Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/122

 their cattle before them through the pathless forests, and settled on the various rivers, enduring terrible hardships in the first winter, but holding their own through privations which would have daunted any but the stern Pilgrim Fathers, already inured to suffering.

The little town of Windsor was already a thriving community, carrying on a brisk trade with the natives in furs, when, in 1635, John Winthrop, son of the Governor of Massachusetts, arrived from England, bearing a commission as Governor of Connecticut under the patent of Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook, and others, to whom the district had previously been granted. Winthrop's first care was to build a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut, to which he gave the name of Saybrook, in honor of his two noble patrons. The Dutch, who claimed the whole of Connecticut—in right of prior discovery and possession, and, best title of all, purchase from the Indians—had, three years previously, fastened the arms of the States-General to a tree, at a spot they had named Kievit's Hoeck and now dispatched two vessels from the South to maintain their rights.

Before the vessels could arrive, however, the Dutch arms had been torn down, and a hideous, grinning face carved on the tree-trunk in their stead, while the landing-place was defended by two cannon, which were enough, in those primitive days, to scare away a whole party of warriors.

This energetic beginning was followed up by other vigorous proceedings, and so prosperous did the colonies founded by Winthrop become, that a tide of emigration to Connecticut rapidly set in, alike from the mother country and from her dependencies. In the latter end of 1635, thousands of pilgrims arrived from England, and in June, 1636, the whole of the church of Newton, one of the later communities of Massachusetts, led by its ministers, Hooker and Stone, went forth to seek, in the fruitful lands in the South, a freer field for their spiritual growth. The narrative of their journey reads like a chapter of romance. Their cattle were driven before them, and Mrs. Hooker, who was an invalid, was carried in a litter in their midst. The leaders on horseback, the remainder on foot, threaded their way slowly through the vast forests of Massachusetts, and, after a tramp of many weeks, they reached the site of the present town of Hartford, so called after the English home of Stone.

Here a final halt was made. Building and cultivating at once began, and Hartford bid fair soon to rival Windsor in prosperity, when the first low muttering of the storm which was to involve old and new settlements in one