Connecticut was not the only settlement that was partly formed by a secession from the parent colony of Massachusetts; nor was it an isolated example of colonial establishments, for during the same period several other colonies grew up along the Eastern seaboard. The Reverend Roger Williams, after his banishment from Massachusetts in October 1635, purchased land from the Indians, and with twelve other householders settled at Providence, by the advice of Mr Winslow, the Governor of New Plymouth. Thus Williams was able to describe himself many years later as "by God's mercy the first beginner of the mother town of Providence and of the Colony of Rhode Island."[148] Williams' settlers immediately started a simple form of government, by which all freemen were to hold quarterly meetings and settle judicial questions, while five Select-men were to transact all executive business. Following Williams' example, Mrs Anne Hutchinson, as another refugee from the intolerance of Massachusetts, came to much the same district in 1637. She purchased from the Indians the island of Aquedneck, or, as it was afterwards known, Rhode Island. Her heretical followers soon founded the town of Portsmouth, and here the government was carried on by William Coddington as judge. Mrs Hutchinson, having now time for inventing new heresies, almost immediately caused a fresh secession, and some of her hitherto ardent admirers, finding her new doctrines intolerable, left Portsmouth, and under Coddington established themselves at Newport. The colonies were reunited in 1640, with Coddington as Governor, and a regular government was instituted composed of two "assistants" from each township.