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ONCE UPON A TIME
IN CONNECTICUT

BT

CAEOLINE CLIFFOKD NEWTON

BOSTON NEW TOBK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
X1)t SUberiiibe ^ce^^ Cambriiige

COPYRIGHT, I916, BY CAROLINE CLIFFORD NEWTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Cl43.9

VOlt %itm<ftt 9nu
CAMBKIDGB . MASSACHUSETTS
D . S . A

THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO
THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OP THE STATE
BY THE
CONNECTICUT SOCIETY
OF THE
COLONIAL DAMES
OF AMERICA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE Colonial Dames of Connecticut, under whose
auspices this book is published, desire to express
their indebtedness to Professor Charles M. Andrews, of
Yale University, who generously offered to supervise
the work on its historical side. They also gratefully ac
knowledge help from many friends in the preparation of
the volume. Thanks are due to Mrs. Charles G. Morris
for criticism of the manuscript and to Mr. George Dudley
Seymour for advice in the selection of the illustrations.
Courtesies have been extended by the officials of the
New Haven Free Public Library, of the Connecticut
Historical Society, and of the Library of Yale Uni
versity.

INTRODUCTION
IT is a pleasure to write a few words of introduction
. to this collection of stories dealing with the early
history of Connecticut, a state that can justly point
with pride to a past rich in features of life and gov
ernment that have been influential in the making of the
nation. Yet the history of the colony was not dramatic,
for its people lived quiet lives, little disturbed by quar
rels among themselves or by serious difficulties with
the world outside. The land was never thickly settled;
few foreigners came into the colony; the towns were
scattered rural communities largely independent of each
other; the inhabitants, belonging to much the same
class, were neither very rich nor very poor, their ac
tivities were mainly agricultural, and their habits of
thought and ways of living were everywhere uniform
throughout the colonial period. The colony was in a
measure isolated, not only from England and English
control, but also from the large colonial centers such as
Boston and New York, through which it communicated
with the older civilization. Connections with other col
onies were neither frequent nor important. Roads were
poor, ferries dangerous, bridges few, and transportation
even from town to town was difficult and slow.

vi INTRODUCTION
f The importance of Connecticut lay in the men that it
nurtured and the forms of government that it estab
lished and preserved. Few institutions from the Old
"World had root in its soil. In their town meetings the
people looked after local affairs ; and matters of larger
import they managed by means of the general assembly
to which the towns sent representatives. They made
their own laws, which they administered in their own
courts. Their rules of justice, though sometimes pe
culiar, were the same for all. They did what they could
to educate their children, to uphold good morals, to help
the poor, and to increase the prosperity of the colony.
Though they could not entirely prevent England from
interfering in their affairs, they succeeded in reducing
her interference to a minimum and were well content
to be let alone. Yet when called upon to furnish men in
time of war, they did so generously and, in the main,
promptly. They became a vigorous, strong, determined
community, and though unprogressive in agriculture,
they were enterprising in trade and commerce, and in
the opening up of new opportunities prepared the way
for the later career of a progressive, highly organized
manufacturing state. To the larger colonial world they
furnished men and ideas that, during the period of
revolution and constitution-making, played prominent
parts in shaping the future of the United States of
America.

INTRODUCTION yii
If this little volume gives to the children of Connect
icut a truer appreciation of the early history of the
state in which they live, its purpose will have been
achieved. A knowledge of Connecticut's history, its
men and the work they have accomplished, should
arouse the devotion and loyalty of every Connecticut
boy and girl to the state and its welfare; and that it
shall do so is the hope of those by whom this work has
been projected and under whose auspices it has been
published. Chaeles M. Andebws,

CONTENTS
The House op Hope and the Chaeteb Oak ... 1
Two Indian Waebioes  15
A Habbob foe Ships  80
Thbee Judges  45
The Foet on the Rivee  69
The Feogs op Windham  74
Old Wolf Putnam  81
The Bullet-Makees of Litchfield  94
Newgate Peison  102
The Dabk Day  Ill
A Fbench Camp in Connecticut  117
Nathan Hale  124

ILLUSTRATIONS
Wadswoeth Hiding the Chaetee  12
MlANTONOMO's MONUMENT ....... 26
Medal Commemoeating the Founding of New Haven . 34
The Judges' Cave on West Rock ..... 54
The Site of Saybeook Foet  62
The Wyoming Massacee  76
Geneeal Putnam  92
King Geoegb the Third  96
The Ruins op Newgate Peison  104
An Old Connecticut Inn, 1790  114
The Maequis op Lafayette  120
Nathan Halb  136

ONCE UPON A TIME IN
CONNECTICUT
THE HOUSE OP HOPE AND THE
CHARTER OAK
A GREAT oak tree fell in the city of Hartford on
August 21, 1856. The night had been wild and
stormy; in the early morning a violent wind twisted and
broke the hollow trunk about six feet above the ground,
and the old oak that had stood for centuries was over
thrown. All day long people came to look at it as it lay on the
ground. Its wood was carefully preserved and souve
nirs were made from it: chairs, tables, boxes, picture-
frames, wooden nutmegs, etc. One section of the trunk
. is to-day in the possession of the Connecticut Historical
Society. Tradition says that this tree was standing, tall
and vigorous, when the first English settlers reached
Hartford and began to clear the land; that the Indians
came to them then, as they were felling trees, and begged
them to spare that one because it told them when to
plant their corn. "When its leaves are the size of a
mouse's ears," they said, " then is the time to put the
seed in the ground."

2 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
At sunset, on the day when it fell, the bells of Hart
ford tolled and flags draped in mourning were displayed
on the gnarled and broken trunk, for this tree was the
Charter Oak, and its story is bound up with the story
of the Connecticut Colony.
About the year 1613, five little ships set sail from
Holland on voyages for discovery and trade in the New
World. They were the Little Fox, the Nightingale, the
Tiger, and two called the Fortune. The Tiger was
under the command of a bold sailor named Adriaen
Block and he brought her across the ocean to New
Netherland, which is now New York. There was then
a small Dutch village of a few houses on Manhattan
Island. While she was anchored off the island, the Tiger
took fire and burned. But Block was not discouraged.
He set to work at once and built another boat — one of
the first built in America. She was 40 feet, 6 inches
long by 11 feet, 6 inches wide, and he called her the
Restless. In the summer of 1614 he sailed her up the
East River and out into Long Island Sound where no
white man had ever been before. He named both the
East River and the Sound " Hellegat," after a river in
Holland, and a narrow passage in the East River is still
known as " Hell-Gate."
Block sailed along the low wooded shores of Con-

THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 3
necticut, past the mouth of the Housatonic, which he
named the " River of the Red Mountain," and reported
it to be "about a bowshot wide," and by and by he
came to a much larger stream emptying into the Sound.
This was the Connecticut, and Block turned and sailed
up the river as far as the point where Hartford now
stands. He noticed that the tide did not flow far into
this river and that the water near its mouth was fresh,
80 he called it the " Fresh River."
When the Dutch in Manhattan heard of this new
country which he had discovered, they began a fur trade
with the Indians who lived there. In June, 1633, they
bought from the Indians a strip of land on the river,
one Dutch mile in length by one third of a mile in width,
and they paid for it with " one piece of duffel [that is,
heavy cloth] twenty-seven ells long, six axes, six ket
tles, eighteen knives, one sword-blade, one pair of
shears, some toys and a musket." On this land, which
is now in the city of Hartford, the first block-house in
Connecticut was built and was called the "House of
Hope." Although two small cannon were mounted upon
it the Dutch said the place should be a peaceful trad
ing-post only and free to all Indians who came in peace.
Yery soon after this little Dutch fort of the House of
Hope was finished, Lieutenant William Holmes, from
the Plymouth Colony, sailed up the river, and he and
his men carried with them on their boat a frame house

4 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
all ready to put together.! The Dutch challenged the
Plymouth boat as it passed their fort, but Holmes paid
no attention. He had been told by the Governor of
Plymouth to go up the river and he went, and at the
mouth of the Farmington, where Windsor is to-day, he
set up the first frame house in Connecticut and sur
rounded it with a palisade for protection.
Other Englishmen from Massachusetts Bay, hearing
of these new fertile lands and of friendly Indians and a
profitable fur trade, came overland, making their way
through the wilderness. By and by their numbers were
so great that the Dutch were crowded out and driven
away and Connecticut was settled by the English.
One of the most interesting parties of settlers who
came from Massachusetts to Hartford was " Mr. Hook
er's company." Thomas Hooker, the minister in Cam
bridge, led one hundred members of his church overland
to new homes in Connecticut in June, 1636. These
people had come from England a few years before,
hoping to find religious and political freedom in Amer
ica, and, after a short stay in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, they decided to remove to Connecticut. Their
journey was made in warm weather, under sunny skies,
with birds singing in the green woods. They traveled
slowly, for there were women and little children with
them, old people too, and some who were sick. Mrs.
Hooker was'carried all the way in a litter. They followed

THE HOUSE OP HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 5
a path toward the west which by that time had probably
become a well-marked trail. Part of it, no doubt, led
through deep forests. Sometimes they passed Indian
villages. Sometimes they forded streams. They drove
with them a herd of one hundred and sixty cattle, let
ting them graze by the way. They had wagons and
tents, arid at night they camped, made fires, and milked
the cows. There were berries to be picked along the
edges of the meadows and clear springs to drink from,
and the two weeks' journey must have been one long
picnic to the children.
When " Hooker's company " arrived on the banks of
the Connecticut River, three little English settlements
had already been made there. They were soon named
Hartford, Windsor, and We(a)thersfield. These three set
tlements were the beginning of the Connecticut Colony.
At first the people were under the government of
Massachusetts because Massachusetts thought they
were still within her borders. But before long it became
necessary for them to organize a government of their
own. They had brought no patent, or charter, with them
from England, and so, finding themselves alone in the
wilderness, separated by many long miles of forests
from Massachusetts Bay, they determined to arrange
their own affairs without reference to any outside au
thority. They set up a government on May 1, 1637, and
the next year, under the leadership of such men as

6 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
Thomas Hooker, John Haynes, who had once been
Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and Roger Ludlow,
who had had some legal training, this government, made
up of deputies from each of the three little settlements,
drafted eleven " Fundamental Orders." These " Funda
mental Orders " were not a written constitution, but a
series of laws very much like those of the colonies of
Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. There is a tradition
that they were read to the people and adopted by them
in the Hartford Meeting-House on January 14, 1639.
Connecticut continued under this form of govern
ment, which she had decided upon for herself, for more
than twenty years — until after the civil war in England
was over. Then, when royalty was restored and Charles
the Second became king, in 1660, the people feared that
they might lose something of the independence they
had learned to love and value, and they sent their gov
ernor, John Winthrop, to England to get from the king
a charter to confirm their " privileges and liberties."
Winthrop was a man who had had a university edu
cation in England and the advantages of travel on the
continent of Europe. He had a good presence and
courteous manners. Best of all, he had powerful friends
at court. There is a story that in an audience with the
king he returned to him a ring which the king's father,
Charles the First, had given to Winthrop's grandfather,
and that the king was so pleased with this that he was

THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 7
willing to sign the charter Winthrop asked for. Whether
this is true or not, the king did sign one of the most
liberal charters granted to any colony in America. It
gave the Connecticut people power to elect their own
governor and to make their own laws. This is the fa
mous charter which is said to have been hidden later in
the Charter Oak Tree. Two copies were made of it,
and one of these Governor Winthrop sent home, Sep
tember, 1662, in an odd-shaped, leather-covered box.
This box, which is lined with sheets from an old histoiy
of King Charles the First and has a compartment at
one side that once held the royal seal of green wax at
tached to the charter, can be seen to-day in the rooms
of the Connecticut Historical Society.
When the people understood what a good charter
they had received they were greatly pleased. The rec
ord of the General Assembly for October 9, 1662, says,
" The Patent or Charter was this day publickly read to
the Freemen [that is, the voters] and declared to belong
to them and to their successors " ; and October 29 was ap
pointed a Thanksgiving Day " particularly for the great
success God hath given to the endeavors of our Hon
ored Governor in obtaining our Charter of His Majesty
our Sovereign." Samuel Wyllys, in front of whose home
stood the oak tree which was afterward to become
known as the " Charter Oak," was appointed one of the
first keepers of the charter.

8 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
For about a quarter of a century the government of
Connecticut was carried on under the charter. Then
King Charles the Second died, and his brother, the Duke
of York, became king. The advisers of the new king,
James the Second, wished to unite all the little scattered
New England colonies under one strong government
which should be able to resist not only Indian attacks,
but also attacks from the French on the north. So in
1686, James sent over Sir Edmund Andros, who had
once been Governor of New York, with a commission
as Governor of the Dominion of New England. It was
the duty of Andros to take over the separate govern
ments of the different colonies and to demand the sur
render of their charters.
But the people of New England did not like the new
policy. Each colony wished to preserve its independence;
each wished to be left entirely free to manage its own
affairs, yet each expected help from England against
its enemies. England, on the other hand, felt that the
isolation of these small colonies, their jealousy of one
another and their frequent quarrels, were a source of
weakness, and that a single strong government was
necessary to preserve order, to encourage trade, and to
secure defense. The plan of union, however, as has been
said, was greatly disliked by the colonies, and Connec
ticut sent a petition to the king praying that she might
keep her privileges and her charter, and meanwhile she

THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 9
put off submission to the new governor as long as pos
sible. At last, however. Sir Edmund Andros wrote from
Boston to Governor Treat of Connecticut that he
would be " at Hartford about the end of the next week."
This was on October 22, 1687. He left Boston on the
26th. A record written at that time says, " His Excel
lency with sundry of the Council, Justices and other
gentlemen, four Blue Coats, two trumpeters, 15 or 20
Red Coats, with small Guns and short Lances in the
tops of them, set forth in order to go to Connecticut to
assume the government of that place." He reached
Hartford on the 31st, having crossed the Connecticut
River by the ferry at Wethersfield. "The troop of
horse of that county conducted him honorably from the
ferry through Wethersfield up to Hartford, where the
train-bands of divers towns united to pay their respects
at his coming " and to escort him to the tavern.
Governor Andros had come from Norwich since
morning, a forty-mile ride over rough roads and across
streams without bridges or ferries, and it was late
when he arrived. The fall days were short and prob
ably candles were already lighted in the court cham
ber where the Assembly was in session. The Con
necticut magistrates knew something of Sir Edmund
Andros. Twelve years before, while he was Governor
of New York, he had appeared at Saybrook and de-

10 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
manded the surrender of the fort and town by order of
the Duke of York who claimed part of Connecticut
under his patent. The claim was not made good, for
Captain Bull, who commanded at Saybrook, raised the
king's colors over the fort and forbade the reading of
the duke's patent, and Andros, not wishing to use force
and pleased with this bold action although it was
against himself, sailed away. Now, however, the Duke
of York had become King of England with a new pol
icy for the colonies, and Andros was obeying the king's
orders. He was a soldier who had served with distinction in
the army and had held responsible positions. He was
also a man used to courts as well as to camps, for as a
boy he had been a page in the king's household and
later was attached to the king's service. He must have
presented a contrast in appearance and manner to the
Connecticut magistrates who so anxiously awaited his
coming. When he entered the room he took the governor's
seat and ordered the king's commission to be read, which
appointed him governor of all New England. He then
declared the old government to be dissolved and asked
that the charter under which it had been carried on
should be given up to him. The Assembly was obliged
to recognize his authority and to accept the new gov
ernment; but a story of that famous meeting has been

THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 11
handed down in Connecticut from one generation to
another telling how the people contrived to keep their
charter, the document they loved because it guaranteed
their freedom.
" The Assembly sat late that night," says the story,
and the debate was long. When Sir Edmund Andros
asked for the charter it was brought in and laid on the
table. Then Robert Treat, who had been Governor of
Connecticut, rose and began a speech. He told of the
great expense and hardship the people had endured in
planting the colony, of the blood and treasure they had
expended in defending it against " savages and foreign
ers," and said it was " like giving up life now, to sur
render the patent and privileges so dearly bought and
so long enjoyed." Suddenly, while he was speaking, all
the candles went out. There was a moment of confusion;
then some one brought a tinder-box and flint and the
candles were relighted. The room was unchanged; the
same number of people were there ; but the table where
the charter had lain was empty, for in that moment of
darkness the charter had disappeared.
No one knew who had taken it. No one could find it.
No one saw the candles blown out. Was it done on
purpose, or did a door or a window fly open and a gust
of the night wind put them out ? It chanced that the
night was AUhallowe'en, when the old tales say that
the witches and fairies and imps are abroad and busy.

12 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
Were any of them busy that night with Connecticut's
charter? " Two men in the room, John Talcott and Nathaniel
Stanley, took the charter when the lights were out." So
said Governor Roger Wolcott long afterward. He was
a boy nine years old at the time and had often heard
the story. But these two men never left the room ; they
were members of the Assembly; they could not carry
off the charter. However, Major Talcott had a son-in-
law, Joseph Wadsworth, and he was waiting outside,
— so says another story. Wadsworth was young and
daring. The charter was passed out to him and he hid
it under his cloak and made his way swiftly through
the crowd that had gathered around the tavern and
through the dim, deserted streets beyond, to where an
old oak tree grew in front of the Wyllys house. This
tree had a hollow in its trunk and Wadsworth slipped
the charter into this safe hiding-place and left it there.
Houses might be searched, but no one would think of
looking for a missing paper in the hidden heart of a
hollow oak. And because the old tree proved a good
guardian and gave shelter in a time of trouble to Con
necticut's charter it was known and honored later as
the Charter Oak.
We are not told what was said or done in the court
chamber after the charter disappeared. The stories of
that night are fuU of mystery and contradiction. Per-

Wadswoktii hiding the Chatiter
From a bas-relief on the State Capitol, Hartford, Conn.

THE HOUSE OP HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK 13
haps, after all, no very serious search was made for it.
Perhaps its loss brought about a compromise between
the two parties. For Governor Andros had already
gained his object; he had taken over the government
of Connecticut, and the people had saved their pride
because they had not surrendered their charter.
The charter lay hidden for two years; not all that
time in the oak tree, of course, but in some other safe
place. One tradition says it was kept for a while in Guil
ford in the house of Andrew Leete. At the end of two
years there was a revolution in England, and William
and Mary came to the English throne. Then the char
ter was taken out of its hiding-place — wherever that
was — and government was at once resumed under the
same old patent which had disappeared so mysteriously
on that famous AUhallowe'en night.
In the Memorial Hall of the State Library at Hart
ford, under a glass shield, in a fireproof compartment
built into the end wall of the room, there hangs to-day
one of the two original copies of the Connecticut Char-
ter.^It is in a good state of preservation, its lettering is
clear and distinct, and so is the portrait engraved upon
it of King Charles the Second who gave it to Governor
John Winthrop. A part of its present frame is made
from the wood of the Charter Oak. The other copy,
that is, what remains of it, can be seen in the box which
is owned by the Historical Society.

14 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
When, after the Revolutionary War, the Colony of
Connecticut became the State of Connecticut, the char
ter of the colony was adopted without alteration as the
State Constitution. No change was made in it until
1818. The old oak tree, known to Indian legend and better
known in Connecticut's story, lived, honored and pro
tected, until its fall in the great storm of August 21,
1856. REFERENCES
1. Trumbull, Benjamin. History of Connectictd. Maltby Gold
smith & Co. New Haven, 1818.
2. Trumbull, J. Hammond (editor). Memorial History of Hart
ford County. E. L. Osgood. Boston, 1886.
3. Andrews, Charles M. " The River Towns of Connecticut," in
Johns Hopkins University Studies, vii, 1-3, September, 1889.
Baltimore, 1889.
4. Love, Wm. De Loss. The Colonial History of Hartford. Hart
ford, 1914.
5. Love, Wm. De Loss. " Hartford, the Keeper of Connecticut's
Charter," in Hartford in History, Willis J. Twitchell (editor).
Hartford, 1899.
6. Bates, Albert C. Article on " Charter Oak " in Encyclopcedia
A.mericana.
7. Hoadly, Charles J. The Hiding of the Charter. Case, Lock-
wood & Brainard. Hartford, 1900.

