The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards

5 | Variations on a Theme: Connecticut, New Haven, Rhode Island, and the Eastern Frontier

Chapter Five VARIATIONS ON A THEME: CONNECTICUT, NEW HAVEN, RHODE ISLAND, AND THE EASTERN FRONTIER During the formative decade ofMassachusetts history, while Winthrop, Cotton, and others were putting their ideals of religious and political perfection into practice, three other colonies were established in New England and the settlement of the northern frontier was advanced. Two of the new colonies—Connecticut and New Haven—were true sister colonies to the Bay and Plymouth. Their leaders were animated by the same desire for reform that possessed the guiding spirits of Massachusetts, and they set about erecting new societies in the same fashion. The third new colony, Rhode Island, was peopled largely by exiles from the Bay— men and women like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson who could not live with the Puritans of Massachusetts and who, in learning to live with each other, advanced the cause of religious freedom in the western world. Connecticut In 1634, with the controversy between the magistrates and Roger Williams building toward its eventual climax, the preaching ofJohn Cotton producing a religious revival in the Boston church, and, the gravity of the Privy Council's hearings becoming more evident, the settlers of Newtown, Massachusetts , began their plans to migrate to the Connecticut River valley. Though they cited as reason their need for more land, there was more involved in their decision. Newtown had been selected as a site for settlement in December of 74 THE P URITAN EXPERIMENT 1630. The magistrates had chosen the community to be the colony's capitol and ordered fortifications to be erected. Thomas Dudley settled there, as did John Haynes, another of the assistants. In 1632, the town's population was augmented by the arrival of immigrants from Chelmsford, Colchester, and Braintree in England, many of whom had listened to Thomas Hooker preach in their native Essex. The newcomers organized a church that was presided over by its lay elders until the following year when Hooker and Samuel Stone arrived and were ordained pastor and teacher. It was shortly thereafter that the citizens ofNewtown complained that their land was arid and sandy and that there was not enough of it. Watertown and Dorchester inhabitants had similar complaints. They contrasted their situations with the reported fertility of the Connecticut River valley and sought permission to leave the Bay. The General Court in September 1634 denied the Newtown petition, but within a year it became obvious to the court that the migration was inevitable, and authorization was grudgingly granted. Citizens from Watertown, Dorchester, and Newtown became the founders respectively of Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford. Land hunger was very likely a central concern of the migrants, just as they had claimed. But the precariousness of Massachusetts's situation was probably an added incentive for the removal, just as it was likely to have contributed to the assistants' reluctance to let them go. The sense of kinship in a common cause that had motivated many of the early colonists had been partially destroyed by the charges of Roger Williams, the dispute between Winthrop and Dudley (particularly poignant in Newtown), and the Watertown protest over tax levies. More serious was the threat that the English courts mightvacate the charter. The shaky start that the colony had gotten off to must have encouraged many to think of starting anew. Having decided to leave Massachusetts, the leaders of the secession met frequently during the winter 0^635-1636 to determine the best means of advancing the new settlement. The land along the Connecticut River had been claimed by Plymouth, which had established a trading post near the site of Windsor. Furthermore, in 1630 the Council for New England had granted a large expanse of territory—including the Connecticut River region—to the earl ofWarwick, who had shortly thereafter transferred the title to the Puritan dominated Providence Company, whose members included Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, Sir Richard Saltonstall,John Pym, and John Hampden. In 1636 the officers of the Providence Company commissioned John Winthrop, Jr., to secure their title and erect a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River, which Winthrop established and named Saybrook. When the Hooker group began to lay their plans, the leaders of the migration met with the younger Winthrop and some of the Variations on a Theme 75 Massachusetts magistrates. As a result of those deliberations, the General Court ofMassachusetts and Winthrop,Jr. (as agent of the Warwick patentees ), jointly...