The Founding of New Haven Colony

The History of the Americans

Of the organized Puritan settlements in New England in the first half of the 17^th century – Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut being foremost – the New Haven Colony was in some respects the most peculiar. It was probably the wealthiest of the four United Colonies of New England on a per capita basis, the most insistent on religion’s role in civil governance, and the least democratic, being, basically, not democratic. The men who founded it, Theophilus Eaton and the Reverend John Davenport, had great expectations and ambitions for spiritual communion and commercial profit, most of which would come to naught. It would survive as an independent colony less than 25 years.

This is the story of its founding, at a place called Quinnipiac.

X (Twitter): @TheHistoryOfTh2

Facebook: The History of the Americans Podcast

Selected references for this episode

(Commission received on Amazon links, if clicking through the website)

Edward Elias Atwater, History of the Colony of New Haven Until its Absorption Into Connecticut

Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, History of the Colony of New Haven, Before and After the Union With Connecticut