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William Pynchon Leaves Connecticut in 1637 and Takes Springfield With Him

Springfield, Mass., and the rest of Western Massachusetts, might well belong to Connecticut today if William Pynchon had not decided to leave Connecticut and join with Massachusetts in an acrimonious dispute in 1637.

William Pynchon, one of the original founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arrived with John Winthrop in 1630. Rather than staying by the coast, however, Pynchon moved inland. He bought land in what was called Agawam from the American Indians and named it Springfield after his home in England.

Out of Step

William Pynchon marched somewhat out of step with his Puritan comrades in more than just the fine points of religion. He had a more pragmatic approach to business than a typical Puritan. He believed in trading with the local Indians, not fighting with them.

As one of his first acts when coming to Springfield, he made a deal with the local Indians. He procured land and compensated them for it. Then he made agreements to allow the Indians to continue to use the land for hunting and other purposes. Further, he agreed to restrict his pigs on the side of the river where the Indians grew corn, so they couldn’t invade their cornfields.

Puritans burning the book by William Pynchon, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption.

Pynchon’s fellow settlers in Connecticut and Massachusetts had more fractious relations with the Indians — perhaps because they didn’t live among so many of them.

Springfield was controlled by a government made up of the river towns of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield and Springfield. Then that government declared war on the Pequot Indians.

The Pequot War

This left William Pynchon in a precarious position. Springfield, which only had a handful of settlers, could expect no defense in case of Indian attack. Nevertheless William Pynchon received a war tax bill. When he balked at paying, the authorities at Hartford hauled him before them.

In the spring of 1638, when the snow receded enough for William Pynchon to reach Hartford, he answered the charges (and probably paid the tax). While there, the local government gave him a monopoly on the fur trade in Springfield. The news did not sit well with Pynchon. He would have had a virtual monopoly on it anyway, and the new designation meant he had to pay a tax on every pelt he bought from Indians.

William Pynchon

The river towns to the south of Pynchon also had a food shortage that year, the war having limited the colony’s ability to focus on growing corn. So the magistrates directed Pynchon to procure 500 bushels of corn from the Indians near Springfield at five shillings per bushel. What Pynchon discovered, he would later report, was that the Indians wanted eight shillings. He was not authorized to pay that price.

The next move by the river towns was to send another man, John Mason, to Springfield to procure the corn. Mason was a hero to his Connecticut countrymen, having led a deadly rout against Pequots at Mystic the year before. The Indians did not hold him in such high esteem, though they were not Pequots.

According to William Pynchon, he tried to broker a deal between Mason and the Indians, but the Indians would not part with corn at the price offered.

Back to Hartford

Returning to Hartford, John Mason charged that William Pynchon held up any deal in hopes of profiting himself. The Puritan governments believed that the public good outweighed private profit and fixed the prices of essential commodities. To their thinking, the price for corn should be, if anything, lower than it had been in the past.

The Hartford authorities again summoned William Pynchon to answer charges of “unfaithfull dealing in the trade of corne” and for ignoring his duties as a magistrate of the colony. They fined Pynchon 40 bushels of corn for failing to deliver the Indian corn at the price of six shillings per bushel. The river towns then sent Mason again to Springfield, this time with a band of armed men, and threatened the Indians if they did not sell corn. The Indians agreed, but at a price of 12 shillings per bushel.

Despite Pynchon’s protests, the Connecticut authorities went so far as to write to the church at Roxbury to undermine his reputation there. Later that year, the leadership of Massachusetts and Connecticut gathered to settle questions over the boundary of the two colonies,. Then, William Pynchon declared Springfield belonged to Massachusetts.

Banned in Boston

Despite some protests from the river towns, Massachusetts officially took Springfield by 1642. Pynchon, meanwhile, did not live happily ever after in Massachusetts. He continued to chafe against Puritan practices and beliefs. In 1650 he published a religious tract — The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption — the first book banned in Massachusetts. Many would follow. (Read more about his banned book here.)

