For its size, New Haven was
undoubtedly the wealthiest colony in New England, its assessed valuation, the year
after it was planted, having been £ 33,000, or the present equivalent of, perhaps,
$ 700,000. Its founders, under the leadership of the Reverend John Davenport, a
Nonconformist London clergyman, and Theophilus Eaton, a schoolmate of his, had
arrived in the early summer of 1637, just in time to take part in the Antinomian
controversy and the taxes for the Pequot war. Mr. Davenport was requested to
contribute to the former, and Mr. Eaton to the latter. Their company was a
distinguished one, including several other wealthy London merchants besides
Eaton; five ministers; four school-teachers, among whom was the first president
of Harvard; the father of Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale University; and Michael
Wigglesworth, the "lurid morning star" of New England verse. Both Davenport and
Eaton had been, for some years, members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and
that company's colony made great efforts to retain the new body of settlers within
its own bounds. While the leaders took under consideration the various offers
made to them, they either found them unsatisfactory, or had already determined
to establish an independent colony of their own. After Eaton had examined the
country around Quinnipiack, it was decided to plant there, and seven men were
left to guard the site during the winter, the whole company following in the
spring. Not only were the resources of the colonists unusually ample, but
their preparations seem to have been exceptionally complete, and the little
town soon contained the most stately dwellings in all New England. Some idea of
their scale may be gained from the reputed presence in Davenport's of thirteen
fireplaces, and of nineteen in Eaton's. The intention, apparently, was not only
to found a Puritan state, but to have it become the chief mercantile centre of
the New World, which accounts for their having built, as one of their
Massachusetts critics wrote, "as if trade and merchandize had been as inseparably
annexed to them as the shadow is to the body, in the shining of the sun." One
disaster followed another in their business ventures, however, and the dreams of
the merchant-founders were never realized.
Davenport and most of his
company were not only Puritans, but of the strictest sect, and the Bible
Commonwealth which they proceeded to form was of the most extreme type. Like
the Connecticut and Rhode Island people, they were without a charter, and were
mere squatters upon the soil; but in June, 1639, a meeting was held of the "free
planters", to discuss a frame of government to replace the previously signed
plantation covenant, now lost. We have no knowledge of what constituted a "free
planter", but the term undoubtedly excluded a large number of males in the
settlement. The proceedings took the form of queries put by Mr. Davenport,
upon which those present voted by raising hands. As a result of the unanimous
votes at this meeting, the fundamental agreement provided that the franchise
should be restricted to church members, and that the free planters should
choose twelve men, to whom should be intrusted the sole right of selecting from
among the rest of the colonists those who should become church members and
freemen, and who were to have the power of appointing magistrates from among
themselves, of making and repealing laws, and, in fact, of performing public
duties.