[541] At last, in 1696, what was termed “owning the covenant” was first introduced into the church at Hartford. Under the influence of the synod held in Boston in 1662 of Massachusetts churches alone, the “Half-Way Covenant” had been adopted in that colony. A want of a closer union among the churches was a growing feeling in the colony of Connecticut not provided for by the Cambridge Platform; and the Saybrook Platform, the result of a Connecticut synod held in 1708, was an attempt to provide for this want. This ecclesiastical document was printed in New London in 1710, in a small, thin volume called a Confession of Faith, etc.; and is the first book, says Isaiah Thomas, printed in Connecticut. Trumbull, i. 471, 482.
[542] Palfrey’s History of New England, vol. iii. p. 238.
[543] See Belknap, History of New Hampshire, i. 5. It was also printed by Dr. Benj. Trumbull, History of Connecticut, vol. i. 1818, App., from a copy furnished by Chalmers, under the impression that it had been “never before published in America,” and has since appeared in Brigham’s Charter and Laws of New Plymouth, pp. 1-18, Baylies’ New Plymouth, i. 160, and in the Popham Memorial, pp. 110-118.
[544] Sabin’s Dictionary, no. 52,619,—very rare.
[545] [Dr. Haven also contributed to the Memorial History of Boston, i. 87, a chapter on the subject of these early patents and grants. He closed a valuable life Sept. 5, 1881. Cf. Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., October, 1881, and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xix. 4, 63.—Ed.]
[546] See Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., for October, 1868, pp. 34, 35; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May 1876, p. 364.
[547] See Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc. for October, 1875, pp. 49-63. Most of the grants of the Council are extant, either in the original parchments or in copies; and many of them have been printed. Some enterprising scholar will probably one day bring them all together in one volume, with proper annotations. It would be a convenient manual of reference.
[548] The rare list of these names in duplicate inserted in some copies of Smith’s tract may be seen in his Generall Historie, p. 206. [The map itself, with some account of it and of Smith, may be found in chapter vi. of the present volume.—Ed.]
[549] [See a previous page.—Ed.]
[550] See Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts, i. 9; Belknap’s New Hampshire, App. xv.