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS
THE two Indian chiefs of whom we hear most in the
early history of Connecticut were Uncas, sachem
of the Mohegans, and Miantonomo, sachem of the Nar-
ragansetts. A great Indian battle called the " Battle of
the Plain" took place once, near Norwich, between
these rival tribes led by these two rival chieftains.
The Mohegans were a part of the Pequot tribe, and
the Pequots, or " Gray Foxes," were the fiercest, most
cruel, and warlike of all the Indians who roamed through
the forests of Connecticut before the English came.
The white settlers soon had trouble with them, and when
the Pequot War, which was a war between the settlers
and the Indians, began, in 1637, Uncas came with
some of his Mohegan warriors and offered to guide
the English troops through the woods to the Pequot
fort. Now Uncas was himself a Pequot by birth and be
longed to the royal family, and it seems strange that he
should not take part with his own people. But not long
before this he had rebelled against the chief sachem,
Sassacus, and had tried to make himself independent.
" He grew proud and treacherous to the Pequot sachem,"
says the old chronicle, "and the Pequot sachem was

16 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
very angry and sent up some soldiers and drove him out
of his country." Afterward, when " he humbled himself
to the Pequot sachem, he received permission to live in
his own country again." But he was restless and dissat
isfied. He was said to be of great size and very strong;
he was brave too, and had a good deal of influence
among the Indians. The settlers needed his help, yet
they were half afraid to trust him, knowing that he would
be " faithful to them as the jackal is faithful to the lion,
not because it loves the lion, but because it gains some
thing by remaining in his company." Before he would
accept him as a guide. Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, com
mander of the fort at Saybrook, said to him, " You say
you will help Captain Mason, but I will first see it;
therefore send twenty men to Bass River, for there
went six Indians there in a canoe, fetch them, dead or
alive; and you shall go with Mason or else you shall
not." Uncas went off with his men and found these Indians.
He killed four of them and brought back another as a
prisoner, and the colonists, feeling more certain of his
fidelity, took him with them on their expedition.
Miantonomo, the Narragansett sachem, did not go
himself, but he sent one hundred of his warriors, for he,
too, hated the Pequots, who had lately overrun the coun
try and made themselves a terror to their neighbors.
The Narragansetts lived near them, just over the Rhode

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 17
Island border. They were a larger tribe than the Pe
quots and more peaceful and civilized, and their chief,
Miantonomo, was friendly to the English settlers and
had been generous in his dealings with them. He and
his uncle Canonicus, who was at this time an old man
over eighty, governed the Narragansetts together and
were on the best of terms with each other. " The old
sachem will not be offended at what the young sachem
doth," says the English record, " and the young sachem
will not do what he conceives will displease his uncle."
The Pequot War was soon over, for the bows and
arrows of the Indians had no chance against the guns
of the English. Most of the Pequot warriors were killed,
their fort and wigwams were burned, and many of their
women and children perished in the flames. It is a piti
ful story, because the settlers felt it necessary for their
own safety to put an end to the Pequot tribe. The few
poor Pequots who escaped this terrible destruction were
scattered among other tribes. The Narragansetts took
some, but more went to the Mohegans because they
were related to them. In this way the tribe of the Mo
hegans grew larger and stronger and Uncas became an
important chief. He showed great skill in building up
his tribe and he remained faithful to the English all
through his life, while they, on their side, protected him
as a reward for his services. As his power increased,
however, his jealous and quarrelsome disposition showed

18 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
itself more plainly, and the Indians complained that
" the English had made him high " and that he robbed
and oppressed them. When the colonists demanded
that he should give up to them any fugitive Pequots
who had murdered white settlers, Uncas put off com
plying on one pretext or another, because he did not
wish to weaken his tribe, which was still much smaller
than that of the Narragansetts.
The year after the war he went to Boston with thirty-
seven of his warriors carrying a present of wampum
for the governor. But the governor would not accept
the present until Uncas had given satisfaction about the
Pequots he was hiding. Uncas seemed " much dejected"
by this reception, and at first he denied that he had any
Pequots, but after two days he admitted the fact and
promised to do whatever the council demanded. Half an
hour later he came to the governor and made the follow
ing speech. Laying his hand on his breast, he said: —
" This heart is not mine, but yours ; I have no men,
they are all yours; command me any difficult thing, I
will do it ; I will not believe any Indian's word against
the English. If any man shall kill an Englishman I will
put him to death were he never so dear to me."
The governor in response " gave him a fair red coat,
and defrayed his and his men's diet, and gave them corn
to relieve them homeward, and a letter of protection to
all men, and he departed very joyful."

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 19
Uncas had now become a dangerous rival of Mianto
nomo, and the jealousy between them soon grew so
great that it threatened to break out in open war. In
1638 they were both called to Hartford by the Con
necticut authorities to settle the differences between
them. Miantonomo obeyed this summons at once and set out
with a great company, " a guard of upwards of one hun
dred and fifty men and many sachems and his wife and
children," and traveled through the forests that lay be
tween the villages of the Narragansetts in Rhode Island
and the English settlements in the Connecticut valley.
On the way he heard that the Mohegans had planned to
attack him, that they had laid an ambush for him, and
had threatened to " boil him in a kettle." Some Indians
of a friendly tribe met him and told him that a band of
Mohegans had fallen upon them and robbed them two
days before, and had destroyed twenty-three fields of
their corn. Miantonomo had already come about half
way, and, after holding a council with his chiefs, he de
cided to push on. " No man shall turn back," he said;
" we will all rather die."
He reached Hartford in safety, but Uncas was not
there. Uncas had sent word by a messenger that he was
lame and could not come. The Governor of Connecticut
" observed that it was a lame excuse and sent for him to
come without delay." So Uncas decided that it was safer

20 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
for him, on the whole, to get Avell quickly and to go to
Hartford. In the council that followed, each chieftain stated his
grievances and made complaint against the other, and
the English tried to reconcile them. At last a treaty of
peace was signed, and then Miantonomo stepped for
ward and held out his hand to Uncas and invited him to
a feast. But Uncas would not eat with him, and the two
chiefs parted no better friends than before.
Not long after this, Miantonomo was accused of try
ing to unite all the Indian tribes against the English set
tlers. It was said that he had made a speech to the Long
Island Indians in these words : —
" Brothers, we must be one as the English are, or we
shall soon all be destroyed. You know our fathers had
plenty of deer and skins, and our plains were full of deer
and of turkeys, and our coves and rivers were full of
fish. But, brothers, since these English have seized upon
our country, they cut down the grass with scythes, and
the trees with axes. Their cows and horses eat up the
grass, and their hogs spoil our beds of clams; and finally
we shall starve to death. Therefore, I beseech you to act
like men. All the sachems both to the east and west have
joined with us and we are resolved to fall upon them.".
The English were much alarmed on hearing this. It
was quite true that the Indians had sold their lands with
out realizing that the settlers would use them for any-

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 21
thing else than for hunting grounds and for fishing
places, as they themselves had done. They could not
know that the forests would be cleared, that farms
would spread over the countryside, and towns grow up
along the river courses, and they themselves be driven
farther and farther back into the wilderness. But Mian
tonomo denied that he had planned a united attack on
the settlements. He told the messengers who were sent
to him from Boston that all such reports came from
Uncas, and he agreed to go to Boston and appear before
the court of Massachusetts. He said, too, that he would
like to meet his accusers face to face and prove their
treachery. Miantonomo was a tall, fine-looking chief with serious
and stately manners, and he made a favorable impression
in Boston on the magistrates who were not very well
disposed toward him. "When he came in, the court was
assembled and he was set down at the lower end of the
table over against the governor." A Pequot interpreter
was given him. Now, in his own country he had refused
to make use of a Pequot as interpreter because he was
not on good terms with that tribe and could not trust
them, but here, " surrounded by armed men," he could
not help himself. He protested, however, saying gravely,
" When your people come to me, they are permitted to
use their own fashions and I expect the same liberty
when I come to you."

22 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
The sessions of the court lasted for two days, and
every one was astonished at the wisdom and dignity of
the great sachem of the Narragansetts. He answered
all the questions put to him deliberately, and would not
speak at all unless some of his councilors were present as
witnesses. At meal-times, when a separate table was set
for him, he was not pleased and refused to eat until some
food was brought to him from the governor's table. In
the end he convinced the council of his innocence and
he returned in peace to his own country.
Meanwhile, Uncas, who was both feared and hated for
his sudden rise to power, had several narrow escapes
from death. One of the captured Pequots in his own
tribe shot an arrow at him and wounded him in the arm.
Uncas complained to the English that Miantonomo had
engaged this Pequot to kill him, and Miantonomo re
torted that Uncas had cut his own arm with a flint to
make it appear that he had been wounded, and no one
knew where the truth lay. Soon after this an attempt
was made to poison him. Then, at last, one day as he
was paddling down the Connecticut River in a canoe,
some Indians who were friends of the Narragansetts
sent a shower of arrows at him from the bank. He at
once made a raid into their country, killed seven or eight
of their warriors, burned their wigwams and carried off
the booty.
This brought matters to a climax, for their chief, Se-

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 23
quassen, was related to Miantonomo and Miantonomo
took up his quarrel. The trouble, which had so long been
smouldering between the Mohegans and the Narragan
setts, broke out in earnest. Miantonomo collected all the
Narragansett warriors and led them swiftly and secretly
through the forests toward the land of the Mohegans,
which lay along the banks of the Pequot, or Thames,
River. He hoped in this way to fall upon Uncas while
he was unprepared.
But Uncas was on his guard. His watchmen on the
hills caught sight of the Narragansetts as they came
out of the woods by the fords of the Shetucket River,
— above the present city of Norwich. Uncas had a fort
five miles below on the Pequot River, which was his
headquarters, and the old story says : —
" Being warned by his spies of the approach of the
Narragansetts toward his seat, Uncas called his war
riors together, stout, hard men, light of foot and skilled
in the use of bow and arrow, and upon a conference he
told them that it would not do to let the Narragansetts
come to their town, but that they must go and meet
them. Accordingly they marched about three miles, and
on a large plain the armies met^and both halted within
bowshot. A parley was sounded, and Uncas proposed a
conference with the Narragansett sachem, who agreed.
And being met, Uncas saith to his enemy words to this
effect: —

24 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
" ' You have a number of brave men and so have I.
It is a pity that such brave men should be killed for a
quarrel between you and me. Only come like a man, as
you pretend to be, and we will fight it out. If you kill
me, my men shall be yours, but if I kill you, your men
shall be mine.'
" Upon which the Narragansett sachem replied,
" ' My men came to fight and they shall fight.' "
Now, Uncas knew well that his army, being much
smaller, had no chance against the army of the Nar
ragansetts in a fair fight, and before he met the Narra
gansett sachem he had planned a stratagem with his
own men.
As soon as Miantonomo had spoken Uncas threw
himself face down on the ground and his men drew
their bows and shot their arrows over his head and
rushed " like lions " upon their astonished enemies. The
Narragansetts broke in terror and confusion. They did
not stop to fight, but turned and fled panic-stricken,
through woods and swamps and over rocks and hills,
by the way they had come, back to the river fords. The
Mohegans pursued them, killing a number of them and
wounding more. They drove them headlong, like sheep,
before them, and the pursuit lasted for five or six miles.
Some of the Narragansetts lost their way and came
upon the Yantic River near its falls and were driven
over the steep rocks on the banks and drowned in the

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 25
water. Others were taken prisoners. "Long afterwards,
some old Mohegans were heard to boast of having found
a poor Narragansett struggling and panting in a thicket
that bordered the river, and so frantic with fear and
excitement as to suppose himself in the water and ac
tually attempting to swim among the bushes."
Miantonomo was strong and a swift runner, but that
day he wore for protection a coat of mail which an Eng
lishman had given him and the heavy garment impeded
his flight. The Mohegans recognized him by it and fol
lowed him eagerly. He kept his distance until he had
nearly reached the river, but there, " the foremost of
Uncas's men got ahead of him." They threw themselves
against him and prevented his escape. They did not
kill him or try to take him prisoner, but they ran beside
him until Uncas came up, when they dropped back and
gave their chieftain the " opportunity to take him."
" At a place since called ' Sachem's Plain,' Uncas
took him by the shoulder and Miantonomo sat down,
knowing Uncas. Uncas then gave a whoop and his men
returned to him." But Miantonomo sat silent.
At last Uncas spoke to him and said, " If you had
taken me I would have besought you for my life."
Now it was against the Indian's code of honor to ask
for mercy. An Indian brave must never complain, no
matter how hard his fate. If he were put to torture, if
he were even burned at the stake, he must let no sound

26 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
of pain escape him. He might boast of his own exploits
and tell how many of his enemies he had killed, but he
must never admit defeat. Courage and endurance were
the great Indian virtues. Therefore Miantonomo made
no reply to the taunts of Uncas and his men; he kept
silence, as befitted a great sachem and a brave warrior,
" choosing rather to die than to make supplication for
his life."
Uncas had the right, according to Indian custom, to
put his prisoner to death at once, but he had agreed to
consult the English in all important matters, so he car
ried him to Hartford. This was late in the summer of
1643. In September the commissioners of the United
Colonies met in Boston and the case of Miantonomo
came before them. The commissioners were afraid to
take the responsibility of setting the Narragansett
sachem free, because they had promised to protect
Uncas and they felt that Uncas would not be safe while
Miantonomo lived, yet they had no reason to put him
to death. At last, after long deliberation, they decided
that he should be given back to Uncas and that Uncas,
if he chose, might put him to death; but he must do it
in his own land, not in the English settlements, and
there must be no torture.
So Uncas came to Hartford " with some considerable
number of his best and trustiest men," and having re
ceived his prisoner, he set out with him on the fatal

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 27
journey. The English sent two of their own men with
him to see that the sentence was duly executed. They
went through the forests until they had passed the Eng
lish boundaries and had come upon land that belonged
to the Mohegans, and, therein the wilderness, the brother
of Uncas, who walked behind Miantonomo, lifted his
hatchet and silently drove it through the captive chief
tain's head.
On Sachem's Plain a great heap of stones soon marked
the spot where Miantonomo had been overtaken, for
each Mohegan warrior who passed the place cast a stone
on the pile with a shout of triumph, and each Narra
gansett added lo it with cries of sorrow and lamenta
tion for the loss of a noble leader. In after years the
stones disappeared, and a monument was erected on the
spot in 1841, in honor of the Narragansett sachem. It
is a large, square block of granite with the name and
the date carved upon it, " MIANTONOMO, 1643." It
can be seen to-day in Greeneville, two miles from Nor
wich. Uncas lived on for many years and was a very old
man before he died; "old and wicked and wilful," one
account describes him. He quarreled with his neigh
bors and gave much trouble to his friends, the English.
The Narragansetts attacked him after the death of
Miantonomo, to avenge the death of their chief, and
they drove him into one of his forts on the Pequot

28 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
River. The colonists had helped him to build this fort
on a point of land running out into the water, and it
was too strong for the Indians to take it by assault.
They took possession of the Mohegan's canoes, how
ever, and they sat down patiently before the fort, on
the land side, to starve out Uncas and his warriors.
But the story says that one night Uncas sent out a
swift runner, who got safely past his enemies and car
ried the news to the English. Thomas Lefllngwell, one
of the settlers at Saybrook, " an enterprizing, bold man,
loaded a canoe with beef, corn, and peas, and under
cover of night paddled from Saybrook " around into the
mouth of the Thames, or Pequot, River and succeeded in
getting the provisions into the fort without the knowl
edge of the Narragansetts. The next morning there was
great rejoicing among the Mohegans and they lifted a
large piece of beef on a pole to show the besiegers that
they had plenty to eat. The Narragansetts, finding that
the English had once more come to the rescue of Uncas,
gave up the siege in despair and melted away into the
forest. There is an old legend which says that each night
while he was waiting for relief, Uncas himself secretly
left the fort and crept along through the shadows on
the river-bank until he came to a ledge of rocks from
which he could look down the stream; that he sat there
stern and motionless until morning watching and hop-

TWO INDIAN WARRIORS 29
ing for help from the strange, new owners of the lands
which had belonged to his fathers. These rocks after
ward went by the name of " Uncas's Chair."
Uncas was buried in the royal burying-ground of the
Mohegans near the falls of the Yantic River. His mon
ument is there now in the heart of the city of Norwich.
REFERENCES
1. DeForest, John W. History of the Indians of Connecticut.
J. W. Hammersley. Hartford, 1853.
2. Drake, Samuel G. Hook of the Indians. Boston, 1845,
3, Caulkias, Frances M. History of Norwich. Hartford, 1874.
4. Sylvester, Herbert Milton. Indian Wars of New England. W.
B. Clarke Co, Boston, 1910.
5, Winthrop, John, History of New England. Edited by James
Savage. Boston, 1825.

