Theophilus Eaton, Esq. was chosen the first governor: and the whole power of the people was vested in the governor, Mr. Davenport, the minister, his deacon, and the seven pillars of the church of Quinapiack. Here was church and state with a vengeance, and the pilgrims who sought freedom to worship God found freedom to worship him as they pleased, provided they worshipped him as Mr. Davenport directed.
The seven pillars of the church were wealthy laymen, and were its principal support; among the number I find the names of those staunch old colonists, Matthew Gilbert and John Panderson.
Governor Eaton was an eminent merchant in London, and when he arrived at Quinapiack, his ledger was transformed into a book of records for the colony. It is now to be seen with his accounts in one end of it, and the records in the other. The principal settlers of New Haven were rich London merchants. They brought with them great wealth, and calculated in the new world to engage in commerce, free from the trammels that clogged them in England. They could not be contented with the old colony location. They now found a beautiful harbor—a fine country—and a broad river: but no trade. Where all were sellers there could be no buyers. They had stores but no customers: ships but no Wapping: and they soon began to sigh for merry England, and the wharves of crowded marts. In three years after landing at New Haven, a large number of these settlers determined to return to their native land.
Accordingly a vessel was purchased in Rhode Island, a crazy old tub of a thing that bade fair to sail as fast broadside on as any way, whose sails were rotten with age, and whose timbers were pierced by the worms of years. Having brought the vessel round to New Haven, the colonists, under the direction of the old ship master Lamberton, repaired and fitted her for sea.
The day before Captain Lamberton intended to sail, Eugene Foster, the son of a wealthy merchant in London, and Grace Gilman, the daughter of one of the wealthy worthies of Quinapiack, wandered out of the settlement and ascended the East Rock.
Grace Gilman was the niece of my great, great grandmother. Possessing a brilliant mind, a lovely countenance, and a form of perfect symmetry, she occupied no small share of every single gentleman’s mind asleep or awake, in the colony. Her dark hair hung in ringlets about a neck of alabaster, and sheltered with smaller curls a cheek where the lily and the rose held sweet communion together.
Foster had followed the object of his love to her western home, and having gained Elder Gilman’s consent to his union with the flower of Quinapiack, he was now ready to return in the vessel to his native land, for the purpose of preparing for a speedy settlement in the colony.
Eugene Foster was a noble, spirited youth, of high literary attainments. Besides his frequent excursions with the scouts, had made him an experienced woodman and hunter. His countenance was pleasant; his eye possessed the fire of genius; and his form was tall and commanding.
It was a glorious morning in autumn. The whole space around the settlement was one vast forest, and the frost had tipped the leaves of the trees with russet crimson and gold. The bare sumac lifted its red core on high, and the crab apple hung its bright fruit over every crag. The maple shook its blood-colored leaves around, and the chesnut and walnut came pattering down from their lofty heights, like hail from a summer cloud. The heath hens sate drumming the morning away upon the mouldering trunks, whose tops had waved above the giants of the forest in former ages. The grey squirrel sprang from limb to limb. The flying squirrel sailed from tree to tree in his downward flight; and the growling wild cat glided swiftly down the vistas of the wood with her shrieking prey.
The blue jay piped all hands from the deep woods—and the hawk, as he sailed over the partridge’s brood, shrieked the wild death cry of the air. A haze rested upon the distant heights, and a cloud of mellow light rolled over the little settlement, and faded into silver upon the broad sound that stretched out before it.