IN 1698 the General Assembly enacted that the colonial Legislature should thereafter consist of two houses, one consisting of the governor, or deputy governor, and magistrates, the other of deputies from the several towns in the colony, now known as representatives. From that time the concurrence of both houses was required for the enactment of a law. The town of New Haven was, in 1701, designated as the place for holding the October session of the Legislature, the alternate session being held at Hartford, as before.
War existed with France at this time, and Connecticut was subjected to heavy expense on that account. In 1709 the colony was compelled to issue paper money to defray the expense of an expedition against Canada, for which she raised 350 men. It was enacted that £8,000 should be issued for this purpose.
At about the commencement of the eighteenth century the colony was again harassed by an attempt to deprive it of its charter. Lord Cornbury, governor of New York and the Jerseys, and Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts, conspired for this purpose, and they would have succeeded but for the able effort of Sir Henry Ashurst, who was the agent of Connecticut, and a firm friend of the colonies.
In 1713, Connecticut had about 17,000 inhabitants. There were thirty-eight towns, and the counties of Hartford, New Haven, New London, and Fairfield, had been incorporated. Each county had a regiment of militia, making an aggregate of 4,000 in the colony. Two small brigs and seventy sloops constituted the shipping, and these were manned by about one hundred and twenty seamen. The principal trade was with New York, Boston, and the West Indies. To the two former, produce, such as wheat, rye, barley, Indian corn, peas, pork, beef, and cattle was taken; to the West Indies, horses, cattle, beef, pork, staves, and hoops were exported, and rum, sugar, molasses, cotton, and some money received in return.
The sessions of the Legislature which met twice in each year, were usually limited to ten days, and the annual expense of the two sessions was about $1,600. The governor received a salary of $800, and the deputy governor of $200. The total expense of the government was within $3,500; which was a smaller sum than was usually allowed to a royal governor in the colonies.
French and Indian Wars
The record of Connecticut in the French and Indian wars, which prevailed between 1745 and 1763, is an exceedingly honorable one. She furnished one thousand men in the expedition of the colonies against Louisburg, and after the reduction of that place three hundred and fifty men were provided by the colony for the winter garrison. A sloop manned with one hundred men was also furnished. During the continuance of the war it is believed that Connecticut did fully double her proportion, compared with the rest of the colonies, for its maintenance. More than six thousand of her men were in actual service in 1759. She also sent her full quota to the West Indies in 1762.
After the termination of the French wars, in 1763, Connecticut increased rapidly in population, wealth, and commerce. Her settlements and towns multiplied, and she was soon able to discharge the debt incurred in the prosecution of the war. Her prosperity continued till the commencement of the Revolution.
By the charter of 1662 Connecticut was bounded “on the north by the line of the Massachusetts plantation, and on the south by the sea,” and extended “from the said Narragansett Bay on the East to the South Sea on the Weste part.” Nineteen years later a grant was made to William Penn of lands on the west side of the Delaware River as far north as the 43d degree of latitude. This grant included a part of the territory embraced in the charter of Connecticut. During ninety years these lands, which lay west of the colony of New York, were not claimed by Connecticut. In 1753 her lands east from that colony had all been granted, and a company for settling those on the Susquehanna was formed. The Indian title to a large tract at Wyoming was extinguished, and settlements were made there. The jealousy of the proprietaries in Pennsylvania was aroused, and they obtained from some of the chiefs who had not signed the grant to the Connecticut purchasers, a deed for the same lands. Grants were made by Pennsylvania, and settlements thereon were commenced. Fierce disputes were thus excited, and the parties sought to maintain their claims by force of arms; and during several years what was known as the “Yankee and Pennamite war” prevailed. This controversy was suspended during the Revolution, but on the return of peace it was renewed. In 1782 the matter was determined by a joint commission, which decided adversely to the claims of Connecticut, and this State acquiesced in the decision.
The claim of Connecticut to the land within the northern and southern boundaries, as expressed in the charter, west from Pennsylvania, was not relinquished. In order, however, to obtain the implied sanction of these claims, Connecticut, in 1786, ceded to the United States all these lands except a tract one hundred and twenty miles in length west from Pennsylvania, within the charter limits. The United States accepted the cession. Of these reserved lands half a million acres were granted by the State to the inhabitants of New London, Fairfield, and Norwalk, as an indemnity for property destroyed by the enemy during the Revolutionary war. The remainder was sold, in 1795, and the proceeds, $1,200,000, were appropriated to the school fund of the State. The title to these reserved lands was confirmed by Congress in 1800, and the territory, which is now a part of Ohio, is still frequently spoken of as the Western Reserve.
Source
Whittemore, Henry, History of Middlesex county, Connecticut, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, New York : J. B. Beers & Co., 1884.
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