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
The county of _Newhaven_ is hilly, and has a thin soil, enriched,
however, by the industry of its inhabitants. The chief commodities are
flax, rye, barley, white beans, and salt hay. It contains eight towns,
four of which lie on the Sound, and the others on the back of them.
Newhaven township comprises fourteen parishes, three of them episcopal
and one Sandemanian. The town, being the most beautiful in
New-England, if not in all America, is entitled to a minute
description. It is bounded southly by the bay, into which the river
Quinnipiack empties itself; easterly and westerly by two creeks two
miles asunder; and northerly by a lofty mountain, that extends even to
the river St. Lawrence, and forms a highland between the rivers Hudson
and Connecticut, standing in a plain three miles by two in extent.
This plain is divided into 300 squares of the size of Bloomsbury
Square, with streets twenty yards wide between each division. Forty of
these squares are already built upon, having houses of brick and wood
on each front, about five yards asunder; every house with a garden
that produces vegetables sufficient for the family. Two hundred houses
are annually erected. Elms and button-trees surround the centre
square, wherein are two meetings, the court-house, the gaol, and Latin
school; in the fronts of the adjoining squares are Yale College, the
chapel, a meeting, and a church: all these grand buildings with
steeples and bells. The market is plentifully supplied with every
necessary during the whole year, excepting greens in winter. But the
harbour is incommoded by flats near the town for one mile in width,
and by ice in winter. The former evil is, in some measure, remedied by
long and expensive wharves, but the latter is incurable. The people,
however, say their trade is greater than that of Norwich or
New-London; and their shipping, of different burthens, consists of
nearly 200 sail.
According to Dr. Mather, Newhaven was, about 1646, to have been made a
city, the interests of the colony with Cromwell’s party being then
very great; but a wonderful phenomenon prevented it. As the good Dr.
Mather never wanted faith through the whole course of his “Magnalia,”
and as the New-Englanders to the present time believe his reports, I
will here present my readers with the history of this miracle:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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