66 66 66 11, 569, 5, 577, note 3. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 579, line 41, fidelitie and diligence in performance of your trust, yet WEE have thought it necessarie to let you know of how great consequence it is, that you use your utmost care and circumspection, as well to defend and keep the Forts above said, as also to improve the regayning of them into Our hands, to the advantage of Us and this State, by such wayes and meanes as you shall judge conducible thereunto." the references to the notes are wrong; instead of ' and ', they should be 2 and 3. for relapses, read relapse. the word jury is worn from the MS., and its place is supplied, in the former edition, by ** See page 722, note 3. for honorable, read honored. at the bottom, insert ||honorable. at the bottom of the page, note 2 refers to Andrew Augur. 8, for 1771, read 1671. 636, line 3, 66 at the bottom of the page, note refers to John Eliot, the son, and not the father, the reference in the text being misplaced. Here is an error of omission. See pages 739-41. refers to 14° Jac., in line 35. for that, read as. 645, 2, for the, read ||his. at the bottom, insert the||. 64 649, line 7, Dedham was first written Dorchester, in the MS. 651, The words in italics on these pages (with the exception of the two Latin words on page 652,) are conjectural, the MS. being defaced. 66 649,1 66 66 652, 66 675, 32. In Denton's work the words to populate it are immediately followed by the sentence beginning To which I answer. The intervening sentence in our text is a remark of Hubbard, inserted in his MS., in a very fine hand, between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. After repeated efforts, both with the naked eye and with a glass, I succeeded in decyphering all but one or two of the words. But the paper, on which the result was noted down, has been lost, and I am now utterly unable to present the sentence in a more perfect form than is seen in the text; the other words defying my sharpest scrutiny. necticut. CHAP. XLI. The first planting of the country about the River of ConThe occasions leading thereunto, and progress thereof, in the years 1635 and 1636, with some occurrences which have since happened there, both in their civil and ecclesiastical affairs. THE discovery of the famous River of Connecticut, known to the Dutch by the name of the Fresh River, and by them intimated to the inhabitants of New Plymouth, (possibly to make them some amends for the abuse formerly offered in supplanting them upon their first adventuring into those parts,) hath been mentioned already,' where it is declared how the English about the same time happened to discover it by land, as the other had done by sea. The Dutch had only resorted thither on the account of trade with the Indians; and if those of Plymouth had entertained any thoughts of removing thither, they spent too much time in deliberation about the matter, and so were prevented by the inhabitants of the Massachusetts, who were at that time overpressed with multitudes of new families, that daily resorted thither, so as, like an hive of bees overstocked, there was a necessity that some should swarm out. The places about the Bay were already, in a manner, all taken up, and the country about the said river, (whose fame, peradventure, did not a little outdo its real excellency,) though more remote, yet was thought to make compensation for that, by the abundant fertility of the soil. A great number, therefore, of the planters of the old towns, viz. Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, and Cambridge, were easily induced to attempt a removal of themselves and families upon the first opportunity afforded; which was not a little advanced by the fame and interest of Mr. Hooker, whose worth and abilities had no small influence upon the people of the towns forementioned. It was also said, that besides the causa procatarctica, there was a causa gonyovun, an impulsive cause, that did more secretly and 1 Page 169.-H. powerfully drive on the business. Some men do not well like, at least, cannot well bear, to be opposed in their judgments and notions, and thence were they not unwilling to remove from under the power, as well as out of the bounds, of the Massachusetts. Nature doth not allow two suns in one firmament, and some spirits can. as ill bear an equal as others a superior: but whether they have mended themselves by their choice, they are best able to judge, that have had longest experience of another Colony. Possibly it might have been as well for the whole, if they could have been included in one jurisdiction; for by that means their union together, by an incorporation, had been much firmer and stronger, than by a confederation, as afterwards it came to pass. It was generally accounted no wisdom to be straitened in a wilderness, where there was land enough, and therefore these, with Isaac, preferred a Rehoboth before a Sitnah; and it were to be wished, that men's desires being obtained as to room, there may never be contention about their bounds. But whatever were the cause, or gave the occasion, of setting up these Plantations, the design being resolved upon in the year 1634, some1 were deputed from amongst the towns in the Bay to view the country, who returning