Hooker, the minister in Cambridge, led one hundred members of his
church overland to new homes in Connecticut in June, 1636. These
people had come from England a few years before, hoping to find
religious and political freedom in America, and, after a short
stay in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they decided to remove to
Connecticut. Their journey was made in warm weather, under sunny
skies, with birds singing in the green woods. They traveled
slowly, for there were women and little children with them, old
people too, and some who were sick. Mrs. Hooker was carried all
the way in a litter. They followed a path toward the west which
by that time had probably become a well-marked trail. Part of it,
no doubt, led through deep forests. Sometimes they passed Indian
villages. Sometimes they forded streams. They drove with them a
herd of one hundred and sixty cattle, letting them graze by the
way. They had wagons and tents, and at night they camped, made
fires, and milked the cows. There were berries to be picked along
the edges of the meadows and clear springs to drink from, and the
two weeks' journey must have been one long picnic to the
children.

When "Hooker's company" arrived on the banks of the Connecticut
River, three little English settlements had already been made
there. They were soon named Hartford, Windsor, and We(a)thersfield.
These three settlements were the beginning of the Connecticut Colony.

At first the people were under the government of Massachusetts
because Massachusetts thought they were still within her borders.
But before long it became necessary for them to organize a
government of their own. They had brought no patent, or charter,
with them from England, and so, finding themselves alone in the