in the State of Connecticut
JOHN FISK IN 1896 ON THE COLONY OF NEW HAVEN
The overthrow of the Pequots was a cardinal event in the planting of New England. It removed the chief obstacle to the colonization of the Connecticut coast, and brought the inland settlements into such unimpeded communication with those on tide-water as to prepare the way for the formation of the New England confederacy. Its first fruits were seen in the direction taken by the next wave of migration, which ended the Puritan exodus from England to America. About a month after the storming of the palisaded village there arrived in Boston a company of wealthy London Merchants, with their families. The most prominent among them, Theophilus Eaton, was a member of the Company of Massachusetts Bay. Their pastor, was an eloquent preacher and a man of power. He was a graduate of Oxford, and in 1624 had been chosen vicar of St. Stepheb’s Parish in Colman street, London. When he heard that Cotton and Hooker were about to sail for America he sought earnestly to turn them from what he deemed the error of their ways, but instead he soon incurred the special enmity of Laud, so that it became necessary for him to flee to Amsterdam. In 1636 he returned to England, and in concert with Eaton he organized a scheme of emigration that included men from Yorkshire, Hertforshire and Kent. The leaders arrived in Boston in the midst of the Antinomian disputes, and although Davenport won admiration for his skill in battling with heresey, he may perhaps have deemed it preferable to lead his flock to some new spot in the wilderness where such warfare might not be required. The Merchants desired a fine barbour and good commercial situation, and the reports of the men who returned from hunting the Pequots told them of a spot at Quinnipiack on Long Island Sound. Here they could carry out their plan of putting into practice a theocratic ideal even more rigid than that which obtained in Massachusetts, and arrange their civil as well as ecclesiastical affairs in accordance with rules to be obtained from a minute study of the Scriptures.
In the spring of 1638 the the town of New Haven was accordingly founded. The next year a swarm from this new town settled Milford, while another party, freshly arrived from England, made the beginnings of Guilford. In 1640 Stamford was added to the group, and in 1643 the four towns were united into the republic, of New Haven, to which Southold, on Long Island, and Branford were afterwards added. As being a confederation of independent towns, New Haven resembled Connecticut. In other respects the differences between the two reflected the differences between Davenport and Hooker; the latter was what would now be called more radical than Winthrop or Cotton, the former was more conservative. In the New Haven colony none but churcb-members could vote, and this measure at the outset disfranchised more than half the settlers in New Haven town, nearly half in Guilford, and less than one fifth in Milford. This result was practically less democratic than in Massachusetts where it was some time before the disfranchisement attained such dimensions. The power of the clergy reached its extreme point in New Haven, where each of the towns was governed by seven ecclesiastical officers known as "11 pillars of the church." These magistrates served as judges, and trial by jury was dispensed with, because no authority could be found for it in the laws of Moses.
JOHN DAVENPORT
John Davenport was the son of Henry and Winifred (Barneby) Davenport. He had been baptized by Richard Eaton, vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Coventry on Apr 9 1597. In 1622 he became a member of the Virginia Co. of London. In 1624 he was elected as Vicar of St. Stephens on Coleman St. in London, but before he could begin his duties, he was charged with Puritanism by King James I, which he denied. About 1630 Theophilus Eaton (son of Richard Eaton) took over the house vacated by Sir Richard Saltonstall in Swanne Alley (off Coleman St.) He had served as Deputy Gov. of the Eastland Co. at Elbing. The group received a grant of territory from the Council for New England and as "the Gov. and Co. of the Mass. Bay in New England" on March 4 1629 received a charter from the crown.