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS
IT hath a fair river, fit for harboring of ships, and
abounds with rich and goodly meadows." This de
scription of New Haven, or Quinnipiac, as the Indians
called it, was brought back to Boston in the summer of
1637, after the Pequot War, by some of the English
soldiers who had pursued the flying Pequots into that
part of Connecticut and had noticed the good harbor
of New Haven as they passed.
The report sounded so pleasant and so satisfactory in
the ears of a company of London merchants, who, with
their families and their fortunes, had recently come to
New England and were looking about for a suitable
spot in which to settle, that they decided to visit this
place and judge of it for themselves.
These people, about two hundred and fifty in number,
had arrived in Boston in June of that same year, after
a voyage of two months. Of course in the small ships
of those days there must have been many discomforts,
even in a pleasant season, and no doubt some of the
people were seasick. An old record of that time says,
"We fetched out the children and others that lay groan
ing in the cabins, and having stretched a rope from the
steerage to the mainmast, made them stand some on one

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 31
side and some on the other and sway it up and down
till they were warm. By this means they soon grew well
and merry. . . . When the ship heaved and set more
than usual a few were sick, but of these such as came
upon deck and bestirred themselves were presently well
again, therefore our captain set our children and young
men to some harmless exercises, in which the seamen
were very active and did our people much good, though
they would sometimes play the wags with them." When
at last the Hector dropped anchor in Boston Harbor,
and " there came a smell off the shore like the smell of
a garden," her passengers must have been glad that the
long voyage was over.
The two leaders of the company were Theophilus
Eaton, a successful shipping merchant of London, a man
of affairs and of great personal dignity and kindliness,
and his friend. Reverend John Davenport, a London cler
gyman, who, like many other Puritan ministers of those
days, had been obliged to leave England on account of
his religious opinions. These two men had been school
boys together in the town of Coventry, they had been
associated later in London, they came together to Amer
ica, and they remained friends to the end of their lives.
As many of their party were merchants, and not
farmers like a large number of the settlers on the Con
necticut River at Hartford, it was important to select a
place for their colony which would be convenient for

32 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
trade and where there was a good harbor for the com
merce they hoped to establish. For this reason the re
port of Quinnipiac interested them, and in September
several members of the company went to Quinnipiac
and liked it so well that seven men were left there
through the winter to prepare for the coming of the
rest in the spring. In April the whole number removed
there from Boston.
The people of Massachusetts Bay were sorry to have
them go. They would have been glad to have this rich
and influential company join their colony, but these new
settlers wished to found a colony of their own in which
they could carry out their own ideas of what a model
state should be, both in civil and religious matters. They
took ship, therefore, from Boston for Quinnipiac, carry
ing all their goods and provisions with them. The expe
dition was well fitted out and all its details had been
carefully planned before they left England. Friends al
ready in the colonies had written offering suggestions:
"Bring good store of clothes and bedding with you;
bring paper and linseed oil for your windows, with cot
ton yarn for your lamps."
As they sailed into Quinnipiac Harbor they saw for
the first time the two great cliffs, the East and West
Rocks, called by the Dutch " the Red Hills," which still
stand like guardians, one on each side of the present
city of New Haven. On the level plain between them,

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 33
which is watered by several small streams, they deter
mined to build their town and to place it at the head of
the beautiful harbor.
They made large and generous plans for it. They laid
it out in regular squares and set aside a great open space
in the center for a market-place. This is the New Haven
Green, which exists to-day just as John Broekett, the
surveyor, laid it out in 1638. It is still the largest public
square in the heart of any city in the United States. In
the middle of the Green they built the first " meeting
house." It was fifty feet square, made of rough timbers,
with a small tower on top where the drummer stood on
Sundays to " drum " the people to church ; for at first
there were no bells. Each person had a seat carefully
assigned to him, or her, in the meeting-house. Some
times the boys sat with the soldiers near the door. We
read later in the records that at one time the children in
the galleries were so restless during the long sermons,
that "tithing-men " were appointed " to take a stick or
wand and smite such as are of uncomely behavior in the
meeting and acquaint their parents." On week-days the
children went to school in a schoolhouse which was built
on the Green.
The town of New Haven was soon noted for its large
and fine houses, Eaton's having nineteen fireplaces ac
cording to tradition, and Davenport's, thirteen. But at
first any kind of shelter was used for protection. The

34 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
people met under an oak tree for service on the first
Sunday after landing and Reverend John Davenport
preached a sermon to them on the " Temptation of the
Wilderness," so it is said. During the first winter some
of them slept in cellars dug out in the banks of one of
the creeks and covered with earth. A boy named Michael
Wigglesworth, who came to New Haven with his par
ents in October, 1638, when he was nine years oldi, lived
in one of these cellars. When he grew up he wrote his
autobiography and in it he says, " I remember that one
great rain brake in upon us and drenched me so in my
bed, being asleep, that I fell sick upon it, but the Lord
in mercy spared my life and restored my health."
When the settlers at Quinnipiac, or New Haven, as it
was soon called, had been there a little more than a year,
they met in Robert Newman's barn " to consult about
settling civil government " and also about establishing
a church. Up to this time they had lived under what
was known as the " Plantation Covenant," which was
a simple agreement among themselves that they would
all " be ordered by those rules which the Scripture holds
forth." At this meeting on June 4, 1639, they decided
that they would continue to accept the Bible as a code
of laws, and that only church members should hold office
or have the right to vote for magistrates. They did this
under the direction of John Davenport, who in one of
his writings had described this colony as " a new Plan-

Medal Commemorating the Two Hundredth Anniversary
OF THE Founding of New Haven

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 35
tation whose design is religion." This agreement, made
in Robert Newman's barn, was known as the " Funda
mental Agreement." Twelve men were appointed on that
day who chose seven from among themselves to found
a church. These seven men were called the "Seven
PiUars." On August 22, the " Seven Pillars " met and
established a church, and on the 25th of October they
met again and set up the civil government.
Like the Connecticut Colony, the New Haven Colony
in setting up its government made no reference to any
authority beyond itself; the people elected their own
magistrates and made their own laws. But the New
Haven Colony was unlike Connecticut in one important
respect. In New Haven no man could vote or hold a
place in the government unless he was a church mem
ber. This led later to much discontent among some of
the people, and was one reason, among others, for the
failure of New Haven as a separate colony and for its
beng absorbed, twenty-five years afterward, — in 1664,
— into the larger and more liberal Connecticut Colony.
Meanwhile, even before the government was organ
ized, the merchants and shippers of the company had
bought or built boats and had begun to trade along the
coasts to the north and to the south. During the first
winter while some of the people, like the family of
Michael Wigglesworth, were still living in cellars dug
in the river-banks, Master George Lamberton was sail-

36 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
ing in his sloop, the Cock, on a trading voyage to Yir-
ginia. Other New Haven ships soon established com
mercial relations with Boston and New Amsterdam, with
Delaware, where beaver skins could be obtained in
abundance, with Virginia, whose great staple was to
bacco, and with other plantations still farther away, such
as Barbados in the West Indies, where sugar was the
most important article of exchange. Now and then we
hear of a New Haven ship in strange and foreign parts
of the world.
There was one which set out in December, 1642, for
the Canary Islands, laden with clapboards, and fell in
with pirates near the Island of Palma, one of the Cana
ries. A Turkish pirate ship of three hundred tons with
two hundred men on board and twenty-six guns, at
tacked this small New Haven ship of one hundred and
eighty tons, which had only seven guns fit for use and
twenty men armed with rusty muskets. The fight lasted
for three hours, and Captain Carman, the master of the
New Haven ship, and his men succeeded in killing a
good many Turks in spite of being taken at a disadvan
tage. But at last the pirates put their ship alongside and
sent one hundred men on board the New Haven ship.
When, however, they found that their captain was shot
and the rudder of their ship broken, the pirates hauled
down their flag and drew off so quickly that they left
fifty of their men behind. " Then the master [Captain

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 37
Carman] and some of his men came up and fought those
fifty hand to hand and slew so many of them that the
rest leaped overboard. The master had many wounds
on his head and body and divers of his men were
wounded, yet but one slain. So with much difficulty he
got to the Island [of Palma], where he was very cour
teously entertained, and supplied with whatever he
needed." But New Haven ships did not always come off as
well as in this encounter with the pirates, and their voy
ages were not always successful. Some members of the
New Haven Colony bought land in Delaware and at
tempted to establish a trading-post in order to take ad
vantage of the profitable trade in beaver skins. But the
Dutch and Swedes, who had settled there, objected to
the coming of the English, and once, in 1642, they
seized Captain Lamberton, who had come in his ship
the Cock, accused him of inciting the Indians against
them, and threw him into prison. As the charges against
him could not be proved he was soon released, but the
hostility of the Dutch and Swedes continued until the
New Haven merchants were driven away from that
coast and out of the rich fur-trade of Delaware. This
was a great blow to the colony. Other losses, too, were
met with, and at last the people became^ greatly dis
couraged as they saw their hopes of founding a success
ful commercial colony slowly, but surely, disappearing.

38 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
The voyage of the " Great Shippe " which took place
about this time is the most tragic adventure in the story
of New Haven's early shipping days. It began in this
way. In 1646, as a last resource, the merchants of New
Haven decided to fit out a ship with what was left of
their " tradeable estate," and send her to London. Up
to this time they had sent goods to England by way of
Boston or of the West Indies; there might be more
profit, they thought, in a direct trade, cutting out the
cost of reshipment. So they bought a ship. We do not
know her name, she is always spoken of as the " Great
Shippe," although she was only one hundred tons ; per
haps the title was given her because the colonists were
staking so much on this venture. If it succeeded, their
prosperity might be assured; if it failed, they must give
up the sea and commerce as a dependence and turn
their energies to agriculture. The " Great Shippe " was
a new boat, said to have been built in Rhode Island, and
she was loaded principally with wheat and peas shipped
in bulk, with West Indies hides, beaver skins, and what
silver plate could be spared for exchange in London.
Her cargo altogether was worth about twenty-five thou
sand dollars, which was a large sum in those days, espe
cially in a new and struggling colony.
The master of the ship was the same Captain Lam
berton we have heard of before. He was a brave and
bold skipper, but it is said that he was not altogether

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 39
pleased with the ship when he first saw her; that he did
not like her lines and thought her not quite seaworthy.
Other people, too, besides Captain Lamberton, com
plained that she was not only badly built, but badly
loaded, with the light goods of the cargo below and the
heavy above, and some old seamen predicted that the
grain would shift in rough weather and make trouble.
These were mostly rumors, however, and few paid at
tention to them at the time; but long afterward, when
people talked over the strange fate of the " Great
Shippe," Captain Lamberton's words, " This ship will
be our grave," were recalled and believed to have been
a prophecy. That winter of 1646 was a bitterly cold one in Con
necticut, and New Haven Harbor was frozen over.
When the " Great Shippe " was ready to sail, it was
necessary to cut a way out for her with handsaws
through the thick ice for nearly three miles. A good
many people from the town walked out on the harbor
ice beside the ship to see her begin her voyage, and to
bid good-bye to a number of their friends who were
going home to England on business of one kind or an
other. Seventy people had taken passage in the " Great
Shippe," and among them were some who were very
prominent in the colony, as, for instance, Captain Na
thaniel Turner, who, having had experience in the war
with the Pequot Indians, had been given " the command

40 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
and ordering of all martial affairs " in the plantation,
and Thomas Gregson, one of the magistrates, who was
charged by the colony to obtain a charter for them, if
possible, from the English Parliament, then in control in
England. Reverend John Davenport, the minister, stood in the
crowd of people on the ice that winter day and offered
a prayer to God for the protection of the travelers.
" Lord," he said, " if it be thy will to bury these our
friends in the bottom of the sea, they are thine, save
them." This does not sound like a very cheerful send-
off, but we must remember that a long voyage was a
serious undertaking in those days and that people some
times made their wills even before sailing from New
Haven for Boston.
When the " Great Shippe " had really gone, when the
people had seen the last of Captain Lamberton standing
on her deck giving orders, and had watched her white
sails dwindle and disappear, they walked back over the
ice to their homes on the shore remembering sadly that
it would be a long time before they could expect to
have any news from her. It might be two or three
months before she reached London and as many more
before word of her arrival could come back to them.
So they waited patiently through the hard New Eng
land winter and the early spring, but by summer time
they were eagerly looking for tidings of her. Ships

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 41
came from England as usual to the colonies, but no one
of them brought news of the safe arrival in London of
the " Great Shippe " from New Haven. Then the peo
ple began to question the skippers of other boats, boats
from the West Indies and from the plantations on the
southern coasts, and to ask if anything had been heard
of her in that direction. For they remembered that
there had been an unusually violent storm soon after the
ship had sailed, and they began to fear that she might
have been blown out of her course and possibly wrecked
on some such coast or island. Public prayers were
offered for her safety and for the safety of her pas
sengers. Meanwhile, the summer passed and the cold
weather came again, and still there was no word from
the fated ship. Few vessels put into New England har
bors during the winter, and, as the chance of news grew
less and less, the anxiety of the people gradually changed
to despair. They recalled the sacrifices they had made
to fit out that ship, the precious cargo she carried, all
the things that could not be replaced (such as the ser
mons and other writings of Mr. Davenport which he
had sent to England for publication) ; and in the loss
of the ship on which they had set all their hopes they
saw the final blow to the prosperity of New Haven.
No one now had the courage or the money for an
other venture of that kind. Slowly and reluctantly the
people turned to agriculture instead of trade, and the

42 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
days of New Haven as a commercial colony were
numbered. But far worse to them than any material loss was the
loss of the dear friends and relatives who had sailed
with the " Great Shippe " for England. No compensa
tion could come to those who had loved them. In No
vember, 1647, the passengers on the ship were finally
given up as lost and counted among the dead and their
estates settled.
Yet many to whom they were dear could not rest sat
isfied. They remembered all the perils of the sea, the
dangers of shipwreck on some barren coast, of possible
capture by pirates, such as those who had attacked Cap
tain Carman off the Canary Islands not many years be
fore, and they came to feel at last that they would be
thankful to learn that the ship had foundered at sea and,
that their friends had gone down with her to a natural
death in the waters.
Two years and a half after the sailing of the " Great
Shippe" (so the story stands in a strange old book called
the Magnalia CJiristi, by the Reverend Cotton Mather),
a wonderful vision came to the people of New Haven.
On that June afternoon in the year 1648, a great thun
derstorm came up from the northwest. The sky grew
black and threatening, there was vivid lightning, and a
cold wind swept over the harbor. Before the rain had
ceased and calm had come again, it was nearly sunset.

A HARBOR FOR SHIPS 43
Then, against the clear evening light, a strange ship
sailed into New Haven Harbor, Around the point she
came with her sails full set and her colors flying.
" There 's a brave ship," cried the children, and they
left their play to stand and gaze at her. Men and women
gathered on the water-front and the same startled hope
thrilled every heart: "It may be the 'Great Shippe'
come home again ! " For there was the old familiar out
line, there were her three masts, her tackling, and her
sails. And yet there was something new and mysteri
ous, something awe-inspiring about her, and the watch
ers held their breath as they realized that she was sail
ing toward them straight against the wind that blew
strong off the north shore. For a full half-hour they
stood and gazed, until they could distinguish the dif
ferent parts of her rigging, until they could see, stand
ing high on her poop, the figure of a man with " one
hand akimbo under his left side and in his right hand a
sword stretched out toward the sea." Then, all at once,
a mist rose out of the sea behind her and covered her
like smoke, and through the mist and smoke men saw
dimly her shrouds give way, and her masts break and
fall, as though a hurricane had struck her, and slowly
she careened and plunged beneath the surface of the
water. The people turned to their pastor. "What does it
mean ? " they asked. " It was the form of Master Lam-

44 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
berton. Why is this vision sent us?" And he replied
that doubtless God had sent it in answer to their prayers,
to show them the fate of their friends and to set their
hearts at rest, for " this was the mould of their ship,
and thus her tragic end." REFERENCES
1. Levermore, Charles H. Republic of New Haven. Johns Hop
kins University Studies, Baltimore, 1886,
2. Atwater, Edward E. History of the Colony of New Haven.,
Printed at New Haven, 1881.
3. Blake, Henry T. Chronicles of New Haven Green. Printed at
New Haven, 1892.
4. Winthrop, John. History of New England. Edited by James
Savage. Boston, 1825.
5, Mather, Reverend Cotton, Magnalia Christi Americana., i, 25,
London, 1702,

THREE JUDGES
TN the year 1661, when the city of New Haven was a
-¦- small village not much more than twenty years old,
a family of boys named Sperry lived out on a farm some
two or three miles west of that settlement. There was
only one house then besides theirs outside the town in
that direction and the woods all about were thick and
wild. That summer something mysterious was going on
near the Sperry farm. Every morning Richard Sperry
himself, or one of his boys, carried food, in dishes cov
ered with a cloth, into the woods on the steep side of
West Rock about a mile from the house, and left it
there on a stump. Every evening he, or one of his sons,
went for the empty bowls and brought them home. The
boys were curious to know who had eaten the food, for
they never met any one coming or going, and never saw
any one up on the Rock. In reply their father told them
that there were men at work in the forest near by; yet
they never heard voices nor the sound of an axe, and
it was only long afterward that they learned the real
reason for what they had done. If one of the boys had
waited long enough some morning, lying still and hidden
in the bushes, he might have seen a man come slowly

46 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
and cautiously through the woods toward him, a digni
fied, grave-looking person with something foreign in
his dress, something soldierly in his bearing, as if he
were accustomed to commanding others; he might have
watched this stranger — so different from the people
he knew — take up the dishes of food and disappear again
into the dark forest. And he would have wondered why
a man like that, who was evidently not a hunter and not
a new settler, should be hiding in the woods around
New Haven.
Twelve years before, in England, this same man had
taken part in a very different scene. There was a great
trial held in the stately old Hall of Westminster and
the prisoner at the bar was the King of England him
self, and among the fifty-nine judges who condemned
him to death was the man who was now hunted for his
own life and was in hiding near the Sperry farm that
summer, three thousand miles away from all he loved
in England.
There were nearly one hundred men who had some
part, large or small, in the trial and death of King
Charles the First, and all of them were in great danger
eleven years later when the Royalists returned to power
and his son, Charles the Second, became king. A few
who had very little to do with the king's sentence were
pardoned; others were seized at once, tried, condemned,
and executed in the barbarous way the English law then

THREE JUDGES 47
allowed, and still others tried to escape by leaving Eng
land. Some got safely to the Continent and wandered
about from one foreign city to another, trying to pass
unnoticed in the crowd, and always in danger of being
discovered and arrested by the messengers the English
Government sent after them.
Three of them came to New England and spent some
time in Connecticut. This is their story.
Early in May, 1660, a ship named the Prudent Mary
lay at Gravesend near London, getting ready to sail
under her master, Captain Pierce, for the colonies in
the new world. Two of the regicides. General Edward
Whalley and General William Goffe, had taken passage
in her, but they dared not sail under their own names
and they came aboard as Edward Richardson and Wil
liam Stephenson. While the ship was waiting in Graves-
end the new king was proclaimed. That was on Satur
day, May 12, The next day General Goffe wrote in his
diary, — " May 13, Wee kept Sabbath abord."
On Monday they sailed and were happy to get away
from England before an order could be given for their
arrest. The ships of those days were very small and the
little Prudent Mary took ten weeks to make her way
across the ocean, but at last Goffe wrote in his journal :
"July 27. We came to anchor between Boston and
Charlestown; between 8 and 9 in the morning; all in
good health through the good hand of God upon us."

