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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 PUBLICATIONS OP THE CONNECTICUT SOCIETY OF THE ORDER 
 OF THE FOUNDERS AND PATRIOTS OF AMERICA'"" 
 
 No. 4 
 
 A Forgotten Connecticut 
 
 Patriot 
 
 BY 
 
 COIv. EDWARD EVERETT SILI, 
 
 /« 
 
 NEW HAVEN, CONN., A.D. 1901 
 
 Zci oA 
 
 YYllTyx 
 
Gitb 
 
 The Society 
 
 {>fcC 16 (til 
 
The Order of the Founders and 
 Patriots of America 
 
 The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America 
 was incorporated in the city of New York, March i8, 1896. 
 The objects for which it was established are indicated in the 
 second article of the Constitution, as follows : 
 
 1. To bring together and associate men whose ancestors 
 struggled together for life and liberty, home and happiness, in 
 this land, when it was a new and unknown country, and whose 
 line of descent from them comes through patriots who sustained 
 the colonies in the struggle for independence in the Revolu- 
 tionary War. 
 
 2. To teach reverent regard for the names and history, 
 character and perseverance, deeds and heroism, of the founders 
 of this country and their patriotic descendants. 
 
 3. To inculcate patriotism in the Associates and their 
 descendants. 
 
 4. To discover, collect and preserve records, documents, 
 manuscripts, monuments and history relating to the first 
 colonists, their ancestors and descendants. 
 
 5. To commemorate and celebrate events in the history of 
 the Colonies and the Republic. 
 
 6. Other historical and patriotic purposes. 
 
The Connecticut Society of the Order of the 
 Founders and Patriots of America was organized May 
 9, 1896. The following are the Charter Associates of the 
 Society : 
 
 Maj. Frank William Mix, 
 Charles Mather Glazier, 
 John Emery Morris, 
 Francis Durando Nichols, 
 James Emery Brooks, 
 Jonathan Flynt Morris, 
 William Charles Russell, 
 Col. Edward Everett Sill, 
 Col. Charles Alexander Jewell. 
 
OFFICERS OF THE CONNECTICUT SOCIETY 
 
 I 900-1 901 
 
 REV. JOHN GAYLORD DAVENPORT, D.D., Governor, Waterbury 
 COI/. EDWARD EVERETT SILL, Dkputy Governor, New Haven 
 WILLIAM CHARLES RUSSELL, Secretary, 
 ERNEST BRADFORD ELLSWORTH, Treasurer, 
 SYLVESTER CLARK DUNHAM, State Attorney, 
 GEORGE FRANKLIN NEWCOMB, Registrar, . 
 HENRY BALDWIN, Historian, .... 
 REV. DRYDEN WILLIAM PHELPS, Chapi^ain, . 
 
 Hartford 
 
 Hartford 
 
 Hartford 
 
 New Haven 
 
 New Haven 
 
 New Haven 
 
 WILLIAM FRANCIS JOSEPH BOARDMAN, Geneai<ogisT, Hartford 
 
 COUNCILORS 
 
 {Three Years) 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON BOARDMAN, . 
 MAJOR GEORGE WHITE TUCKER, . 
 HON. THEODORE SEDGWICK GOLD, 
 
 Hartford 
 
 Waterbury 
 
 West Cornwall 
 
 {Two Years) 
 
 JOHN DWIGHT PARKER, Hartford 
 
 COL. CHARLES ALEXANDER JEWELL, . . . Hartford 
 
 ELI MIX, New Haven 
 
 {One Year) 
 
 GEORGE FRANKLIN NEWCOMB, New Haven 
 
 WILLIAM NEWTON PARKER, New Haven 
 
 HON. JAMES DUDLEY DEWELL New Haven 
 
A Forgotten Connecticut 
 
 Patriot 
 
 AN ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE 
 CONNECTICUT SOCIETY OF THE ORDER 
 OF THE FOUNDERS AND PATRIOTS OF 
 AMERICA, SEPTEMBER 20, A.D. 1900 . . . 
 
 BY 
 
 COIv. EDWARD EVERETT SILI. 
 

 THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY, 
 
 NEW HAVEN, CONN. 
 
•1 
 
 4 
 
 A FORGOTTEN CONNECTICUT PATRIOT. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 In recent study of the records of Old Lyme, Con- 
 necticut, I was impressed witli a new sense of our 
 debt of remembrance and gratitude to some of the 
 humbler builders of our nation without whose service 
 the work of the greater leaders would have come to 
 naught. It was the common touch of the plain peo- 
 ple through the homes, the town-meeting and the 
 pastorate which gave the colonial fathers hopeful con- 
 ditions and opportunity. In their days the pastor of 
 the local church and parish was the mentor and guide 
 not alone in the paths of religion, but in the school 
 and other walks of secular and civil life. Honored 
 and esteemed for his personal virtues of character and 
 scholarship ; living in a time when books were few 
 but deeply studied and newspapers almost unknown 
 he easily became the leader of his people. He knew 
 they, as well as he, had inherited the word and tradi- 
 tion of English natural and chartered rights of per- 
 sonal liberty, however obscured and fettered in the old 
 land by kingly and ecclesiastical tyranny. In govern- 
 mental theory they were not altogether republicans 
 but rather satisfied monarchists, so long as their rights 
 were not assailed. Their inherited loyalty was to the 
 kingly person of the monarch rather than to assumed 
 prerogative or the corruptions and tyranny of his 
 court or ministry. They knew that at Marston Moor 
 had been decided in^uegative the right of an English 
 
king to tax and govern in his royal name. They 
 wished him to reign rather than rule. They had 
 never forgotten the story of Runnymede. From the 
 lips of their fathers they had heard personal recollec- 
 tions of Naseby, Dunbar and Worcester and revered 
 the memory of that great constructive statesman and 
 soldier who, with his compatriots, on those and other 
 fields, had wrought righteousness for the people of 
 England. With Milton they felt— '' Our liberty is 
 not Caesar's ; it is a blessing we have received from 
 God himself ; it is what we are born to." 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century the pastor 
 of the First Church of Christ at Old Lyme, Connecti- 
 cut, was Reverend Stephen Johnson, and after prelude 
 of English and colonial life and conditions I would 
 seek to recall some of his patriotic services. 
 
 He was a descendant of some of those planters in 
 the wilderness, who '' first sat down at New Haven " 
 and later in the prevailing migratory spirit removed 
 to Newark and Elizabethtown, New Jersey. His 
 parents were Nathaniel and Sarah (Ogden) Johnson of 
 Newark, where he was born May 17, 1724. He gradu- 
 ated at Yale College in. 1743 ; pursued a course of 
 study in Divinity ; on July 26, 1744, he married Eliza- 
 beth, daughter of William and Sarah (Dunbar) Diodati, 
 and on December 10, 1746, was ordained to the pas- 
 torate of the church at Old Lyme where he had an 
 unbroken ministry of forty years. His field of useful- 
 ness was never liounded by his local parish. With 
 earnest purpose his whole life was given to the relig- 
 ious, educational, social and political welfare of the 
 people of the colony of Connecticut. In 1773 ^^ ^^^ 
 
elected a Fellow of tlie Corporation of Yale College, 
 wliicli office lie held until liis death. 
 
 William Diodati, his wife's father, was a scion of an 
 old and illustrious Italian family some of whom in the 
 time of the Reformation adhered to the Protestant faith 
 with John Calvin and later as exiles took up their 
 home in England. Early in the eighteenth century 
 William Diodati established himself as a merchant in 
 New Haven. He was a man of native as well as 
 acquired traits of culture, evidenced among other 
 things by his large library, nearly one hundred choice 
 volumes of which were by his will bequeathed to Mr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 At their deaths Mr. and Mrs. Diodati were interred 
 in the ancient burial ground on the Old Green, where 
 with scores of other of the early fathers and mothers 
 of New Haven they were allowed to rest in peace 
 until that unfortunate day of 182 1 when unpatriotic 
 if not unfilial hands so leveled and obliterated their 
 graves that no one now knows their place of burial. 
 
