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Chapter 2 The Breakthrough Hartford might never have been settled in the first place had it not been for a falling out on religious principles between a pastor in Cambridge and his superior in the Boston church. The head of the church, Rev. John Cotton was unbending in his belief that faith came before good works. Rev. Thomas Hooker, the pastor in Newtown (Cambridge) felt otherwise. It has often been said that reasonable men can disagree, and so it was in this case, for both Cotton and Hooker were men of excellent character and possessed of outstanding leadership ability, but their disagreement drove a wedge between them. After the predictable grousing, in 1634 the Massachusetts General Court granted Thomas Hooker and his congregation in Newtown permission “to seeke [sic] out some convenient place.” Finding nothing suitable in the Bay Colony, the small congregation turned its sights toward the Connecticut River Valley. At the point where the Little River emptied into the Connecticut River, Hooker and his followers found a place that looked promising. The area was not completely untrodden. The local—and friendly—Sukiaug Indians had been living in the area for decades and Adriaen Block, the Dutch explorer, had navigated the Connecticut River in 1614. Moreover, shortly before Hooker and his followers decided to settle in the area, the Dutch had established a trading post—the House of Hope—at the confluence of the two rivers, the same spot that interested Hooker. Other Europeans had camped in the vicinity, but it was Hooker and his followers who established the first permanent settlement there in 1636. One of Hooker’s assistants, John Steele, had been born in Hertford, England and so, in deference to his trusted aide, Hooker christened the settlement—Hartford. Seventeenth century life along the Connecticut River was primitive and provincial with almost all activities revolving around the Congregational Church. Organized religion was the very cornerstone of the early settlers’ lives. Meetinghouses were the largest structures in town, hosting a least two sermons on Sunday, baptisms, weddings, funerals, political meetings and every other gathering of significance. Generally speaking, a man achieved wealth by allying himself with three institutions—the Congregational Church, the Federalist Party and the Standing Order. To understand this last group, it is helpful to recognize that Hooker and his followers were, in reality, intolerant zealots. While they claimed to be the victims of intolerance—which was the reason for their move to the Connecticut River valley—they shunned anyone who would not join the Congregational Church. They ignored the small number of blacks and non-believers, but when faced with any kind of a challenge, a powerful group of ministers, magistrates and businessmen—the Standing Order—condemned and persecuted the upstarts. They particularly despised Roman Catholics, labeling them Papists and infidels. 18 In 1724, the Congregationalists engineered the passage of a law requiring elected officials to take an oath against Popery. This law remained in effect until the American Revolution. In a sense, the smaller colonial settlements were almost all theocracies to one degree or another, while the larger cities’ diverse population bases vitiated such iron-fisted religious control. Boston, with the largest population in the colonies between 1630 and 1690, was the most Puritanical of the larger cities. Rev. John Cotton and the Congregational Church exerted great influence, as the minister believed firmly in the right of Puritan magistrates to impose uniformity with regard to religious beliefs. Philadelphia, the largest city in America from 1690 until 1810, was less rigid. It was William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” brought to life, where men of all races and creeds governed themselves free of religious persecution. Not surprisingly, the city became a haven for Quakers driven from other cities. New York was markedly different. By the time that the despotic Peter Stuyvesant became governor of the Dutch West Indies Company’s outpost in 1647, there were Germans, Swiss, Moravians, French, English, Dutch and Portuguese people living at the southern tip of Manhattan. Under these circumstances, religious hegemony was not possible. In fact, Stuyvesant’s effort in 1654 to expel the earliest Jews—twenty-three refugees from Recife, Brazil— was scotched because of the Dutch West India Company’s heavy dependence on Jewish capital. Thomas Hooker and his followers had many things to worry about as they built their settlement, but water was not one of them. Almost without exception, the budding towns of America were established along rivers for two very good reasons. Just as the Indians...

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