William Pynchon was accused of heresy. At the same time, the colonies were beginning to get whipped up over witchcraft. Sensing the dire mood, Pynchon gave title to his lands to his son. He departed for England in 1652, where he lived the life of a wealthy man for the next 21 years.

Thanks to: William Pynchon, Founder of Springfield; Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Land Rush that Started the Hartford Riot of 1722

In 1721, the Connecticut General Assembly ordered Jeremiah Fitch to begin paying rent to John Clark for land he lived on near Coventry, Conn. Or to leave. Fitch, however, felt he didn’t need to pay rent because he already owned the land. And with that he set the stage for the Hartford riot of 1722.

The Ox-Bow by Thomas Cole

Give Me Land

By the 1720s, Connecticut was running out of open land desirable for farming. Hartford and New Haven had plenty of people, and the state experienced a population explosion.

For many decades, Connecticut didn’t have too many people, but too few. As that changed, land grew more valuable and settlers looked for areas away from the population centers to start farms.

The appeal of Eastern Connecticut near the Rhode Island border began growing. With good farm land, it had few settlers. But who owned it?

The state had claimed ownership, though it had trouble enforcing the claim. The Mohegan Indians claimed to own it. Though Indians had “sold” land to early colonizers, the tribe insisted the sale only represented their allegiance to the new English government. Though that placed the land under English jurisdiction, the actual right to live on the land stayed with the Mohegans. Unless, of course, they chose to sell it.

Map of Pioneer Hartford

This set up conflict between the proponents of state rights and native rights. Caught between these two sides were those people who bought property from the Mohegans, only to be told that they didn’t own it at all. In Canterbury, some lamented that to buy a piece of land settlers had to pay for it over and over again.

James Fitch

None of the ownership issues slowed land speculator James Fitch from aggressively selling and leasing farms in the area, based upon his claims that he had obtained the land by virtue of its sale by the Mohegan Tribe.

Into the early 1700s Fitch was held somewhat in check by the government, run by the powerful Winthrop family. But Fitch still amassed a fortune (and paid a fortune in legal bills) from land speculation.

By 1722, the area of eastern Connecticut was awash with disputed land that had multiple ownership claims. In 1721 the legislature had made its fateful order that Jeremiah Fitch’s claim to his land was invalid. (Jeremiah was a distant cousin of James Fitch.) It ruled he must vacate the property, declaring John Clark owned it by virtue of a government grant. Fitch refused to leave, and Sheriff James Whiting arrested and jailed him in Hartford.

The Hartford Riot

Seeing that Fitch’s future was their own if they didn’t act, his supporters from the towns east of Hartford crossed the Connecticut River and went to the Hartford jail. They declared their intentions, broke down the door and released Fitch (along with other prisoners).

All in all it was a remarkably civil riot. Sheriff John Whiting caught up with the rioters as they boarded a boat to cross the Connecticut and return home. As the ferryman was loading his boat with the rioters, Whiting struck one man, John Smith, with his cane. Smith cautioned the sheriff: “Colonel, don’t strike hard. If you do, I’ll turn on you.” With that, the ferry departed with the rioters.

For the next several months a state of lawlessness pervaded Eastern Connecticut as the sheriff attempted to bring justice and arrest the rioters. The Assembly had given sheriffs greater authority and made it a crime for more than three people to congregate without government approval. Yet the native rights mob ran the countryside.

Branded

The native rights protesters repeatedly ran off the sheriff and grand jury members who attempted to come into the towns east of Hartford. The dispute then culminated in an armed standoff in March of 1723 at the church in Coventry. A party of sheriff’s deputies faced off against Jeremiah Fitch’s son and others.

In May of 1723 the major players in the native rights movement had finally been rounded up for trial over their part in the riot and its aftermath. More than 10 men were eventually convicted. They received punishments that ranged from fines of 10 shillings and a stern lecture to being branded on the forehead with the letter “B.”

With that, the native rights protests largely ended and the government began to assert its ownership rights over the lands of Eastern Connecticut. Jeremiah Fitch, meanwhile, was convicted of no crimes related to the riot. He had not participated in the break-in at the jail as he was already locked inside it.