 On assuming the Lyme pastorate Mr. Johnson 
 became the successor to Reverend Jonathan Parsons, 
 who went from there to the Presbyterian church at 
 Newburyport, Mass. Mr. Parsons was the warm 
 friend of the noted evangelist George Whitefield, who 
 died at Parsons' house in 1770 and was buried beneath 
 his pulpit. A son of Mr. Parsons, a young lawyer, 
 who had remained in the vicinity of Old Lyme, after- 
 ward became the distinguished soldier Major General 
 Samuel Holden Parsons, whom Washington trusted 
 and who commanded a large number of the Connecti- 
 cut troops in the Revolution. 
 
-10 — 
 
 In tracing the life of a New England colonist we 
 almost of necessity find his roots of being in English 
 soil. There, as everywhere, religious, political, social 
 and physical conditions were chief forces in the mak- 
 ing of public and private character. 
 
 To understand the development of our political 
 institutions we must deeply know the lives of those 
 by whom they were wrought. In the present belated 
 but fortunate renascence of investigation into the 
 foreign and domestic foundations of our history we 
 are developing a quickened and more intelligent love 
 of country and institutions. Priceless as are some of 
 the records which have been preserved, it is greatly 
 to be regretted that the fathers of the early wilderness 
 had not clearer vision of the needs of the future and 
 studiously made and preserved more written records 
 of state, people and families — their faiths and expe- 
 riences. There is much interest in thought of the tenac- 
 ity with which the colonists maintained and exercised 
 the right of popular assembly for the discussion of 
 grievances. The town-meeting was the forum where, 
 on questions of public or local interest, the plain and 
 humble were peers of the great. They had early 
 learned that the tenure of their rights was at any 
 time liable to assault. Repeatedly, by force or indi- 
 rection, had crown or ministry, from the earliest set- 
 tlements to the opening of the Revolution, attempted 
 to seize or nullify their charters lest too much of 
 rights had been granted the people. As early as 
 April 28, 1634, Charles I. had issued his Patent to a 
 Commission of twelve dignitaries of church and state 
 with the Archbishop of Canterbury at its head, 
 
— II — 
 
 designed to annul the charters already given the 
 American colonists by specifically granting to such 
 Commission, or any five of them, full power of legisla- 
 tion and of the purse, the sword, the regulation of 
 religious worship, the disposal of property, of taxa- 
 tion and commerce, with absolute power of imprison- 
 ment or of life and death over the individual. 
 
 Before continuing this sketch of Stephen Johnson, 
 which from lack of records must be brief as to his 
 private and personal life and later will mainly relate 
 to his patriotic public service in opposition to the 
 British Stamp Act, permit as matter of historical con- 
 tinuity a brief discussion of the history and character 
 of the New England colonists, with also a glance at 
 the French and English struggle for this continent, 
 all of which culminated in the American Revolution. 
 A visible and unbroken chain reaches from Jamestown 
 and Plymouth Rock to the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. 
 
 More than twenty-five years before Elizabeth came 
 to her throne six thousand copies of Tyndale's version 
 of the New Testament, printed in Germany, had been 
 scattered through England. 
 
 Discoveries by land and sea had opened the insular 
 mind to a glimpse of the vastness of the outer world 
 with its numbers of people, their varied religions, laws 
 and customs. Hakluyt's " Divers Voyages " in its 
 black-letter text was already in many libraries. While 
 this stimulated curiosity, leading to more voyages of 
 daring and enterprise to open pathways of future 
 commerce, there still remained other great glories to 
 come to the reign of Elizabeth in the development of 
 literature. 
 
— 12 — 
 
 Many of our colonial fathers Had been born in tbis 
 renewed sunlight of knowledge. Drayton and Daniel 
 had both in verse told of their country's struggles for 
 national existence and freedom. The hands of some 
 of our colonists had in the year 1590 touched the 
 covers of the first print of Edmund Spenser's " Faerie 
 Queene," written while he was an exiled colonist. 
 Like a sparkling stream bursting from the side of a 
 mountain came this rich poem of Imagination whose 
 freshening effect has never been lost. Others of the 
 fathers might and doubtless had looked upon Shaks- 
 peare's living face and on the boards of the Globe 
 Theatre at South wark or at Blackfriars, have enjoyed 
 the fun of '* The Taming of the Shrew," and been 
 thrilled with the storms of passion battling in the 
 soul of Lear — for not every educated Puritan was 
 averse to the Drama. 
 
 As if reserved for a day of need, to England was 
 born early in the seventeenth century John Milton, 
 " the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of 
 English literature, the champion and the martyr of 
 English liberty." 
 
 As a fact of literature as well as sidelight upon the 
 representative Puritan character, it is interesting to 
 recall that Milton's first published verse were the lines 
 entitled " An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic 
 Poet, W. Shakspeare," which in 1632 were printed as 
 a prefix to the folio edition of Shakspeare's Plays. 
 The epitaph closes with the oft-quoted words : 
 
 " And so sepulch'red in such pomp dost lie 
 That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. ' ' 
 
—13— 
 
 It cannot ever be profitless to ponder the momentous 
 question wliicli confronted tlie Pilgrim Fathers before 
 they set foot upon the Rock. Fleeing from tyranny 
 they could not for their guidance look to the laws 
 and a system under which they had suffered. Cut 
 loose from Bngland without chart or compass of gov- 
 ernment or legislation — what system should they 
 adopt? They were without European political pre- 
 cedent. They doubtless studied and discussed some 
 partial adaptation of English laws to their extremity. 
 On this question Dr. Leonard Bacon with his keen 
 insight and sympathetic thought has said : " Those 
 were the very laws from which they had fled ; those 
 laws would subject them at once, to the King, to the 
 Parliament and to the prelates in their several juris- 
 dictions. The adoption of the laws of England would 
 have been fatal to the object of their emigration." 
 
 Where then could they turn ? To this queston Dr. 
 Cheever gives terse answer. " They could not take 
 the Roman civil law ; but they had a code in every 
 man's hand in the Bible, laws given to a community 
 emigrating like themselves from their native country, 
 for the great purpose of maintaining in simplicity and 
 purity the worship of the one true God. Like the Israel- 
 ites of old, they were to be a people surrounded by 
 the heathen, and intermingled among them, and need- 
 ing the influence of laws framed with a special refer- 
 ence to such a corrupting neighborhood and inter- 
 course. Like the Hebrews also they were a free 
 Republican people, and needed laws for a community 
 where there was no absolute power, where there were 
 no privileged classes, laws whose aims should be 
 
—14— 
 
 that equal and exact justice whicli is tlie only free- 
 dom." 
 
 It is a remarkable illustration of tlie spirit of charity 
 and of the illuminating mental effect of a state of 
 freedom after tyranny, to see to what extent the Pil- 
 grim Fathers softened and mitigated the barbarous 
 character of British penal laws. Commenting upon 
 this fact again Dr. Bacon remarks that " the greatest 
 and boldest improvement which has been made in 
 criminal jurisprudence by any one act since the dark 
 ages was that which was made by our fathers when 
 they determined that the judicial laws of God, as they 
 were delivered by Moses, should be accounted of moral 
 equity, and generally bind all offenders, and be a rule 
 to all the courts." 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that in adopting the Hebrew 
 law instead of the law of England as a code of govern- 
 ment for their own judicial use the colonists reduced 
 to eleven in number the bloody catalogue of one hun- 
 dred and fifty offenses at that time punishable, by 
 Bnglish law, with death. 
 