48 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
When the judges landed they were among friends,
for most of the people in New England were of their
political party. They took their own names again, called
on the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and went
about freely. Goffe's diary says: "Aug, 9. Went to
Boston lecture and heard Mr. Norton. Went afterwards
to his house where we were lovingly entertained with
many ministers and found great respects from them."
And on the 26th : " We visited Elder Frost, who re
ceived us with great kindness and love."
This diary and his letters show that Goffe was sin
cere and religious, but his life tells us that he was brave
and energetic too. He had made his own way, and both
he and Whalley, who was his father-in-law, had been
important men in England; they were major-generals
who had fought in great battles and had taken part in
great events in history. There is an old story about
their skill in fencing.
" At Boston," so the story runs, " there appeared a
gallant person, some say a fencing-master, who, on a
stage erected for the purpose, walked for several days
challenging and defying any to play with him at swords.
At length one of the judges disguised in a rustic dress,
holding in one hand a cheese wrapped in a napkin for a
shield, with a broomstick, whose mop he had besmeared
with dirty puddle water as he passed along, mounted
the stage. The fencing-master railed at him for his im-

THREE JUDGES 49
pudence, asked what business he had there, and bade
him begone. The judge stood his ground, upon which
the gladiator made a pass at him with his sword to drive
him off. An encounter ensued. The judge received the
sword into the cheese and held it till he drew the mop
of the broom over the other's mouth, and gave the gen
tleman a pair of whiskers. The gentleman made another
pass, and plunging his sword a second time, it was
caught and held in the cheese till the broom was drawn
over his eyes. At a third lunge, the sword was caught
again, till the mop of the broom was rubbed gently all
over his face. Upon this, the gentleman let fall, or laid
aside, his small sword and took up the broadsword and
came at him with that, upon which the judge said,
* Stop, sir ! Hitherto, you see, I have only played with
you and have not attempted to hurt you, but if you come
at me now with the broadsword, know that I will cer
tainly take your life.' The firmness and determination
with which he spoke struck the gentleman, who, desist
ing, exclaimed, ' Who can you be ? You are either Goffe,
Whalley, or the devil, for there was no other man in
England that could beat me.' "
For seven months the two judges lived in Cambridge
at the house of Major Daniel Gookin, a member of the
governor's council and a fellow passenger of theirs in
the Prudent Mary. They went to church on Sundays,
and no doubt on " training-days " they watched the train-

50 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
bands practice, for they were famous fighters them
selves. But meantime the news of their being in the
colonies was carried to England by a royalist named
Captain Breedon, and the governor debated with his
council what to do about it. He wanted to protect them,
but he feared the king's displeasure might bring trouble
on the colony. Before he decided, the two judges, or
" the two Colonels " as they were called, finding they
were not safe in Boston, left for New Haven.
This was their first journey in the new wilderness;
it was winter time, and probably there was snow on the
ground and hanging heavy on the trees — more snow than
they had ever seen in England. Most of the road be
tween Boston and New Haven was a trail through forests
where a guide was necessary. They stopped at Hartford,
were kindly received there, and reached New. Haven
early in March. For three weeks they were guests of
the minister. Reverend John Davenport. He was their
friend and is said to have preached a sermon from the
text, " Hide the outcasts ; betray not him that wander-
eth," to prepare people for their coming. Whalley's sister
had once lived in New Haven and they had other friends
there too. But it was very dangerous for these friends to
try to protect them, and when word came that a reward
had been offered in England for their arrest, the hunted
judges left New Haven as they had left Boston before,
pretending, this time, to go to New York. However,

THREE JUDGES 51
they only went as far as Milford and turned back se
cretly in the night to New Haven where the minister
received them again and hid them, in his own house and
in the houses of other friends, until May, when a still
greater danger threatened them.
The royal order for their arrest at last reached Boston
and the governor there was obliged to forward it. He
gave it to two young royalists, Thomas Kellond and
Thomas Kirk, and on Saturday, May 11, they arrived
with it in Guilford at the house of William Leete, the
Governor of the New Haven Colony, Governor Leete
took the paper and began to read it aloud, hoping some
one in the room would overhear it and send word to
warn the judges. Kirk and Kellond interrupted him and
said the paper was too important to read in public.
Then they asked for horses and a search-warrant to
carry with them to New Haven. It took a long time to
get the horses ; there was one delay after another, and
the governor said he 'could not give them the warrant
without consulting the other magistrates, but he would
write a letter. It took a long time also to write the letter,
and when both horses and letter were ready it was too
late to start that night. The next day was Sunday and
nobody was allowed to travel on Sunday in the New
Haven Colony. So the messengers waited impatiently
for Monday, and meantime they heard rumors that the
judges had been seen in New Haven, and that Mr. Dav-

52 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
enport must be protecting them still, because he had
lately put ten pounds' worth of fresh provisions in his
house ; all of which made them still more impatient.
On Monday, at last, they got to New Haven, and some
hours later Governor Leete followed them — very slowly
— and called the magistrates together. It took the mag
istrates so long to decide what to do that Kellond and
Kirk asked bluntly whether they meant to honor and
obey the king or not. The governor answered, "We
honor his Majesty, but we have tender consciences," At
last a search was ordered to be made for the regicides,
but Kirk and Kellond were convinced by this time that
it would be useless, and they left in disgust for New
York. They were right, it was useless; for an Indian runner
had come quickly from Guilford on Saturday, and Goffe
and Whalley had disappeared.
Several stories are told of their narrow escapes at this
time. One says they were on the Neck Bridge over Mill
River on State Street when they heard the horses of
their pursuers behind them and had only time to slip
under the bridge and lie there hidden while the men
rode over their heads. Another tells how a woman hid
them in her house, in a closet whose door looked like a
part of the wall with kitchen pots and pans hung on it.
When they left the settlement they took refuge in the
wild forest, and most of that summer they lived in a cave

THREE JUDGES 63
in a pile of boulders on the top of West Rock. The cave
is there still, and is called "Judges' Cave" to-day.
Richard Sperry carried food to them or sent it by one
of his boys, and sometimes on very stormy nights they
crept secretly down to his house and stayed with him.
Once, in June, they went back to New Haven and
offered to give themselves up to save their friends, if
necessary, and arranged that Governor Leete should
always know where to find them. Most people thought
they had left the colony altogther then, but they were
back in their cave on the Rock, or in some other hiding-
place in the deep woods. Rewards were still offered for
them and they dared not venture out. They called West
Rock " Providence Hill," because God had provided for
them there. And now these two men, who had led such
stirring, active lives in England, lived in a great loneli
ness and silence, with no friends near them, no sounds
but the distant crash of a falling tree, or the wind sigh
ing in the forest branches. There were prowling Indians
and prowling wild beasts. Once, so the story says, a
panther crept up stealthily to the cave at night as they
lay in bed and put his head in at the opening, his eyes
burning in the darkness like two fires.
In August, when the search for them was pretty much
over, they went to Milford. They stayed there very se
cretly for three years, until, in 1664, there was danger of
another search being made. Then they went back to

54 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
their cave on the Rock; but it was no longer a safe place
for them, because " some Indians in their hunting dis
covered the cave with the bed," and their friends made
a different plan for their concealment.
The exiles set out on another long jotirney. They
traveled only at night, stopping and hiding in the- day
time. The trail they followed led them up the valley of
the Connecticut River, beyond Hartford and far into
the north, until they came to what is now the town of
Hadley in Massachusetts. This was then one of the far
thest settlements in the wilderness and very remote and
lonely. Reverend John Russell, the minister there, gave
them shelter and took care of them. There Was a cellar
under part of his house, and, by taking up some loose
boards in the floor above it, they could drop down quickly
into it if visitors came unexpectedly. In spite of the dan
ger to himself, Mr. Russell kept them safe in Hadley
for twelve or fifteen years. A few friends wrote to them
and sent them money, but no one else in the world out
side knew what had become of them or whether or not
they were still alive.
There is a famous story about one of the regicides in
Hadley. Once, it says, in King Philip's War the In
dians attacked the place. They burst out of the woods
and rushed upon the settlement on a Sunday morning
while every one was at church. Terror-stricken and
thrown into wild confusion by the sight of the yelling

THREE JUDGES 66
savages the people of Hadley were helpless, when, all
at once, an unknown man, with whitening hair and
strange garments, appeared in the midst of them and
took command. He rallied them and led them out against
the Indians and drove them back into the forest. " As
suddenly as he had come, the deliverer of Hadley dis
appeared." No one ever saw him again, and the people
said God must have sent an angel to help them. Long
afterward they learned that it was General Goffe.
There is not much more to tell about the judges after
this. Whalley was an an old man now, and Goffe wrote
to his wife, who was Whalley's daughter, " Your old
friend " (he dared not say her father, and he signed him
self Walter Goldsmith instead of William Goffe) " is
yet living, but continues in a very weak condition and
seems not to take much notice of anything that is done
or said, but patiently bears all things and never com
plains of anything. The common and very frequent
question is to know how he doth and his answer for the
most part is, * Very well, I praise God,' which he utters
with a very low and weak voice,"
After Whalley died, Goffe left Hadley and went to
Hartford. We do not know much about him there. We
know that he was still an exile with a price on his head,
and still hiding. In one of his letters he says to a friend,
" Dear Sir, you know my trials are considerable, but I
beseech you not to interpret any expression in my letters

66 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
as if I complained of God's deahng with me." His
family in England had moved and he did not know
their address or how to reach them, and in April,
1679, he wrote to the same friend, "I am greatly
longing to hear from my poor desolate relations, and
whether my last summer's letters got safe to them."
What answer he received, whether he ever heard from
them again, we cannot tell, for his story ends with that
last letter.
The third regicide judge who came to Connecticut
was Colonel John Dixwell. He spent some time with
Whalley and Goffe at Hadley and afterward lived seven
teen years in New Haven, No search was ever made
for him because he was supposed to have died in Europe,
and he was known to almost every one in the colony as
Mr. James Davids. It was only when he was on his
death-bed that he allowed his real name to be told. His
house stood on the corner of Grove and College Streets;
he married in New Haven and had several children.
He was a great friend of Reverend James Pierpont,
the minister, and the story goes that they had beaten a
path walking across their lots to talk over the fence
and that Madame Pierpont used to ask her husband
who that old man was who was so fond of living " an
obscure and unnoticed life " and why he liked so much
to talk with him, and he replied that " if she knew the

THREE JUDGES 57
worth and value of that old man she would not wonder
at it."
Once, so it is said. Sir Edmund Andros came from
Boston to New Haven and noticed on Sunday in church
a dignified old gentleman with an erect and military air
very different from the rest of the people, and asked
who he was. He was told that it was Mr. Davids, a
New Haven merchant. " Oh, no," said Andros, " I have
seen men and can judge them by their looks. He is no
merchant; he has been a soldier and has figured some
where in a more public station than this." Some one
warned Dixwell and he stayed away from church that
afternoon. When he died he was buried in the old burying-
ground behind Center Church on the New Haven
Green. In 1849, one of his descendants put up the mon
ument to him which stands there to-day. The monu
ment to Goffe and Whalley is the " Judges' Cave " on
the top of West Rock, and three streets in New Haven
are also named for the three regicide judges who came
to Connecticut. REFERENCES
1, Hutchinson, Thomas, History of Massachusetts, Salem and
Boston, 1795.
2. The Mather Papers, ia Massachusetts Historical Collections,
4th series, vol. 8.
3, Dexter, F. B. Memoranda respecting Edward Whalley and

58 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
William Goffe, in Papers of the New Haven Colony Histori
cal Society, vol. 2.
4, Stiles, Ezra. A History of Threeof the Judges ofJSUng Charles
First. Hartford, 1794. Reprinted in Library of American
History, Samuel L. Knapp, editor. New York, 1839.
5, Goffe's Diary, in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, 1863-64,
6. Judd, Sylvester, History of Hadley. Introduction to edition
of 1905. H, R, Huntting & Co, Spriagfleld, 1905.

THE FORT ON THE RIVER
A BOY naihed Lion Gardiner was born in England
in 1599, toward the end of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. He was strong, active, and energetic, and as
he grew up he was trained to be an engineer. Like a
good many other ambitious young Englishmen of his
day, he took service in the Low Countries, — that is, in
what is now Holland and Belgium, — where the people
were fighting against Spain for their independence. He
was employed as " an engineer and master of works
of fortification in the legers [camps] of the Prince of
Orange." While he was in Holland he received an offer from
a group of English "Lords and Gentlemen" of the
Puritan party, who were interested in colonization in
America, to go to New England and construct works of
fortification there. " I was to serve them," he says, " in
the drawing, ordering, and making of a city, towns, or
forts of defence," and " I was appointed to attend such
orders as Mr. John Winthrop, Esq., should appoint, and
that we should choose a place both for the convenience
of a good harbour and also for capableness and fitness
for fortification."
- Lion Gardiner signed an agreement with them for

60 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
four years at one hundred pounds, or five hundred dol
lars, a year and expenses paid to America for himself
and his family. He was married before he left Holland
and he and his wife sailed for London, July 10, 1635, in
a small North Sea bark named the Batcheler. A month
later they left London in the same little ship bound fdr
Boston. The Batcheler was very small; there were only
twelve men and two women on board, and these two
women were Gardiner's wife, Mary Wilemson, and her
maid, Eliza Coles. The voyage was rough and stormy
and lasted nearly three months and a half. When they
arrived in Boston on November 28, the snow was knee-
deep, and the winter set in so cold and forbidding that
there was some delay in carrying out the plans for the
new colony. As Lieutenant Gardiner was an " expert
engineer," the people of Boston were glad to take ad
vantage of his stay with them to employ him in finishing
some fortifications for them on Fort Hill.
In the spring he sailed once more on the little Batch
eler for the mouth of the Connecticut River, where
it had been decided to build the new fort and plant the
new colony. This place was selected partly because
of its good harbor, and partly because a fort here
would command the entrance to this "Long, Fresh,
Rich River."
The "Lords and Gentlemen" who planned this un
dertaking included Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke,

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 61
John Pym, and other well-known men in the Puritan
party. They were opposed to the Government in Eng
land both in politics and religion, and at one time, when
matters went strongly against their party, some of them
expected to come to America, It is said that Oliver
Cromwell, afterward Lord Protector of England, and
John Hampden, his cousin, were among this number.
It is at least true that Lieutenant Gardiner was ordered
to construct " within the fort " houses suitable for " men
of quality " and to erect " some convenient buildings for
the receipt of gentlemen." The place was named Say
brook for Lord Saye and Sele and for Lord Brooke. It
was not a colony of merchants like the New Haven Col
ony, nor of farmers like the Connecticut Colony; it was
a military post, and it was planned as a refuge in the
New World for influential men in public life in England
who might be forced to leave their own country.
John Winthrop, Jr., who was to be the governor of
the settlement) had sent a ship in November with car
penters and other workmen to take possession of the
place and to begin building, but when Lieutenant Gar
diner arrived at the mouth of the Connecticut in March,
he found that not much had been done — only a few
trees cut down and a few huts put up. He set to work
at once and built a fort " of a kind of timber called * a
read oack,'" and across the neck of land behind the fort
he built a " palisade of whole trees set in the ground."

62 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
The fort was on a point of land running out into the
river just above its mouth. There were salt marshes
around it, and on three sides it was protected by water.
Dutch sailors had first discovered this place and called
it "Kievet's Hook" from the cry of the birds (pee-
wees) whom they heard there. The Dutch themselves
intended to establish a trading-post here, but they were
driven away by the arrival of the English.
The " Lords and Gentlemen " in England had promised
to send Lieutenant Gardiner " three hundred able men"
that spring, to help him; "two hundred to attend for
tification, fifty to till the ground, and fifty to build
houses," but they did not come and he was greatly dis
appointed. George Fenwick, acting as agent of the com
pany, however, arrived to see how matters were pro
gressing at Saybrook. Fenwick was the only one of the
Puritan " gentlemen" who ever came to New England;
for conditions were rapidly changing in English politics,
and their party was soon engaged in a struggle with the
Government that kept all its prominent leaders at home.
But although Lion Gardiner was left without enough
workmen and with few supplies, he made the most of
his resources, and his little fort, built under such diffi
culties, soon became an important place because of the
protection it gave to the planters against the Indians.
He was scarcely established at Saybrook before
trouble broke out with the Pequots, a large and power-

¦^^s ,\- 0

«•"

The Site op Saybrook Fort

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 63
ful tribe of Indians. There were wrongs and misunder
standings on both sides, and at last the Pequots mur
dered Captain Stone, a Virginia trader, in his boat on
the Connecticut River, and most of the party with him.
Not long after this John Oldham, a Massachusetts trader,
was killed on Block Island. These and other outrages
led the Massachusetts Colony to demand satisfaction of
the Pequots and the surrender of the murderers. Lieu
tenant Gardiner, in his exposed position, felt that a war
just then would be a mistake, and he sent a protest to
the magistrates of Massachusetts to " entreat them to
rest awhile, till we get more strength here about," he
said, "and provide for it; for I have but twenty-four
in all, men, women, and boys and girls, and not food for
them for two months unless we save our cornfield, which
could not be if it came to war for it is two miles from
our house. I know, if you make war with these Pequots,
myself with these few you will leave at the stake to be
roasted or for hunger to be starved ; for Indian corn is
now twelve shillings per bushel and we have but three
acres planted. War is like a three-footed stool ; want one
foot and down comes all, and these three feet are men,
victuals, and munition ; therefore, seeing in peace we
are like to be famished, what will be done in war?
Wherefore I think it will be best only to fight against
Captain Hunger."
But the Massachusetts people did not take his advice.

64 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
Instead, they sent out an expedition under Captain En
decott, to punish the Pequots. This expedition burnt
the Indian wigwams and cornfields on Block Island,
and also in the Pequot country near the mouth of the
Pequot, or Thames, River; and Captain Endecott and
his soldiers came to Saybrook Fort and made that place
their headquarters, " to my great grief," said Gardiner,
"for you come hither to raise these wasps about my
ears and then you will take wing and flee away."
His prophecy came true, for the expedition returned
to Boston without having accomplished anything except
to enrage the Indians still further and to make the po
sition of the little garrison at the fort more difficult than
ever. Even before this they had found it dangerous to trade
with the Indians. About the time that Gardiner sent
his protest to Massachusetts, a Saybrook man, Thomas
Hurlburt, had a narrow escape from death in the Pequot
country, where he had gone with a trading party, and
he was only saved by the kindness and compassion of
an Indian woman. He stepped into the sachem's wig
wam to inquire about some stolen horses. While he was
there, the Indians having for some reason left him alone
for a moment, the sachem's wife, Wincumbone, came
back and made signs to him secretly that the men were
planning to kill him. " He drew his sword," ran to his
companions, and barely got aboard the boat in time.

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 65
" This caused me," says Lieutenant Gardiner, " to keep
watch and ward, for I saw that they plotted our destruo-
tion." From this time on the fort was almost besieged by
Indians who lay in ambush around it, watching and
waiting for a chance to attack any of the garrison who
might venture out.
One day two men were " beating samp at the Garden
Pales," not far from the fort, when the sentinels called
to them to run in quickly because a number of Pequots
were creeping up to catch them. " I, hearing it," says
Gardiner, " went up to the redoubt and put two cross
bar shot into the two guns that lay above, and levelled
them at the trees in the middle of the limbs and boughs.
The Indians began a long shout, and then the two great
guns went off and divers of them were hurt."
These " two great guns " were two pieces, of three
inches each, by which the fort was defended.
" After this," writes Gardiner, " I immediately took
men and went to our cornfield to gather our corn, ap
pointing others to come with the shallop [the boat] and
fetch it, and I left five lusty men in the strong house I
had built for the defense of the corn. Now, these men,
not regarding the charge I had given them, three of
them went a mile from the house, a-fowling; and hav
ing loaded themselves with fowl, they returned. The
Pequots let them pass first, till they had loaded them-

66 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
selves, but at their return they arose out of their am
bush and shot all three; one of them escaped through
the corn, shot through the leg, the other two they tor
mented," An equally cruel fate befell a trader named Tilly,
who was taken alive by the Indians and tortured. Tilly
came from Massachusetts Bay and was going up the
river to Hartford. When he landed at Saybrook, as all
travelers were obliged to do, he saw a paper nailed up
over the fort gate with orders that no boat going up
the river should stop anywhere between Saybrook and
Wethersfield. These orders were put up by Lieutenant
Gardiner because a boat with three men well armed in
it had lately been captured by the river Indians. Tilly,
however, refused to obey, and quarreled with Gardiner.
" I wish you, and also charge you," said Gardiner to
him in reply, " to observe that which you have read at
the gate ; 't is my duty to God and my masters which is
the ground of this, had you but eyes to see it; but you
will not till you feel it." Tilly went up the river safely,
obeying orders ; but coming down, when he was about
three miles above Saybrook, he went ashore with only
one man and carelessly fired off his gun. The Indians,
hearing it, came up, captured him, and carried him
away. Gardiner called the spot where this happened
" Tilly's Folly."
It was a winter of great responsibility and danger

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 67
for Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, and all his courage and
good sense were needed to carry him safely through it.
Once he was himself wounded by Indian arrows and
nearly lost his life. On the 22d of February, he " went
out with ten men and three dogs, half a mile from the
house, to burn the weeds, leaves, and reeds upon the
neck of land " behind the fort, when, suddenly, four In
dians " started up out of the fiery reeds," and the senti
nels he had set to watch called to him that a great many
more were coming from " the other side of the marsh."
The Indians attacked his party, killed three or four
men, and tried to get between the rest and the fort and
cut off their return. " They kept us in a half-moon,"
says Gardiner, " we retreating and exchanging many a
shot . . . defending ourselves with our naked swords,
or else they had taken us all alive. ... I was shot with
many arrows, but my buff coat preserved me, only one
hurt me." The English soldiers of those days wore back
and breast pieces of steel over their buff coats. A few
days later, the Indians, believing Gardiner dead, came
again and surrounded the fort, and, as the old record
says, " made many proud challenges and dared the Eng
lish out to fight," but Gardiner ordered the " two great
guns " set off once more, and the Indians disappeared.
Finding the fort at Saybrook so well defended, the
Pequots fell upon the settlement at Wethersfield, killed
a number of men working in the fields, and carried off