Thanks to Unrest in the “Land of Steady Habits”: The Hartford Riot of 1722, James M. Poteet and A Complete History of Connecticut by By Benjamin Trumbull. Illustration: View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, Thomas Cole (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Map of Pioneer Hartford Goldie, J. & Goldie, R. (1927) Map of pioneer Hartford: founded , incorporated 1784, showing early landmarks and the locations of historical events. [S.l.: s.n] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2007630431/.

This story last updated in 2022.

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In 1662 Robert Pike Halts a Quaker Persecution in Massachusetts

In 1662 three English Quakers arrived in Dover, N.H. It didn’t take long before the Puritan townspeople spoke up about the newcomers. They petitioned Richard Waldron, the magistrate at Dover, “humbly craving relief against the spreading and the wicked errors of the Quakers among them.” Dover was frontier country and Waldron was the vice president of the New Hampshire colony. He also served as representative to the Massachusetts General Court, which hotly debated Quaker persecution.

Illustration of Mary Dyer, a victim of Quaker persecution

An ornery English Puritan who arrived in New Hampshire in 1635, Waldron came from wealth. He expanded it greatly, acquiring lands in Dover and building mills on the Cochecho River. He also ran an active trading post with the local Pennacook Indians, with whom he maintained largely friendly relations.

The Quakers, meanwhile, proved themselves a thorn in the side of New England’s Puritans. They had begun arriving in the colonies in 1656, and agitated for religious freedom. The General Court in Massachusetts repeatedly voted to ban them.

Quaker Persecution

The Puritans punished Quakers by an assortment of methods, including whipping and branding.

But the Quakers persisted in demanding their rights. Several chose to suffer as martyrs rather than accept offers of leniency. They insisted the colonial authorities rescind the bans on Quakerism. In 1660, Massachusetts had even executed four Quakers who refused to renounce their faith. They included Mary Dyer, a martyr who knew her execution would prove controversial for the political leaders of Massachusetts.

Statue of Mary Dyer in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse.

In 1662, Waldron had the three Dover Quakers – Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins and Alice Ambrose – arrested as vagabonds. He ordered them tied to the back of a cart and made to walk the 60-plus miles to Boston. Waldron ordered that at each town along the way they were to be stripped and whipped by the local constable.

After carrying out the sentence in Dover, the cart was dispatched to Hampton. There, the constable also carried out the punishment.

They then came to the next stop along the punishment trail — Salisbury, Mass. The whippings then stopped.

Robert Pike

Robert Pike served as constable, militia leader and deputy to the Massachusetts General Court for Salisbury. Though the General Court had outlawed Quakerism, the decision was far from unanimous. Pike and others supported religious freedom, and he and others in Salisbury were outraged at the order to whip the women.

Pike and Walter Barefoot, a political rival to Waldron in New Hampshire, treated the three Quakers’ wounds and helped them escape to Maine. The Quakers correctly believed that the persecution was backfiring. Each incident brought greater attention to their struggle and fresh converts to their faith.

In 1661, the King of England had ordered the colonies to stop executing and imprisoning Quakers. Rather, they were to be sent to England. Waldron probably intended to have them sent to England from Boston.

Instead, the three Quakers returned quietly to Dover and established a church there. Fully one third of Dover’s population would eventually convert to Quakerism. Active persecution of the Quakers died out around 1670.

Karma

Waldron, in New Hampshire, would meet a horrific fate. Following King Philip’s War in 1678, a group of Indian fighters had fled to New Hampshire. Waldron managed to trick the Indians into attending a “war game.” As soon as they had discharged their muskets, he seized the Indians and sent them to Boston. From there they were sold into slavery.

As a result, many New Hampshire Indians viewed Waldron with contempt. In 1689 a band of Indians tortured and killed him. Waldron was 80.

Robert Pike, meanwhile, had continued his protests for greater religious tolerance. In 1692, as the Salem witch hysteria gained momentum, Pike authored a letter to one of the witch trial judges. Pike criticized the way the trials were conducted. While he did not dispute the reality of witchcraft, he argued the trials used flawed methods to determine guilt and credibility.

