The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1870-07-20
(From the New York Ledgcf.)
ELIHU YALE.
Az JAMES PARTON.

The reader is aware, probably, that
the State Of Connecticut, though not
the largest in the world, has two cap
itals, Hartford and New Haven. Ii
he reads to the end of this article, he
will discover the reason of this super
fluffy for it grew ouL of the founding
of Yale College.
We must go back to the year 1865,
when so large number of emigrants
had fled to Massachusetts, from per-
sccution in England, that the group
of settlements about Boston had be
come ovcr-crowded, and people could
scarcely subsist their cattle through
the long winter. At that day, the
rough and ready mode of clearing land
since practised, by merely telling the
trees burning off the timber, aud lei
ting the stumps remain IN the ground,
had not been thought Of; but every
one supposed the s'umps must all be
grubEed up and destroyed, before the
land could be cultivated. BY this
slow process, few farmers could clear
moro than an acre or two i'll a year,
and but for the fact that there was a
great quantity of cleared land about
Boston and Salem, the Indian owners
Of which had died Of plague some
years before, the colonists could not
have subsisted at all.
But in 1855, five years after the
settlement o! Boston, the good cleared
lands along that coast were all taken
uIs, and a number of settlers resolved
to remove to the beautiful meadows
upon the banks of the Connecticut
river, of which glowing accounts had
reached them from traders who had
sailed up the Connecticut for traffic
with the Indians Having made up
their minds to settle near the site of
the city of Hartford, they close most
unfortunate time for their removal.
1t was on the 10th of October, 1855,
when the weather already cold, that
about fifteen families, numbering sixty
persons, men, women and children,
with horses, cattle and pigs, began
their march from the neighborhood of
Boston.
The distance is about one hundred
miles, and the whole journey lay
through Wilderness, trackless and
untrodden. There were rivers to
cross, high hills to surmount, and
tangled swaShps to get through The
sufferings of the little band were severe
and long; and when at length they ar
rived at the shores of the broad Con
necticut, they were OH the wrong side
of the river, and at a loss how to get
their cattle over. BY the 18th OF
November, while they were still en-
gagged in getting their cattle across,
the winter set i'll with such severity
that the stream was frozen over, and
there was deep snow upon the ground.
A whole month had been consumed,
and there was scarcely a hut yet erect
ed which could shelter the young chill
dren from the whitening blasts of this
premature winter. ...-tf.
1t was Il season of misery, famine
and death. Two vessels laden with
their good; were wrecked on the voy
age round, and all on board were lost.
BY the end of November, the situation
was so appalling, that thirteen persons
went back through the woods starv-
ing, to Boston, only saved from perish
ing in the wilderness by the kindness
of the Indians. Seventy more, in the
winter, contrived to make their way
back by water. Those who remained
lived on acorns, nuts. game, and what
little corn they could get from the
Indians. Amid sufferihgs seldom
paralleled even in the early history of
New England, the State of Connect
cut was planted.
With returning spring, however,
relief was afforded to the settlers the
fugitives went back Hortford was
founded; and new colonists came
in After the Pequot war of 1896,
settlements on the fertile shores of the
beautiful Connecticut flourishec ex
ceedingly, and the province soon ac
CURED some little importance.
1t was in old Connecticut that the
American method of clearing land was
first hit upon; and without that inven-
tion, the American Wilderness never
could have been cleared fast enough
to receive the tide of emigration which
set toward it This fact, though not
mentioned by any historian of note, is
of so much Importance that l will copy
here the original record of it, as C n
tained in an old manuscript history of
Guilford, Connecticut, written one
hundred years ago by the minister of
that town, Rev. Thomas Ruggles, |
ard published year or two since in
the New York Historical Magazine. !
The passage has very great historical
value
cit was great many ye2rs the |
planters were chiefly confined to the
lands cleared by the Indians, near the
sea, in their husbandry They indeed
carly made law that every planterl