68 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
two young girls. Flushed with this success, they pad
dled down the river in their canoes and when they
passed the Saybrook fort they set up poles, like masts,
in the canoes and, by way of bravado, hung upon them
the clothes of the Englishmen whom they had murdered.
The men in the fort fired on the canoes, but the distance
was too great. One shot just grazed the bow of the
boat in which were the two young English girls. The
Indians passed safely and carried their captives with
them to the Pequot country.
The Connecticut men now determined to put a stop
to the depredations of the Pequots. It was a serious
undertaking, for there were only about two hundred
and fifty Englishmen in all Connecticut at this time,
and there were several hundred Pequot warriors. Help
was asked from the colonies in Massachusetts, and,
meanwhile, about ninety men were collected from the
three settlements of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Wind
sor and sent down to Saybrook under the command of
Captain John Mason. A number of friendly Indians
also went with them, and chief among these was Uncas,
sachem of the Mohegans.
While this expedition was at Saybrook, taking coun
sel with Lieutenant Lion Gardiner and making ready,
a Dutch boat put in at the fort on its way to trade in
the Pequot country. The officers at the fort were un
willing to let the boat proceed, for there were articles

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 69
on board for trade with the Indians that might be use
ful to the latter in war time, such as kettles, out of which
the Indians could make arrowheads. The Dutch, how
ever, promised that if they were allowed to go on they
would do all in their power to obtain the release of the
two captive English girls. So they were given permis
sion and they sailed for the Pequot River. There the
master of the boat went ashore and offered to trade with
the Indians.
" What do you want in return for your goods ? "
asked the Pequot sachem.
" The two English maids," answered the Dutchman.
But the sachem would not consent. After a time,
however, the Dutch captain succeeded in enticing sev
eral of the principal Indians on board his boat, and,
having secured them there as hostages, he called to the
others on shore that if they wanted their men returned
they must bring the two young girls. " If not," said he,
"we set sail and will turn all your Indians overboard
in the main ocean so soon as ever we come out." The
Pequots refused to believe him until the boat was actu
ally under way and sailing down the river; then at last
they yielded, gave up the two English girls, and re
ceived the seven Indians in return.
These two poor little girls reached Saybrook in a sad
condition, worn out and frightened. The Dutch sailors
had kindly given them their own linen jackets because

70 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
the girls had lost most of their clothes, and Lieutenant
Gardiner paid ten pounds out of his own purse for their
redemption. The Indians seem, on the whole, to have
treated them well. They were saved from death at first
by the pity and intercession of Wincumbone, the same
chieftain's wife who once before had saved Thomas
Hurlburt. She took care of them, the girls said, and
they told how " the Indians carried them from place to
place and showed them their forts and curious wigwams
and houses, and encouraged them to be merry." But
they could not be very merry, and the elder, who was
sixteen, said that she slipped " behind the rocks and
under the trees " as often as she could to pray God to
send them help. The Dutch governor was so much in
terested in their story that he sent for the girls to come
to New Amsterdam (later New York) , that he might
see them and hear them tell of their adventures. At
last, after all these journeyings, they were sent back
safely to their homes in Wethersfield.
Soon after this. Captain Mason and his company set
out from Saybrook on their expedition against the Pe
quots. After burning the Indian fort at Mystic, in which
many women and children lost their lives, and killing
several hundred Pequot warriors, they returned victo
rious. They reached the bank of the Connecticut oppo
site Saybrook at sunset, too late to cross the river that
night, but they were welcomed by a salute from the

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 71
guns of the fort; " being nobly entertained by Lieuten
ant Gardiner with many great guns," as Captain Mason
expressed it. The destruction of the Pequots relieved
Saybrook Fort from danger and secured the safety of
the colonists in Connecticut ; there was never again any
serious trouble with the Indians. But the story is a
cruel one, and we can only forgive it when we remem
ber that the settlers felt that their own lives, and the
lives of their wives and little children, were in constant
danger from the attacks of the savages.
When the four years of his contract were ended, in
the summer of 1639, Lieutenant Lion Gardiner left
Saybrook Fort, which he had defended so bravely, and
went to live on an island he had bought from the Indi
ans. This island, still known as " Gardiner's Island," is
at the end of Long Island and must have been very re
mote in those days, and far from any white neighbors.
But Gardiner was on the best of terms with the Long
Island Indians, and between him and their sachem, Wai-
andance, there was a true and generous friendship,
founded on mutual respect and trust, which lasted
throughout their lives. When Waiandance died, in 1658,
Gardiner wrote, " My friend and brother is gone, who
will now do the like ? " It is a noble record of friend
ship between a white man and an Indian.
About the time that Lieutenant Gardiner left the
fort, George Fenwick, who had come to Saybrook once

72 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
before, in 1636, came again and brought his wife. Lady
Fenwick. She was Alice Apsley, the widow of Sir John
Boteler, and was called "Lady" by courtesy. They
lived in Saybrook for a number of years. An old letter
of that time says that " Master Fenwick and the Lady
Boteler [his wife] and Master Higginson, their chap
lain, were living in a fair house, and well fortified." In
1644, Fenwick, as agent, sold Saybrook to the Con
necticut Colony. The next year Lady Fenwick died and
was buried within the fort. Her tomb can be seen to
day in the old cemetery on Saybrook Point, to which it
was removed in 1870.
Although when the Pequot War was over Saybrook
was no longer exposed to constant attacks from the In
dians, yet, for a woman brought up as Lady Fenwick had
been, in ease and comfort, life there must have been full
of hardship. But she made no complaint. All that we
know of her is good and charming. She loved flowers
and fruits and had her gardens and her pet rabbits.
She brought with her some red Devon cattle which she
gave to Mr. Whitfield in Guilford. She has left behind
her a memory of gentleness and kindness that still clings
to the story of the rough, little pioneer fort, set in the
midst of the salt marshes and surrounded by savage
neighbors : —
" And ever this wave-washed shore
Shall be linked with her tomb and fame,
And blend with the wind and the billowy roar
The music of her name."

THE FORT ON THE RIVER 73
One more fact deserves to be remembered in connec
tion with Saybrook. Yale College was organized there
in 1701 as the " Collegiate School " of the Connecticut
Colony, and was not removed to New Haven until six
teen years later. Its site in Saybrook is marked now by
a granite boulder with a tablet and inscription. About
half a mile west of this monument are two old millstones
which are said to have been in use in the gristmill be
longing to the first little fort at Saybrook, the " Port on
the River," which was built and defended by the " Brave
Lieutenant Lion Gardiner."

SiGNATUBB AND SeAL OF LlON GAEDIHEB

REFERENCES
Winthrop, John, History of New England. Edited by James
Savage. Boston, 1825.
Gardiner, Curtiss C. " Papers and Biography of Lion Gardi
ner," in Hon Gardiner and his Descendants. A. Whipple,
St. Louis, 1890,
Orr, Charles. History of the Pequot War. (Accounts of Mason,
Underbill, Vincent and Gardiner.) The Helman-Taylor Co,
Cleveland, 1897.
Newton, Arthur Percival, The Colonizing Activities of the
English Puritans. Yale University Press. New Haven, 1914,
Saybrook Quadrimillenial. November 27, 1885, Hartford,
1886.

THE FROGS OF WINDHAM
ONCE, in the days of Indian attacks on the small
English settlements in Connecticut, a family of chil
dren had a narrow escape from capture by the savages.
A party of Indians on the warpath passed near their
home while their father and elder brothers were away
working in the fields with the neighbors. It was the
custom in those dangerous times for men to work to
gether in companies, going from one man's fields and
meadows to another's, and for greater safety they car
ried their firearms with them. They stacked the guns on
the edge of the field with a sentinel to watch them and
keep a lookout for possible Indians. Sometimes it was a
boy who did this sentry duty, standing on a stump like
a sentry in a box.
There was no one left at home that day but a girl
fourteen years old and her four younger brothers. The
mother had died not long before and the little sister was
caring for the family. All unconscious that any In
dians were near, she went down to the spring for water.
As she lifted the full pail she caught sight of a dark,
painted face peering at her from a thicket on the edge
of the clearing. She dropped the pail at once and ran as
fast as she could to the house, calling to the boys to run

THE FROGS OF WINDHAM 76
in too and help her close the heavy door. Doors were pro
tected then by a thick wooden bar across them on the
inside. The children hurried in and, working together,
they got the bar in position before the Indians reached
the house. But the two halves of the door yielded a
little, just enough to let the edge of a tomahawk through,
which hacked away at the wooden bar while the chil
dren stood watching, paralyzed with fear. Fortunately
their own cries as they ran toward the house had reached
the men in the fields, who dropped their scythes, seized
their guns, and drove off the Indians. But the bar was
half cut through before help reached the terrified chil
dren. Stories like this one, and others with less happy end
ings, are common, not only in the written history of
Connecticut, but in the unwritten traditions of Connec
ticut families. Whenever there was trouble with the
Indians the settlers were exposed to these dangers. In
the long wars between France and England for the
possession of America, the Indians were often allies of
the French, and then the English settlements suffered
greatly from their attacks.
In 1754, not long before the beginning of the last
" French-and-Indian War " (1756-63), there were sev
eral reasons why the people of Windham, in the north
eastern part of Connecticut, were especially afraid of a
surprise and attack by the Indians. Their town was on

76 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
the border of the colony and less protected than some
other places, and they also feared that they had lately
given offense to the Indians by planning a new town
on what was known as the " Wyoming territory " (in
the present State of Pennsylvania). These lands were
still held by the Indians, but Connecticut claimed them
under her patent, and although the Windham people
intended to pay the Indians fairly for them they were
not sure that the Indians would not resent being forced
to sell and be hostile to them in consequence.
News soon reached them that war had begun in the
Ohio country beyond the Susquehannah, and that an
expedition against the French had gone there from Vir
ginia imder the command of a young officer named
George Washington. They heard this name then for
the first time and with indifference, of course, not know
ing that it belonged to a man who would become very
famous later, and be honored as no other man in Amer
ica has ever been honored; but they understood at once
that war-time was no time in which to plant a new town.
The company which had been formed for the purchase
of the Susquehannah lands, and which included such
well-known men as Colonel Eliphalet Dyer and Jede
diah Elderkin, therefore put off the undertaking until
peace should come again.
Meanwhile, people in Windham grew anxious about
their own safety. If the Indians were in truth offended,

1^M

THE FROGS OF WINDHAM 77
would not the French now encourage them to take their
revenge ? That dread of the cruel savages, which was
continually in the minds of all Connecticut settlers in
those early days, increased in Windham as rumors
reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among
the Indians. On the spring and summer evenings of
that year breathless tales were told about Indian at
tacks: old tales which, like the one at the beginning of
this story, had been handed down from earher days in
Connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the
borders of the northern settlements in Maine and New
Hampshire. The children hstened as long as they were
allowed and then went to bed trembling, seeing fierce
painted faces and threatening feather headdresses in
every dark shadow. Older people asked each other what
would happen when the men were called out to serve
in the army and the women and children were left help
less at home.
While the town was in this tense state of anxiety,
those of its inhabitants who lived near Windham Green
were awakened out of the'ir sleep, one warm June night,
by strange and unaccountable noises. " There began to
be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air, and it grew
louder and louder and seemed to be like drums beat
ing." A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first.
The night was still and black, and clouds hung low over
the hot hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but

78 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
there was no lightning and no storm coming. He stopped
and listened, and the sounds grew stranger and wilder.
Perhaps it was witches, or devils; perhaps the Judg
ment Day was at hand ! Terror seized him and he ran
home breathless and awoke his master.
By this time others, too, were awake; windows flew
open and heads were pushed out, and everybody asked,
"What is it? What is it?" Some hurried out half-
dressed, and frightened women and crying children
gathered on the Green; they could not see one anothers'
white faces in the darkness. The beating of drums drew
nearer and nearer. " It is the French and Indians com
ing," cried the men; but no one could tell from which
direction the enemy was advancing; the dreadful noise
seemed to come from all sides at once, even from over
head in the sky.
By and by they thought they could distinguish words
in the uproar. Deep bass voices thundered, "We'll
have Colonel Dyer ; we '11 have Colonel Dyer," and
shrill high ones answered, "Elderkin, too; Elderkin,
too." As these were the names of the two lawyers in
Windham who had been most prominently connected
with the Wyoming plan, — the "Susquehannah Pur
chase " as it was called, ^ — every one was sure that a
band of Indians bent on revenge was approaching, and
hearts beat fast in fear.
All night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming

THE FROGS OF WINDHAM 79
nearer, sometimes dying away in the distance, and all
night long the people of Windham waited in dread and
awful expectation. At last, toward daybreak, the dark
clouds slowly lifted and with the first light in the east
the sounds ceased. In the gray, early morning men
looked at each other and then crept silently back, each
to his own home. When the sun rose, clear and bright,
and no French and no Indians had appeared, Windham
regained its courage, and before the morning was over
an explanation had been found of the strange noises of
the night.
The frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or
some terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. Dead
and dying frogs lay on the ground all about the pond,
and their gurgles and croaks and clamor had made all
the trouble and excitement. The story was soon told all
over Connecticut, and everybody laughed, and ballads
and songs were written about it, to the great mortifica
tion of the people of Windham. Yet the danger that
explained the terror of that night was a real one in the
history of many a Connecticut town, and therefore the
Frogs of Windham have their legitimate place in Con
necticut's story.

80 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT

REFERENCES
1. Larned, Ellen. History of Windham County. Worcester, 1874.
2. Barber, J. W. Connecticut Historical Collections. J. W. Barber.
New Haven, 1836.
3. Todd, Charles Burr. In Olde Connecticut. The Grafton Press,
New York, 1906.
4. Sylvester, Herbert Milton. Indian Wars of New England.
W. B. Clarke Co. Boston, 1910.

OLD WOLF PUTNAM
ONE day, long ago, some boys were out bird-nesting.
They saw a nest they wanted high up in a tree
and far out on a limb, in a hard position to reach. One
of the boldest of them climbed the tree to try to get it,
but a branch broke with him and he fell. A lower pro
jecting limb caught his clothes, and he hung there head
down, arms and legs dangling helplessly. He could not
climb back and he could not drop down, because he
could not get free.
The other boys below looked up, terrified, for the limb
was high above ground; they could not reach him, and
they did not know what to do. One of them carried a
gun, and Israel, — that was the name of the boy who had
climbed the tree, — catching sight of the gun as he
swung in the air, cried out, " Shoot ! Shoot the branch
off near the trunk ! "
The boy with the gun was afraid and hesitated.
Israel's position grew more and more uncomfortable
and dangerous.
"Shoot, I tell you!" he cried again. " Shoot 1 I'll
take the risk,"
The boy lifted the gun with shaking hands, took aim,
and fired. The branch cracked off and down came Israel

82 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
with it, head first; but as he fell he managed to grasp
another bough with his hands, hold by it, and swing
safely to the ground. The next day he went back alone,
climbed that tree again, and brought home the nest.
This is a story told of Israel Putnam, afterward
major-general in the American army in the Revolu
tionary War, and it shows the qualities of courage and
perseverance, invention and quick decision, which
made him useful to his country when he grew to be a
man. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, January 7,
1718, and most of his boyhood was spent there. It is
said that the first time he went to Boston as a little awk
ward country lad, some city boys made fun of him.
Israel stood this as long as he could, then he suddenly
challenged a bigger boy than himself, fought him, and
beat him, to the great amusement of a crowd of spectators.
After that the boys let him alone. He was strong and
vigorous and loved all kinds of outdoor sports. Before
he was grown he could do a man's full day's work in
the fields and was very proud of it. When he was twenty-
two years old he moved with his wife and baby son to
Pomfret, Connecticut, bought a farm there, and cast in
his lot with the people of this state, so that he is a son
of Connecticut by adoption.
He worked hard in his new home, and in a few years
he was in a fair way to be rich and prosperous. It was

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 83
at this time that the incident happened that gave him his
nickname of " Wolf Putnam."
Just across the narrow valley from his farm there was
a steep hillside, and among its rocks a wolf had her den.
She was old and wary, and did a lot of damage in the
neighborhood by killing sheep and lambs. Traps were
set to catch her and the farmers often tried to shoot her,
but she always got away safely.
In the winter of 1743, she destroyed many of Israel
Putnam's fine flock and he was greatly exasperated and
made a plan with five other men to hunt her regularly,
by twos in turn, until she was found and killed. She
had once been nearly caught in a trap, and had only got
out by leaving the claws of one foot behind her, so that
her trail was easy to distinguish on the snow, one foot
being shorter than the other, and making a different
mark. One night they followed her all night long, and in
the morning traced her back to her den in the hillside
and made sure of its exact location. Then all day long
they worked hard, trying to get her out. They burned
straw and brimstone in the entrance of the cave, hoping
to smoke her out; they sent in the dogs, but these came
back wounded and bleeding and refused to go again.
Putnam's own fine bloodhound refused to go in, and
then he decided to try it himself and shoot the wolf in
side the cave, since there was no way of making her
come out. He took off his coat, tied a rope around his

84 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
waist, and with a torch and a gun, crawled in on his hands
and knees as well as he could. Far back in the deep
darkness the blazing eyes of the wolf showed him her
lair. She growled and made ready to spring at him, but
he fired and fortunately killed her with the first shot,
and the men outside dragged him and the wolf out to
gether. Israel Putnam was a young man then and almost
a stranger in the place, but his courage and resourceful
ness that day made him known to the people and gave
him a reputation among them.
In some ways he had been at a disadvantage in Pom-
fret, for the people there, even in those early times,
cared much about education. Soon after the place was set
tled, a library association was formed to provide reading
matter for ^ the families living near. Ten young men
from Pomfret graduated at Yale College in the class of
1759, Now, Israel Putnam's early education had been
neglected. He did not love study, he loved outdoor life,
and there was no schoolhouse near his home in Salem.
He never learned to spell correctly. Some of his letters,
which have been preserved, are almost impossible to
read now, the spelling is so very curious. Later in his
life, when he became a general in the army and was
brought in contact with Washington and other educated
and trained men, he was mortified and much ashamed
of his own lack in this respect. He tried then to dictate
his letters as often as possible so that people should not

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 85
laugh at his ignorance. It made him careful to give his
children a better education than his own.
In 1755, when he was thirty-seven years old, Israel
Putnam entered the Provincial army for service in the
French-and-Indian War, and rose to the rank of colonel
before the war was over in 1764. He went with the Con
necticut troops on several expeditions against the French
forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, on Lake Cham
plain and Lake George. He had plenty of exciting
adventures in this war, and long afterward, in his old
age, he liked to tell them over to his friends and
neighbors at home. Some of the stories have come
down to us.
Once word came to the English camp at Fort Edward
that a wagon train bringing supplies had been plun
dered by a party of French and Indians, and Major
Robert Rogers, with his New England Rangers and a
detachment of Provincial troops, — some of whom were
under Putnam's command, — was sent out to intercept
the enemy on their retreat. These rangers, or scouts,
had been drilled by their famous leader until they almost
equaled the Indians in their own mode of fighting, and
they were of great use in the war. This time they were
too late and the plunderers escaped, but as other par
ties were said to be hovering near, Rogers spent some
days searching for them. He saw no signs of them and
at last turned back toward the fort.