 Where in the history of civilization have small 
 bodies of men, voluntary exiles from home to a hostile 
 wilderness, been compelled to face such stern and lofty 
 problems of life and duty ? Where in the annals of 
 heroism are found brighter examples than among the 
 early colonists of New England ? 
 
 Finely does Sir George Otto Trevelyan say, " The 
 lawgivers of the Puritan colonies had a blank parch- 
 ment before them and they were equal to the task of 
 ruling the lines along which the national character 
 was to run." 
 
—IS— 
 
 In the words of old Warton, they were men and 
 women who 
 
 " — fought God's battles and his works pursued." 
 
 Here in New England they had known their fellow- 
 exile Sir Henry Vane, the Younger, whose life and 
 death were self-consecrated to liberty. After years of 
 public service here he returned to England, where 
 under the Restoration of the perfidious Stuarts he in 
 1662 was brought to lay his head upon the block. As 
 he parted his hair from the neck that the " two-handed 
 engine " might have clear play he spoke, " I have kept 
 a conscience void of offense till this day, and have not 
 deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer." It 
 was to him Milton inscribed his sonnet, the closing 
 lines of which express the great ultimate principle 
 involved in the colonization of America : 
 
 — "besides to know 
 Both spiritual pow'r and civil, what each means, 
 What serves each, thou hast learn 'd which few 
 
 have done : 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe. ' ' 
 
 Like a hard cancer, poisonous and causing prolonged 
 suffering in the body-politic of England was that 
 inheritance of mediaeval wrong which had been handed 
 down from one kingly reign to another far into the 
 seventeenth century and which in the name of religion 
 was ever ready to consort with evil for purpose of 
 tyranny. Whether working through Church or State 
 its mission was to blast every aspiration of the peo- 
 ple, by centralizing civil and ecclesiastical authority 
 in the hands of the few for the holy cause of " the 
 
— 16— 
 
 divine riglit of kings " and " the glory of God." 
 Warping every movement of learning or commerce to 
 kingly and priestly ends, it followed across the seas 
 every merchant-adventurer or trembling exile, telling 
 him " the king's arm is long and reaches far." The 
 spirit of successive crowns if put in words would have 
 said to the colonists, " So long as jt^ou contribute to 
 us revenues nearly up to the measure of our greed you 
 may do as you will in other matters." Royal revenues 
 and commercial supremacy were the dominant thought. 
 In the minds of the Stuarts and the Brunswicks 
 colonists were sheep to be shorn. Neither in theory 
 nor practice was there parental feeling on the part of 
 the crown until after the Revolution of 1688, and but 
 little then. The various Navigation Acts from 1651 
 to 1696 were framed for the purpose of exploiting 
 trade for the benefit of England, but the rivalries and 
 jealousies of France later introduced other burning 
 questions than those of trade alone. The helpless 
 colonists felt the galling yoke and from time to time 
 made spirited protest, but the system was too profit- 
 able to corrupt courtiers and ministers for a change. 
 Fearful of the imposition of greater burdens they some- 
 times carried forbearance beyond the point of virtue. 
 Unconsciously, however, they were being schooled 
 into new and higher views of empire. 
 
 In tracing the slow development of principles of 
 religious and civil liberty there must be kept in mind 
 the inevitable state of public and private morals when 
 centralized despotism in varied forms was appealing 
 to the baser elements of motive through greed of gold 
 and lust of dominion. Absolutism was then essential 
 
—17— 
 
 to both means and ends. In tlie name of religion the 
 churcli was an ecclesiastical machine ready as changed 
 circumstances and relations made politic to be either 
 the professed friend, the hostile rival, or by masked 
 intrigue " craftily outwitting her perjured coadjutor," 
 the state, and invariably working in the interest of 
 spiritual and intellectual tyranny. 
 
 The story of the Puritan exodus from oppression is 
 a familiar one. It was in that time of unrest when 
 quaint George Herbert, himself not a Puritan, in his 
 pious musings upon " The Church Militant " wrote : 
 
 ' ' Religion stands on tiptoe in our land 
 Ready to pass to the American strand." 
 
 Religious and political influences, whether of des- 
 potism or freedom, are slow in working out their ulti- 
 mate results. In our appreciation of the work of the 
 fathers here it is not needed to lose sight of their early 
 narrowness of mental environment and vision. They 
 were simply transplanted Englishmen who before 
 their migration had been surrounded by insular preju- 
 dices and blindness. Though having in advance of 
 their time the living germ of a conception of their 
 rights as freemen, they had been fettered by the hard 
 irons of power. Their migration had been their pro- 
 test. Through self-imposed exile they sought free- 
 dom from wrong. Their glory lies in the fact that 
 with each new revelation of truth their souls rose to a 
 higher conception of the duties and dignity of freemen. 
 With Edward Johnson they believed " The Lord Christ 
 intends to achieve greater matters by this little hand- 
 ful than the world is aware of." At the outset they 
 
— 18— 
 
 did not clearly understand all the rights of others and 
 were repressive. Their spirit was a heritage of Eng- 
 lish environment and education requiring time and 
 growth of better conditions to supplant. We know 
 that in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the early- 
 days " none but church members could vote or hold 
 office. In other words, the deputies to the General 
 Court were deputies of churches and the Governor and 
 Magistrates were church members elected by church 
 members. Church and State were not united ; they 
 were identified. A majority of the people, including 
 men of wealth, ability and character, were deprived of 
 their rights because they were not church-members." 
 
 Parkman, in his terse and brilliant manner, says : 
 " New England Protestantism appealed to Liberty ; 
 then closed the door against her. On a stock of free- 
 dom she grafted a scion of despotism ; yet the vital 
 juices of the root penetrated at last to the uppermost 
 branches, and nourished them to an irrepressible 
 strength and expansion." 
 
 The strongest of the foundations and guaranties of 
 English constitutional rights had been The Charter 
 of Liberties of Henry I. at his coronation, A. D. iioo, 
 wherein he acknowledged the limitations of royal 
 power and embodied many of the jewels of later 
 Magna Charta. In their time followed the two Char- 
 ters of Stephen, that of Henry II., with the Consti- 
 tutions of Clarendon, A. D. 1164, and the various 
 Assizes of that century until, as a continuous stream 
 constantly fed, they all, in A. D. 12 15, emptied into 
 the broad glories of Magna Charta. It was Chatham 
 who said, " Those iron barons . . . were the guardians 
 
—19— 
 
 of tlie people ; and three words of tlieir barbarous 
 Latin, nullus liber homo, are worth all the classics." 
 Contrasting the enlargement of the bounds of personal 
 freedom in America and England, we may note that 
 although present in Kngland since the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, men of the Jewish race there, until 1832, had no 
 political rights, and even then until 1845 were de- 
 barred any civil, military or corporate offices, and not 
 until 1846 was the public exercise of their religion 
 legalized. 
 
 We should judge men and faiths by their higher 
 rather than their lower development and expression. 
 By this standard the Puritan need not be ashamed. 
 In his geographical isolation he gradually arose to a 
 freer comprehension and expression of the rights of 
 man. The first cycle of freedom in America renewed 
 and advanced the guaranties of constitutional rights 
 on Bnglish soil everywhere. Pascal, in one of his let- 
 ters, says : " The Jesuits have obtained a papal decree 
 condemning Galileo's doctrine about the motion of the 
 earth. It is all in vain. If the world is really turn- 
 ing round, all mankind together will not be able to 
 keep it from turning or to keep themselves from turn- 
 ing with it." 
 
