Donald J. Surprenant
As I began studying colonial Connecticut, I was struck with two questions: Why did the early Puritans come to Connecticut to settle and live? How did those early Puritans evolve a civil form of government? In my attempt to answer these two questions, I have come upon many other intriguing questions and characters in Connecticut history.
It was September of 1633 when the Reverend Mr. Thomas Hooker arrived in the colony of Massachusetts. He belonged to the Puritan faction of the Anglican Church. His reputation as a preacher must have preceded him to the New World, for he had a ready-made congregation waiting for him in Newtown, Massachusetts, and was immediately installed as the pastor. By 1634, Hooker’s congregation had petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for more land or for permission to emigrate. Three reasons are given for requesting this petition:
1) inadequate land for cattle, maintenance of ministers, and new settlers;
2) abundant fertile land in Connecticut and Dutch designs on the same;
3) “the strong bent of their spirit to move thither.”
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However, some historians claim that the real reason for the petition may have been Hooker’s rising conflict with John Cotton, who seems to have pre-empted the role of Massachusetts’ chief clergyman.
At about this same time, 1633, the Holmes party, a part of the Plymouth Colony, set up a fort north of Hartford, in what is now present day Windsor. Also, Jacob Van Curler, a Dutch explorer and trader bought land from the Pequot Indians, and set up a post in what is now Hartford. Simultaneously, John Oldham, leader of a group of families from Watertown, Massachusetts settled in what is now Wethersfield. Saybrook, a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was established by John Winthrop, Jr., son of the Governor of Massachusetts, li 1635. This fort served as a defense post, with Winthrop as Governor.
Whatever the real reason for his leaving, in October of 1635, we find Thomas Hooker with sixty men, women and children settled in a place along the Connecticut River known as Suckiaug. During the spring and summer of 1636, more people left the Massachusetts Hay Colony and settled along the Connecticut River forming the three towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. Also, Hooker, as part of an understanding with Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, and Governor John Winthrop, Jr. of Saybrook, received legal clearance from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to settle.
Both Hooker and Winthrop, Jr., approached the Massachusetts General Court in 1636, for a specific enactment. There followed the issuance of a commission authorizing eight men to govern, establish courts, wage war, and convene the inhabitants into a General Court such as at Massachusetts. Although the rule that forbade an incorporated entity like Massachusetts from issuing charters left the new settlement under a legal cloud, the Connecticut settlers knew that they had the strongest sanction they were likely to get. Earlier in 1633, delegates from the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, the River, and New Haven colonies adopted articles creating the New England Confederation. It provided for both a defensive and offensive alliance aimed at preserving the safety and liberty of the member colonies.
About the same time, 1636-1638, we find the Rev. Mr. John Davenport and Mr. Theophilus Eaton, together with a group of settlers having left England to establish a new colony. Some members of the group stopped briefly in Massachusetts then proceeded south and purchased a tract of land from the Momauguin Indians. This parcel of land stretched from the present day Guilford, west along the shore to Stratford and north to what is present day Wallingford.
Soon after the River Colony obtained its shaky legal status, trouble began. The beginning of the Pequot War goes back to conflict between the Pequots and the Dutch prior to 1635. This problem had been resolved and the Pequots remained friendly with the white settlers. In 1636, John Oldham was killed by the Block Island Indians, who had been given refuge by the Pequots. On May 1, 1637, the General Court was convened in Hartford and war was declared against the Pequots. A ninety man militia was summoned, forty-two from Hartford, thirty from Windsor and eighteen from Wethersfield, with John Mason as their Commander, Mason received help from Uncas, a dissident Pequot Sachem, who had hoped to regain control of them. The militia asked Rev. Stone, chaplain, to pray for Divine guidance. The Mason group then joined forces with Miantonomo, chief of the Narragansett Indians against the Pequots. Mason’s group interpreted their victory over the Pequots as a sign of God’s will. This war brought the three towns together in an effort of common defense. This, in turn led the towns to see the need for a common governmental structure.
