Baptism which they had received in their Infancy, and taking up another Baptism, and so began a Church in that way; but Mr. Williams stopt not there long, for after some time he told the people that had followed him, and joyned with him in a new Baptism, that he was out of the way himself, and had mis-led them, for he did not finde that there was any upon earth that could administer Baptism, and therefore their last Baptism was a nullity, as well as their first; and therefore they must lay down all, and wait for the coming of new Apostles:  and so they dissolved themselves, and turned Seekers, keeping that one Principle, That every one should have liberty to Worship God according to the Light of their own Consciences; but otherwise not owning any Churches or Ordinances of God any where upon Earth.

[1] From Morton’s “New England Memorial,” published at the request of the Commismoners of the Four United Colonies of New England.  Morton lived in the family of Governor Bradford and served as secretary of the court at Plymouth.  This fact should be kept in mind when reading his account.

THE FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT

(1633-1636)

BY ALEXANDER JOHNSTON[1]

During the ten years after 1620, the twin colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay had been fairly shaken down into their places, and had even begun to look around them for opportunities of extension.  It was not possible that the fertile and inviting territory to the southwest should long escape their notice.  In 1629, De Rasieres, an envoy from New Amsterdam, was at Plymouth.  He found the Plymouth people building a shallop for the purpose of obtaining a share in the wampum trade of Narragansett Bay; and he very shrewdly sold them at a bargain enough wampum to supply their needs, for fear they should discover at Narragansett the more profitable peltry trade beyond.  This artifice only put off the evil day.

Within the next three years, several Plymouth men, including Winslow, visited the Connecticut River, “not without profit.”  In April, 1631, a Connecticut Indian visited Governor Winthrop at Boston, asking for settlers, and offering to find them corn and furnish eighty beaver skins a year.  Winthrop declined even to send an exploring party.  In the midsummer of 1633, Winslow went to Boston to propose a joint occupation of the new territory by Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay; but the latter still refused, doubting the profit and the safety of the venture.

Three months later Plymouth undertook the work alone.  A small vessel, under command of William Holmes, was sent around by sea to the mouth of the Connecticut River, with the frame of a trading house and workmen to put it up.  When Holmes had sailed up the river as far as the place where Hartford was afterward built, he found the Dutch already in possession.  For ten years they had been talking of erecting a fort on the Varsche River; but the ominous and repeated appearance of New Englanders in the territory had roused them to action at last.