settlement, she continued to promulgate her doctrines with the utmost ardor. Her sons, openly arraigning the justice of her banishment, were seized and thrown into prison. To fly beyond the reach of persecution, the whole family passed over into the territory of the Dutch, at the time when Kieft, the governor, had aroused by his rashness and cruelty vindictive reprisals on the part of the Indians. The dwelling of Mrs. Hutchinson was set on fire, and she either perished with her children—except a little granddaughter—amidst the flames, or was murdered by the infuriated savages. This sad event occurred in October, 1643.
A permanent settlement had been formed in the valley of the Connecticut some years before.[1] A large body now prepared to push through the forest to the desired spot where the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield were founded. The expedition was attended with many hardships, being undertaken too late in the year. The cattle perished, provisions failed, and many returned through the snows to the place whence they had set out. Next year a larger body, consisting of the members of the two churches, with their ministers, one of whom was Hooker, made their way through the wilderness, by aid of the compass, driving their cattle before them through the tangled thickets.[2] The Commissioners also sent a party by water to found a port at the mouth of the river which, since Lord Say and Sele, and Lord Brooke, were proprietaries, was called Saybrook. Exposed to trouble in consequence of the jealousy manifested by the Dutch towards the colony, it was besides placed in great
- ↑ The Indian name Connecticoota, signifies "Long River."
- ↑ Mr. Hollister thus pleasantly enlarges upon this eventful journey:—"About the beginning of June, the first soft, warm month of the New England year, Mr. Hooker, with his assistant, Mr. Stone, and followed by about one hundred men, women, and children, set out upon the long contemplated journey. Over mountains, through swamps, across rivers, fording, or upon rafts, with the compass to point out their irregular way, slowly they moved westward; now in the open spaces of the forest, where the sun looked in; now under the shade of the old trees; now struggling through the entanglement of bushes and vines driving their flocks and herds before them—the strong supporting the weak, the old caring for the young, with hearts cheerful as the month, slowly they moved on. Mrs. Hooker was ill, and was borno gently upon a litter. A stately, well-ordered journey it was, for gentlemen of fortune and rank were of the company, and ladies who had been delicately bred, and who had known little of toil or hardship until now. But they endured it with the sweet alacrity that belongs alone to woman, high-toned and gentle, when summoned by a voice whose call can not be resisted, to lay aside the trappings of ease, and to step from a fortune that she once adorned, to a level that her presence ennobles. The howl of the wolf, his stealthy step among the rustling leaves, the sighing of the pines, the roar of the mountain torrent, losing itself in echoes sent back from rock and hill, the smoking ruins of the Indian council-fire all forcing upon the mind the oppressive sense of solitariness and danger, the more dreaded because unseen—all these the wife, the mother, the daughter, encountered, with a calm trust that they should one day see the wilderness blossom as the rose. At the end of about two weeks, they reached the land almost fabulous to them—so long had hope and fancy been shaping to their minds pictures of an ideal loveliness—the valley of the Connecticut It lay at their feet, beneath the shadow of the low-browed hills, that tossed the foliage of their trees in billows, heaving for miles away to the east and west, as the breath of June touched them with life. It lay, holding its silvery river in its embrace, like a strong bow half bent in the hands of the swarthy hunter, who still called himself lord of its rich acres."—Hollister's "History of Connecticut" vol. i., p. 29
