Ashtabula County, Ohio - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 6 of those read), 1878

The Parent State

Ashtabula County may well be considered the legitimate offspring of Connecticut. At least two-thirds of the pioneer settlers of the different townships were horn within the boundaries of that State. Full one-half of her population of to-day cau trace their lineage to the enlightened people who first began to dwell in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Connecticut. The names of the townships and towns attest the affection of the pioneers of Ashtabula for the parent State. It was hut natural that the new colony should bear the impress of the Connecticut character. It is pertinent, then, to inquire what this character was like, and what manner of people were they whose kindred peopled this portion of the Reserve, and made the wilderness to blossom as the rose.

As early as 1 630 the valley of the Connecticut had become an object of desire. It soon became the object of dispute. The Hutch were the first to explore the river and to occupy the country ; but the people of Massachusetts and New Plymouth, having informed themselves of the advantages the region offered to new settlements, were eager to transplant thither themselves and their estates. A company of sixty, in the last days of October, 1635, carried their desire into execution. Settlements were begun at Hartford and Windsor and Weathersfield. Early in the following year a body of about one hundred persons, led by Thomas Hoover. " the light of the western churches,' began a pilgrimage to "the delightful banks" of the Connecticut. The emigrants were from among the most valued citizens, the earliest settlers, and the oldest churches of the Bay. Many of them had been accustomed to affluence and the ease of European life. Among them was Rodger Ludlow, unsurpassed in his knowledge of law and the rights of mankind, and John Haynes, who had been for one year governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Thomas Hooker, famed as " a son of thunder," and had no rival in force of character, liberality of spirit, and soundness of judgment. The " Dutch intruders," as they were called, no longer indulging the hope of dispossessing their more powerful neighbors, gradually retired to more congenial habitations. The vigor and courage which the infant colony displayed in the war with the Pequods - the first Indian war in New England - struck terror to the savages and secured a long period of peace.

The constitution which they adopted in January, 1639, was of unexampled liberality and wisely adapted to the governmental needs of the colony. The people chose their own magistrates, installed them, and obeyed them. " The foundation of authority," said the admirable Hooker, "is laid in the free consent of the people, to whom the choice of the public magistrates belongs by God s own allowance. They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is their power, also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place into which they call them. Let the judge do according to the sentence of the law. Seek the law at his mouth." " In matters of greater consequence, which concern the good, a general council, chosen by all, to transact businesses which concern all, I conceive, under favor, most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole. This was the practice of the Jewish church, and the approved experience of the best-ordered states."

From this seed sprang the constitution of Connecticut, the first of written American constitutions framed by the people for the people. The people were sovereign. All power was to proceed from them. From the beginning Connecticut was constituted a republic. We quote the following eloquent sentences from the pen of the historian Bancroft, to whom we are indebted for the facts herein given : " More than two centuries have elapsed ; the world has been made wiser by the most varied experience; political institutions have become the theme on which the most powerful and cultivated minds have been employed, and so many constitutions framed or reformed, stifled or subverted, that memory may despair of a complete catalogue ; but the people of Connecticut have found no reason to deviate essentially from the frame of government established by their fathers. Equal laws were the basis of their commonwealth, and therefore its foundations were lasting. These unpretending emigrants invented an admirable system, for they were near to nature, listened willingly to her voice, and easily copied her forms. No ancient usages, no hereditary differences of rank, no established interests impeded the application of the principles of justice. Freedom springs spontaneously into life ; the artificial distinctions of society require centuries to ripen. History has ever celebrated the heroes who have won laurels in scenes of carnage. Has it 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?"

The government was exercised by men who sought not their own gain or advancement, but considered with care the rights of the people. While the magistrates were often men of liberal endowments, and gifts of learning and genius

Education was cherished, and there were common schools from the first. Religious knowledge was carried to the highest degree of refinement and applied to moral duties. They were interested in questions concerning the nature of God and of the soul. Their existence was one of unsurpassed tranquillity. There was mutual trust and a universal sense of security. " The best house required no fastening but a latch, lifted by a string." The widest latitude was given to forms of belief, and " that heavenly man, John Haynes," would say to Roger Williams, " I think, Mr. Williams, I must now confess to you that the most wise God hath provided and cut out this part of the world as a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences." Connecticut from the first possessed unmixed popular liberty, and the minds of her yeomanry were kept active by the constant exercise of the elective franchise. " There was nothing morose in the Connecticut character." Life was not sombre. Mirth mingled with innocence. Religion itself sometimes wore the garb of gayety. Happiness was enjoyed unconsciously. Inequalities of condition were not numerous. All were thrifty and all were prosperous. The people multiplied along the alluvium of the streams, aud subdued the more rocky and less inviting fields. The population for a century doubled once in twenty years. " The soil had originally been justly divided, or held as common property in trust for the republic and for new-comers." Disputations were infrequent, and for a long time there was hardly a lawyer in the land. " When Connecticut emerged into scenes where a new political world was to be created, the rectitude that had ordered the officers of a neighborhood showed itself in the field and in council." For a century its history was the picture of colonial happiness.

Such was the character of the people whose progeny have spread themselves over the soil of -Ashtabula. Both in population and wealth they outrank the parent State at the time of the proposed union of the colonies. In 1678 the population of Connecticut was probably not far from fourteen thousand. In 1877 the population of this small fraction of New Connecticut is two and one-half times as large.