CONNECTICUT, Icon-net'-i-lcilt, °the Nutmeg State,') "the Land of Steady Habits,) or °the Constitutional State') (having framed the first written constitution in America), is the southwesternmost of the six New England States. It is bounded by Massachusetts on the north, Long Island Sound on the south, Rhode Island on the east and New York or. the west. Capital, Hartford. Area, 4,845 square miles land, 145 square miles water. Pop. 1,244,479.
There is no doubt that the claim of the Dutch to Connecticut by right of dis covery was well founded, for the accounts of the voyages of Henry Hudson in 1609 and of Adrian Bloch in 1614 give thc first descriptions which history records of this region. The at tempts of the Dutch to maintain their foothold by this right were few and ineffectual, failing to prevent William Holmes of Plymouth colony from establishing a trading post sat or near Hartford in 1633.
Settlement—The first permanent settlement by the English was made in 1636, though a dis astrous attempt had been made in the previous year by a party from Massachusetts to occupy the three original towns. In June 1636 Rev. Thomas Hooker and Rev. Samuel Stone, with about 100 men, women and children, made their vray from Massachusetts to the Connecticut Val ley, and there re-established the almost aban doned settlements at the three towns which bore the transplanted Massachusetts names of New town, Watertown and Dorchester, but were, in the following year, respectively named Hart ford, Wethersfield and Windsor. Within a year from the time of this settlement about 30 of the settlers had been wantonly killed by the Pequot Indians, who appeared to be plotting the extermination of the English. In May 1637 Maj. John Mason, with a band of 90 men, was dispatched to attack the Pequots at t'heir stronghold in the present town of Groton. Reaching, by strategic movements, the stock ade, where a large number of them were en camped, he took them completely by surprise, killing about 700 by setting fire to their in flammable wigwams and putting to death in hand-to-hand conflict those who escaped the flames. This resulted in the extermination of the Pequot tribe, and secured to the settlers exemption from Indian depredations for all time to come.
The colonists now began to prosper undOr the leadership of the pastors, Hooker and Stone. Finding themselves outside of the juris diction of Massachusetts, to which they at first supposed that they were answerable, they pro ceeded to form a civil government of their own, adopting. in 1639 the Constitution which stands unique in history as the first written con stitution of a self-governing people. Its prin ciples had been preached from the pulpit by Thomas Hooker, and its spirit, if not its fortn, prevailed in the Federal Constitution which was adopted through the inflttence of Oliver Ells worth, Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut just 150 years later.
By this Constitution of 1639 much less rigid ecclesiastical control prevailed than in Massa chusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, the people were recognized as sovereign, and the authority and even the existence of the ruler of Great Britain was ignored. Meantime there had sprung up in Quinnipiack a budding colony, afterward known as New Haven colony, under the leadership of Theophilus Eaton and the Rev. John Davenport. This colony in 1639 adopted resolutions which vested the govern ment in seven pillars of the Church, and dis franchised all who were not church members. In 1662 John Winthrop, the younger, then gov ernor of Connecticut, obtained in England from Charles Il a charter which established Con necticut as an independent colony under the constitution already adopted, and defined the boundaries to include New Haven colony, which was thus absorbed, though sorely against its will.
Charter Rights.—From this time onward, for 50 years, Connecticut was engaged in a constant struggle to maintain the rights which the charter had granted. Conflicting grants by Charles II to his brotheri then Duke of York; boundary disputes; conflicts of authority with other colonial governors; and the fear that the charter might be annulled by royal decree, kept the statesmen of the day in an attitude of con tinual vigilance, and schooled them in diplo macy, tact and political alertness. But once in her history, and then only for a year and a half, did Connecticut lose that autonomy which she cherished as her birthright. This was dtrr ing the usurpation of Andros, in 1687. But the charter was preserved, though Andros de manded it. Its preservation was the result of one of the Yankee tricks for which C,onnecticut has always been famous, and which may have had something to do with giving her the equivocal title of ((the Nutmeg State."' The charter was brought into the general court toward nightfall at Andros' request. Candles were lighted' and,. by some mysterious agency, suddenly extinguished. During the darkness which prevailed the charter disappeared. An dros assumed the government, and Secretary John Allyn wrote (TIN'S"' at the close of the record of the proceedings. In May 1689 came the downfall of Andros, and the government and charter reappeared, with the astute Gov ernor Treat once more in the chair, and an un dying reverence established for the old charter oak, where, as tradition tells us, Capt. Joseph Wadsworth hid the precious document when it so suddenly disappeared.