Women and children took
part in this pleasant summer journey; Mrs. Hooker, the pastor's wife,
being too ill to walk, was carried on a litter. Thus, in the memorable
year in which our great university was born, did Cambridge become, in
the true Greek sense of a much-abused word, the _metropolis_ or "mother
town" of Hartford. The migration at once became strong in numbers.
During the past twelvemonth a score of ships had brought from England
to Massachusetts more than 3000 souls, and so great an accession made
further movement easy. Hooker's pilgrims were soon followed by the
Dorchester and Watertown congregations, and by the next May 800 people
were living in Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. As we read of these
movements, not of individuals, but of organic communities, united in
allegiance to a church and its pastor, and fervid with the instinct
of self-government, we seem to see Greek history renewed, but with
centuries of added political training. For one year a board of
commissioners from Massachusetts governed the new towns, but at the end
of that time the towns chose representatives and held a General Court at
Hartford, and thus the separate existence of Connecticut was begun. As
for Springfield, which was settled about the same time by a party from
Roxbury, it remained for some years doubtful to which state it belonged.
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