The history of this venerable relic was my grandmother’s hobby, and as she is no longer with us to relate the story herself, I will hand it down in print, that posterity, if so disposed, may know something also of MY GRANDMOTHER’S TANKARD. In the year 1636, a company of fighting men from the Massachusetts colony, pursued a party of Pequots to the borders of a swamp in the present county of Fairfield, in Connecticut, and destroyed them by fire. The soldiers on their return to the colony spoke in rapture of a goodly land through which they passed in the south country, bordering upon a river and bay, called by the Indians Quinapiack, and by the Dutch the Vale of the Red Rocks. In the year 1637, the New Haven company, beaten out by the toils and privations of a long and boisterous voyage across the Atlantic, landed at the mouth of the Charles River, and continued for a season inactive in the pleasant tabernacles of the early pilgrims. Hearing of the fair and goodly land beyond the Connectiquet, or Long River, and disliking the sterile shores of Massachusetts bay, the newly arrived company sent spies into the land to view the second Canaan, and bring them a true report. In 1638, having received a favorable account from the pioneers, the company embarked, and sailed for that fair land, and at the close of the tenth day the Red Rocks appeared frowning grimly against the western horizon, and the Quinapiack spread out its silver bosom to receive them. The vessel that brought the colony, landed them on the eastern shore of a little creek now filled up and called the meadows, about twenty rods from the corner of College and George streets, in New Haven, and directly opposite to the famous old oak, under whose broad branches Mr. Davenport preached his first sermon to the settlers, “Upon the Temptations of the Wilderness.” Time, that rude old gentleman, has wrought many changes in the harbor of Quinapiack since the days of the pilgrims; and a regiment of purple cabbages are now growing where the adventurers’ bark rested her wave-worn keel. In 1638, having laid out a city of nine squares, the company met in Newman’s barn, and formed their constitution. At this meeting it was ordered that the laws of Moses should govern the colony until the elders had time to make better ones. Theophilus Eaton, Esq. was chosen the first governor: and the whole power of the people was vested in the governor, Mr. Davenport, the minister, his deacon, and the seven pillars of the church of Quinapiack. Here was church and state with a vengeance, and the pilgrims who sought freedom to worship God found freedom to worship him as they pleased, provided they worshipped him _as Mr. Davenport_ directed. The seven pillars of the church were wealthy laymen, and were its principal support; among the number I find the names of those staunch old colonists, Matthew Gilbert and John Panderson.