14. New settlements were now formed at a distance from the bay. One company of twelve families marched through the woods to some open meadows sixteen miles from Boston, and there founded Concord. Another colony of sixty persons pressed their way westward to the Connecticut River, and became the founders of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield.
15. The banishment of Roger Williams created strife among the people of Massachusetts. The ministers were stern and exacting. Still, the advocates of free opinion multiplied. The clergy, notwithstanding their great influence, felt insecure. Religious debates became the order of the day. Every sermon was reviewed and criticised.
16. Prominent among those who were accused of heresy was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who desired the privilege of speaking at the weekly debates, and was refused. Indignant at this, she became the champion of her sex, and declared that the ministers were no better than Pharisees. She called meetings of her friends, and pleaded with fervor for the freedom of conscience. The doctrines of Williams were reaffirmed with more power and eloquence than ever.
17. The synod of New England convened in August of 1637, and Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends were banished from Massachusetts. A large number of the exiles wended their way toward the home of Roger Williams. Miantonomah, a Narragansett chieftain, made them a gift of the island of Rhode Island; there, in 1641, a little republic was established, in which persecution, for opinion's sake, was forbidden.
Harvard College Founded.
18. In 1636 the general court of the colony passed an act appropriating between one and two thousand dollars to found a college. Newtown was selected as the site of the proposed school. Plymouth and Salem gave gifts to help the enterprise; and from villages in the Connecticut valley came contributions of corn and wampum. In 1638 John Harvard, a minister of Charlestown, died, bequeathing his library and nearly five thousand dollars to the school. To perpetuate his memory, the new institution was named Harvard College. At the same time the name of Newtown was changed to Cambridge.
19. The PRINTING-PRESS came also. In 1638 Stephen Daye, an English printer, arrived at Boston, and in the following year set up a press at Cambridge. The first American publication was an almanac for New England, bearing date of 1639. During the next year, Thomas Welde and John Eliot, two ministers of Roxbury, and Richard Mather, of Dorchester, translated the Hebrew Psalms into English verse. This was the first book printed in America.
20. New England was fast becoming a nation. Well-nigh fifty villages dotted the face of the country. Enterprises of all kinds were rife. Manufactures, commerce, and the arts were introduced. William Stephens, a shipbuilder of Boston, had already built and launched an American vessel of four hundred tons burden. Twenty-one thousand two hundred people had found a home between Plymouth Rock and the Connecticut.
The Union of the Colonies.