the autumn of 1637 Mr. Davenport, with several of his friends, visited the shore of Long Island Sound, with the commercial and other advantages of which they were much pleased. They selected the place called Quinnepiack by the Indians, and by the Dutch Roeabert; and, having built a hut there, a few of G

74

SETTLEMENT OF NEW-HAVEN. [1638.

their number spent the winter in it. This was the first habitation known to have been ever erected there, and, indeed, on any part of the Connecticut coast west of Saybrook fort. The settlement of New-Haven, however, did not really begin until the following year.

On the 30th of March, 1638, Messrs. Davenport, Prudden, and Theophilus and Samuel Eaton sailed from Boston with their companions. They reached Quinnepiack in about two weeks. On the 18th of April they spent their first Sabbath there, and in a truly Christian manner, viz., in the worship of God, and the strict observance of his holy day. The people assembled in the shade of a large oaktree, at the place where George-street now crosses College.street; and Mr. Davenport preached an appropriate sermon from the 6th chapter of Matthew, 1st verse: "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

Shortly afterward, a day of fasting and prayer was observed; and at the close of it they formed what they called a " Plantation Covenant," in which they solemnly bound themselves, "That, as in matters that concern the gathering and ordering of a church, so also in all public offices which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature, they would, all of them, be ordered by the rules which the Scripture held forth to them." This was intended to be their rule until they should form a more intimate mutual acquaintance, and then they designed to covenant together as Christians.