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Page 47
Haynes was made governor at the next General Court. Successful
inducements were offered to some of the Newtown people to remove to
Boston, and some few concessions were made. But the migration which
had been denied to the corporate towns had probably been begun by
individuals. There is a tradition that some of the Watertown people
passed this winter of 1634-35 at the place where Wethersfield now
stands. In May, 1635, the Massachusetts General Court voted that
liberty be granted to the people of Watertown and Roxbury to remove
themselves to any place within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In
March, 1636, the secession having already been accomplished, the
General Court issued a "Commission to Several Persons to govern the
people at Connecticut."
Its preamble reads: "Whereas, upon some reasons and grounds, there are
to remove from this our Commonwealth and body of the Massachusetts in
America divers of our loving friends and neighbors, freemen and
members of Newtown, Dorchester, Watertown, and other places, who are
resolved to transport themselves and their estates unto the river of
Connecticut, there to reside and inhabit; and to that end divers are
there already, and divers others shortly to go." This tacit permission
was the only authorization given by Massachusetts; but it should be
noted that the unwilling permission was made more gracious by a kindly
loan of cannon and ammunition for the protection of the new
settlements.
If it be true that some of the Watertown people had wintered at
Wethersfield in 1634-35, this was the first civil settlement in
Connecticut; and it is certain that, all through the following spring,
summer, and autumn, detached parties of Watertown people were settling
at Wethersfield. During the summer of 1635, a Dorchester party
appeared near the Plymouth factory, and laid the foundations of the
town of Windsor. In October of the same year a party of sixty persons,
including women and children, largely from Newtown, made the overland
march and settled where Hartford now stands. Their journey was begun
so late that the winter overtook them before they reached the river,
and, as they had brought their cattle with them, they found great
difficulty in getting everything across the river by means of rafts.
It may have been that the echoes of all these preparations had reached
England, and stirred the tardy patentees to action. During the autumn
of 1635, John Winthrop, Jr., agent of the Say and Sele associates,
reached Boston, with authority to build a large fort at the mouth of
the Connecticut River. He was to be "Governor of the River
Connecticut" for one year, and he at once issued a proclamation to the
Massachusetts emigrants, asking "under what right and preference they
had lately taken up their plantation."
It is said that they agreed to give up any lands demanded by him, or
to return on having their expenses repaid. A more dangerous influence,
however, soon claimed Winthrop's attention. Before the winter set in
he had sent a party to seize the designated spot for a fort at the
mouth of the Connecticut River. His promptness was needed. Just as his
men had thrown up a work sufficient for defense and had mounted a few
guns, a Dutch ship from New Amsterdam appeared, bringing a force
intended to appropriate the same place. Again the Dutch found
themselves a trifle late; and their post at Hartford was thus finally
cut off from effective support.
This was a horrible winter to the advanced guard of English settlers
on the upper Connecticut. The navigation of the river was completely
blocked by ice before the middle of November; and the vessels which
were to have brought their winter supplies by way of Long Island Sound
and the river were forced to return to Boston, leaving the wretched
settlers unprovided for. For a little while some scanty supplies of
corn were obtained from the neighboring Indians, but this resource
soon failed. About seventy persons straggled down the river to the
fort at its mouth. There they found and dug out of the ice a sixty-ton
vessel, and made their way back to Boston. Others turned back on the
way they had come, and struggled through the snow and ice to "the
Bay." But a few held their grip on the new territory. Subsisting first
on a little corn bought from more distant Indians, then by hunting,
and finally on ground-nuts and acorns dug from under the snow, they
fought through the winter and held their ground. But it was a narrow
escape. Spring found them almost exhausted, their unsheltered cattle
dead, and just time enough to bring necessary supplies from home. The
Dorchester people alone lost cattle to the value of two thousand
pounds.
The Newtown congregation, in October, 1635, found customers for their
old homes in a new party from England; and in the following June
Hooker and Stone led their people overland to Connecticut. They
numbered one hundred, with one hundred and sixty head of cattle. Women
and children were of the party. Mrs. Hooker, who was ill, was carried
on a litter; and the journey, of "about one hundred miles," occupied
two weeks. Its termination was well calculated to dissipate the evil
auguries of the previous winter. The Connecticut Valley in early June!
Its green meadows, flanked by wooded hills, lay before them. Its oaks,
whose patriarch was to shelter their charter, its great elms and
tulip-trees, were broken by the silver ribbon of the river; here and
there were the wigwams of the Indians, or the cabins of the survivors
of the winter; and, over and through all, the light of a day in June
welcomed the newcomers. The thought of abandoning Connecticut
disappeared forever.
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