86 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
One morning, contrary to his usual practice, he al
lowed some of his men to fire at a mark for a wager.
This was a dangerous thing to do because they could
never be sure that there were no enemies lurking near.
It happened this time that a large body of French and
Indians were not far off, and, hearing the firing, they
came up quickly and silently through the thick forest
and hid themselves in ambush, Indian fashion, near a
clearing in the woods where the tall trees had been cut
down and a thicket of small underbrush had grown up.
The English were obliged to pass this clearing on their
way home and the only path across it was a narrow one
used by the Indians, who always went through the
woods in single file, one behind another, each stepping
in the footprints of the man ahead of him.
The English were in three companies, the first com
manded by Putnam, the last by Rogers himself. Put
nam and his men had got safely across the clearing and
were just entering the forest again, when suddenly, the
enemy sprang out of their ambush and rushed upon
them. Putnam rallied his men and made the best stand
he could and the other companies hurried to his assist
ance. But in the sharp skirmish that followed, as Put
nam aimed his gun at a large, powerful Indian chief, it
missed fire. The Indian sprang upon him, dragged him
back into the forest, and tied him securely to a tree.
As the fight went on, bullets from both parties began

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 87
to fly past him and to hit the tree, so that for a time he
was in as great danger from his friends as from his ene
mies. When, at last, the French and Indians were re
pulsed, the latter marched Putnam away with them as
their prisoner back to their camp. His arms were tied
tightly behind him, his shoes were taken away so that
his feet were bruised and bleeding, and he was loaded
with so many packs that he could scarcely move. When
he could stand it no longer he begged the savages to
kill him at once. The Indian who had captured him
came up just then and gave him a pair of moccasins,
and made the others loosen his arms and lighten his
load. But when they reached the camping-place a worse
ordeal was before him. His clothes were taken off, he
was tied again to a tree, dry brushwood was piled in a
circle around the tree, fire was set to this, and, as the
flames rose up and the heat grew greater, he felt sure
that his last hour had come. However, word had reached
one of the French officers that the Indians were tortur
ing their prisoner, and he rushed in, scattered the burn
ing brush, and unbound the prisoner.
The Indians who had captured Israel Putnam may
not have intended to kill him, but it was their custom
to torture prisoners taken in war, and both the French
and the English officers often had great difficulty in con
trolling their savage allies,
Putnam was carried to Canada and treated kindly by

88 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
the French, and a few months later he was exchanged
and sent home with some other prisoners.
Once before he had had a narrow escape from the
Indians and only his quick decision and courage saved
him. He was on a river-bank when they crept up be
hind him. Calling to the five men with him, he rushed
for the boat and pushed off downstream toward some
dangerous rapids. The Indians fired and missed him,
and the boat shot down the rapids. It came out safe
below them, — the first boat that had ever done so, —
and the Indians thought it must be under the protection
of their own Great Spirit.
Two years after his unwilling visit to Canada as a
prisoner, Israel Putnam went there again, this time with
the army under the command of General Amherst. The
French-and-Indian War was ending in victory for the
English; Quebec had fallen, but a few other posts still
held out, and this expedition was against Montreal. On
the way there a French ship on Lake Ontario opposed
the progress of the English, and a story is told of Put
nam's original way of overcoming this difficulty.
" Give me some wedges, a beetle [that is, a large
wooden hammer], and a few men of my own choice, and
I '11 take her," he said to General Amherst. He meant
to row under the stern of the ship and wedge her rudder
so that she would be helpless. Whether the plan was
carried out, we do not know, but in the morning she

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 89
had blown ashore and surrendered. Montreal, too, sur
rendered to the English, and in an Indian mission near
there Putnam discovered the Indian who had taken him
prisoner two years before. The chief was delighted to
see him and entertained him in his own stone house.
When he returned to Connecticut at the end of the
war, he found himself a hero and a favorite with every
body. So many people came to see him that at last he
turned his house into an inn, and hung out a sign on a
tree in front of it. That sign is now in the rooms of the
Connecticut Historical Society at Hartford.
The next ten years, until the Revolution, he spent in
peace on his farm. Just before that war began he drove
a flock of sheep all the way to Boston for the people
there who were in distress.
" The old hero, Putnam," says a letter written from
Boston in August, 1774, " arrived in town on Monday
bringing with him 130 sheep from the little parish of
Brooklyn. He cannot get away, he is so much caressed
both by officers and citizens."
The next spring he was ploughing in the field when
a messenger rode by bringing the news of the battle of
Lexington. Putnam left the plough in the furrow in
the care of his young son Daniel, and without stopping
to change his working clothes, set off at once on horse
back for Boston, making a record ride for a heavy man
fifty-seven years old.

90 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
His popularity in Connecticut made men ready to
enlist under him. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought
at Boston in June, and he took part in it. " The brave
old man," says Washington Irving, " rode about in the
heat of the action, with a hanger belted across his
brawny shoulders over a waistcoat without sleeves, in- ,
spiriting his men by his presence, and fighting gallantly ,
at the outposts to cover their retreat."
When Washington arrived at Cambridge to take com
mand of the American army, Israel Putnam received
from him his appointment by the Continental Congress
as major-general. He held this rank through the rest
of his life and fought in many campaigns of the Revo
lution. He was with the army in New York, and at the
battle of Long Island; he was sent by Washington to
Philadelphia to protect that city when it was threatened
by the British, and later, he was put in charge of the
defenses of the Hudson River.
One of his last exploits in the Revolutionary War
was his famous ride down the stone steps at Horseneck,
near Greenwich. The British, under General Tryon,
invaded Connecticut in 1779, and threatened Green
wich, and General Putnam, who was in command there,
after placing his men in the best position for defense,
hurried off alone, on horseback, for Stamford, to bring
up reinforcements. Some British dragoons, catching
sight of him down the road, started in pursuit. They

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 91
were better mounted than he and gained on him stead
ily. Putnam, looking back, saw the distance between
them grow less and less. In a moment more they would.
overtake him ; what should he do ? He was on the top
of the hill near the Episcopal Church, there was a curve
in the road ahead, and a precipice at the side, with some
rough stone steps up which people sometimes climbed
on foot on Sundays, to the church, from the lower road
at the bottom of the hill.
Putnam struck spurs into his horse and dashed around
the curve at full speed. The instant he was out of sight
he wheeled and put his horse over the precipice down
the steep rocks. The dragoons came galloping around
the corner and, not seeing him, stopped short in aston
ishment. Before they discovered him again, he was
halfway down to the lower road. They sent a bullet
after him which went through his beaver hat and he
turned, waved his hand in a gay good-bye, and rode on
to Stamford. It is said that General Tryon afterward
sent him a suit of clothes to make up for the loss of
his hat.
That same year he had a stroke of paralysis which
disabled him so that he could never again take part in
the war. He lived at home in retirement until his death
on May 19, 1790. Perhaps no brave deed in his life was
quite as brave as the cheerful and resolute way he met
this hard blow near its end. He did not die as he would

92 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
have liked, in the roar and thunder of battle; he was
laid^side and the war went on without him. But after
the first bitter disappointment, he regained his courage
and good spirits, and no one heard him complain. Peo
ple gathered about him and his last days were honored
in his own home. When the war ended in 1783, Wash
ington wrote him a letter which he counted as one of
his greatest treasures.
Any number of stories are told of " Old Put," as the
soldiers called him, of his adventures, and his odd hu
mor. It is said that once " a British officer challenged
him to fight [a duel] ; and Putnam, having the choice
of weapons, chose that they should sit together over a
keg of powder to which a slow match was applied. The
officer sat till the match drew near the hole, when he
ran for his life, Putnam calling after him that it was
only a keg of onions with a few grains of powder
sprinkled upon it."
We have several descriptions of his personal appear
ance. He "was of medium height, of a strong, ath
letic figure, and in the time of the Revolutionary War
weighed about two hundred pounds. His hair was dark,
his eyes light blue, and his broad, good-humored face
was marked with deep scars received in his encounters
with French and Indians,"
" Putnam, scored with ancient scars,
The living record of his country's wars,"
as a poet of those days expressed it.

¦'^^ ''^

%i

i "

General Putnam
A drawing from life by John Trumbull

OLD WOLF PUTNAM 93
There were greater generals in the Revolution than
Israel Putnam, men who, partly because they were bet
ter educated, were better fitted than he to plan and carry
out large operations. But he excelled as a pioneer, as
a bold leader, and a brave, independeitt fighter. As a
well-known historian says, " He was brave and gener
ous, rough and ready, thought not of himself in time of
danger, but was ready to serve in any way the good of
the cause. His name has long been a favorite one with
young and old; one of the talismanic names of the
Revolution, the very mention of which is like the sound
of a trumpet." REFERENCES
1, Humphreys, Colonel David. Essay on the Life of the Hon.
Major- General Israel Putnam. Boston, 1818.
2. Livingston, William Garrand. Israel Putnam. Pioneer,
Hanger, and Major- General. G, P, Putnam's Sons, New York
and London, 1901,
3, Tarbox, Increase N. Life of Israel Putnam ("Old Put").
Lockwood, Brooks & Co. Boston, 1876,
4, Fiske, John. " Israel Putnam," in Appleton's Encyclopcedia
of American Biography, Boston, 1891,

THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD
IN the Museum of the New York Historical Society
there is a large flat stone with an inscription cut into
one side of it, and in the other, three deep holes for three
legs of a horse. Lying on a table near it are several large
pieces of heavy metal with the old gilding almost worn
off. One piece looks like the tail of a horse and another
like a part of his saddle. These fragments of metal and
the stone slab are nearly all that is left of a statue of
King George the Third on horseback that stood on
Bowling Green, at the lower end of Broadway in New
York City, before the Revolutionary War.
One evening early in the war a mob gathered on
Bowling Green. Led by the Sons of Liberty and helped
by some of the soldiers, the crowd tore down the king's
statue and broke it into bits. Bonfires were blazing in
the streets and by the light of these ropes were thrown
over the king and his charger and both were pulled down
and dragged through the streets. An entry in Washing- -
ton's Orderly Book at this time, forbidding his soldiers
to take part in anything like a riot, shows that he did
not fully approve of this proceeding. But the people
were very much excited. It was the night of the 9th of
July, 1776, and news of the Declaration of Independ-

THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD 95
ence by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had
just reached New York that afternoon. At evening roll-
call the Declaration was read at the head of each brigade
of the army and " was received with loud huzzas."
Independence was declared in Philadelphia on the 4th
of July, and that day has been kept ever since as the
birthday of the United States, but news traveled so
slowly before the telegraph was invented that it was not
known in New York until Monday, the 9th. Then bells
rang, and as night drew on people lighted bonfires to
show their joy, and not content with this, they hurried
away to Bowling Green and pulled down the statue of
the king and cut off his head. They acted at once on the
statement of the famous Declaration which they had just
heard read to them, that "A prince whose character is
marked by every act that may define a tyrant is unfit to
be the ruler of a free people."
Once off his pedestal, however, the king suddenly be
came valuable and precious to them, for he, as well as
his horse, was made mostly of lead and he could.be melted
down and run into bullets. Lead was dear and scarce,
and bullets were needed in the army. The king's troops
now " will probably have melted majesty fired at them,"
some one wrote in a letter to General Gates. So the
pieces of the statue were carefully saved and most of it
was sent away secretly by ox-cart, so it is said, up into
the Connecticut hills to the home of General Wolcott in

96 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
Litchfield, for safe keeping. The general was returning
there himself about this time from Philadelphia, and per
haps he took charge of its transportation. We shall hear
of it again in Litchfield, for this story, which begins in
New York, ends in Connecticut.
The story should really begin in London, for the statue
was made there. The colonists sent an order for it after
the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. This act had ex
cited great resentment in the colonies because it was an
attempt to tax the people without their consent. When
it was at last repealed, they were overjoyed, and New
York determined to express its renewed loyalty to the
king by erecting a statue of him. The laws of the colony
state that it was set up " as a monument of the deep
sense with which the inhabitants of this colony are im
pressed of the blessing they enjoy under his [King
George's] illustrious reign, as well as their great affec
tion for his royal person."
The statue was of lead, dark, heavy, and dull like the
character of the king it represented, but it was richly
gilded outside and looked, at first, like pure gold. Some
of the pieces in the museum still show the gilduig. It
must have been a brilliant ornament in the little city
when, on August 1, 1770, it was placed on Bowling
Green, facing the Fort Gate. But it did not stand there
very long in peace, for the stormy days of the Revolu
tion were approaching. England continued to impose

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Couite'^y n Ml < hails'^ M. Ln^^eii^, ami of t/tc ^nv York Historical Society
KfNG George the Third
A drawing by Mr. Lefferts from descriptions and
measurements of fragments of tlie statue

THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD 97
taxes and the colonies to resist them, until the discon
tent of the people broke out in many ways. More than
one attempt was made to injure King George's statue
before it was finally torn down on the night of July 9,
1776. If we want to know what the British thought of this
last insult to their king, we shall find out by reading
the journal of Captain John Montresor, an oflEicer in the
British army.
" Hearing," he writes, " that the Rebels [that is, the
Americans] had cut the king's head off the equestrian
statue in the centre of the Ellipps [near the Fort] at
New York, which represented George the 3rd in the
figure of Marcus Aurelius, and that they had cut the
nose off, dipt the laurels that were wreathed round
his head and drove a musket bullet part of the way
thro' his head and otherwise disfigured it, and that it
was carried to Moore's tavern adjoining Fort Washing
ton, on New York Island, in order to be fixt on a spike
on the Truck of that Flag-staff as soon as it could be
got ready, I immediately sent to Cox, who kept the
tavern at Kjug's Bridge, to steal it from thence and to
bury it, which was effected, and was dug up on our ar
rival and I rewarded the men, and sent the Head by
the Lady Gage to Lord Townshend, in order to con
vince them at home of the Infamous Disposition of the
Ungrateful people of this distressed country."

98 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
And there, in London, a year later. Governor Hutch
inson, of Massachusetts, saw it at Lord Townshend's
house in Portman Square. Lady Townshend, he said,
went to a sofa and uncovered a large gilt head which
her husband had received the night before from New
York, and which, although " the nose was wounded and
defaced," he at once recognized by its striking likeness
to the king. We do not know what became of it after
this, or whether it is still in existence.
There were one or two other pieces of this monu
ment which also had eventful histories. The slab, on
which the horse had stood with one foot in the air,
was used as a gravestone for Major John Smith, of
the Forty-second, or Royal Highland, Regiment, who
died in 1783, and later it served for a time as a step
ping-stone in front of a well-known house in New
Jersey. Nearly one hundred years after the Declaration of
Independence the tail of King George's horse was dug
up on a farm in Wilton, Connecticut, and a piece of
his saddle was found there at about the same time.
The tradition in Wilton is that the ox-cart carrying the
broken statue passed through Wilton on its way to
Litchfield, and that the saddle and the tail were thrown
away there. Just why, no one knows ; perhaps the load
was too heavy; possibly — some people think — because
it was found that they were not of pure lead and could

THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD 99
not be used to make bullets. Most of the statue, how
ever, seems to have reached Litchfield safely.
On the beautiful broad South Street of that village,
high in the Connecticut hills, the house of General Wol
cott, afterwards Governor Wolcott, of Connecticut, still
stands under its old trees much as it stood in the sum
mer of 1776.
When the pieces of the leaden statue reached Litch
field, they were buried temporarily in the Wolcott or
chard under an apple tree " of the Pound variety " that
stood near the southeast corner of the house. And then,
sometime later, there came a day when King George,
who had once sat so securely on his solid steed, close to
his fort in his good city of New York, was taken out
of this last hiding-place and, together with his leaden
horse, was melted down and run into bullets to be fired
at his own soldiers.
Bullet-moulds of the time of the Revolution can be
seen now in historical museums. Some of them are
shaped like a large pair of shears. The work of run
ning the bullets that day in Litchfield was done by
women and girls, for the men were away at the war.
The only man who took part in it, besides the gen
eral himself, was Frederick, his ten-year-old son, and
he, many years later, told how he remembered the
event, how a shed was built in the orchard, how his
father chopped up the fragments of the statue with a

100 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
wood-axe, how gay the girls were, his two sisters a lit
tle older than himself and their friends, and what fun
they all had over the whole affair. A ladle, said to
have been used in pouring the lead into the moulds, is
still kept in the Historical Museum at Litchfield, and
among Governor Wolcott's papers is a memorandum
labeled, " Number of cartridges made."

Cartridges

Mrs. Marvin,

6,058

Kuth Marvin,

11,592

Laura,

8^378

Mary Ann,

10,790

Frederick,

936

Mrs, Beach,

1,802

Made by sundry persons,

2,182

Gave Litchfield militia on alarm,

50

Let the Kegiment of Colonel Wigglesworth have,

300

42,088
Mary Ann and Laura were Frederick's sisters, twelve
and fourteen years old. Some of the bullets made, and
which were given to the " Litchfield militia on alarm,"
were probably used the next year to repulse a British
invasion of Connecticut, so that it was said then that
" His Majesty's statue was returned to His Majesty's
troops with the compliments of the men of Connect
icut."

THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD 101

REFERENCES
1, Proceedings of the New York Historical Society. October,
1844,
2. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d Se
ries, vol, 4.
3. Montresor, Captain John. " Journals," Collections of the New
York Historical Society for the year 1881. Printed by the
Society,
4. Kilbourne, Payne Kenyon, Sketches and Chronicles of the
Town of Litchfield, Conn. Case, Lockwood & Co, Hartford,
1859,
5. Wolcott Memorial.

NEWGATE PRISON
" Attend all ye vUlains that live in the state,
Consider the walls that encircle Newgate,"
NEWGATE is the name of a famous prison in Lon
don. It is called " Newgate " because it was first
built, centuries ago, over a new gate in the wall of the
city. Later, when these rooms over the gate became
too crowded, a larger prison was built near by and
called by the same name.
There was once a Newgate prison in Connecticut.
It was named for the old English one, but, instead of
being up over a gate, it was down underground in a
copper-mine. There was no entrance to it except by a
shaft thirty feet deep, and the colonists chose this place
for its security, yet the history of Newgate in Connect
icut is full of tales of the daring and successful escapes
of its prisoners.
Copper Hill, where the prison was, is in what used
to be the town of Simsbury, but is now East Granby.
The copper-mines there were opened early in 1700, and
were worked for about sixty years. The copper is said
to have been of good quality. In 1737-39, coins were
made from it — some say by Dr. Samuel Higley who
owned a mine near his home. These coins were never

NEWGATE PRISON 103
a legal tender, but were used as " token money," be
cause small change was scarce in the colonies. They
are valuable to-day because they are very rare. Granby
coppers have on one side a deer standing, and below
him a hand, a star, and III, and around him the legend,
" Yalue me as you please." On the other side are three
sledgehammers with the royal crown on each hammer,
and around them either the word " Connecticut," or the
legend, " I am a good copper," with the date 1737. A
third kind has one broadaxe and the legend, "I cut
my way through." There is a specimen of each of the
three kinds of Granby coppers in the Connecticut State
Library at Hartford.
The mines were quite successful at first, but, as the
colonists were not allowed to smelt and refine the ore
in America, they were obliged to send it all the way to
England, and this was very expensive. Sometimes, too,
the ships carrying copper did not reach England at all.
One was wrecked in the English Channel and another
was seized by the French during a war with England.
So in 1773, a few years before our Revolutionary War,
the mines were given up and the largest of them was
changed into a prison.
At first there were no buildings at all. There was
nothing but a hole in the ground, closed by an iron
trapdoor that opened into the shaft, where a wooden
ladder was fixed to the rock at one side. At the bottom

104 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
of the ladder there was a flight of rough stone steps
leading farther down into the mine. All was dark and
still except for the dripping of water along the galleries
that led away into the heart of the hill. One cavern was
blasted out to make more room and was fitted with
wooden cells and bunks for the prisoners to sleep in,
and at night a guard was set to watch the entrance up
above and prevent any one from climbing the ladder
and getting out. When everything was ready, the com
mittee in charge of the work reported that it would be
" next to impossible for any one to escape from this
prison." The first prisoner sent there was a man named John
Henson, who was committed on December 22, 1773.
He spent eighteen days alone in the mine; then, on the
night of January 9, 1774, he disappeared. No one could
imagine how he got out. But there was another shaft
leading up from the mine, a very deep one, where the
copper ore had been drawn out. It had no ladder in it
and its opening had not been closed, because it did not
seem possible for a prisoner to escape that way. Yet a
woman drew John Henson up eighty feet through the
shaft in a bucket used for hoisting copper. After that,
this shaft, too, was carefully closed and a strong wooden
guardhouse was built over the entrance to the other
one. More prisoners were soon committed to Newgate.

