very heavy, that of the Dorchester People being as much as £2000 in cattle alone.1

Early in the month of March, 1635-6, Connecticut was set apart as a colony, under a commission granted by the General Court of Massachusetts, "to several persons to govern the people at Connecticut for the space of a year [then] next coming."2 The commissioners named were Roger Ludlow and William Phelps, of Windsor; John Steele, William Westwood and Andrew Ward, of Hartford; and William Pyncheon, of Springfield; William Swaine and Henry Smith, of Wethersfield.

3

With the first dawn of spring (April 16, 1636), those brave hearts who had survived the toils and exposure of the previous winter, again undauntedly turned their footsteps towards Connecticut. They comprised the larger part of the Dorchester Church, with, as some say, their surviving pastor, Mr. Warham. Their settlement at Matianuck, was named Dorchester, in honor of the plantation from which they had emigrated. About the same time also Mr. Pyncheon and others from Roxbury, Mass., settled at Agawam, now the city of Springfield. And in June following, came the venerable Hooker, with his companions from Cambridge, Mass., who settled at Suckiaug, now the beautiful city of Hartford, where a few settlers had "made a goodly beginning a little before."4 Wethersfield had been precariously settled in 1634, by a few who "managed to live" through the trying scenes of 1635-6.5

1 Winthrop says that those cattle which "came late and could not be put over (i. e. across the river) fared well all winter, without hay."

2 This was done after due consultation with John Winthrop, then lately "appointed governor by certain noble personages and men of quality [the Patentees, Saltonstall and others] interested in the said River, which are yet in England."

3 See note on p. 25.

4 There is evidence that Hooker and his party were preceded by a few who held some town meetings as early as 1635.

5 In the absence of other positive evidence, the claim of Wethersfield as the oldest town in the State, is substantiated by a judicial decision to that effect in the Colony Court (see Col. Rec., 1, 513) which can not be gainsaid.

Thus, almost simultaneously, in the rich soil and the choicest spots of the beautiful Connecticut Valley, were the seeds planted which were destined to take root, and germinate into a mighty commonwealth. And the history of that commonwealth, for more than two centuries, has borne witness to the strong and simple faith of its founders, so appropriately and significantly expressed in the motto of our state:

CHAPTER II.

1636-1650.

WE HAVE HEARD WITH OUR EARS, O GOD! OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US WHAT WORK THOU DIDST IN THEIR DAYS, IN THE TIMES OF OLD. HOW THOU DIDST DRIVE OUT THE HEATHEN WITH THY HAND, AND PLANTEDST THEM; How THOU DIDST AFFLICT THE PEOPLE AND CAST THEM OUT. FOR THEY GOT NOT THE LAND IN POSSESSION BY THEIR OWN SWORD, NEITHER DID THEIR OWN ARM SAVE THEM: BUT THY RIGHT HAND, AND THINE ARM, AND THE LIGHT OF THY COUNTENANCE, BECAUSE THOU HADST A FAVOR UNTO THEM.-Psalm, xliv, 1-3.

The town records of Windsor, or Dorchester as it was first called, prior to 1650, having crumbled away under the remorseless tooth of Time, we have undoubtedly lost much which it would be both pleasant and profitable to know. Yet from the Colonial Documents, and such fragmentary manuscripts as have escaped the ravages of time and neglect, we are enabled to trace, in outline at least, the growth and development of the infant town during the first fifteen eventful years of its exist

ence.

1

The first item we have, is from a record of the first court held at Newtown (Hartford), April 26, 1636, by the commissioners appointed by Massachusetts for the colonies on the Connecticut. At this court complaint was made "that Henry Stiles [of Dorchester], or some of the ser[vants2] had traded a piece with the Indians for corn." Situated as they were in a new country, and surrounded by Indians, with whom their intercourse was neces

1 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1635, to 16-, 3 vols. 8vo, edited by J. Hammond Trumbull, Esq.

2 Probably meaning the servants of Saltonstall and the Patentees.

sarily guarded, this act was justly deemed a grave offence, and one that imperiled the general safety. It was therefore "ordered that [the] said Henry Stiles, shall between and the next court, regain [the] said piece from the said Indians in a fair and legal way, or else this court will take it into further consideration." An order was also promulgated, "that from henceforth none that are within the jurisdiction of this court, shall trade with the natives or Indians any piece, or pistol, or gun, or powder, or shot." At the next court held at Dorchester (Windsor), HenryS tiles, not having complied with the order of the previous court, was ordered to do so by the next one, and to appear personally and answer his neglect. It was also "ordered, that there shall be a sufficient watch maintained in every town," under the direction of the constable; and that "every soldier in each plantation" should have on hand, before. the end of August following, 2 lbs of powder, and 20 bullets of lead, ready to show it to the constable, upon demand. Noncompliance was to be met with a fine of 10 shillings for each failure," which is presently to be levied by the said constable, without resistance." It was further ordered at the next court held at Watertown (Wethersfield), that, "every plantation shall train once a month;" and if there were any "very unskillful" in such exercises, "the plantation may appoint the officer to train oftener the said unskillful." Every absence from training, without lawful excuse tendered within two days, was to be punished by a fine of two shillings. Any neglect to mend or keep their weapons in repair, was fined in the same amount, and if arms were "wholly wanting," the delinquent was to be bound over to answer for it at the next court.

In all these regulations we find evidence of the prudence and constant watchfulness which was necessarily imposed upon these settlers in a new country. They built their humble cabins amid the wilds of Matianuck, as the prophet Jeremiah and his friends rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, with their arms in their hands. "In no part of New England, were the Indians so numerous, in proportion to the territory, as in this valley, and traditions of the horrors of the Indian wars are linked with almost every village throughout its whole extent. For ninety years after

the first settlement, there was scarcely an hour in which the inhabitants, especially of the frontier towns, could travel in the forests, work in the fields, worship God in their churches, or lie down in their beds at night, without apprehension of attack from their stealthy and remorseless foe. The fact that the attacks of the Indian were preceded by no note of preparation, gave a sense of insecurity to the members of the family at home, or the heads of the family abroad, which made the real danger, great as it was, seem more formidable. The blow fell where and when it was least expected. When the Indian seemed most intent on his avocation of hunting and fishing, or in planning some distant expedition then the farmer in the field would be surprised by an ambuscade, or on his return home find his house in ashes, his wife and children butchered or hurried away into captivity; or the quiet of his slumbers would be broken by the war-whoop, and the darkness of midnight illumined by the glare of the village on fire. Those were trials of which the present generation can know nothing."1

They were trials, however, to which the settlers of Windsor were fully exposed, and from which a merciful Providence, in a remarkable degree, preserved them. The Indians who resided in their neighborhood always exhibited a friendly feeling, and seem to have regarded the presence of the whites as a protection against the exactions and attacks of the Pequots and Mohawks, both of which tribes assumed the rights of conquest over these Valley Indians! Yet, the character of the Indian was always uncertain, and experience dictated the necessity of constant care and jealous watchfulness in all their dealings with them.

Added to the constant dread of Indian treachery, was no small amount of loss and trouble among their cattle, who had suffered so much from exposure during the previous winter.

Winthrop, under date of "9 [Decem] ber, 1636," says, "Things went not well at Connecticut. Their cattle did, many of them cast their young, as they had done the year before."

At the court of February 21, 1636-7, the plantation of Dorches

1 Introduction to the Foote Genealogy, by Nathaniel Goodwin.