The Records of Connecticut for the period embraced in this chapter are abundant, and are admirably edited, with explanatory notes, by Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford, who has done so much to illustrate the history of his State, and indeed of New England.[672] I might add that Dr. Palfrey, in writing the History of New England, often had the benefit of Dr. Trumbull’s learning in illustrating many obscure points in Connecticut history.[673]
The New Haven Colony Records end, of course, with the absorption of that colony by Connecticut. These are well edited, in two volumes (1638 to 1649, and 1653 to 1665), with abundant illustrations in the Appendix, by Charles J. Hoadly, M.A., and were published at Hartford in 1857-58.
The Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society have already been referred to.[674]
The New Haven Colony Historical Society is a separate body, devoted to preserving the memorials of that colony. It has issued three volumes of Papers.[675]
Among the general histories of Connecticut was one by Theodore Dwight, Jr., in Harper’s Family Library, 1840; also another by G. H. Hollister, 2 vols., 1855, and enlarged in 1857. A condensed History of the Colony of New Haven, before and after the Union, by E. R. Lambert, was published at New Haven in 1838; and a more extensive History of the Colony of New Haven to its Absorption into Connecticut, by E. E. Atwater, was published in New Haven in 1881.[676] There are some town histories which, for the early period, have almost the character of histories of the State,—like Caulkins’s Norwich (originally 1845; enlarged 1866, and again in 1874) and New London (1852); Orcutt and Beadsley’s Derby (1642-1880); William Cothren’s Ancient Woodbury, 3 vols., published in 1854-79; H. R. Stiles’s Ancient Windsor, 2 vols., 1859-63. Barber’s Connecticut Historical Collections is a convenient manual for ready reference.[677]
Rhode Island.[678]—The first published history of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was an Historical Discourse, delivered at Newport in 1738, on the centennial of the settlement of Aquedneck, by John Callender, minister of that place, and printed at Boston the next year.[679]
Twenty-seven years afterward,—that is, in 1765,—there appeared in seven numbers of a newspaper (the Providence Gazette), from January 12 to March 30, “An Historical Account of the Planting and Growth of Providence.” This sketch, written by the venerable Stephen Hopkins, then governor of the State, interrupted by the disastrous occurrences of the times, comes down only to 1645, and remains a fragment.[680]
A Gazeteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island, with maps of each State, was published at Hartford in 1819, in 8º, compiled by John C. Pease and John M. Niles. It furnished for the time a large amount of statistical and historical material. The work gives a geographical sketch of each county, with details of each town, and “embraces notices of population, business, etc., together with biographical sketches of eminent men.”