General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great BritainPeters, Samuel
History
General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great Britain
Peters, Samuel
Connecticut -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Connecticut -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
Until this time there had been only a garrison of about
twenty men in the place. They had made some small
improvements in the lands, and erected a few buildings in
the vicinity of the fort; but there had been no settlement
of a plantation with civil privileges. But about midsummer
Mr. George Fenwick, with his lady and family, arrived in a
ship of two hundred and fifty tons; another ship came in
company with him. They were both for Qunnipiack.
Mr. Fenwick and others came over with the view to take
possession of a large tract upon the river in behalf of
their lordships, the original patentees, and to plant a town
at the mouth of the river. A settlement was soon made, and
named Saybrook, in honor of their lordships, Say and Seal,
and Brook.
Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Thomas Peters, who was the first minister
in the plantation, Captain Gardiner, Thomas Leffingwell,
Thomas Tracy, and Captain John Mason, were some of the
principal planters.
[7] In July, 1638, Mr. Winslow and Mr. Bradford, therefore,
made a journey to Boston to confer with Governor Winthrop
and his Council on the subject. Governor Winslow and Mr.
Bradford proposed to them to join with Plymouth in a trade
to Connecticut for hemp and beaver, and to erect a house for
the purpose of commerce. It was represented as necessary to
prevent the Dutch from taking possession of that fine
country, who, it was reported, were about to build upon the
river. But Governor Winthrop declined the motion; he
considered it was not proper to make a plantation there,
because there were three or four thousand warlike Indians
upon the river, and small pinnaces only could enter at high
water; also, because that seven months in the year no
vessels could go into it, by reason of the ice and the
violence of the stream.
The Plymouth people, therefore, determined to undertake the
enterprise at their own risk. Preparations were made for
erecting a trading-house and establishing a small company on
the river. In the mean time, the master of a vessel from
Massachusetts, who was trading at New Netherlands, showed to
Walter Van Twiller, the Dutch Governor, the commission which
the English had to trade and settle in New England, and that
his Majesty the King of England had granted all these parts
to his own subjects. He, therefore, desired that the Dutch
would not build at Connecticut.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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