Travels Through the Northern Parts of the United States in the Year 1807 and 1808 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1809 Excerpt: ... perhaps no record of this alteration, earlier than the charter. The name court of election appears to be now wholly obsolete, and unknown to the statute-book, except in the single section of the act, which, borrowing the words of the Constitution of 1639, defines the powers of the general court. We find also in this instrument, the origin of that confusion in the names of general court and general assembly. Court is the term affected by the Constitution of 1639, and assembly is used preferably in the charter. Moreover, the earlier acts had been described as enacted in general court, and the practice was continued. CHAPTER VIII. Connecticut--PFethersfield--Middletouni. IN my journey to Hartford, I passed through a country, of part of which I shall find another occasion to speak. Into the other part I very shortly returned. Four miles below the city of Hartford is Wethersfield, once called Watertown. This is, one of the three oldest settlements on the river, of which the two others are Hartford and Windsor. It is, indeed, related, that the very earliest colonists (consisting of a few men, without their families) passed a winter in huts, within the limits of Wethersfield, called, by the Indians or native inhabitants, Piquaug or Pequeag, in the year 1634. Wethersfield afterward became the hive from which several other towns were settled. A favourable soil has enabled Wethersfield to acquire much wealth by the culture of a particular vegetable--the onion, of which it exports large quantities. The culture, which is of real magnitude, is chiefly, from the moderate labour that it requires, abandoned to the women and girls. All edifices, in this county, whether private or public, are for the most part of wood; but Wethersfield has a church built of brick; and strang...