Connecticut!

Connecticut’s first European settlers were Dutch and established a small, short-lived settlement in present-day Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut rivers, called Huys de Goede Hoop. Initially, half of Connecticut was a part of the Dutch colony, New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers.        Tags: Robert Hess Blog! Robert Hess Blogging! Robert Hess: Life of! Robert Hess: Official Site! Robert Hess CEO!…..
The first major settlements were established in the 1630s by the English. Thomas Hooker led a band of followers overland from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded what would become the Connecticut Colony; other settlers from Massachusetts founded the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony. Both the Connecticut and New Haven Colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in North America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a royal charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. This colony was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution.

On June 11, 1776  Congress appointed a committee of five to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The committee members were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson wrote most of the document, with Adams and Franklin making a few changes. On July 8, Colonel John Nixon, a member of the Committee of Safety, read the document in the yard of Independence Hall. If the mid-Atlantic colonies were highly uncertain about wanting independence from Great Britain, the people of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts were
very much less so. The ownership of much of the land in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York by large land owners made these men very cautious lest the rebellious spirit be transferred to their own tenants. The system of land ownership was much different in Connecticut and Massachusetts and hence the leadership, especially that of eastern Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut, was not as conservative vis-a-vis independence. In Sheffield, Massachusetts in 1773 the citizens drew up a set of “resolves” that much resembled the later Declaration of Independence. The next year prominent men of the area met at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge and called for a boycott of all commerce from England. Many towns in the upper Housatonic River Valley then adopted their own declarations of independence. When word of Lexington and Concord reached the area, the local militia marched eastward at once. Approximately one-half of all the able-bodied men of the region served in the armed forces. Connecticut’s primary role in the Revolutionary War was in providing troops and supplies for battles fought elsewhere. In fact, Connecticut provided so many supplies that it became known as the bread basket of the Revolution.

Perhaps the most famous person from Connecticut to serve during the Revolution was Nathan Hale, whom the British hung for espionage in September 1776. There are a number of places in the state where you can follow this young man’s career and we will visit these sites. Connecticut has the distinction of being the only colony to have its Royal Governor support the Revolution. Governor Jonathan Trumbull’s home is available for tours in Lebanon. Since Connecticut was the source of so many supplies for the Revolutionary cause, it became the target for British raids designed to destroy these supply bases. One such raid occurred at Danbury in 1777, and we follow the consequences of the raid by touring the Danbury area.

During the war, 6,000 British troops occupied the city of Newport, Rhode Island for three years (beginning in December 1776). When the British left the French, now American allies, bivouacked in the city. Chapter ten tours this city, which has a fantastic array of colonial houses. The last battle of the Revolutionary War was at Yorktown in Virginia. General Washington and the French commander General Rochambeau met in Wethersfield, Connecticut to plan this final showdown. The house where the conference was held still stands to this day and is awaiting you in Wethersfield. Another British raid of a Connecticut supply base was the New London raid of 1781 led by the traitor Benedict Arnold. Remnants of the breastworks of Fort Griswold, the site of a massacre of Americans, are still available for viewing.

Nathan Hale:

Once the war began, Nathan enlisted and became a first lieutenant of Connecticut’s Seventh Regiment, which was intended for coastal defense. Nathan was soon busy recruiting others for his company. Washington called for the new Connecticut regiments and Hale found himself in Cambridge, Massachusetts where the Americans had the British under siege. On St. Patrick’s Day 1776 the British evacuated Boston. Anticipating a British strike against New York City, Washington moved troops to New York, Nathan’s regiment among them. Hale landed at Turtle Bay on Manhattan at the foot of present Forty-fifth Street on March 30. Above him was the handsome mansion of James Beekman. (Ironically, it was from this mansion that Hale would be condemned to death.)

The British arrived June 28. On August 27 Washington lost the battle of Long Island when Lord William Howe flanked the American troops. Hale’s regiment did not participate in the battle. At this depressing point, Washington desperately needed information about Howe’s plans.

Hale had been temporarily transferred to a small body, known as “Knowlton’s Rangers,”organized for special light and scouting services. Knowlton, as other commanders, had been asked by Washington to find outstanding men for espionage. Knowlton turned to Hale for the job. Hale sought advice from college associate and fellow-captain, William Hull. The friend responded by saying Hale was too honest and open for such service and would end his career by being executed. Hale replied that he realized what he was getting into and that he was tired of serving in the armed forces without rendering any real material service.

Hale traveled through Westchester County to Norwalk, Connecticut. There he took an armed sloop under the command of Captain Pond and landed on the Long Island shore at Huntington on either the day or night of the loss of the Americans at the battle of Harlem Heights (September 15 or 16, 1776). Assuming the identity of a Dutch schoolmaster, Hale had changed into a plain suit of brown clothes with a round, broad brimmed hat. He carried only his college diploma. Doubtlessly, Hale made his way across Long Island to Manhattan. There he found the British lines and probably sketched the fortifications. While only one mile south of the American lines, British forces arrested him on the night of September 21. Lord Howe conducted an interrogation of Hale at the Beekman Mansion. Hale provided his name, rank, and stated his object in coming within the British lines. His interrogators search his clothing and found sketches of fortifications along with military notes. Howe immediately ordered the execution of the American spy. Held prisoner that night in the greenhouse of the Beekman gardens, the next morning Hale wrote a letter to his mother and another to a brother officer. The British escorted Hale to his place of execution, near present City Hall Park on Manhattan. Just before his death at eleven in the morning of September 22, his last words were the famous saying: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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