 From the close of the reign of Elizabeth nearly all 
 Europe had been a battle ground of kingly jealousies, 
 or wars of religious hate. In England the period of 
 the Renascence was slowly merging into that of Puri- 
 tanism, and was for the time the main current of Eng- 
 land and the world's progress. With the Bible in its 
 hand Puritanism was the first power to recognize and 
 make an initial principle of the collective grandeur of 
 
-20 — 
 
 the people. It liad welcomed tlie revival of letters, 
 and the old University of Cambridge was already giv- 
 ing proof that blended convictions of pure religion 
 and cultured learning were the highest means of 
 power. One of the most interesting and valuable 
 features of American colonial life in both the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries was that of the educa- 
 tional development of the people. The Puritan fathers 
 did not believe ignorance to be the mother of devotion 
 in either religious or civil life. In the colonial laws 
 of 1647 we find : " To the end that learning may not 
 be buried in the graves of our fathers, it is ordered 
 in all the Puritan colonies that every township, after 
 the Lord has increased them to the number of fifty 
 households, shall appoint one to teach all children to 
 write and read ; and when any town shall increase to 
 the number of one hundred families, they shall set up 
 a grammar-school, the master thereof to be able to 
 instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for 
 the university ; provided that if any town neglect 
 the performance hereof above one year, that every 
 such town shall pay five pounds to the next school, 
 till they shall perform the order." 
 
 In the year 1701 Harvard College had been planted 
 for nearly three-fourths of a century and was already 
 a waxing light of learning. Yale was then a newly 
 planted seed in the wilderness, its roots asking of the 
 soil the best it could give of the elements of growth 
 and strength, until now, like Harvard, she is a great 
 banyan tree, beneath whose sheltering branches thou- 
 sands of her sons daily gather. To these universities 
 and their offspring of kindred institutions and men 
 
-21- 
 
 we point as ultimate results and illustrations of seven- 
 teentli century Puritanism. In an era of few news- 
 papers and schools ; when the majority of population 
 were scattered; when industry and thrift were the 
 requirements of daily life and an idler was the 
 deserved object of ridicule or scorn ; when the homely 
 virtues were cherished as indispensable to happiness 
 and the upbuilding of character ; when it was deeply 
 recognized that plain living with high thinking upon 
 serious questions of religious and political duty were 
 of the essentials of life, the intellectual character of 
 the people began to show signs of growth. For the 
 first half of the eighteenth century the presence of 
 hostile France on her borders was a standing menace 
 and drain upon the industries of New England, whereby 
 her educational interests also suffered. 
 
 The almost inextricable confusion of motives and 
 events in the relations of England and France, both 
 upon the continent of Europe and in America during 
 the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, make it difficult to form a satisfactory con- 
 clusion as to the validity of the rival claims of either. 
 Justin Winsor says : " In considering the respective 
 claims of the English and French to North America, 
 it must be remembered that the conflict of rights is 
 not only one on identical lines arising from discovery, 
 but also one on opposed lines arising from different 
 conceptions of the rights of discovery. The claims 
 are also represented by contrary methods and pur- 
 poses in enforcing them." 
 
 The prior occupancy of the lands by the Indians 
 was a third factor of the problem. The early Eng- 
 
-22- 
 
 lisli colonists or traders by their charters or patents 
 got a jurisdiction over, but no established fee in the 
 lands conveyed them by the crown. They admitted 
 that permanent occupation or possession could only 
 follow extinguishment of the native title by purchase 
 or treaty. The French claimed right of possession 
 as against the native occupant, but cared less for the 
 territory than for the privilege of controlling the fur 
 trade in ecclesiastical and commercial interests. At 
 the same time, as occasion demanded, the French 
 seized the lands of the Indians without thought of 
 recompense. It was not strange that these diverse 
 policies puzzled the native occupant, causing a 
 wavering or divided allegiance, some preferring the 
 French and others the English without constancy to 
 either. The Dutch and the English as their succes- 
 sors early learned that the Iroquois, in their marvel- 
 ous governmental league and power, were the recog- 
 nized leaders of the native tribes of this continent, and 
 had cultivated and propitiated them while the French 
 unwisely incurred their enmity. The English formed 
 alliance with the Iroquois, and as the latter, who 
 were a race of the highest martial qualities, made 
 conquest of the other native tribes and territory, 
 the English turned these conquests to their own 
 advantage by the assumption that the Iroquois con- 
 quests under their alliances gave supremacy to Eng- 
 lish jurisdiction and possession. This English assump- 
 tion, however, remained a point of dissent on [the part 
 of France down to the Quebec Act of 1774. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century came that 
 tremendous epoch of history, the Seven Years' War, 
 
—23— 
 
 which involved both Europe and America in its issue. 
 In the words of Trevelyan : " Problems had long 
 been ripe for solution which concerned not only the 
 British Kingdom, but all the civilized and almost the 
 whole of the inhabited world. Whether France or 
 England was to rule in India ; whether the French 
 manners, language or institutions, or the English, 
 were to prevail over the immense continent of North 
 America ; whether Germany was to have a national 
 existence ; whether Spain was to monopolize the 
 commerce of the tropics ; who was to command the 
 ocean ; who was to be dominant in the islands of the 
 Caribbean Sea ; what power was to possess the choice 
 stands for business in the great market of the globe ; 
 these were only some of the issues which had to be 
 decided. . . . On the i8th of May, 1756, the unofficial 
 hostilities between France and England, which had 
 been smoldering or blazing for the space of four 
 years on the shores of the Carnatic, and along the 
 valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi, were sanctioned and extended by an open 
 declaration of war." For seven long years the 
 American colonists bore the burden of the defense of 
 their homes from French and savage aggression and 
 in maintaining the power and prestige of the British 
 crown. Enormous was the drain upon their resources 
 and homes, yet all cheerfully and loyally borne. 
 They knew that all the great powers of Europe were 
 in a mighty death grapple. Here the statesmen, the 
 scholars and the plain people could not help but 
 seriously ponder the question, What does it all mean 
 to us and our offspring ? After more than a century 
 
—24— 
 
 of seeking freedom in tlie wilderness, are we to be 
 delivered to the dominion of France with all wliicli 
 that implies ? 
 
 There is no more piteous tale in American history 
 than that of the burdens, sacrifices and sufferings of 
 the New England colonists on behalf of the British 
 crown during the French and English wars from 1755 
 to 1762, and a glimpse at the record throws in dark 
 shadow the wickedness and fatuity of George III. and 
 his ministry in seeking by the Stamp Act and other 
 means to crush the spirit and the rights of those who 
 had but just rendered such willing and unexampled 
 service. 
 
 Keeping in mind the rigors of climate, the compara- 
 tive sparseness of population and the ruggedness of 
 our rocky soil whence the necessaries of life must be 
 dug, we can better appreciate the service and sacrifice 
 of the little colony of Connecticut by the men at war 
 and the women in the homes, for they alike shared the 
 burdens of the field and the perils of the tomahawk 
 and scalping-knife at the hand of the Frenchman's 
 savage allies. In 1764 was issued from the printing- 
 press of Benjamin Mecom of New Haven a pamphlet 
 entitled " Reasons why the British Colonies in Amer- 
 ica should not be charged with Internal Taxes by 
 authority of Parliament, etc." 
 
 Besides setting forth the arduous defense made by 
 the colonists for more than fifty years preceding 1755, 
 it gives a condensed summary of services to the 
 crown by the colony of Connecticut from 1755 to 1762. 
 "In the year 1755, when Forces were raised by the 
 Northern Colonies for removing Encroachments made 
 
—25— 
 
 on His Majesty's territories in America by tlie Frencli 
 Connecticut raised a Thousand Men for that service, 
 and also two thousand more the same year to rein- 
 force the army at Lake George, then apprehended too 
 weak to withstand the enemy. This number was two 
 or three times the proportion of Connecticut compared 
 with some other colonies concerned in that Expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 " In 1756 it raised Two Thousand five hundred men, 
 which was double the number proposed by the King's 
 Commander in Chief for the Colony's proportion in 
 the service of that year. This was done by the 
 Colony as it was supposed the Southern Colonies 
 would fail of the proportion allotted for them to raise ; 
 and lest the Service should suffer, it exerted itself in 
 such duplicate proportion. 
 
