The Blame Game

First, a couple of housekeeping items.

I was asked about the reference to the Church of Christ in the last post. I mentioned that this was a  popular name for the Congregationalist Church, which is what the Puritans in America called their church. I did not make clear that this Church of Christ has nothing to do with the modern day movement many of us call the Church of Christ today. Today's C of C arose in the 1800s and has its roots in the revivalism of that time. Sorry for any confusion.

Second, I also referenced the tensions between the New Haven, Conn., settlement and the Stamford settlement. At the time of my great-great-to-the-x grandfather and the establishment of Stamford, New Haven was the center of a confederation of settlements that operated  independently from the rest of Connecticut. New Haven was the oldest of the settlements and functioned as the capital of the group. 

The General Court, which was both a legislative and judicial body, resided in New Haven and controlled the direction of the confederation. The other settlements were granted seats in the court, but the settlements didn't have autonomy over who those members were. They would choose a set of potential members, and the court would make its own decision as to whom it would except. 

To belong, a member had to belong to the local congregational church and be a regular attender. The author of the history I mentioned points out that most of the Stamford settlement did not meet that requirement, curious given that the settlement arose from a church split. This requirement irritated the settlers, who believed they should be able to directly choose their own representatives. They also chafed at the rules set by the general court, such as mandatory church attendance, and having no say in the "setting of rates," a kind of taxation on the farms. 

This plays into our topic of discussion in this post.

I also mentioned Robert Basset, who had involved himself in the arrest of an outlaw who'd been robbing people. Indeed, he may well have been in cahoots with the thief. His interference, which included putting together a group to free the outlaw. got him arrested. He would be tried in New Haven. 

Now Basset and a man named John Chapman had already been in trouble with the General Court for protesting against the rules we've mentioned, especially the election of representatives and the setting of rates. At his appearance for his involvement with trying to free the scofflaw, he was accused of sedition and incitement. 

Two officials of Stamford were called on to present testimony, which mainly consisted of Basset's protests against the New Haven regime. In his defense, Basset apologized and decided to share the blame by dragging Chapman, a Jeremiah Jagger, my great-great etc. grandfather William Newman, and a man called Old Newman, probably William's father, into the matter by saying they had incited and encouraged him in his protests against New Haven. 

The court had him clapped in irons and adjourned for two weeks. When it reassembled, Chapman, Jagger and William appeared in the court to acknowledge they had taken an oath of allegiance to New Haven but had engaged in protests. Each man was tried separately and found guilty. Chapman had once been a deputy in Stamford, which made him a representative to the court, and was judged more harshly because of his former position.

Jagger once had the audacity to claim the members of the New Haven courts were no better than the Indians, among other charges. He started to make a defense but quickly pivoted to apologizing for his previous conduct.

At William's appearance he was told that his father had also offended the court, but they excused him because of his age. Don't know how well that would work these days. William's defense was that he had just gone along with the crowd and was sorry for having done so. He also apologized on behalf of his father. 

The court brought the parties together to sentence them and told them that though what they had done could have merited a death sentence, the court was inclined toward leniency. Jagger was fined £20 and had to post £100 bond to maintain his loyalty. Despite the court's displeasure with Chapman, he was apparently deemed to have been less of a problem than Jagger and fined £10, with a £50 bond. William only had to post a £20 bond. 

Basset? He was sent back to Stamford because the court accepted his penitence as genuine. A couple of months later, though, he was called back to the court, told to make another statement of penitence and required to post a £100 pound bond to secure his continued loyalty. 

By all accounts all the men managed to stay out of trouble afterward.

Eventually a new royal charter was issued for Connecticut that explicitly included the lands under New Haven's control, and the colony was united.

Next time I want to look at an incident that did not involve any of my possible ancestors, but that I found entertaining, in which Mrs. Crabb tells representatives of the General Court just what she thinks about their attitude toward Quakers.

A note about the image: The map of Stamford is taken from History of Stamford, Connecticut by Elijah Balwin Huntington, 1868, available on Internet Archive and Google Books.