NEWGATE PRISON 105
" Burglars, horse-thieves, and counterfeiters," accord
ing to the law, were sent there and they were set to
work mining copper, but instead of doing this, they dug
their way out with the mining tools; so workshops were
built aboveground where they made nails, boots and
shoes, wagons, and other things. They slept in the mine
as before, but at daylight they were called and came up
the ladder in squads of three at a time under a guard,
climbing as well as they could with fetters on their
legs. They took their meals in the workshops and were
chained to the forges and workbenches until late in the
afternoon, when they went down again into the mine
for the night.
When the Revolutionary War began, in 1775, politi
cal prisoners were sent to Newgate in Connecticut, just
as such prisoners had often been sent to old Newgate
in England. These men in America were the Tories, or
Loyalists, who sympathized with the British and were
often found giving them information and help. To pro
tect themselves the Americans arrested them. Some of
the first were sent by Washington from the camp at
Cambridge where the American army was besieging
Boston. Here is a part of his letter to the Committee of Safety
at Simsbury; its date shows that it was written several
months before the Declaration of Independence by the
Continental Congress in Philadelphia: —

106 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
Cambridge, December 7th, 1775.
Gentlemen :
The prisoners which will be delivered to you with this,
having been tried by a court martial, were sentenced to
Simsbury in Connecticut. You will therefore have them
secured so that they cannot possibly make their escape.
I am, etc. George Washington.
But the Tories were just as anxious as any other pris
oners to escape if they could. Three times the wooden
guardhouse over the entrance was set on fire and burned
down. Once, when there were a great many Tories in
Newgate, they made a concerted plan and carried it out
successfully. The wife of one of them had permission
to visit him, and came to the prison one night about ten
o'clock. Only two guards were on duty then at the
mouth of the shaft. When the trapdoor was lifted for
her, the prisoners were all ready and waiting on the
ladder. They rushed out, overpowered the two men,
took away their muskets, and got possession of the
guardroom. The rest of the watch, who had been asleep,
hurried in, and there was a desperate fight; one man was
killed and several were wounded. At last the prisoners
succeeded in putting all the guards down into the mine
and closing the trapdoor upon them. Then they escaped
themselves, and few of them were ever retaken.

NEWGATE PRISON 107
A story is told of a Tory prisoner who, about the year
1780, made his escape in a remarkable and unexpected
way. There was an old drain in the mine which had once
carried off water, but when the mine became a prison
it was stopped up with stone and mortar, except for a
small opening where the water still ran off between iron
bars. The outlet of this drain was far down on the hill
side beyond the sight of the guards. The prisoner,
Henry Wooster, who worked in the nail-shop, contrived
to hide some bits of iron nail rods in his clothes and
carry them back with him into the mine. He learned,
with their help, to take off his fetters at night. Then,
with the same bits of iron, he worked at the bars of the
drain until, little by little, he loosened some of them and
took them out so that he could crawl through into the
drain. But the drain was too narrow in some places to
let him pass, and he was obliged to loosen and remove
some of its stones. This was a long and hard task, but
he was not easily discouraged. Each night he took off
his clothes and his fetters, crawled into the drain, and
worked until morning. Then he replaced the iron bars,
dressed, put on his fetters, and was ready when the
guards came down to go up to the shops with the rest
of the prisoners. By and by he got nearly to the end of
the drain. Then one night, while he was down there, a
stone, which he had accidentally loosened, fell behind
him and blocked his way back. He could not turn to

108 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
reach the stone with his hands, for the drain was too
narrow, he could not stir it with his feet, and he dared
not cry out for help; time passed, and it was almost
morning; he would be called and missed, and he shud
dered to think of the consequences. At last, as he was
about to give up in despair, he felt the stone move just
a little. Bracing himself against the sides of the drain,
he pushed it vigorously with his feet. Slowly, inch by
inch, it rolled back until it fell into a slight depression
so that he could pass over it. Bleeding and exhausted,
he got to his bunk and into his clothes and fetters again
just as the guards came down the ladder. A few nights
later he finished his work and, with several other pris
oners, escaped through the drain.
Some of the Tories in Newgate were well-known and
educated men. One was a clergyman named Simeon
Baxter. He preached a sermon, one Sunday, to his com
panions in the mine, in which he advised them, if they
could, to assassinate Washington and the whole Con
tinental Congress. This sermon was printed afterward
in London and proves how bitter the feeling was in those
days between the Americans and the Tories.
After the Revolution, Newgate was the state prison
of the State of Connecticut until 1827. New workshops
and other buildings were added from time to time as
they were needed. The wooden guardhouse was re
placed by one of brick, and a strong stone room over

NEWGATE PRISON 109
the mouth of the shaft went by the nickname of the
" stone jug." There was a chapel and a hospital, but the
hospital was seldom used because there was very little
sickness. The pure air and even temperature in the
mine, where it was never too hot in summer nor too cold
in winter, kept the prisoners well in spite of darkness
and confinement, and men who were sent there in a bad
state of health often recovered.
At one time there was a strong wooden fence, with
iron spikes on its top, around the enclosure, but in 1802
it was replaced by a stone wall twelve feet high, with
watch-towers at the corners and a moat below it. Some
of the prisoners helped to build this wall, and when it
was finished they were allowed to take part in a cele
bration. One of them, an Irishman, gave this toast at the
feast : " May the great wall be like the wall of Jericho
and tumble down at the sound of a ram's horn."
But the wall is still standing on Copper Hill after
more than one hundred years and, although the prison
is empty and the mines deserted to-day, a great many
people visit the place every year because of its interest
ing history. Guides take the visitors down the steep
ladder in the shaft and lead them through the under
ground galleries where copper was mined, and show
them the caverns where the prisoners once slept in old
Newgate Prison.

110 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT

REFERENCES
1. Trumbull, J. H. (editor). Memorial History of Hartford County.
E. L. Osgood, Boston, 1886.
2. " Newgate of Connecticut." Magazine of American History,
vol. 15, April, 1886. See also vol. 10.
3. Phelps, Richard H. Newgate of Connecticut. American Pub
lishing Co, Hartford, 1876.

THE DARK DAY
" 'T was on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night." Whittier.
YELLOW Friday," or " the Dark Day," in New
England, was the 19th of May, 1780. For nearly
a week before this day the air had been full of smoke
and haze, and the sun at noontime and the full moon at
night had looked like great red Hballs in the misty sky.
Thursday night the sun went down red and threat
ening. Friday morning it rose as usual, but, as the weather
was overcast, it only peered now and then through the
broken gray clouds. There were mutterings of thunder
and a few drops of rain fell, big and heavy with black
soot. Then the shower stopped and a stillness like that
before a great storm settled over the land. The day,
instead of growing lighter, grew darker and darker.
Yet no storm came.
Strange colors edged the low-hanging clouds, red
and brown and a brassy yellow, while the fields and
woods below were a deep, unnatural green. The white
roads and houses and the white church steeples turned

112 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
yellow. Even the clean silver in the houses looked like
brass. These colors foreboded an eclipse of the sun ; yet
there was no eclipse.
By noon it was as dark as early night, and the birds
sang their evening songs and disappeared. Some of
the smaller ones, frightened and fiuttering, fiew into the
houses or dashed themselves against the window panes.
Chickens went to roost, the cows came home from pas
ture, and the frogs croaked in the ponds.
Men planting corn in the fields stopped work because
they could not see the corn as it dropped. Women at
home lighted candles to find their way about the house.
No one could see the time of day by the clocks, and
white paper looked like black velvet. Many people were
terrifie(J and wondered what was coming. Some expected
a great tornado; others said a comet was due and feared
it portended some great calamity, perhaps a disaster to
the armies in the field who were fighting England in
the war of the Revolution. Still others, more ignorant
and superstitious, were sure that the end of the world
had come, that the last trumpet would soon sound and
the dead be raised. One woman sent a messenger in
haste to her pastor to ask what this dreadful darkness
meant, but he only rephed that he was " as much in the
dark " as she.
Several gentlemen, who happened to be at the house
of Reverend Manasseh Cutler, the minister in Ipswich,

THE DARK DAY 113
Massachusetts, have left us a record of their observa
tions that day.
Mr. Cutler wrote in his journal : —
" This morning Mr, Lathrop of Boston called upon
me. Soon after he came in I observed a remarkable cloud
coming up and it appeared dark. The cloud was un
usually brassy with little or no rain. Mr. Sewell and
Colonel Wigglesworth came in. The darkness increased
and by eleven o'clock it was so dark as to make it
necessary to light candles ... at half -past eleven in a
room with three large windows, southeast and south,
could not read a word in large print close to windows.
. . . About twelve it lighted up a little, then grew
more dark. ... At one o'clock very dark. . . . The
windows being still open, a candle cast a shade so
well defined on the wall that profiles were taken with
as much ease as they could have been in the night.
. . . We dined about two, the windows all open and
two candles burning on the table. In the time of the
greatest darkness some of the dunghill fowls went to
roost, cocks crowed in answer to one another, wood
cocks, which are night birds, whistled as they do only
in the dark, frogs peeped, in short there was the ap
pearance of midnight at noonday. . . . At four o'clock
it grew more light. , . . Between three and four we
were out and perceived a strong sooty smell. Some of
the company were confident a chimney in the neighbor-

114 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
hood must be burning; others conjectured the smell was
more like that of burnt leaves."
These gentlemen went over to the' tavern near by
and found the people there greatly excited and tried to
reassure them. They proved to them from the black
ashes of leaves, which had settled like a scum on the
rainwater standing in tubs, that the darkness was not
supernatural, but probably came from the burning of
forests far away.
Dr. Ezra Stiles, who was then president of Yale Col-
lege in New Haven, gave the same explanation. He
says : —
" The woods about Ticonderoga [in New York] and
eastward over to New Hampshire and westward into
New York and the Jerseys were all on fire for a week
before this Darkness and the smoke in the wilderness
almost to suffocation. No rain since last fall, the woods
excessively dry. . . . Such a profusion of settlers push
ing back into the wilderness were everywhere clearing
land and burning brush. This set the forests afire far
beyond intention, so as to burn houses and fences. . . .
The woods burned extensively for a week before the
nineteenth of May and the wind all the while northerly."
A quaint old ballad, said to have been written about
that time, gives a description of this Dark Day : —

?iO
O O1-1
o

THE DARK DAY 115
«' The Whip-poor-will sung notes most shrill,
Doves to their cots retreated,
And all the fowls, excepting owls,
Upon their roosts were seated.
" The herds and flocks stood still as stocks,
Or to their folds were hieing.
Men young and old, dared not to scold
At wives and children crying.
" The day of doom, most thought was come,
Throughout New England's borders,
The people scared, felt unprepared
To obey the dreadful orders.''
In Connecticut the legislature was in session at Hart
ford. It was like night in the streets of this city and
candles were burning in the windows of all the houses.
Men grew anxious and uneasy. As the darkness became
deeper, the House of Representatives adjourned, finding
it impossible to transact any business. Soon after, a sim
ilar motion for adjournment was made in the Senate, or
Council, as it was then called. By this time faces could
scarcely be distinguished across the room and a dread
had fallen on the assembly; "men's hearts failing them
for fear and for looking after those things which were
coming." Then up rose Honorable Abraham Davenport, a judge
of Fairfield County and councilor from Stamford, a stern
and upright man, strict in the discharge of his duty.
" I am against adjournment," he said. " The Day of
Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not,

116 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, I choose to
be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles
may be brought."
His strong words held the assembly. Its members
rallied from their fears and, following his example,
turned steadily to the transaction of the necessary busi
ness of the hour.
" And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face half seen
Against a background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass
That simple duty hath no place for fear."
Whittiek.
REFERENCES
1. Barber, J. W, Connecticut Historical Collections. J. W. Bar
ber, New Haven, 1836.
2. "7%e Hark Hay." New England Magazine, May, 1834.
3. Dexter, F. B. (editor). The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles.
Charles Scribner's Sons. New York, 1901.
4, Cutler, W. P. and J. P. Life, Journals, and Corre^ondence of
Hev. Manasseh Cutler. Cincinnati, 1888.

A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT
ON the Green of the old town of Lebanon a mound
is shown to-day on the spot where a large brick
oven stood in the winter of 1781 — an oven in which
bread was baked for the soldiers of the American Revo
lutionary Army. These soldiers, who might have been
seen almost any day that winter in their gay uniforms,
crossing and recrossing the Green, or gathered in groups
about the oven, were, strangely enough, not American
soldiers, but French hussars belonging to the Duke de
Lauzun's famous " Legion of Horse."
France, being herself at war with England, had re
cently sent an army to America to help the colonies in
their struggle against a common enemy, and the French
commander-in-chief, the Count de Rochambeau, wrote
from Newport, Rhode Island, to Governor Trumbull,
of Connecticut, asking if the governor could provide
winter quarters in Lebanon for a part of his forces —
for the Duke de Lauzun and some of his Legion of
Horse. Governor Trumbull's home was in Lebanon. His house
was near the village Green, and close beside it stood his
store, which, by this time, had become famous under

118 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
the name of the " War Ofllce," because in this store the
governor and the Council of Safety used to meet and
talk over the important business of the war, and what
Connecticut could do, as her share, to help the Ameri
can army.
There is a story that Washington used to say when
he needed more supplies, " Let us see what Brother
Jonathan can do for us," and that this nickname, which
is now used for the United States, belonged originally
to Jonathan Trumbull. It is true that Washington often
turned to him for help. He had approved the application
of the Count de Rochambeau to Governor Trumbull for
winter quarters for the French troops. But long before
the arrival of these soldiers there had been busy times in
Lebanon. Provisions of all kinds were brought from all
over the state to the governor's store to be packed and
sent off to the troops in the field. The governor was usu
ally to be found there himself, weighing and measuring,
packing boxes and barrels, dealing out powder and lead,
starting off trains of loaded wagons and often large herds
of cattle to be driven all the way to the army at the front.
Messengers came and went, flying on horseback along
the country roads, and sometimes they sat on the coun
ter in the store, swinging their spurred boots, waiting
for the governor to give them their orders. A piece of
that counter, with the marks of their spurs in the soft
wood, can be seen now in the rooms of the Connecticut

A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT 119
Historical Society in Hartford. Although there were
dark days during the war when the state's treasury was
exhausted and the people discouraged and the demands
of the army hard to meet, yet
" Governor Trumbull never quailed
In his store on Lebanon hiU."
Somehow or other the supplies were found and little
Connecticut became known as the "Provision State."
Washington spoke of her governor as "the first of
patriots." This is one of Governor Trumbull's proclama
tions to the men of Connecticut : —
" Be roused and alarmed to stand forth in our glori
ous cause. Join yourselves to one of the companies now
ordered to New York, or form yourselves into distinct
companies and choose captains forthwith; . . . march
on ; play the man for God and for the cities of our God,
and may the God of the armies of Israel be your leader."
Lebanon was then on one of the main roads through
New England, and many distinguished men stopped
there at different times to see the governor. Washing
ton came, and Lafayette, the young French nobleman
whom Washington loved almost as a son, and who is,
perhaps, " nearer to the hearts of the Americans than
any man not of their own people." Lafayette holds this
place in their affections because, before the French
Government decided to send help to the colonies, he
" came from France of his own accord and brought with

120 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
him the sympathy of the French people," among whom
also new ideas of liberty were stirring.
" From the moment I first heard of America," he said,
"I began to love her; from the moment I understood
that she was struggling for her liberties, I burned to
shed my best blood in her cause."
Lafayette's countrymen, who spent the winter of 1781
in Lebanon, were the gallant soldiers of France. Their
leader, the Duke de Lauzun, was a gay French noble
man, very handsome, very fond of good living, brilliant
and witty as well as brave ; nobody like him or his men
had ever been seen before in Lebanon. The people of
that quiet little town opened their eyes in surprise when
the dashing French hussars, in their tall black caps and
their brilliantly braided jackets, came galloping in over
the muddy country roads. Governor Trumbull had made
provision for them. Barracks were built for some on a
farm which he owned just outside the town, and others
camped on the village Green.
With their arrival life in Lebanon changed. At day
break the French bugles blew the reveille. There were
parades and reviews, there were balls and parties.
Washington held a review of Lauzun's Legion when
he passed through the place one day in March. The
corps was finely equipped. Its horses were good, its
men brave and handsome, and their uniforms vivid and
trim. The hussars wore sky-blue jackets braided with

The Marquis of Lapatette
This statue was presented to Franco by the School Children of the
United States

A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT 121
white, yellow breeches, high boots, and tall caps with a
white plume at the side. They made a great impression
on the country people, who had seen their own men,
dressed in homespun clothes, mount their rough farm-
horses and ride away, just as they were, to the war.
The duke himself was friendly and pleasant and popu
lar with his new neighbors. He lived in a house lent
him by David Trumbull, the governor's son.
Once, early in the winter, two distinguished visitors
from the French army came to see him, the Marquis de
Chastellux, who wrote a book of " Travels in North
America," and the Baron de Montesquieu; and he gave
a dinner for them to which he invited Governor Trum
bull. In the marquis's book we can read a description
of it and of Governor Trumbull as he appeared to these
French gentlemen from the Old World.
" On returning from the chase," says de Chastellux
(he had been out hunting squirrels), "I dined at the
Duke de Lauzun's with Governor Trumbull. This good
methodical governor is seventy years old. His whole
life is consecrated to business, which he passionately
loves, whether it is important or not. He has all the
simplicity and pedantry of a great magistrate of a small
republic, and invariably says he will consider, that he
must refer to his council. He wears the antique dress
of the first settlers in this colony." Then the marquis
goes on to tell how the small old man, in his single-

122 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
breasted, drab-colored coat, tight knee-breeches, and
muslin wrist-ruffles, walked up to the table where twenty
hussar officers were waiting and with " formal stiffness
pronounced in a loud voice a long prayer in the form
of a Benedicite." The French officers must have been
surprised; they were not used to simple country man
ners and to grace before meat on all occasions, but they
were too polite and too well trained to laugh. " Twenty
amens issued at once from the midst of forty mousr
taches," says the marquis, and in spite of the fun he
makes of the old Puritan governor's stiff manners, we
feel in reading the story that he fully appreciates his
sterling good qualities.
Some of these pleasure-loving French gentlemen met
a strange and sad fate, years later, in the terrible days
of the French Revolution. The Duke de Lauzun was
beheaded in Paris in 1793, his long and adventurous
life " ended with a little spurt of blood under the knife
of the guillotine"; and Lafayette spent five years in an
Austrian prison.
There is another story of old Lebanon which is con
nected with the visit of the French soldiers. The French
commander-in-chief, the Count de Rochambeau, had
given to Madam Faith Trumbull, the governor's wife,
a beautiful scarlet cloak, and one Sabbath day she ap
peared in the governor's pew in the Lebanon meeting
house wearing the French general's handsome gift. Now,

A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT 123
in those hard times contributions for the army were often
collected after service on Sundays, and the people not
only gave money, but whatever else they could spare,
Indian corn, flax, wood, shoes and stockings, hats and
coats. Quietly the governor's wife rose in her seat and,
taking the scarlet cloak from her shoulders, carried it
down to the front and laid it with the other gifts. Later,
it was cut into narrow bands and used to make red
stripes on the soldiers' uniforms.
All that is left of those stirring times in Lebanon to
day is the little " War Office," — restored and kept as
a memorial of the Revolution, — and the mound on the
Green where the brick oven stood in which bread was
baked for the French soldiers who fought for American
independence. REFERENCES
1, Stuart, I. W, Life of Jonathan Trumbull. Crocker & Brewster.
Boston, 1859.
2, The Lebanon War Offlce. Published by the Connecticut So
ciety of the Sons of the Revolution. Hartford, 1891.
3. Lodge, Henry Cabot. "Address at the Unveiling of the Statue
of the Count de Rochambeau," in A Fighting Frigate and
other Essays. D. Appleton & Co. New York, 1902.
4. Chastellux, Marquis de. Travels in North America. London,
1787.