 " In 1757 the proportion demanded by His Majesty's 
 Commander-in-Chief, for the service of that year, 
 being Fourteen Hundred men, the Colony not only 
 raised that number, but also, on intelligence of the 
 attack on Fort William Henry, speedily sent forward 
 about Five Thousand of the Militia, for the relief of 
 that fortress and the protection of the country, then in 
 great consternation in those parts. 
 
 " And in 1758 an expedition was set on foot for the 
 reduction of Canada, and the colonies being called 
 upon by the Crown to raise as many men as the 
 number of their inhabitants would admit of; and as 
 it was apprehended that in case of success, an end 
 would be put to the war in these parts by that year's 
 campaign, Connecticut exerted beyond all former 
 eff"orts, in hopes of its being the finishing stroke, and 
 
—26— 
 
 accordingly agreed to raise five thousand men and 
 actually had but few short of that number in the field. 
 But as this important design failed of accomplish- 
 ment at that time, the Colony by Royal direction, 
 was called upon strenuously to exert itself in the like 
 service, in 1759, and even until the end of the war. 
 And as what hath been done by the Colonies, on that 
 extraordinary occasion in 1758, seemed constantly to 
 be made the rule of demand upon them afterwards, 
 the annual requisition of the Crown proved exceeding 
 heavy upon the Colony of Connecticut, for it had 
 indeed exerted itself vastly beyond its ability and any 
 just proportion in that year ; yet nevertheless they 
 agreed to raise the number demanded in every suc- 
 ceeding year of the War, being spirited, as far as pos- 
 sible, to yield the strictest obedience to the King's 
 command, and determined to persevere in his service 
 with the utmost ejBforts." . . . 
 
 " In these services, from the year 1755 to the year 
 1762 inclusive, the expenses of the Colony over and 
 above the Parliamentary grants amount to upward of 
 four hundred thousand pounds ; the large arrears of 
 which sum will remain a heavy, distressing burden 
 upon the people for many years to come. Moreover, 
 several thousands of the hardiest and most able 3^oung 
 men, the hope and strength of the farmers have been 
 destroyed, lost and enervated in the many distant, 
 arduous campaigns during the course of this terrible 
 war. . . . And although, by the success of the mili- 
 tary operations in America, large and most valuable 
 acquisitions have been made to the British Dominions, 
 yet the Colony of Connecticut gains nothing thereby 
 
—2J— 
 
 further than as it may be said to be concerned in the 
 common Cause and general interest of the whole." 
 
 With the capitulation of Montreal and the Treaty 
 of Paris, February lo, 1763, whereby the French for- 
 ever lost permanent foothold on this continent, the 
 American colonies were jubilant. The church bells 
 of New England rang out notes of victory and rejoic- 
 ing and the pulpits resounded with sermons of thanks- 
 giving. The voice of Stephen Johnson gave glad 
 acclaim, for had not many of his parishioners faced the 
 frowning battlements of Ticonderoga, seen the lilies of 
 France droop in humiliating surrender at Montreal, 
 swelled the fearful death-roll at Havana, and elsewhere, 
 too, witnessed the alternating victories and defeats 
 incident to war ? 
 
 Amid all the anxieties of the conflict while it lasted 
 had been a ferment of thought in the minds of the 
 people. Will success of the British crown strengthen 
 or impair our liberties which we have so dearly 
 bought? After all our arduous services will the 
 crown lift from us the galling tyranny of the Naviga- 
 tion Acts and other devices to cripple and repress our 
 trade and industries, or in arrogant consciousness of 
 renewed strength will it impose new burdens upon us ? 
 
 With bated breath as if afraid of their own thoughts 
 they asked themselves the question how long their 
 own endurance might last under new burdens of tax- 
 ation, should they be imposed. 
 
 On the death of George II., in 1760, came to the 
 throne his grandson, George III., perhaps the worst 
 of the Brunswicks. Naturally a young man of many 
 good parts, he had by his mother been unwisely trained 
 
—28— 
 
 to undue conceptions of prerogative. " George, be 
 king " had been her constant monition. In the 
 clearer perspective of history Lord Brougham thus 
 depicts his character : 
 
 " Of a narrow understanding, which no culture had 
 enlarged ; of an obstinate disposition, which no educa- 
 tion, perhaps, could have huraanized ; of strong feelings 
 in ordinary things, and a resolute attachment to all his 
 own predilections, George III. possessed much of the 
 firmness of purpose which, being exhibited by men of 
 contracted mind without any discrimination, and as 
 pertinaciously when they are in the wrong as when 
 they are in the right, lends to their characters an 
 appearance of inflexible consistency, often mistaken 
 for greatness of mind, and not seldom received as a 
 substitute for honesty. In all that related to his 
 kingly of&ce he was the slave of deep-rooted selfish- 
 ness ; and no feeling of a kindly nature was ever 
 allowed access to his bosom, whenever his power was 
 concerned, either in its maintenance, or in the man- 
 ner of exercising it. In other respects he was a man 
 of amiable disposition, and few princes have been 
 more exemplary in their domestic habits, or in the 
 offices of private friendship. But the instant that his 
 prerogative was concerned, or his bigotry interfered 
 with, or his will thwarted, the most unbending pride, 
 the most bitter animosity, the most calculating cold- 
 ness of heart, the most unforgiving resentment, took 
 possession of his whole breast, and swayed it by turns. 
 The habits of friendship, the ties of blood, the dictates 
 of conscience, the rules of honesty, were alike forgot- 
 ten ; and the fury of the tyrant, with the resources of 
 
—29— 
 
 a cunning wliich mental alienation is supposed to 
 wHet, were ready to circumvent or destroy all wlio 
 interposed an obstacle to tlie fierceness of unbridled 
 desire." 
 
 As a pen-picture drawn by a loyal and scholarly 
 Bnglisbman, perhaps we may accept his estimate of 
 character as explaining the attitude of George III. 
 toward the American colonists. 
 
 The rejoicings of the people of England and Amer- 
 ica over the termination of the Seven Years' War had 
 hardly ceased before George III. and his ministry 
 with a fatuity bordering on madness of judgment and 
 purpose began to plan new outrages upon the rights 
 of the American colonists. Within two years there 
 had been created sixteen new peerages with the 
 unblushing purpose of making a servile majority in 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 A fortnight after the signatory powers had con- 
 cluded the Treaty of Paris, Charles Townshend be- 
 came First Lord of Trade, with administration of the 
 colonies, and with support of the ministry inaugurated 
 a new system of colonial government. Upon the plea 
 that the expulsion of the French had been a great 
 relief and advantage to the colonies, it was announced 
 there would be no more direct requisitions by the King 
 upon the Colonial Assemblies for supplies, but the 
 colonies were to be taxed by Act of Parliament ; Colo- 
 nial Governors and Judges were to be appointed and 
 paid by the crown, who were to be supported here by 
 a standing army of twenty regiments ; and the 
 expenses of this force were to be largely paid by 
 money wrung from the people of the colonies by Par- 
 
— 30— 
 
 liamentary taxation. To their own impoverisliment 
 the colonies had voluntarily voted money and supplies 
 in the long contest with France, and without time to 
 recuperate from the strain they were to have forced 
 upon them the support of an undesired and needless 
 military establishment over their own homes and 
 resources. Since its conquest of Canada the crown 
 had regarded that province as a military point d'^appui 
 in support of its policy of enforcing its supremacy 
 over all the American colonies. 
 
 Though the retirement of France had left on this 
 continent no enemy to the British arms, there still 
 remained here ten regiments of troops quartered upon 
 the people for their support, and later to enforce the 
 secret schemes of the ministry should they be resisted. 
 The old Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663 for the pur- 
 pose of exploiting British shipping and trade were to 
 be rigorously enforced. 
 
