Claims of the Dutch in New England: Connecticut Valley and Brook

At Wethersfield, and on the site of Hartford, these immigrants built log huts in the snow, and there they passed a dreary, bitter winter in great privation, for a vessel in which had been sent clothing and household furniture, was kept back by the ice. Snow fell to a great depth. Many cattle suffered and perished from want of food, and the settlers were threatened with the horrors of famine. In the face of this impending peril many of them made their way to the mouth of the river in the vain expectation of finding their food-bearing vessel, which alas! had been beaten into pieces on the rocks. When almost despairing, another vessel appeared, in which they sailed to Boston. The settlers whom they left behind subsisted much of the time upon acorns, Indian corn and malt, until the spring opened and supplies were sent to them from Massachusetts, then rapidly filling with emigrants. Twenty vessels had brought three thousand colonists to its shores during the year 1635.

Governor Winthrop's son John, then twenty-nine years of age, arrived at Boston from England in October. He bore a commission as governor of the Connecticut territory, from the proprietors of the soil. With him came Hugh Peters, his senior by six years, and Henry Vane, only twenty-four years of age, who were joint commissioners with him, instructed to build a fort and plant a colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River. They were directed to gather the scattered settlers near the fort; but these were left where they had planted themselves. Other measures were taken to secure the possession of the territory and peace of the colony. Governor Bradford had denounced as "an unrighteous and injurious intrusion," the settling of Massachusetts people upon the lands on the Connecticut which the Plymouth people had purchased from the Indians, not considering that the "Plymothians," as the Dutch called them, were equally intruders upon the territory of New Netherland, according to English doctrine. And the Connecticut commissioners perfected their usurpation of the territorial authority of the Netherlands by driving away, by force of arms, a Dutch vessel which came into the river to protect the rights of the West India Company. "Might makes right," was the stern rule among the nations then; and the cannon at the mouth of the river gave a warrant for the more important emigration of the English to the Connecticut Valley, which occurred in the summer of 1636. The dispute with the Plymouth people was amicably settled.

Arrangements having been made for the accommodation of new settlers on the site of Hartford, the Rev. Thomas Hooker, a zealous non-conformist minister, who came to Boston from his refuge in Holland, in 1633, led a company of one hundred men, women, and children thither in the summer of 1636. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Stone. Their followers consisted of their families and congregations. The emigrants drove before them one hundred and sixty head of cattle. The cows of the herd, pasturing in grassy savannas which they found on the way, gave them an ample supply of fresh milk. They had no pathway, and were guided only by a compass. Through thickets and morasses, and over streams they made their way, clearing away here with axes, making causeways and bridges there with felled trees, and resting in shady groves. The women and children were conveyed in wagons drawn by oxen, and Mrs. Hooker, who was an invalid, was carried on a horse litter.

The company had ample provisions and were regaled on the way by delicious strawberries growing in abundance in open places. The songs of birds and the fragrance of flowers afforded them exquisite delight in the midst of the weariness of travel. They made easy stages, consuming a fortnight in the journey of a hundred miles. It was ended when, on the fourth of July, they stood on the beautiful banks of the Connecticut, under the shadows of great trees and trailing vines, and sang hymns of praise to the Good Father. On the following Sabbath, Mr. Hooker preached and administered the Lord's Supper in the little chapel on the site of Hartford, which the first colonists there had erected. Some of the new comers settled at Wethersfield, and others went further up the river and founded Springfield. There were now five feeble settlements in the Connecticut Valley. One of these was near the fort at the mouth of the river, and in honor of two of the proprietors of the territory, Lords Say and Brook, it was called Say-Brook.