In Nov. of 1633, Davenport fled to Amsterdam to escape increasing disapproval of the Crown where the group organized their move to the New World. The group included: John and Elizabeth Davenport (left infant son in care of noble lady); Theophilus Eaton, Anne Eaton, dau. of George Lloyd, Bishop of Chester, and widow of Thomas Yale, the second wife of Theophilus Eaton; old Mrs. Eaton, his mother; Samuel and Nathaniel Eaton, his brothers; Mary Eaton, the dau. Of his first wife; Samuel, Theophilus and Hannah, the children of his second wife; Anne, David and Thomas Yale, the children of Anne Eaton by her former marriage; Edward Hopkins, who on Sep. 5, 1631 had married Anne Yale at St. Antholin's in London; and Richard Malbon, a kinsman of Theophilus Eaton. — Also many inhabitants of the parish of St. Stephen and others (probably from the neighborhood, but not members of St. Stephens). — The group chartered the "Hector" of London. On June 26, 1637, John Winthrop recorded the arrival of the group from London at Boston. In Aug. of 1637, Eaton and several others traveled south to view the area around the Long Island Sound. They left members of their party there over the winter to retain possession. Many from the Bay Colony chose to leave for New Haven with Eaton and Davenport: Richard Hull, William Tuttle and William Wilkes of Boston; Anne Higginson and her family, Jarvis Boykin, John Chapman, John Charles, Timothy Ford, Thomas James, Benjamin Ling, John Mosse and Richard Perry of Charlestown; John Benham, Benjamin Fenn, Thomas Jeffrey, Thomas Kimberly, William Preston, Thomas Sandford, Thomas Trowbridge and Zachariah Whitman of Dorchester; John Astwood of Stanstead Abbey, Hertfordshire and Roxbury; Thomas Baker, John Burwell, Jasper Gunn, John Hall, John Peacock, William Potter, Edward Riggs, Thomas Uffot and Joanna and Jacob Sheaffe of Roxbury; Mark Pierce of Newtown; and Nathaniel Turner of Lynn. Another company headed by Peter Pruden was a notable addition to the group. Perhaps the son of Thomas Prudden of King's Walden, Hertfordshire and a kinsman of William Thomas of Caerleon, Monmouthshire, Prudden was the minister of the Providence Island Company. In 1637 with fifteen Hertfordshire families — among them Edmund Tapp of Bennington, Hertfordshire, James Prudden, William Fowler, Thomas and Hanah Buckingham, Thomas Welsh, Richard Platt, Henry Stonehill and William East — he left England for Massachusetts and went with Davenport's group to Connecticut in March of 1638.
From the Winthrop Journal of 26 Jun 1637 — "There arrived two ships from London, the Hector and the (blank). In these came Mr. Davenport and another minister, and Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins, two merchants of London, men of fair estate and of great esteem for religion and wisdom in outward affairs." In the Hector came also the Lord Ley, son and heir of the Earl of Marlborough. In Nov. of 1633, Davenport fled to Amsterdam to escape increasing disapproval of the Crown where the group organized their move to the New World. The group included: John and Elizabeth Davenport (left infant son in care of noble lady); Theophilus Eaton, Anne Eaton, dau. of George Lloyd, Bishop of Chester, and widow of Thomas Yale, the second wife of Theophilus Eaton; old Mrs. Eaton, his mother; Samuel and Nathaniel Eaton, his brothers; Mary Eaton, the dau. Of his first wife; Samuel, Theophilus and Hannah, the children of his second wife; Anne, David and Thomas Yale, the children of Anne Eaton by her former marriage; Edward Hopkins, who on Sep. 5, 1631 had married Anne Yale at St. Antholin's in London; and Richard Malbon, a kinsman of Theophilus Eaton. Also many inhabitants of the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman St. Nathaniel Rowe (son of Owen Rowe who intended to follow); William Andrews, Henry Browning, James Clark, Jasper Crane, Jeremy Dixon, Nicholas Elsey, Francis Hall, Robert Hill, William Ives, Geo. Smith, George Ward and Lawrence Ward. Others (probably from the neighborhood, but not members of St. Stephens): Edward Bannister, Richard Beach, Richard Beckley, John Brockett, John Budd, Ezekiel Cheever, John Cooper, Arthur Halbidge, Mathew Hitchcock, Andrew Hull, Andrew Low, Andrew Messenger, Mathew Moulthrop, Francis Newman, Robert Newman, Richard Osborn, Edward Patteson, John Reader, William Thorp and Samuel Whitehead.
1638 John Davenport Bibliography