 In 1733 had been passed by Parliament the Molasses 
 Act intended to restrict the trade of the Northern colo- 
 nies. Though its prohibitory duties invited exten- 
 sive smuggling, the Act was five times renewed by 
 Parliament until 1764, when it was made perpetual. 
 
 The home of the family is the place where the 
 affections centre. The attitude of the colonists upon 
 questions of government and taxation was based upon 
 domestic as well as public reasons. Here in the middle 
 of the eighteenth century an able-bodied man in ex- 
 treme poverty was almost unknown, and equally so one 
 native-born without the common rudiments of an 
 education. Of such it was rarely the case that the 
 head of a family did not own his house and the land 
 
—31— 
 
 upon which lie lived. With him the question of 
 taxation by a foreign legislative body was not one of 
 shifting political expedients but a matter of public 
 principle vitally related to the present welfare of his 
 home and the inheritance of his children. 
 
 The ministerial theory of colonial trade was that of 
 the gambler with his loaded dice. By its various 
 Acts of Trade the crown sought to oblige the colonies 
 to purchase their goods in its markets, and to further 
 cripple their local industries by compelling their 
 exports to be carried in British bottoms with clear- 
 ances for ports in England alone — a system of com- 
 mercial vassalage and robbery. In April, 1764, 
 George Grenville succeeded Bute as Prime Minister, 
 though in the private capacity of confidential friend 
 and adviser, Bute still "sat squat like toad^' at the 
 ear of George III. 
 
 On April 5th Grenville procured passage of the 
 Sugar Act, imposing duties upon certain of both colo- 
 nial exports and imports, to take effect on and after 
 September 29, 1764. In the previous month he had 
 announced his intention to introduce at the next Par- 
 liament a Stamp Bill. 
 
 In the meantime the several Agents maintained by 
 the colonies to look after their general interests in 
 England had received from the crown its crafty sug- 
 gestion that they communicate with their respective 
 governments in order that the colonies, if desirous, 
 might agree upon some other method of their taxation 
 for benefit of the crown. For many years the colonists 
 had been politically neither blind nor deaf. They 
 knew that if they gave serious official consideration to 
 
—32— 
 
 tlie question and agreed upon any plan it would com- 
 mit tliem to tlie principle of Parliamentary taxation of 
 themselves. The prospect was viewed witli alarm in 
 America, wliere tlie enforcement of tlie Acts of Trade 
 was already disastrous to commerce, and when, in 
 February, 1765, the proposed Stamp Bill was brought 
 before Parliament by Grenville the Colonial Agents 
 declined to recommend any substitute for the Bill, but 
 earnestly remonstrated against it. They also pre- 
 sented petitions against it from the Colonial Assem- 
 blies and from London merchants interested in Amer- 
 ican trade, but their petitions were refused considera- 
 tion under a rule adopted by the House of Commons 
 forbidding the reception of petitions on money-bills. 
 
 The Stamp Bill passed the Commons by a vote of 
 205 to 49 and the House of Lords without a division. 
 During the discussion of questions relating to the 
 colonies, Benjamin Franklin had for some time been 
 in England watching the trend of influences and 
 events. On the night after the passage of the Stamp 
 Act he wrote to Charles Thomson, afterward the Sec- 
 retary of the Continental Congress : " The sun of 
 liberty is set ; the Americans must light the lamps of 
 industry and economy." To Jared Ingersoll, Agent 
 of the colony of Connecticut, then in London, he 
 said, " Go home and tell your countrymen to get 
 children as fast as they can," implying the inevitable 
 and long struggle to come. 
 
 At time of passage of the Stamp Act, George IIL 
 was in partial retirement in one of those attacks of 
 insanity to which he was subject. A Commission 
 was appointed to act for the King in approval of the 
 
—33— 
 
 « 
 
 Act. It is stated as matter of fact tliat on March 2 2d 
 the Act was presented to the King in person while in 
 one of his immediate conditions of irresponsibility, 
 and with his own hand he enacted the farce or tragedy 
 of affixing his royal approval. Its passage by Parlia- 
 ment had been an act of political insanity and any 
 method of its approval could hardly be questioned. 
 The Stamp Act provided that from and after the first 
 day of November, 1765, " there shall be raised, levied, 
 collected, and paid unto his Majesty, his heirs, and 
 successors, throughout the colonies and plantations of 
 America, which now are or hereafter may be, under 
 the dominion of his Majesty, his heirs and succes- 
 sors, etc." 
 
 Then followed an enumeration by name of almost 
 every conceivable legal document or conveyance, 
 agreement or obligation, on land or sea, commercial 
 parchment, paper or transaction, marriage license, 
 bill, bond, note, book, pamphlet, almanac, newspaper 
 or advertisement in any gazette, newspaper or pam- 
 phlet, each for its legal validity requiring that it be 
 written or printed upon stamped paper alone. 
 
 Heavy penalties were prescribed for violation of 
 any of the terms of the Act. 
 
 Among other things, Sec. I. of the Act provided 
 that upon " any register, entry, testimonial or certifi- 
 cate of any degree taken in any university, academy, 
 college or seminary of learning within the said colo- 
 nies and plantations, a stamp duty of two pounds " 
 should be paid. 
 
 Hardly any provision excited more indignation here 
 than did Sec. LVII., which declared that " Forfeitures 
 
—34— 
 
 and penalties incurred after Sept. 29, 1765, for offen- 
 ses against the Sugar Act, and for offenses against 
 any other Act or Acts of Parliament relating to the 
 trade or revenues of the said colonies or plantations, 
 shall and may be prosecuted, sued for and recovered 
 in any court of record, or in any Court of Admiralty 
 in the respective colony or plantation where the 
 offense shall be committed, or in any Court of Vice 
 Admiralty appointed or to be appointed, and which 
 shall have jurisdiction within such colony, plantation 
 or place, . . ai the electioji of the informer or 
 prosecutor!''' 
 
 The annual Mutiny Act authorized the sending to 
 the colonies such number of troops as might by the 
 ministry at any time be deemed necessary. 
 
 In April was also passed the Quartering-Act, which 
 required the constables, tithingmen, magistrates and 
 other civil officials of villages, towns, etc., in America, 
 to billet and quarter the of&cers and soldiers in His 
 Majesty's service, and provide food, drink and trans- 
 portation for them, with penalties for any refusal. 
 America will never forget the names of that generous 
 and heroic minority who in Parliament pleaded the 
 rights of the colonists as Knglishmen and the impol- 
 icy of the proposed tyranny. 
 
 It was after Charles Townshend, in his attempted 
 argument upon the equity of taxation had said, 
 " Will these children, planted by our care, nourished 
 by our indulgence to strength and opulence, and pro- 
 tected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite 
 to relieve us from the heavy burden under which we 
 live?" — that Colonel Barre, who as the fellow soldier 
 
—35— 
 
 of Wolfe liad stared tlie dangers and glories of 
 Quebec, where he received a well-nigh fatal wound 
 while supporting the body of his dying chief on that 
 field, arose in Parliament and in impromptu but im- 
 passioned eloquence, made that response now so 
 familiar that it has become a classic of patriotism. 
 It was in this speech that Colonel Barre applied to 
 the abused but still loyal American colonists the title 
 of " Sons of Liberty "—words which as soon as heard 
 here gave name to an organization of great fearless- 
 ness and influence in kindling the fires of resistance 
 to the British crown. 
 
 With the passage of the Stamp Act came to all the 
 customs officials here imperative instructions to 
 enforce to thfe letter the intolerable Navigation Acts. 
 With the temptation of large personal emoluments, 
 the acts of the various civil, military and naval offi- 
 cials of the customs became a system of legalized 
 tyranny and robbery. 
 