Pike’s letter made him the first of many who began attacking the witch trials, eventually bringing them to an end. He died in 1706.

Memorial to Robert Pike in Salisbury, Mass.

John Greenleaf Whittier immortalized Robert Pike’s stand against Quaker persecution. In the poem, How the Women Went from Dover, the word of justice Pike are recorded:

Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;
Come what will of it, all men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
For whipping women in Salisbury town!

This story last updated in 2022.

Images: Memorial to Robert Pike By Ricky Pike – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22303717

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The 18 Patriots Condemned to Death – Who Wouldn’t Die

Shortly before the American Revolution broke out, an item appeared in a Boston newspaper identifying 18 patriots condemned to death.

On Sept. 19, 1774, New England was in a state of alarm. On September 1, British troops had seized a store of powder from a Boston powder house. Word spread that war had broken out. Militias from across New England streamed toward Boston.

It was just a false alarm, but it looked much like the response to the Battles of Lexington and Concord that would play out in just a few months.

A Sam Adams Prank?

The Boston Evening-Post published a notice. It purported to be a letter tossed into a British camp, identifying 18 patriots condemned to death by the British government.

Since then, historians have debated authorship of the letter. Some suggest Sam Adams — or perhaps other patriot pot-stirrers — cooked it up. They think it was meant to inflame public opinion against the British and elevate the reputation of the patriots condemned.

Others suggest it was genuine, written by a loyalist who actually wanted the 18 men named in the letter killed. The notice read as follows:

The Letter

The following is an authentic copy of a letter, which was lately thrown into the camp, with the following direction: ‘To the officers and soldiers of his majesty’s troops in Boston.

It being more than probable that the king’s standard will soon be erected, from rebellion breaking out in this Province, it is proper that you, soldiers, should be acquainted with the authors thereof, and of all the misfortunes brought upon the Province. The following is a list of them, viz:

Samuel Adams

John Hancock

James Bowdoin

William Cooper

Dr. Thomas Young

Dr. Chauncey

Dr. Benjamin Church

Dr. Cooper

Capt. John Bradford

Thomas Cushing

Josiah Quincy

Joseph Greenleaf

Maj. Nathaniel Barber

William Denning

William Mollineux

The friends of your king and country, and of America, hope and expect from you, soldiers, the instant rebellion happens, you will put the above persons immediately to the sword, destroy their houses, and plunder their effects. It is just that they should be the first victims to the mischief they have brought upon us.

(Signed) A Friend To Great Britain And America.

(Take Note) Don’t forget those trumpeters of sedition, the printers, Edes and Gill and Thomas.

18 Patriots Condemned to Death

So who were all those patriots? Many names are well known, others less so. It includes some actual rebels and others who weren’t. They all have one thing in common: None was killed by the British. They are:

Samuel Adams, one of the 18 patriots condemned to death.

Samuel Adams – If you had to blame just one person for the American Revolution you wouldn’t go far wrong nominating Samuel Adams. Officially he positioned himself as seeking reform rather than independence. But his opposition to British taxes and military occupation of Boston put him at the political edges of the patriot cause. He frequently wrote (anonymously) and argued against British policy. And when tensions boiled over at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Governor Gage issued a general offer of clemency for any man who would lay down his arms. But he made two exceptions: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Adams died in 1803 after serving as Massachusetts’ governor.

John Hancock – Despite years of wooing John Hancock, the British leadership failed to retain Hancock’s loyalty. One of the richest men in America, Hancock represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and eventually supported the bid for independence. He would serve as an immensely popular governor of Massachusetts and ensure the Commonwealth ratified the US Constitution. He died in 1793 in Boston.

Natural Causes

James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin – James Bowdoin wrote an inflammatory report about the Boston Massacre that infuriated British officials. He would go on to be Massachusetts’ second governor, following John Hancock. His son would donate land that would become Bowdoin College in Maine. Bowdoin was unpopular as governor (his policies helped spark Shay’s Rebellion), but his funeral in 1790 was widely attended. He died of disease.

