No one but a church-member could be elected governor, and in choosing assistants the vote was taken upon each assistant in turn, and he had to be voted out before any nomination could be made.[16] In none of the colonies was the tenure of office more constant or persevering.  In a period of about twenty years Haynes was governor eight times and deputy governor five times, Hopkins was governor six times and deputy governor five times, while John Winthrop, the younger, served eighteen years in the chief office.

The Connecticut government thus formed rapidly extended its jurisdiction.  Although Springfield was conceded to Massachusetts the loss was made up by the accession, in 1639, of Fairfield and Stratford, west of New Haven, and, April, 1644, of Southampton, on Long Island, and about the same time of Farmington, near Hartford.  In 1639 a town had been founded at Fort Saybrook by George Fenwick, who was one of the Connecticut patentees.[17] In the confusion which ensued in England Fenwick found himself isolated; and, assuming to himself the ownership of the fort and the neighboring town, he sold both to Connecticut in 1644, and promised to transfer the rest of the extensive territory granted to the patentees “if it ever came into his power to do so."[18] As the Connecticut government was entirely without any legal warrant from the government of England, this agreement of Fenwick’s was deemed of much value, for it gave the colony a quasi-legal standing.

In 1649 East Hampton, on Long Island, was annexed to the colony, and in 1650 Norwalk was settled.  In 1653 Mattabeseck, on the Connecticut, was named Middletown; and in 1658 Nameaug, at the mouth of the Pequot River, settled by John Winthrop, Jr., in 1646, became New London.  In 1653 Connecticut had twelve towns and seven hundred and seventy-five persons were taxed in the colony.[19]

While Connecticut was thus establishing itself, another colony, called New Haven, controlled by the desire on the part of its leading men to create a state on a thoroughly theocratic model, grew up opposite to Long Island.  The chief founder of the colony was John Davenport, who had been a noted minister in London, and with him were associated Theophilus Eaton, Edward Hopkins, and several other gentlemen of good estates and very religiously inclined.  They reached Boston from England in July, 1637, when the Antinomian quarrel was at its height, and Davenport was a member of the synod which devoted most of its time to the settlement, or rather the aggravation, of the Antinomian difficulty.

Owing to Davenport’s reputation and the wealth of his principal friends, the authorities of Massachusetts made every effort to retain them in that colony, and offered them their choice of a place for settlement.  These persuasions failed, and after a nine months’ stay Davenport and his followers moved away, nominally because they desired to divert the thoughts of those who were plotting for a general governor for New England, but really because there were too many Antinomians in Massachusetts, and the model republic desired by Davenport could never be brought about by accepting the position of a subordinate township under the Massachusetts jurisdiction.[20].