New Haven
The circumstances attending the settlement of New Haven were wholly unlike
those of New Hampshire. John Davenport, a
London clergyman of an extreme Puritan type, Theophilus Eaton, a London
merchant in the Baltic trade and a member of the Eastland Company, Samuel
Eaton and John Lathrop, two non-conforming ministers, were the leaders of
the movement. Lathrop never went to New Haven, and Samuel Eaton early
returned to England. The leaders and many of their followers were men of
considerable property for that day, and their interest in trade gave to
the colony a marked commercial character. The company was composed of men
and women from London and its vicinity, and of others who joined them from
Kent, Hereford, and Yorkshire. As both Davenport and Theophilus Eaton were
members of the Massachusetts Bay Company, they were familiar with its
work; and on coming to America in June, 1637, they stopped at Boston and
remained there during the winter. Pressure was brought upon them to make
Massachusetts their home, but without success, for though Davenport had
much in common with the Massachusetts people, he was not content to remain
where he would be merely one among many. Desiring a free place for worship
and trade, he sent Eaton voyaging to find one; and the latter, who had
heard of Quinnipiac on the Connecticut shore, viewed this spot and
reported favorably. In March, 1638, the company set sail from Boston and
laid the foundations of the town of New Haven.
This company had neither charter nor land grant, and, as far as we
know, it had made no attempt to obtain either. "The first planters," says
Kingsley, "recognized in their acts no human authority foreign to
themselves." Unlike the Pilgrims in their Mayflower compact, they made no
reference in their plantation covenant to the dread sovereign, King James,
and in none of their acts and statements did they express a longing for
their native country or regard for its authority. Their settlement bears
some resemblance to that of the Rhode Island towns, but it was better
organized and more orderly from the beginning. The settlers may have drawn
up their covenant before leaving Boston and may have reached Quinnipiac as
a community already united in a common civil and religious bond. Their
lands, which they purchased from the Indians, they laid out in their own
way. The next year on June 4, 1639, they held a meeting in Robert Newman's
barn and there, declaring that the Word of God should be their guide in
families and commonwealth and that only church members should be sharers
in government, they chose twelve men as the foundations of their church
state. Two months later these twelve selected "seven pillars" who
proceeded to organize a church by associating others with themselves.
Under the leadership of the seven the government continued until October,
when they resigned and a gathering of the church members elected
Theophilus Eaton as their magistrate and four others to act as assistants,
with a secretary and a treasurer. Thus was begun a form of government
which when perfected was very similar to that of the other New England
colonies.
While New Haven as a town-colony was taking on form, other
plantations were arising near by. Milford was settled partly from New
Haven and partly from Wethersfield, where an overplus of clergy was
leading to disputes and many withdrawals to other parts. Guilford was
settled directly from England. Southold on Long Island was settled also
from England, by way of New Haven. Stamford had its origin in a
Wethersfield quarrel, when the Reverend Richard Denton, "blind of one eye
but not the least among the seers of Israel," departed with his flock.
Branford also was born of a Wethersfield controversy and later received
accessions from Long Island. In 1643, Milford, Guilford, and Stamford
combined under the common jurisdiction of New Haven, to which Southold and
Branford acceded later with a form of government copied after that of
Massachusetts, though the colony was distinctly federal in character,
consisting of "the government of New Haven with the plantations in
combination therewith." Though there was no special reservation of town
rights in the fundamental articles which defined the government, yet the
towns, five in number, considered themselves free to withdraw at any time
if they so desired.
We have thus reviewed the conditions under which some forty towns,
grouped under five jurisdictions, were founded in New England. They were
destined to treble their number in the next generation and to suffer such
regrouping as to reduce the jurisdictions to four before the end of the
century — New Hampshire separating from Massachusetts, New Haven being
absorbed by Connecticut, and Plymouth submitting to the authority of
Massachusetts under the charter of 1691. In this readjustment we have the
origin of four of the six New England States of the present day.
Back to: Plymouth and New England Colonies