William Cooper – William Cooper, brother to Samuel Cooper, confidante of John Hancock and town clerk of Boston for more than 40 years. Cooper was a frequent, anonymous author (along with John Adams) of pro-patriot news stories. He died in 1809 of natural causes.

Doctor, Doctor

Dr. Thomas Young – Thomas Young was John Adams’ family physician after he relocated to Boston from Albany in 1766. A key organizer of the Boston Tea Party, he did not participate in the event. Instead he gave a lecture on the evils of drinking tea on the night of the sabotage, probably as a diversion. A poet, writer, philosopher and violinist, Young died in 1777 of yellow fever. He probably contracted the disease at the Continental Army hospital in Philadelphia, where he treated soldiers.

Samuel Cooper, one of the 18 patriots condemned.

Dr. Chauncey – Charles Chauncey, a leading minister in New England, he preached for 60 years at Boston’s First Church. During the run-up to the American Revolution he firmly believed in the patriot cause, trumpeting the political philosophy of the American Revolution in sermons and pamphlets. Better known as a theologian than a revolutionary, he died of natural causes in 1787.

Dr. Benjamin Church – Benjamin Church, an outspoken patriot supporter, treated soldiers injured at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Afterward, it turned out he provided intelligence to the British about American forces. He probably did it because he desperately needed money. After a period of imprisonment, Church was allowed to leave America in 1778. The ship he left on disappeared.

Dr. Cooper – Samuel Cooper, a Congregational minister at the Brattle Street Church in Boston, home parish to Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren and other patriot leaders. He died in 1783 of natural causes.

Writers, Soldiers, Politicians

John Singleton Copley painted this portrait of John Hancock around 1771. Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society.

Capt. John Bradford – John Bradford, a protege of John Hancock, served as Continental Army agent and prize agent for the port of Boston during the revolution. In these roles he had to equip ships and troops. He also had to see that ships captured by privateers were sold off and the proceeds divided up properly among the government and the privateers. Bradford earned a commission himself. Hancock also made money because the privateers brought prize ships to Hancock’s wharf. About half the ships captured during the war passed through Boston, and a great many disputes broke out over how to handle them. As a result, Bradford was subject to a great deal of criticism. He died in 1784 of natural causes.

Thomas Cushing – Thomas Cushing, a long-time Massachusetts politician, rose to colonial Speaker of the House by 1775. He opposed British taxation, but initially opposed the Declaration of Independence. He was probably lumped in with the 18 patriots condemned because his name appeared on official correspondence between Massachusetts and British officials. Despite his slowness to accept independence, Cushing remained active in politics as an important supporter of John Hancock. He died in 1788 while still serving as lieutenant governor.

Thomas Cushing

Lawyer, Printer, Broker

Josiah Quincy – Josiah Quincy, a Boston lawyer, frequently wrote anonymous articles for the patriot cause. In 1774 he traveled to England to try to dissuade the government from war. He died of tuberculosis on a ship returning home, seven days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Joseph Greenleaf – Joseph Greenleaf, a printer and writer who, for a time, published a magazine that promoted the patriot cause. A one-time justice of the peace, he assisted the Boston Committee of Correspondence in its work. He died in 1810 of natural causes.

Maj. Nathaniel Barber – An insurance broker, he served as militia master of Suffolk County and participated in the Boston Tea Party. Barber belonged to the political clubs that discussed the ideology behind the revolutionary cause. During the war, Barber led a militia unit and oversaw Boston’s military supplies. He died at his home in 1787.

One New Yorker

Isaiah Thomas

William Denning – William Denning stands out as the only one on the list of 18 condemned patriots without a direct connection to Massachusetts. Denning belonged to New York’s Committee of 60 (that later grew to the Committee of 100), which enforced compliance with a trade embargo. American rebels had put the embargo in place in 1774 to protest Britain’s punishment of Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. When war broke out, Denning served as a deputy to New York’s patriot legislature, organizing wartime finances. He would go on to serve in Congress before he died in 1808 at his Wall Street home in New York City.