NATHAN HALE
" To drum-beat and heart-beat
A soldier marches by ;
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye.
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die,"
THE story of Nathan Hale is the story of a short life
and a brave death. Connecticut has written his
name on her Roll of Honor — the name of a man who
was executed as a spy in the War of the Revolution.
He was born in Coventry, Tolland County, on the
6th of June, 1755. His father. Deacon Richard Hale,
who, as well as his mother, Elizabeth Strong, was de
scended from the earliest settlers of Massachusetts, had
moved to Coventry, Connecticut, and had bought a large
farm there. The children were brought up strictly, as
they were in all New England families in those days,
and no doubt there was plenty of hard work for them
on the farm, but, as there were ten or twelve of them,
we may be sure there was plenty of play, too.
It is said that Nathan was not a strong child at first,
bilt grew vigorous with outdoor life ; that " he was fond
of running, leaping, wrestling, firing at a mark, throw
ing, lifting, playing ball," and used to tell the girls of
Coventry he could do anything but spin. Stories told of

NATHAN HALE 125
him say that when he was older he could " put a hand
on a fence as high as his head and clear it easily at a
bound"; and that the marks of " a leap which he made
upon the Green in New Haven were long preserved
and pointed out." One of his comrades in the army
wrote of him, " His bodily agility was remarkable. I
have seen him follow a football and kick it over the
tops of the trees in the Bowery at New York (an ex
ercise which he was fond of)."
But he was fond of study, as well as of play, and he
must have done well at the Coventry School, for his
parents determined to send him to college. He was
fitted for Yale by the minister in Coventry, as there
were then no preparatory schools such as we have now.
When he was fourteen he entered Yale College at
New Haven with his brother Enoch, who was a year
and a half older than he. They were known in college
as Hale Primus and Hale Secundus.
At Yale Nathan studied well and took a good stand.
He became, too, one of the most popular men in his
class. He made many friends, and their letters to him
show us how much they loved and admired him. At one
time he was president, or " chancellor " as it was called,
of the Linonia Debating Society; at another he was its
secretary, or " scribe," and the minutes which he kept
then can be seen now, in his own handwriting, in the
Yale Library.

126 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
He was nearly six feet tall, broad-shouldered, with
blue eyes and brown hair, a pleasant voice, and a man
ner that was both attractive and dignified. A gentleman
in New Haven who knew him well said of him, " That
man is a diamond of the first water and calculated to
excel in any station he assumes."
After he graduated in 1773, he taught school for a
few months in East Haddam. The country schools were
very simple in those days. There were few books ; a
Psalter and a spelling-book were the most important
ones used. There were no blackboards, and the teacher
set " copies " on paper, and read out the " sums " in
arithmetic, and often the whole school studied aloud.
One of Nathan Hale's pupils in East Haddam, who lived
to be an old lady, said of him as a teacher, " Everybody
loved him, he was so sprightly, intelligent, and kind,
and withal so handsome."
He was soon offered a better position in New Lon
don as the master of a new school in which he was ex
pected to teach Latin as well as English. He wrote in
one of his letters from New London: —
" I am happily situated here. I love my employment
and find many friends among strangers, I have a school
of thirty-two boys, half Latin, the rest English. In ad
dition to this I have kept, during the summer, a morn
ing school, between the hours of five and seven, of about
twenty young ladies."^

NATHAN HALE 127
The schoolhouses in East Haddam and New London
where Nathan Hale taught have been restored and are
kept now as memorials of him.
While he was teaching in New London the war with
England broke out. There was great excitement when
the news came of the battle of Lexington (April 19,
1775), and a public meeting was held at which he is re
ported to have said, "Let us march immediately and
never lay down our arms until we obtain our independ
ence." He could not march immediately himself, for he
was teaching school, but when summer came he entered
the army as a lieutenant, and was soon made a captain.
In September he went with some of the Connecticut
troops to join Washington's army which was besieging
Boston. The American flag was not adopted until the
next year, and as the colors appointed for his regi
ment, the Seventh Connecticut, were blue, they marched
away from New London under a blue banner. His
camp-basket, a powder-horn made by him, and his
army diary are still in existence, and can be seen in
the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society in
Hartford. Here are some of the entries in his diary that fall and
winter : —
" Friday 29th (Sept.) — Marched for Cambridge.
Arrived 3 o'clock, and encamped on the foot of Winter
Hill.

128 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
" Sat. 30th — Considerable firing upon Roxbury side
in the forenoon.
" October 9th, Monday — Morning clear and pleasant
but cold. Exercised men 5 o'clock, one hour.
" Sabbath, 22d — Mounted picket guard. Had charge
of the advance picket.
" Monday 6th (November) — It is of the utmost im
portance that an officer should be anxious [to know his
duty, but of greater that he should carefully perform
what he does know.
"Tuesday, 7th — Left picket 10 o'clock. ... Rain
pretty hard most of the day. Studied the best method of
forming a regiment for a review, manner of arranging
the companies, also of marching round the reviewing
officer. " A man ought never to lose a moment's time. If he
put off a thing from one minute to the next his reluc
tance is but increased.
" Wednesday, 8th — Cleaned my gun, played some
football and some checkers.
"22d, Friday — Some shot from the enemy.
" Feb. 14, 1776, Wednesday — Last night a party of
Regulars made an attempt upon Dorchester. . . . The
Guard house was set on fire but extinguished."
During this time many of the soldiers became dis
couraged with the hard work and poor food and pay,
and we learn from his diary that Captain Hale offered

NATHAN HALE 129
to give the men in his company his own pay if they
would stay on for a month longer. The diary and all his
letters are full of courage and hopefulness.
In March, the British army, which had been shut up
so long in Boston unable to get away by land, took
ship and sailed for HaUf ax. Washington believed the
next point of attack would be New York and he moved
his army there to protect the city. So Hale's regiment
marched back to New London and embarked in trans
ports for New York. The last six months of his short
life were passed in and near New York.
The spring was spent in fortifying the city, and in
June Captain Hale wrote to his brother Enoch, " The
army is every day improving in discipline and it is hoped
will soon be strong enough to meet the enemy at any
kind of play. My company, which was small at first, is
increased to eighty, and a sergeant is recruiting, who
I hope has got the other ten which completes the com
pany." When the Declaration of Independence was pro
claimed, the soldiers received the hews with great en
thusiasm, and felt that they had at last an independent
country of their own to fight for and, if need be, to die
for. The British army arrived and encamped on Staten
Island. It was a finely equipped force of twenty-five
thousand men with a fieet of ships to support it, and

130 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
was in every respect better and stronger than the half-
trained militia that made up most of the American army.
The battle of Long Island, late in the summer, ended in
a defeat for the Americans, and Washington's skillful
retreat at night across the East River from Long Island
to New York was all that prevented a greater disaster.
Many of the men in Captain Hale's company had been
recruited along the Connecticut shores, and there is no
doubt that these sailors under his command were very
useful that night in getting the troops safely back to
New York.
After this the condition of things became very seri
ous, for the British had got possession of Brooklyn
Heights, which commanded the city over East River,
and they might cross at any time and attack it. Wash
ington ordered companies of rangers, or scouts, to be
formed to keep a sharp watch on the enemy's move
ments, and Captain Hale accepted an appointment in
this body of picked men. It was commanded by Colonel
Knowlton, who was also a Connecticut man and had
been a ranger himself in the old French-and-Indian
War. He was a brave officer, and when he lay dying
in the battle of Harlem Heights he said, " I do uot value
my life if we do but get the day." Captain Hale must
have been glad to serve under such a leader.
Meanwhile, Washington had moved the greater part
of his army outside New York to avoid being shut up

NATHAN HALE 131
in the city as the British had been in Boston, and was
anxiously expecting an attack. But none came, and his
suspense grew greater and greater as time passed and he
got no information as to what would happen. " Every
thing depends on obtaining intelligence of the enemy's
motions," he wrote to his officers, " I was never more
uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge," and
he begged them to send some one into the enemy's
camp in disguise to find out what their plans were, and
when and where they would attack.
It was not easy to get any one to go, for it meant be
ing a spy. Spies are necessary in all wars because the
commanding general must have information about the
enemy's movements. But soldiers hate a spy, who comes
into their camp as a friend when he is really an enemy,
and honorable men do not like to do this. It is usually
done by men who care most of all for the money it
brings. The service, too, is so dangerous that the gen
eral may not command it, he may only accept it when
it is volunteered. If a spy is caught within the enemy's
lines no mercy is shown him ; his trial is swift and his
death certain; in those days the penalty was hanging.
This time a man of intelligence was needed and
Colonel Knowlton explained the matter to some of his
officers. One of them is said to have replied: "I am
willing to be shot, but not to be hung." But there was
another who looked at it differently, and this was Cap-

132 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
tain Nathan Hale. It seemed to him that if his country
called it was his duty to go, at the sacrifice, if neces
sary, of both his honor and his life. And the more he
thought of it the more sure he was that it is the motive
with which a deed is done that makes it good or evil,
and that a service which his country demanded could
not be dishonorable.
He asked advice from his friends, especially from
Captain William Hull, of his old regiment, who had
also been one of his fellow students at college. Captain
Hull urged him strongly not to do it. He reminded him
how men feel about a spy and told him, too, that it was
doubtful if, with his frank, open character, he could
ever succeed in deceiving people and pretending to be
what he was not. He begged him for the sake of his
family and his friends to give it up because it might end
for him in a disgraceful death.
Captain Hale replied, " I am fully sensible of the con
sequences of discovery and capture in such a situation.
But for a year I have been in the army and have not
rendered any material service while receiving a com
pensation for which I make no return. Yet I am not
influenced by the hope of promotion or reward. I wish
to be useful, and every kind of service necessary to the
public good becomes honorable by being necessary.
But," he added, taking his friend's hand affectionately,
" I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands."

NATHAN HALE 133
He decided to go, and left the American camp the
second week in September. He was to cross to Long
Island and approach the British position from the rear,
and he was to go as a schoolmaster looking for employ
ment, which was the best disguise he could assume as
he had once been a schoolmaster and might easily pass
for one again. Just what his orders and instructions
were we do not know, as the service was a secret one.
His faithful sergeant, Stephen Hempstead, of New
London, went with him part of the way. On account
of British ships cruising in the East River and in the
Sound, they were obliged to go as far as Norwalk, Con
necticut, before it was safe to cross. Hempstead teUs
us that at Norwalk Captain Hale changed his uniform
for a plain suit of citizen's brown clothes, with a round,
broad-brimmed hat, took off his silver shoe-buckles, and
left all his papers behind except his college diploma,
which he thought might be useful. Then he said good
bye to Hempstead, telling him to wait for him there,
and an armed sloop commanded by Captain Pond —
probably Charles Pond, of Milford, a fellow officer in
Hale's regiment — carried him over to Huntington on
Long Island.
Hempstead waited, but Captain Hale never returned.
The next news his friends received was the news of his
capture and execution as a spy in the British camp.
I We shall probably never know just what happened

134 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
after he left Huntington, what adventures he met with
or what narrow escapes he had. About the time that he
crossed the Sound, Sir William Howe, the British gen
eral, moved over to New York and took possession of
the city, and Washington's suspense ended. Perhape
Captain Hale did not learn of this until it was too late
to return, or, perhaps, knowing it, he chose to go on
and finish the work he had begun and take back infor
mation of the new position of the enemy.
We know that he passed safely all through the Brit
ish camps, both on Long Island and in New York, that
he did his work thoroughly and well, made plans and
drawings of the new fortifications in the city, and was
only arrested on the last night, when the work was done
and he was ready to return. Just where he was when
he was captured we do not know. From the new line
of intrenchments made by the British across the city
he could have looked northward over to the American
camp on Harlem Heights, scarcely a mile away, and
could almost have seen the tents of his own company
of rangers. Perhaps he made a quick dash for freedom
across this short mile and was seized then. Or, perhaps,
in the excitement of a great fire which raged all through
the lower part of New York City on that day, he may
have got safely back to Long Island and have been ar
rested as he tried to pass the sentries on the outposts.
An old tradition says that he had gone as far as Hunt-

NATHAN HALE 135
ington and was taken there. We cannot tell. But just
as the difficult task was over, the sudden disappoint
ment came.
The papers and drawings found on him told the story
only too plainly, and he was carried before Sir William
Howe. -..When he was questioned he at once gave his
name, his rank in the American army, and his reasons
for coming inside the British fines. No trial was neces
sary, and General Howe immediately signed the war
rant for his execution on the next morning, Sunday,
September 22, at eleven o'clock.
He was handed over to the provost marshal, William
Cunningham, a coarse and brutal man who has left a
shocking record of cruelty to his prisoners. Hale asked
if he might have a minister with him, but Cunningham
refused. Then he asked for a Bible, but that, too, was
forbidden. How he spent the night we cannot tell; part
of it, no doubt, in prayer, for that was the habit of his life.
He could not want to die. He was young and strong,
just twenty-one, hardly more than a boy, and life was
all before him. He had friends who loved him; he was
engaged to be married; he had every prospect of suc
cess and happiness. But he had deliberately counted
the cost before he undertook the dangerous service, and
the training of all his life, at home, at college, and in the
army, had taught him not only to do and to dare, but,
what is better still, to accept defeat bravely. ^

136 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
The next morning, while the last fatal preparations
were being made, an aide-de-camp of General Howe's,
a brave officer of Engineers who was stationed near the
place, asked that the prisoner be allowed to wait in his
tent. "Captain Hale entered," he says; "he was calm
and bore himself with gentle dignity in the conscious
ness of rectitude and high intentions. He asked for
writing materials, which I furnished him ; he wrote two
letters, one to his mother, and one to a brother officer."
These letters Cunningham destroyed, saying that
"the rebels should never know they had a man who
could die with so much firmness."
There were few people present at his death. When
he reached the foot of the tree where the sentence was
to be executed, he was asked if he had anything to say,
any confession to make. He told again who he was and
why he came, and added quietly, " I only regret that I
have but one life to lose for my country." Then the
noose was adjusted, and the cruel end came quickly.
These last words of Nathan Hale have been repeated
again and again since that time. They have been cut in
bronze and in marble, they have been taught in our
schools. They are noble words, because they are simple
and brave and unselfish. He could have had no idea that
they would ever be heard beyond the little group of
people about him when he died, but it so happened that
General Howe had occasion to send a letter to Wash-

Coin-iesii 0/ Mr. Giiorifi: D. Seymour
Nathan Hale
This statue stands in front of old Connecticut Hall, Yale
University. Nathan Hale's room was in this building

NATHAN HALE 137
ington late that evening about an exchange of prison
ers, and the bearer of the letter was Captain Montresor,
the officer in whose tent Nathan Hale had spent the last
hour of his life. Inside the American lines Montresor
met Captain Hull, Hale's intimate friend, the man who
had warned Hale so earnestly of the fate that might be
his. To him Montresor told the tragic story of that
morning and repeated the words that have since become
famous. Years afterward a monument was put up in Coventry
to the memory of Captain Nathan Hale. There are
several statues of him in different places; there is a
fountain with his name upon it in Norwalk where he
crossed the Sound, and another at Huntington, Long
Island; there is an old fort named for him on the shore
of New Haven Harbor; but the memorial which comes
closest to our hearts is the little stone in the old Coven
try graveyard, set there in memory of him by his own
family. This is the inscription cut into it: —
" Durable stone preserve the monumental record.
Nathan Hale, Esq., a Capt. in the army of the
United States, who v^as born June 6th, 1755,
and received the first honors of Yale College,
Sept., 1773, resigned his life a sacrifice to his
Country's liberty at New York, Sept. 22d,
1776. Etatis22d,"

138 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
CAPTURE AND DEATH OF NATHAN HALE
By an unknown poet of 1776
The breezes went steadily thro' the tall pines,
A-saying " ob, hu-sh I " a-saying " oh, hu-sh ! "
As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse,
For Hale in the bush ; for Hale in the bush.
" Keep still 1 " said the thrush as she nestled her young,
In a nest by the road ; in a nest by the road ;
" For the tyrants are near, and with them appear,
What bodes us no good j what bodes us no good."
The brave captain heard it, and thought of his home,
In a cot by the brook ; in a cot by the brook.
With mother and sister and memories dear,
He so gayly forsook ; he so gayly forsook.
Cooling shades of the night were coming apace,
The tattoo had beat ; the tattoo had beat.
The noble one sprang from his dark hiding-place,
To make his retreat ; to make his retreat.
He warily trod on the dry rustling leaves,
As he pass'd thro' the wood ; as he pass'd thro' the wood ;
And silently gain'd his rude launch on the shore,
As she play'd with the flood ; as she play'd with the flood.
The guard of the camp, on that dark, dreary night.
Had a murderous will ; had a murderous will.
They took him and bore him afar from the shore.
To a hut on the hiU ; to a hut on the hill.
No mother was there, nor a friend who could cheer,
In that little stone cell ; in that little stone cell.
But he trusted in love, from his father above.
In his heart all was well ; in his heart all was well.

NATHAN HALE 139
An ominous owl with his solemn bass voice,
Sat moaning hard by ; sat moaning hard by.
" The tyrant's proud minions most gladly rejoice,
For he must soon die ; for he must soon die."
The brave fellow told them, no thing he restrain'd.
The cruel gen'ral ; the cruel gen'ral ;
His errand from camp, of the ends to be gain'd,
And said that was all ; and said that was all.
They took him and bound him ai^d bore him away,
Down the hill's grassy side ; down the hill's grassy side.
'T was there the base hirelings in royal array,
His cause did deride ; his cause did deride.
Five minutes were given, short moments, no more,
For him to repent ; for him to repent ;
He pray'd for his mother, he ask'd not another;
To Heaven he went ; to Heaven he went.
The faith of a martyr, the tragedy shew'd.
As he trod the last stage ; as he trod the last stage.
And Britons will shudder at gaUant Hale's blood,
As his words do presage ; as his words do presage.
" Thou pale king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe,
Go frighten the slave ; go frighten the slave ;
Tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe.
No f eais for the brave ; no fears for the brave,"

140 ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT

REFERENCES
1. Johnston, Henry Phelps, Nathan Hale, 1776 — Biography
and Memorials. Yale University Press. New Haven, 1914,
2. Stuart, I. W. Life of Captain Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy
of the American Eevolution. F. A. Brown, Hartford, 1856.
3. Hull, General WiUiam, Military and Civil lAfe. D. Appleton
&Co, New York, 1848,
4 Hale, Enoch, Hiary. (In Appendix to an address delivered
at Groton, Connecticut, September 7, 1881, by E. E, Hale,)
5. Hempstead, Stephen, "RecoUections." Missouri Republican,
January 18, 1827.
6. Bostwick, Elisha. Pension Papers, in Hartford Courant, De
cember 15, 1914.

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