In July, 1637, the two leaders arrived in Boston with a small company of their disciples, among whom were several men of wealth and good social position, but extremely narrow and bigoted in religious faith. They have been styled the Brahmins of New England Puritanism. They did not deem it practicable to settle in Massachusetts, and the following spring (March, 1638) sailed to Long Island Sound and established an independent settlement on the site of New Haven, thirty miles west of the Connecticut river. For a year their only bond of union was a "plantation covenant" to obey the Scriptures in all things. Sidenote: The Constitution. In October, 1639, there was adopted a constitution, in the making of which Davenport had the chief hand. The governor and four magistrates were to be elected by the freemen, who were, as in Massachusetts, church members; trial by jury was rejected, because it lacked scriptural authority; and it was formally declared "that the Word of God shall be the only rule attended unto in ordering the affairs of government." Eaton was chosen governor, and held the office by annual election until his death, twenty years later. Sidenote: Neighboring towns. The neighborhood of New Haven was soon settled by other immigrants, most of whom were also strict constructionists of the Scriptures, while a few others were as liberal in their ideas as the people of the Connecticut valley. Guilford was established (1639) seventeen miles to the north, and Milford (1639) eleven miles westward; Stamford (1640), well on towards New York, followed, while Southold was boldly planted (1640) on Long Island, opposite Guilford, in territory claimed by the Dutch. As each town was as well a church, these were for some years little independent communities, founded on the New Haven model. In 1643, however, they formed a union with New Haven, and a system of representation was introduced. Each town sent up deputies to the General Court, in which also sat the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, elected by the whole body of freemen; yet a majority of either the deputies or the magistrates might veto a measure. Local magistrates--seven to each town, known as "pillars of the church"--tried petty cases, but important suits were passed upon by the assistants. The "seven pillars" were the autocrats of their several towns, and colonial affairs were also practically in the hands of the select few who controlled the church. Sidenote: Peter's False Blue Laws. At the meeting of the General Court in April, 1644, the magistrates in the confederation were ordered to observe "the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses." This injunction afterwards gave rise to an absurd report, circulated in 1781 by Rev. Samuel Peters, a Tory refugee, that the New Haven statutes were of peculiar quaintness and severity. For nearly one hundred years Peters's fable of the New Haven Blue Laws was accepted as historic truth.