William Mollineux – William Mollineux, a hardware merchant, made the list of 18 patriots condemned because of his eagerness to lead public protests against British colonial government. He had a reputation before the war as incorruptible, zealous and an outspoken advocate for American liberty. But he died, of natural causes, in 1774 before the outbreak of war.

And Don’t Forget…

A final addendum to the list of 18 patriots condemned to death targeted Benjamin Edes and John Gill, who published the pro-patriot newspaper the Boston Gazette. It also named Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the radical Massachusetts Spy. All three died of natural causes, Gill first in 1785, Edes in 1803 and then Thomas in 1831.

This story about the 18 patriots condemned to death was updated in 2022.

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In 1674 the Connecticut Rogerenes Test the Limits of Religious Freedom

The Rogerenes were an unusual group of religious dissenters formed in New London, Conn., in the late 1600s. They took their name from their founder, John Rogers, Jr., who came from a well-to-do New London family.

The story most often told about the Rogerenes involves Gurdon Saltonstall, who would later serve as governor of Connecticut.

Saltonstall, as minister in New London, was the most common target of the Rogerenes. The sect was discourteous and abusive toward the established church, while simultaneously maintaining a sympathetic following in town.

Gurdon Saltonstall

As the story goes, a man and woman came to visit Saltonstall during his dinner. They announced to him they had married in the Rogerene tradition, outside the church and outside the control of civil authorities. Faced with this deliberate flaunting of authority, what did Saltonstall intend to do about it, they demanded to know?

Saltonstall had a simple answer. Using his powers under the state and church, he declared them legally man and wife and went back to eating.

Historians haven’t managed to nail down the details of the story. It’s been told many times and with minor changes in the specifics. But it seems to perfectly capture the relationship between the official New London church and its chief critic, John Rogers and his Rogerenes.

Birth of the Rogerenes

Rogers was born in 1648. As a young man, his family began to flirt with the Baptist faith. By 1674, Rogers had staunchly opposed the Congregational Church, and he launched his own career as a minister. His followers, the Rogerenes, had a collection of beliefs culled from other faiths. Like Quakers, they believed in silent worship and prayer. Like Baptists, they believed in adult baptism by immersion and celebrating communion in the evening.

The Rogerenes also believed in Sunday worship, but didn’t believe in postponing work for the entire day. And they believed they should not have to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church.

Unlike some other dissenting faiths, however, the Rogerenes went out of their way to provoke the church. Rogers’ followers, which included a small group of his family and friends, would march through New London on Sunday, noisily proclaiming that they were working on the Sabbath. They would attend meeting at the church and disrupt the services and argue theology with the minister, Saltonstall.

For their protests, Rogers and his followers were frequently hauled before the courts. They were fined repeatedly and imprisoned. In 1695, Rogers was tried at Hartford for disrupting a Sunday meeting by entering the meeting house with a wheelbarrow. At another time, he placed his hand on his heart and stated: ‘This is the humane body of Christ.”

His sentence was to stand on a gallows with a noose around his neck for 15 minutes and pay a 5 pound fine. Further, he had to post bond of 50 pounds to guarantee his future good behavior.

Jailbird

No sooner had the trial concluded than the meeting house in New London burned to the ground. Further, someone had desecrated a meeting house in nearby Stonington. Rogers; his aunt, Bathsheba Fox; and his father’s servant William Wright were charged with the crimes and convicted. Rogers would spend nearly four years in prison. This was just the beginning of his legal troubles.

Rogers faced punishment for entertaining Quakers in his home and helping a young man escape from prison. He also married his maid when he hadn’t lawfully divorced his first wife. The list of offenses grew, as did Rogers’ time in prison.

After Saltonstall was elevated to governor in 1708, he had Rogers declared insane. As a result, his jailers removed the windows of Rogers’ jail cell — treatment for insanity at the time. But Rogers’ friends rioted and had the boards removed.

When another Rogerene went to prison for failing to keep the Sabbath, her supporters removed the doors from the New London jail. All the while the Rogerenes continued baptizing people and getting condemned by the church for it.

