New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony was an English colony on what is now the territory of the US state of Connecticut in the United States , which existed between 1637 and 1662.
history
Quinnipiac Colony
The Puritan pastor John Davenport led his band of religious refugees from the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637. The group arrived aboard the Hector in Boston , Massachusetts on June 26, but decided to set up their own colony because the Massachusetts Bay Colony seemed too negligent in its religious customs.
That fall, Theophilus Eaton , who was one of Davenport's followers, found himself on the north bank of Long Island Sound in search of a suitable location in the south . He bought land from the Indians at the mouth of the Quinnipiac River . The Davenport group left the following spring of 1638 and reached New Haven on April 14 on the banks of the Connecticut River. The location seemed ideal as a port for trade between Boston and Nieuw Amsterdam , but also to be able to access the furs in the Connecticut River valley . The colony could be used as a settlement and religious experiment, but failed as a trading post after a few years.
In 1639 the colonists, influenced by similar procedures in the river cities, agreed on a number of fundamental laws for their self-government ( English Fundamental Orders of Connecticut ). A Ruling Council (Engl. Governing council ) of Seven was founded, (Engl. Eaton as chief magistrate chief magistrate ) and belonged to Davenport as a pastor. Furthermore, the new laws dictated that "... the word of God shall be the only rule ..." , while on the tradition of the English common law (Engl. Common law resorted). Since the Bible gave no evidence of a jury trial, such a trial was abandoned and the council was allowed to pass judgment. Only members of the parish were eligible to vote.
United Colonies of New England Confederation
The colony's success soon attracted other believers as well as non-puritans. Due to the influx of new settlers, the colony expanded over the neighboring cities, which were then also referred to as "plantations". As the original parts of the Confederation, Milford and Guilford in 1639 and Stamford and Southold in 1640 were incorporated across Long Island Sound south to the North Fork of Long Island . The thus enclosed area took on the name "The United Colonies of New England".
In 1643, Branford was the last of the official "plantations" to join the New Haven Confederation . The colonists leaned against Massachusetts in establishing their government, but remained strict followers of Puritan discipline.
New Jersey, Philadelphia and the Pacific Ocean
After the purchase of an area south of Trenton along the Delaware River by the Lenape tribe , the colony asserted claims in 1641 relating to the area that today forms and includes the south of the US state of New Jersey and the city of Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania the newly founded communities Cape May and Salem were. The purchase agreement did not limit the land west of the Delaware, thereby forming the legal basis for Connecticut's "sea-to-sea" claim, which encompassed all of the land on both sides of the Delaware from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean . Fifty families, led by George Lamberton, settled around the mouth of the Schuylkill River in 1642 and established a trading post there now known as Philadelphia. The estates of the Dutch and Swedes already resident there had been burned down; a Swedish court found Lamberton guilty of "trespassing" and "conspiracy with the Indians" .
The New Haven Colony received no support from its patrons in New England or the Puritan Governor John Winthrop , so that the "Delaware Colony" was dissolved again in the summer due to illness and deaths.
The ghost ship
In the first years of its existence, the colony only owned ships that sailed close to the coast. Trade with England was cleared through the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was not until 1645 that the colony built a seaworthy ship of 80 tons, which was under Lamberton's command and disappeared in 1646.
According to legend, exactly one and a half years later, in 1647, a ship's appearance on the horizon was followed by a thunderstorm. Those standing on the bank said they recognized their friends on deck; then it appeared that the ship's masts were breaking, the passengers were thrown into the sea and the ship capsized. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow created the subject matter in the poem The Phantom Ship :
- A ship sailed from New Haven,
- And the keen and frosty airs,
- That filled her sails at parting,
- Were heavy with good men's prayers.
- “O Lord! if it be thy pleasure "-
- Thus prayed the old divine--
- "To bury our friends in the ocean,
- Take them, for they are thine! "
- But Master Lamberton muttered,
- And under his breath said he,
- "This ship is so crank and walty
- I fear our grave she will be! "
Asylum for the regicide of Charles I of England
Eaton remained governor of the colony until his death in 1658. He was followed by Francis Newman and in 1660 William Leete .
When Charles II persecuted the judges who had signed the death sentence of Charles I in 1661 , two of those wanted - Colonel Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe - fled to New Haven to hide from the royal troops. Davenport agreed with these so-called royal killers to hide them in the West Rock Heights northwest of the city. A third judge, John Dixwell , joined them after a while.
Increase in the Connecticut Colony
An uncomfortable competition with the Connecticut River settlers, who clustered in Hartford and were denominational - in marked contrast to New Haven - tolerated, ended in 1662 when a royal charter was issued in Connecticut, according to the New Havens cities in 1665 in government the Connecticut Colony . This was the result u. a. a dwindling influence, the loss of Governor Eaton and his special strength, and the economic setbacks in the loss of the only seaworthy ship or the sinking of the Delaware Colony. Not least the fraternization with the British regicide weakened New Haven; its capture by the Connecticut Colony also appears as a punishment by Charles II in this matter.
Newark
A group of New Haven colonists, led by Robert Treat , moved to New Jersey in 1666 to plant a new church. Treat wanted to name this parish after Milford, Connecticut. However, at Abraham Pierson's instigation, it received the name "New Ark", from which "Newark" later developed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edward E. Atwater: History of the Colony of New Haven and its absorption into Connecticut ( Memento of the original of May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , quinnipiac.edu, accessed April 28, 2010
- ↑ 1638 - New Haven - The Independent Colony , colonialwarsct.org, accessed April 28, 2010
- ↑ Lamberton L Archives ( Memento of the original dated December 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , rootsweb.com, accessed April 28, 2010
- ↑ The Phantom Ship , hwlongfellow.org, accessed on 28 April 2010
- ↑ Abraham Resnick: New Jersey Opinion: Where Did This Name Come From? The New York Times , February 25, 1990
