Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
page 72 of 288 (25%)
page 72 of 288 (25%)
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waters. Accordingly, in the year 1635, they sent a party of fourteen
or fifteen Englishmen, under George Holmes, to seize the vacant Dutch fort. Van Twiller, informed of this fact, with much energy sent an armed vessel, by which the whole company was arrested and brought to Manhattan, whence they were sent, "pack and sack," to an English settlement on the Chesapeake. The Plymouth people had now been two years in undisturbed possession of their post at Windsor, on the Connecticut. Stimulated by their example, the General Court of Massachusetts encouraged emigration to the Connecticut valley, urging, as a consideration, their need of pasturage for their increasing flocks and herds; the great beauty and fruitfulness of the Connecticut valley, and the danger that the Dutch, or other English colonies, might get possession of it. "Like the banks of the Hudson," it was said, "the Connecticut had been first explored and even occupied by the Dutch. But should a log hut and a few straggling soldiers seal a territory against other emigrants?"[5] Thus solicited, families from Watertown and Roxbury commenced a settlement at Wethersfield in the year 1635. Some emigrants, from Dorchester, established themselves just below the colony of the Plymouth people at Windsor. This led to a stern remonstrance on the part of Governor Bradford, of Plymouth, denouncing their unrighteous intrusion. "Thus the Plymouth colonists on the Connecticut, themselves intruders within the territory of New Netherland, soon began to quarrel with their Massachusetts brethren for trespassing |
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