from this Eshcol with a large commendation of the commodiousness of the place, and fruitfulness of the soil, they took up a resolution forthwith to begin several Plantations there; accordingly, in the year 1635, several families, with the approbation of the authority of the Massachusetts, undertook the removal of themselves to that Canaan of Connecticut; and in the way thereunto, whether they so well expected it and prepared for it or no, they met with many difficulties, and trials of a wilderness, before they were comfortably settled there. For those their hasty resolves, that had so early budded, were sorely nipped, and almost quite blasted, by the sharpness of the winter season that year, and other sad occurrences, which they were called to encounter with, in the following year, by the barbarous outrage of the Pequod Indians, who, like Amalek of old, 1 See Sav. Win. i. 136. -H. that set upon the rear of Israel in the wilderness, did sorely annoy those Plantations upon Connecticut River, at their first settling there. The place which those that went from Cambridge had, by their agents, chosen to settle upon, was by the Indians called Suckiaug] where some of them began the Plantation in the end of the year 1635; Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, the ministers of the church, engaging to follow them the next year, which they did,' and called it Hartford. Those of Dorchester settled upon a place called by the Indians Mattaneaug, or Cufchankamaug, after whom Mr. Wareham and the rest of the church engaged to follow, and so likewise did the next year, and called it Windsor. Those that went from Watertown (whereof not above seven were members of the church, and Mr. Smith was afterwards their minister,) pitched upon a place known to the Indians by the name of Pauquiaug, which was afterwards, by the English, named Weathers field. The place which these Weathersfield men settled their Plantation upon, was a very desirable tract of interval land, which those of Hartford intended for themselves, purposing to stretch one of the wings of their Plantation over it; but the other were too quick for them, and seized it to settle their own Plantation upon, being situate about three miles from Hartford. In such kind of possessions the premier seisin is the best title; they, therefore, being found the first occupants, could not be dispossessed by the pretensions of their neighbors. However, it was said that this preoccupation of theirs had no small influence (directly or indirectly) into those contentions, which for many years (soon after the first planting) disturbed that place, before they could be healed; of which there may be more occasion to speak afterwards. Much of the trouble was said to arise from Mr. Smith, aforesaid, the minister, and one Mr. Chaplin, the ruling elder. If they did answer the Apostle's qualification, 1 Tim. v. 17, of ruling well, and laboring in the word and doctrine, they were not, as the text requires, rewarded with double honor. Suckiang ' May, 31, 1636.-H. In September, 1636.-H. Rev. Henry Smith.-H. Those that went from Roxbury (the principal of whom were Mr. William Pynchon, and one John Burr, a carpenter) settled, at least, laid the foundation of a Plantation, higher up the river, called by the Indians Agawam, but, by the English, afterwards named Springfield, in remembrance of the said Mr. Pynchon, who had his mansion house at a town of that name, near Chelmsford, in Essex, before he removed to New England; but this Plantation was afterwards found to fall within the line of the Massachusetts Patent, and so was always after left to their jurisdiction. These new Plantations were reduced to great extremity the first winter, by reason of the early setting in of the hard weather, which detained their provisions (that came by sea) at the river's mouth, near sixty miles off from them, (the stream being frozen up all the way between them,) so as the several companies were dispersed ; some repairing towards the mouth of the river, the rest returning back through the woods, with the peril of their lives, leaving some few behind them, (which was of necessity to look after the cattle they carried up,) with whom they were forced to leave all the provisions they could spare, scarce reserving enough for them that were to travel back, insomuch as one or two of them, for want of relief, perished by the way. Many of their cattle, also, which they left upon the place, were lost that winter, for want of looking after; on all which accounts the first planters conflicted with much hardship and many sorrows, before they were fully settled. But for the better managing of affairs, (as to the government,) in those first beginnings in the year 1636, several gentlemen, that removed thither, were appointed, by some kind of commission from the Massachusetts, to take care of the government of the place, viz. Roger Ludlow, Esq., Mr. John Steel, Mr. William Phelps, Mr. William Westwood, Mr. Andrew Ward, and some others' that were joined with them in the same commission, for the government of the said Plantations. As for the mischief they sustained by the Indians, which occa The others were, William Pynchon, Esq., William Swain, and Henry Smith. See their Commission in Hazard, i. 321-2.-H. |