Its preamble reads:  “Whereas, upon some reasons and grounds, there are to remove from this our Commonwealth and body of the Massachusetts in America divers of our loving friends and neighbors, freemen and members of Newtown, Dorchester, Watertown, and other places, who are resolved to transport themselves and their estates unto the river of Connecticut, there to reside and inhabit; and to that end divers are there already, and divers others shortly to go.”  This tacit permission was the only authorization given by Massachusetts; but it should be noted that the unwilling permission was made more gracious by a kindly loan of cannon and ammunition for the protection of the new settlements.

If it be true that some of the Watertown people had wintered at Wethersfield in 1634-35, this was the first civil settlement in Connecticut; and it is certain that, all through the following spring, summer, and autumn, detached parties of Watertown people were settling at Wethersfield.  During the summer of 1635, a Dorchester party appeared near the Plymouth factory, and laid the foundations of the town of Windsor.  In October of the same year a party of sixty persons, including women and children, largely from Newtown, made the overland march and settled where Hartford now stands.  Their journey was begun so late that the winter overtook them before they reached the river, and, as they had brought their cattle with them, they found great difficulty in getting everything across the river by means of rafts.

It may have been that the echoes of all these preparations had reached England, and stirred the tardy patentees to action.  During the autumn of 1635, John Winthrop, Jr., agent of the Say and Sele associates, reached Boston, with authority to build a large fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River.  He was to be “Governor of the River Connecticut” for one year, and he at once issued a proclamation to the Massachusetts emigrants, asking “under what right and preference they had lately taken up their plantation.”

It is said that they agreed to give up any lands demanded by him, or to return on having their expenses repaid.  A more dangerous influence, however, soon claimed Winthrop’s attention.  Before the winter set in he had sent a party to seize the designated spot for a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River.  His promptness was needed.  Just as his men had thrown up a work sufficient for defense and had mounted a few guns, a Dutch ship from New Amsterdam appeared, bringing a force intended to appropriate the same place.  Again the Dutch found themselves a trifle late; and their post at Hartford was thus finally cut off from effective support.