In 1721, the Rogerenes occupied the New London Meeting House in protest over having been taxed to pay for it. Saltonstall, however, stayed away. When Saltonstall returned, the group repeated the protest, resulting in fresh charges against them.

Faith Healing

Along the way, the Rogerenes had begun embracing a belief in faith healing. When he learned of a 1721 outbreak of smallpox in Boston, Rogers went to the city to visit the sick. Upon his return to Connecticut he developed the disease and died.

The Rogerenes did not die with John Rogers, however. The sect persisted. Saltonstall died in 1724, and the Rogerenes gradually became less of a thorn in the side of the Connecticut government. One group of Rogerenes resettled in New Jersey and started a religious community there. Others took up Quakerism.

The faith was active well into the 1800s. Later Rogerenes were less confrontational in relation to other churches, but they stayed true to their rabble-rousing roots. Rogerenes were among the early opponents of slavery and proponents of women’s rights.

Thanks to The Rogerenes; some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of Connecticut by John Rogers Bolles and Anna Bolles Williams. This story last updated in 2024.

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Jared Flagg, Black Sheep of a Blue-Blooded New Haven Family

In 1926 the police had Jared Flagg under questioning. It wasn’t the first time the flimflam man was in trouble with the law. But it would be the last. As the investigators pushed for answers about a particular fraud, Flagg began struggling for breath. The attorneys suspected it was a trick to slow them down. But for once in his scandal-plagued life, Jared Flagg was playing it straight. He collapsed and died.

Jared Flagg around 1920

Just short of 70 years old, Jared Flagg left his estate to his wealthy and better-known brother Edward, who was a highly regarded architect and landlord in New York City. His niece married Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt money had paid for Edward’s education and launched him as a successful architect. At the time he died, Edward was a major landowner on Staten Island and, his obituary noted, had the design of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among his notable credits.

The Corcoran Gallery

Jared’s obituary, meanwhile, simply noted he “collapsed on the grill,” in the offices of the New York State Bureau of Fraud Prevention.

Jared Flagg

The Flagg siblings came from a fine family. Their grandfather had served five terms as mayor of New Haven, their father a respected minister and artist.

Portrait of Cornelius Vanderbilt, painted by Jared Flagg, Sr.

So as the oldest son, high hopes were place on Jared.

Flagg’s career began in 1886 when he started developing his system of Flagg Flats. He had left New Haven for New York. Working as a furniture salesman Flagg had a singular insight. He would talk with a young married couple looking for furniture. He would tell them that to buy furnishings for their apartment, they would need to pay 10 percent of the furniture’s cost up front and could make payments for the rest.

But the 10 percent up front was a barrier to young people facing deposits for rents and utilities. Why, he wondered, if a company was willing to loan out 90 percent of the price of the furniture shouldn’t it loan out the whole price, since customers rarely defaulted? That would let the buyer get more furniture, which would in turn mean greater profits over time.

Flagg took the idea to his bosses, who were curious. They offered him a deal. If he himself would pay the 10 percent deposit, once it was recouped he would get 10 percent of the total return. So, for instance, if a couple bought $100 worth of furniture and paid for it over three years, Flagg would pay the $10 up front. Over time he would get his $10 back plus $17 profit.

No Money Down

Flagg agreed, and he ran a small notice in the newspapers advertising his “no down payment” furniture plan. He was quickly overwhelmed with customers. With his cash in short supply, Flagg initially had to borrow money to keep the system going. But over time, as his customers grew and began making payments, he began grinding out a profit. One hundred of his Flagg Flats generated $400 per week in profits. By 1894, the city was awash in Flagg Flats and Flagg had contracts with all the major furniture stores in the city.

Furnishings of the era

As other companies caught onto the “no money down” plan, profits became harder to get. So Flagg tweaked his approach. He began accepting payment from the furniture companies in furnishings rather than cash. He would buy apartments using a mortgage, furnish them and rent them. This evolution made Flagg a large landlord and at one time he had 480 Flagg Flats.

