Charlestown made them large offers, and Newbury proposed to give up the whole town to them. The General Court offered them any place which they should select. But they were determined to plant a distant colony. By the pursuit of the Pequots to the westward, the English became acquainted with that fine tract along the shore from Saybrook to Fairfield, and with its several harbors. It was represented as fruitful, and happily situated for navigation and commerce.
The company, therefore, projected a settlement in that part of the country.
In the fall of 1637 Mr. Eaton and others who were of the company made a journey to Connecticut to explore the lands and harbors on the sea-coast. They pitched upon Quinnipiack for the place of their settlement. They erected a poor hut, in which a few men subsisted through the winter.
On the 30th of March, 1638, Mr. Davenport, Mr. Prudden, Mr. Samuel Eaton, and Theophilus Eaton, Esquire, with the people of their company, sailed from Boston to Quinnipiack. In about a fortnight they arrived at their desired port.
On the 14th of April they kept their first Sabbath in the place.
The people assembled under a large, spreading oak, and Mr. Davenport preached to them from Matthew v. 1. He discoursed on the temptations of man, and made such observations as were pertinent to the then present state of his hearers. He left this remark, that he enjoyed a good day.
[9] “New England Records,” A., p. 201.
[10] While the colonists were thus prosecuting the business of settlement in New England, the Right Honorable James, Marquis of Hamilton, obtained a grant from the Council of Plymouth April 20, 1635, of all that tract of country which lies between Connecticut River and Narraganset River and harbor, from the mouth of each of said rivers northward sixty miles into the country.
However, by reason of its interference with the grant to Lords Say and Brook, and others, or for some other reason, the deed was never executed.
The marquis made no settlement on the land, and the claim became obsolete.