 The post-offices being under British control, the 
 utmost secrecy was necessary and patriotic riders car- 
 ried from colony to colony matters of important intel- 
 ligence. Reprints of the Stamp Act, entitled " The 
 folly of England and ruin of America," were secretly 
 scattered among the people. 
 
 The colonists had met Charles Townshend's policy 
 by an agreement not to import or consume British 
 goods, and in a single year the amount of such 
 exports from England to the colonies fell off 70 
 per cent. Writing of these events, Trevelyan says : 
 " All the British regiments which had ever sailed 
 from Cork or Portsmouth could not force Americans 
 
-3^ 
 
 to purchase Britisli merchandise. . . . One func- 
 tion the soldiers might be called upon to discharge ; 
 and it was evidently in the minds of the Cabinet 
 which sent them out. As soon as the news of their 
 arrival at Boston had reached London, the supporters 
 of the Ministry in manifest concert with the Treasury 
 Bench moved an address to the King, praying that 
 persons who in the view of the royal governor of any 
 colony had committed or failed to disclose acts of 
 treason might be brought over to England and tried 
 under a statute of Henry VIII." 
 
 The ministry had already declared many of the 
 colonial leaders guilty of treason and liable to be 
 seized and transported three thousand miles for the 
 farce of a trial with the certainty of never seeing 
 their homes again. Men like Samuel Adams, James 
 Otis, Stephen Johnson and other "trumpets of sedi- 
 tion " well knew that under the old Tudor statute 
 the noose of a halter was at no time far from their 
 necks. 
 
 In the village of Old Lyme then lived two men 
 unbribable and unawed by power, who looked with 
 eyes single to the welfare of their fellow men and to 
 whose memories our commonwealth can never over- 
 pay its debt of grateful remembrance. One was the 
 Reverend Stephen Johnson and the other one of his 
 parishioners, John McCurdy, a cultivated gentleman 
 of high character and large property-interests, whose 
 name belongs in that galaxy of noble Scotch-Irish- 
 men, who in the Revolution so bravely in both forum 
 and field served our country. At this time for pur- 
 pose of acquiring new political information, McCurdy 
 
—37— 
 
 quietly journeyed to New York, where in the inner 
 circle of the Sons of Liberty he learned that certain 
 important papers were being secretly passed from 
 hand to hand for perusal. Obtaining a copy under 
 strongest injunction of secrecy except with the most 
 reliable, he hastened back to his home for consulta- 
 tation with Stephen Johnson. The old, many-gabled 
 colonial home of McCurdy still stands a quaint orna- 
 ment to the village street of Lyme. Its furniture 
 yet remains as when its floors felt the tread of Wash- 
 ington, Lafayette and others, their compatriots of the 
 Revolution. Could the walls of the library of that 
 historic mansion give phonographic echo to the coun- 
 sels and plans of Johnson and McCurdy for resistance 
 to the Stamp Act, a rich contribution would be made 
 to the annals of American patriotism. 
 
 After secret consultation between Johnson, McCurdy 
 and the New London printer, Timothy Green, in 
 September, 1765, Johnson began the preparation of 
 a series of papers intended to arouse the people and 
 strengthen the minds of their delegates to the 
 approaching Congress of colonial representatives in 
 the city of New York. Each paper when written 
 was carefully considered by Johnson and McCurdy 
 and then the shrewd diplomacy of the latter secured 
 its secret transmission to Green for publication in his 
 New London Gazette. Johnson's first paper over the 
 pen-name of " Addison " appeared in the Gazette on 
 September 6th and was addressed " To the Freemen 
 of the Colony of Connecticut." His second paper 
 was addressed " To The Printers " doubtless with 
 the object of its being reproduced in other colonial 
 
-38- 
 
 newspapers. Weekly thereafter until November first 
 appeared in the Gazette other of those impassioned 
 and logical appeals and arguments from Johnson's 
 pen, urging forcible resistance. Their dangerous 
 authorship was known only to Johnson, McCurdy 
 and Green. The excitement these papers created 
 was unbounded and copies were carried by fleet riders 
 to all the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia 
 and printed in their newspapers. These letters pre- 
 sented every argument from the natural, constitu- 
 tional and chartered rights of the people and were a 
 mighty force in arousing and uniting them in defense 
 of their liberties. A continuous chain of logical 
 argument and appeal runs through them all, making 
 brief extracts unfitting. They should be read as a 
 whole, and the reader will find his soul stirred to 
 admiring reverence for the heroic patriotism of their 
 author. Perhaps the most philosophical and power- 
 ful article from his pen was a sermon preached by 
 him at Newport, R. I., on Public Fast Day, Dec. i8, 
 1765, and entitled " Some Important Observations on 
 Account of the Peculiar Circumstances of the Present 
 Day." 
 
 In all his writings, Johnson held and taught the 
 belief later expressed by Jefferson that " The only 
 firm basis of national liberty is the conviction that 
 liberty is the gift of God." 
 
 In the spring of 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed, 
 but in such a way that its most offensive feature was 
 reasserted. The King had stubbornly opposed any 
 repeal except it was accompanied by a Declaratory 
 Act asserting the right of the Parliament to pass and 
 
—39— 
 
 enforce Acts for taxation of the colonies. For the 
 financial burdens likely to result from the Stamp Act 
 the colonies cared not so much. Their contention 
 was against the right of the Parliament to tax them 
 at all. The position of the colonists was well stated 
 by their Congress of 1775 when it said to the people 
 of Great Britain : *' We are accused of ' forgetting 
 the allegiance which we owe to the power that has 
 protected and sustained us.' . . . What allegiance is 
 it that we forget ? Allegiance to parliament ? We 
 never owed — we never owned it." The Declaratory 
 Act was passed with result of widely renewing jeal- 
 ousy and distrust of the crown. Though the Stamp 
 Act had been thus repealed, there were other pend- 
 ing questions pregnant with danger. The operation 
 of the Mutiny Act had the year before been extended 
 to the American colonies. It required the colonists 
 at their own expense to furnish the British troops 
 quartered upon them with " fire, candles, vinegar, salt, 
 bedding, utensils for cooking, beer or cider and rum." 
 More of new and grave constitutional questions 
 arose between the crown and the colonies. While in 
 England the Stamp Act had been largely a specula- 
 tive question it was in America a vital one, for on its 
 event the meanest settler felt his freedom and prop- 
 erty to depend. The critical state of feeling here is 
 somewhat shown in the diary of Captain John Mon- 
 tresor, a British officer of engineers, who had been 
 for many years in service here, and much of the time 
 with the colonial troops in the French and Bnglish 
 War. While on duty in the city of New York in 
 1766, he records under date of February 24th in his 
 diary : 
 
— ^40 — 
 
 " Meetings as usual with the Sons of Liberty. 
 Colonel Putnam, a Connecticut Colonel, sent advice 
 to them from thence, that he would assist them with 
 their Militia to the utmost lives and fortunes to 
 prevent the Stamp Act being enforced in this Province 
 or any other." 
 
 ** February 27th. The very Inadvertant Sons of 
 Liberty make no scruples of publickly declaring that 
 they are for shaking off the Yoke of Dependency of 
 their Mother Country." 
 
 ** March 24th. By advice from Connecticut matters 
 are arrived to greater lengths than in any other prov- 
 ince, having allready provided themselves with a maga- 
 zine for Arms, Ammunition, etc. — and ten thousand 
 men at the shortest warning for opposing the Stamp 
 Act, etc., all under the command of a Connecticut 
 man called Col. Putnam, one that has received his 
 Majesty's money, having been employed during the 
 War as a Provincial Colonel." 
 
 The self-poised yet indignant and fiery patriotism 
 of the Lyme pastor, as expressed in his letters to the 
 New London Gazette, had wrought its intended work 
 in the minds of the people of Connecticut and the 
 other colonies. Though a painful question to con- 
 sider, the inevitable current of events was carrying 
 them to the ultimate goal of political independence, 
 even through blood. 
 
