It is to be regretted that no one of the historians who have noticed this remarkable journey, has given any precise information respecting the route pursued from Newtown to Hartford. Hutchinson mentions "many hideous swamps and very high mountains, beside five or six rivers, or different parts of the same winding river, (the Chickapi,) not every where fordable, which they could not avoid."*

The " Chickapi" River was doubtless that which now bears the name Chickopee, rising in the vicinity of what is now Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a circuitous course through the towns now known as Spencer, Brookfield and Palmer, receiving on its way several tributary streams, large and small rising in New Braintree and Petersham, and a part of them constituting Ware and Swift rivers, and falling into the Connecticut above Springfield. Supposing the company of emigrants to have taken a direct course from Boston to what is now Spencer, the place where they perhaps struck the Chickapi (or Chickopee) River, they must have crossed the Charles and the Concord rivers and some smaller streams tributary to them.— Following the general course of the Chickopee,

*Hutchinson, I, 45.

they must have kept, most of their way, within the limits of Massachusetts, and approached the Connecticut not far from where Springfield now

stands. Whether they crossed this river so high up, and passed down to Hartford upon the west side, or continued their journey on the east side till near the point at which they were aiming, is unknown. Tradition has spoken of the latter.*

In the condition of the country at that time, upon the route now described, and which was probably the one pursued, considered as a wilderness, without roads, bridges, or ferries; looking also at the number of the streams, and the size of some of them as they now are; and taking into the account the hills, valleys, swamps, ravines, all of them doubtless rendered the more forbidding from their being embraced in a wilderness; the conclusion will be natural, that a journey from Boston to Hartford, two hundred years ago, must have been attended with toils

* If the journey of the emigrants was upon the west side of the river, the observer of contrasts and student of modern progress' " will find matter for interesting comparison between a journey from Boston to Hartford in 1636 and one in 1849; the first requiring nearly a fortnight, at the rate of ten miles per day, and the second by rail-road along the same route, less than six hours from city to city.

and dangers hardly surpassed in these days, by a journey from the capital of Massachusetts across the continent of North America to the mouth of the Columbia River.

CHAPTER V.

Arrival at Hartford. Share of Mr. Hooker in the concerns of the Colony of Connecticut superadded to his ministerial services. Cotemporaries and associates in the colonies of Connecticut. Estimate of his position and influence in the state. Concern in originating the New England Confederacy. Invitation to a seat in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, in England. Reasons for declining the invitation. Last sickness. Death. Letter of Mr. Stone relative to his decease.

WE find Mr. Hooker and his church at "Hartford upon Connecticut," in June, 1636. He was there, too, for reasons which he needed not to be ashamed to see "written on the sky," to be read by all whom they might concern. Reasons they were which well became him, as a christian and a member of the civil state. He was there, to be with other wise and good men the founder of a state as well as of churches of Christ. And by his little colony of godly men, together with those of New Haven and of Saybrook, the erection of the good State of Connecticut that now is, was commenced. "History,"

says an eminent New England historian of our own time," has ever celebrated the heroes who VOL. VI.

9

Has it

have won laurels in scenes of carnage. no place for the founders of states; the wise legislators who struck the rock in the wilderness, so that the waters of liberty gushed forth in copious and perennial fountains? They who judge of men by their services to the human race, will never cease to honor the memory of Hooker and of Haynes."*

Mr. Hooker's Church, before their emigration to New England, had chosen Mr. Samuel Stone to be associated with him as a teacher. Mr. Stone's great excellence of character made him to be highly esteemed by them; and we find him continuing with Mr. Hooker and the church, in all their removals, and in that to Hartford. The fact speaks well, both for the ministers and their people. This happy union continued during the life of Mr. Hooker.

It is appropriate in the sketch of this period in the life of Mr. Hooker, that we speak of him, in this new field of his labors, not only as a Christian minister and pastor of the Church in Hartford, and in his ecclesiastical relations to the State, but also in his relations to the colony, and in his promotion of its interests, civil, literary, and moral.

*Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. I., p. 408.