A HARBOR FOR SHIPS


"It hath a fair river, fit for harboring of ships, and abounds
with rich and goodly meadows." This description of New Haven, or
Quinnipiac, as the Indians called it, was brought back to Boston
in the summer of 1637, after the Pequot War, by some of the
English soldiers who had pursued the flying Pequots into that
part of Connecticut and had noticed the good harbor of New Haven
as they passed.

The report sounded so pleasant and so satisfactory in the ears of
a company of London merchants, who, with their families and their
fortunes, had recently come to New England and were looking about
for a suitable spot in which to settle, that they decided to
visit this place and judge of it for themselves.

These people, about two hundred and fifty in number, had arrived
in Boston in June of that same year, after a voyage of two
months. Of course in the small ships of those days there must
have been many discomforts, even in a pleasant season, and no
doubt some of the people were seasick. An old record of that time
says, "We fetched out the children and others that lay groaning
in the cabins, and having stretched a rope from the steerage to
the mainmast, made them stand some on one side and some on the
other and sway it up and down till they were warm. By this means
they soon grew well and merry. ... When the ship heaved and set
more than usual a few were sick, but of these such as came upon