New Haven's Merger with Connecticut Part One

Primarily taken from Atwater’s History of the City of New Haven, 1902 and Levermore’s Republic of New Haven, 1886. (see sources)

New Haven was concerned from the start about losing its independence. In 1640, it appointed Capt. Nathaniel Turner to purchase the territory that is now Stamford, CT from the Indians, in part, to counter the expansion of the Connecticut Colony, centered in Hartford, along the Sound. In the same year, Capt. Turner purchased a large tract of land from the Indians for New Haven’s expansion on what is now the southwest coast of New Jersey on Delaware Bay, as well as land on the eventual site of Philadelphia. However, the venture became a financial disaster for the merchants in New Haven and was eventually abandoned.

The nearby Dutch burned the English trading settlement in 1642 and then the Swedes harassed it. The governor of New Sweden was instructed to “handle tenderly the English families…and to win them to our government by underhanded means,” but he choose a tougher approach and extracted tolls and imprisoned some of the leaders. In a trial, the Swedish court ruled that the Swedes had actually bought the land from the same Indians three days before the English and concluded the English were trespassers. Most of them went back to New Haven.

Under mounting pressures, in 1646, the merchants of New Haven, in an effort to ensure the independence of the colony, sent a ship with a cargo of 5,000 pds. to London to secure an official colonial charter from Parliament, the king having been deposed as a result of the English Civil War. Nathaniel Turner went on the trip but the ship sank in route and Nathaniel died at sea, along with all the others and the cargo was lost. In 1651, about fifty men, largely from New Haven tried to start a plantation in their New Jersey land but the Dutch Governor in New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, imprisoned them and only let them go with the promise that they go immediately back to New Haven. He said if they ever came back he would send them to Holland as prisoners.

In 1660 the Stuart king was restored which did not sit well with New Haven. It was the last colony to recognize him in August 1661. In 1664, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the Duke of York and the subsequent Royal grant to the Duke of York made the Connecticut River the eastern boundary of that colony. Now both New York and Connecticut claimed the land New Haven was located on, putting New Haven in a bad situation. The charter for Connecticut gave it the present boundary with New York. New Haven had bought the land from the Indians and had not sought a grant from the English king because they did not recognize his authority for this transaction.

This lack of title from the English king and the presence of two other colonies with Royal grants claiming their land, meant they would have to go under one of these larger colonies. Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts represented Connecticut in the negotiations and won almost all the claims. New York only got Long Island, also claimed by Connecticut. The last court of New Haven was held on December 13, 1664. They voted, “if thereby it shall appear to our committee that we are by his Majesty’s authority now put under Connecticut patent, we shall submit; as from a necessity brought upon us by the means of Connecticut aforesaid, but with a salve jure of our former right and claim, as a people who have not yet been heard in a point of plea.” (Continued)

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[jollibee's history]

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