Flagg Flatts

But as any landlord knows, managing tenants and collecting rents can be a headache. Flagg Flats began to get a reputation for renting to the less upstanding members of New York society. Flagg would argue, with some truth, that he was the victim of New York’s police department, notoriously corrupt in the 1890s. The police demanded $100 month in bribes. Flagg refused. He found his flats being raided and searched for illegal activities. Flagg was prosecuted for renting out his flats to prostitutes. Despite his protests, he was convicted.

Flagg lashed out by publishing a book, Flagg’s Flats, that aired out his disputes with the police and corrupt New York politicians:

If there is anything in this wide world that will make a blackmailing policeman wince it is a jury. He recoils from a jury trial as the Devil would from holy water.

Gradually, Flagg left the landlord business. But his next venture would prove even more controversial.

Jared Flagg in 1910

The profits available in the stock markets attracted Flagg as a young man. But lacking capital, he could not become a major investor. Instead, he wrote a stock trading manual: “How to Take Money Out of Wall Street.” The book languished for some time, but eventually Flagg came up with a use for it. He began presenting it to potential investors and opened up his operation as a stock trader in 1908.

Pre-Ponzi

Soon he began engaging “partners” to direct customers to him. The biggest name in his list of partners was Daniel Morgan, president of the City National Bank of Bridgeport. Morgan had served as mayor of Bridgeport and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Morgan’s role in Flagg’s operation was simply to round up investors. For everyone he directed to Flagg, Morgan received a commission.

Daniel Morgan

But Flagg had enemies. On September 23, 1911, postal inspectors raided his offices. The charge was that he was running a Ponzi scheme — though the word was not yet known, as Charles Ponzi didn’t gain his notoriety until years later. What the postal inspectors were upset about was Flagg’s mailings to customers in which he promised (Flagg said he only implied) that investors could make a profit of one percent per week on money invested with him.

What postal inspectors found was that Flagg was depositing checks in his investor’s accounts for money they had not earned. In fact, many would have lost all their money if Flagg had told them the truth. Flagg was arrested, and he soon published a defense of his actions. He had 850 customers, he noted, some had poured more than $100,000 into his firm. Prosecutors, he noted, had to beat the bushes to find a single unhappy client.

Jared Flagg, Author

He tried to exonerate his “partners” by arguing that their commissions were not a sign that they were partners, as they never shared in any losses. And as to the essential charge? He basically admitted it.

Why did he pay out money to clients even when they had lost everything? He asked and answered the question in a book he published to clear his name:

“Was it to tempt them . . . to come up with more money?” he asked. “Was it to induce them to bring in their friends?” And finally, “Was this my motive?”

“It Was.”

“How is a man to build up any honest business if he does not, be treating his customers well, “tempt” them, not only to continue doing business with him but to refer their friends to him?”

Jared Flagg, Jailbird

Flagg’s arrest made for sensational news stories. Daniel Morgan’s involvement made it even juicier, as the idea of a former treasury secretary and bank president being hauled off to jail astounded the public. Further spicing the story, Flagg’s young secretary had fled the country, chased by government agents. Her departure was all a misunderstanding, Flagg insisted. He had sent word to her not to visit him in prison, he said. But while he meant to simply say, stay away, she had misunderstood his message to say: Run away and get out of the country.

Not surprisingly, protestations aside, Flagg was convicted and sent to federal prison in Atlanta.

Federal penitentiary in Atlanta, 1920

Flagg argued that his prosecution was simply because of the enemies he had made in publishing the story of his Flagg Flats. He noted that no one had come forward to complain of losing money.

Prosecutors argued that the losses were inevitable. Flagg had simply postponed that failure as long as he could continue rounding up new investors to prop up his scheme.

In 1920 Flagg successfully had his conviction overturned when judges ruled the government seized his records without an adequate warrant.

Fittingly, Flagg’s final breath came on Aug. 26, 1926, when investigators questioned him over a fraudulent mortgage scheme. He began gasping for breath. Investigators initially suspected he was simply trying to duck out of the interview to avoid the truth. Instead, he died of a heart attack.

His ashes were placed in the family vault in New Haven’s Evergreen Cemetery.

This story last updated in 2023.

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