 By request of the General Assembly of the Colony 
 of Connecticut, Mr. Johnson preached on May 10, 
 1770, the Anniversary Election Sermon for that year, 
 taking his text from II Samuel, 23: 3. "The Rock 
 of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must 
 
—41— 
 
 be just, ruling in the fear of God." His theme was — 
 *' Integrity and Piety the best Principles of a good 
 Administration of Government." Arguing that civil 
 government and the rights of the people under it are 
 " the ordinance of God," he says : " These natural 
 rights, civil and religious, are the gifts of God, as 
 such sacred, nor may any but He, as original pro- 
 prietor, resume them at pleasure." He further de- 
 clares '' the good of the community to be the high 
 end of government, and the supreme law of the State. 
 ... If the great and essential rights and privileges 
 of the people be invaded and supplanted, usurped and 
 destroyed, the design of government is subverted, and 
 the end of it frustrated in the primary and funda- 
 mental intention of it. . . . Under an administration 
 formed by a spirit of righteousness effectual care will 
 be taken, that the properties of subjects, in their 
 great essential rights and privileges, they have by 
 nature or constitution, be preserved to them inviolate. 
 . . . When leaders of administration openly adopt 
 arbitrary and offensive measures in a free state, gov- 
 ernment is corrupt at its fountain, and the founda- 
 tions of it are shaken." 
 
 In Boston, New York, Philadelphia and other seaport 
 towns previous to the Revolution, large tea-parties 
 were had where no economy was shown in the quan- 
 tity used of the fragrant leaf. The sturdy patriot- 
 colonists refused to compromise with conscience by 
 purchasing or using taxed tea. Not to be outdone 
 by their larger neighbors, the people of Old Lyme 
 had their tea-party, to which all the village was 
 invited. On March i6, 1774, a peddler from Martha's 
 
—42— 
 
 Vineyard came into the place on horseback with one 
 hundred pounds of tea in his saddlebags. He was 
 arrested and examined, and in the evening the Sons 
 of Liberty assembled and built a bright fire on the 
 village street near Mr. Johnson's church, and having 
 committed the peddler's whole stock in trade to the 
 flames, they buried the ashes on the spot. 
 
 With unwearied watchfulness of events from the 
 first introduction of the Stamp Bill until the outbreak 
 of the Revolution, Mr. Johnson had followed the 
 faithful work of his pastorate and other duties. The 
 fires of political discontent smoldered until, fanned by 
 a succession of tyrannies, at four o'clock on the morn- 
 ing of Wednesday, April 19, 1775, the flames burst 
 from the muzzles of guns at Lexington. Then in a 
 moment an inchoate nation was born. At ten o'clock 
 that morning the local Committee of Safety started a 
 fleet rider to carry to the patriots of the Atlantic coast 
 the news that the shedding of blood had begun. 
 These were his credentials : 
 
 " Watertown, 
 
 Wednesday mor-nmg near 10 of the clock. 
 
 To all friends of American liberty^ be it known that^ 
 this morning before break of day^ a bj^igade consisting of 
 about I ^000 or 1^200 m,en^ landed at Phip's farm^ at 
 Cambridge^ and marched to Lexingto7t^ where they 
 found a company of our colony militia in arms^ upon 
 whom they fired without any provocation^ and killed six 
 men and wounded four others. By an express from 
 Boston^ we find another brigade are now upon their 
 march from Bostofi^ supposed to be about i^ooo. The 
 
—43— 
 
 bearer^ Trail Bissel^ is charged to alarm the country 
 quite to Connecticut^ and all persons are desired to fur- 
 nish him with fresh horses as they may be needed. I 
 have spoken with several who have see7i the dead and 
 wounded. Pray let the delegates from this colony to 
 Co7inecticut see this; they know Colonel Foster, of 
 Brookfield^ one of the delegates. 
 
 J, Palmer, 
 One of the Committee of S. K." {Safety.) 
 
 Eacli Committee of Safety on tlie route of this 
 spirited messenger indorsed upon his credentials the 
 date and hour of his arrival, thus showing how far 
 and fast he had ridden. Before the close of April 
 19th he reached Worcester, Mass. At 4 p. M. of 
 Thursday he was at Norwich, Conn., and at New 
 London at 7 o'clock the same evening. At one 
 o'clock on Friday morning he was at the door of 
 Stephen Johnson in Old Lyme ; at 10 o'clock of that 
 forenoon at Guilford ; at noon at Branford ; in after- 
 noon at New Haven and Milford, and at 8 o'clock on 
 Saturday morning at Fairfield. Worn with the 
 intense physical strain, but unfaltering, the gallant 
 rider pressed on until his horse, panting and flecked 
 with foam, dashed down the old Bowery Road into 
 Broadway, New York, on Sunday morning at the 
 hour when people were assembling for public worship. 
 Drawing rein at the door of the rooms of the Commit- 
 tee of Safety, where Sears, Lamb, MacDougall, and 
 other patriots were gathered, Bissel presented his 
 credentials. At 4 o'clock that afternoon he crossed 
 the river into New Jersey, and pushed on with his 
 
—44— 
 
 miglity message. At 2 o'clock on Monday morning 
 lie arrived at New Brunswick, and four hours later 
 was at the home in Princeton of the sterling patriot, 
 Dr. John Witherspoon, President of the College of 
 New Jersey. By 9 o'clock of the same morning he 
 was at Trenton, and at 5 o'clock that afternoon his 
 credentials were indorsed at Philadelphia. All honor 
 to Paul Revere, famed in song and story, but his gal- 
 lant ride pales before that of the unsung hero. Trail 
 Bissel. 
 
 The patriots of the colonies from Boston to Phila- 
 delphia at once sprang to arms and hurried their 
 minute men to the scene of battle. Here in Connec- 
 ticut as elsewhere were mothers of the Gracchi still 
 living. One gentlewoman of Connecticut encouraged 
 her six sons and eleven grandsons to hasten to the 
 field, telling them to come back with honor or not at 
 all. The patriot Johnson was now as ready for ser- 
 vice in the field as he had been in the forum. When 
 the fleet rider brought to Old Lyme word of the 
 affair at Lexington, it required but three days for 
 the rallying of one hundred men and their start to 
 Boston. In a few days one of his parishioners, a 
 lieutenant of the first company, returned to Lyme 
 and recruited a second company, which was attached 
 to the Sixth Connecticut Continental Regiment, 
 commanded by Colonel Samuel Holden Parsons and 
 reached Boston in time for the battle of Bunker 
 Hill, where Stephen Johnson was present as Chaplain 
 of the regiment. There, along the lines at Roxbury, 
 and wherever duty or the exigencies of the service 
 demanded, his presence and voice gave stimulus to 
 
—45— 
 
 the unfailing courage and fidelity of the living as well 
 as comfort to the wounded and dying of his parish- 
 ioners and other compatriots in the field. During the 
 whole long struggle he was by both pen and person 
 an unwearied patriot. It was given him to see the 
 crowning of his work in the surrender at Yorktown 
 and the Treaty of Peace in 1783. He continued his 
 pastorate of forty years with the church of Old Lyme 
 until at his death, November 8, 1786, he was laid to 
 rest in the old Duck River burying ground. Though 
 unremembered by many, his name is preserved in his 
 country's annals. Recalling the fact that from his 
 pen came the first printed article pointing to unquali- 
 fied resistance to the tyranny of the British crown, 
 we leave him at rest with a sufficient epitaph in the 
 words of George Bancroft, the historian, who says, 
 " Of that venerable band who nursed the flame of 
 piety and civil freedom, none did better service than 
 the American-born Stephen Johnson, the sincere and 
 fervid pastor of the First Church of Lyme." 
 
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