Connecticut History (1635) from The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, Inc., 2009):
<The first English settlement was begun on the Connecticut River by traders from the Plymouth Colony. Dutch traders from New Amsterdam had previously sailed up the Connecticut River in 1614, and set up a fort in 1623, but later abandoned it.
Thomas Hooker, driven out of England by Anglican Archbishop William Laud, became the pastor of the eighth Church in the colony of Massachusetts. After a dispute with Puritan leader John Cotton, Hooker left with one hundred people to found Hartford in 1636.
Thomas Hooker's sermon, in which he preached that Churches should be independent and each member of the congregation should have an equal vote- called Congregational-was adapted into the Fundamental Orders and adopted by Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield on January 24, 1639, as the first written constitution in America. It provided that each citizen would have an equal vote for governor, magistrates, and a General Court with legislative and judicial powers.
In 1661, Governor John Winthrop petitioned King Charles II for a charter, which, when granted in 1664, forcibly combined Hartford with Saybrook and New Haven to form the Commonwealth of Connecticut. The Fundamental Orders were used as the Constitution of Connecticut until a new Constitution was adopted in 1818.
In 1786, Connecticut ceded to the United States its public land in the west, called the "Western Reserve," which later became the State of Ohio.
Though the majority of the population was English Puritan, Irish immigration increase before the Revolution, and again after the Irish potato famine of 1846. Other immigrants arrived from Germany, French Canada, Italy and later Russian Jews, Scandinavians, Lithuanians, and Greeks.
Citizens of Connecticut furnished more soldiers for the Revolutionary War than Virginia, surpassed only by Massachusetts.
Membership in the Congregational Church was a qualification for civil office and for the exercise of civil rights. Congregationalism was the established religion and supported by public taxation, though other Christian sects were gradually given limited toleration.
Sunday observance was strictly enforced by law, and, except for works of necessity or mercy, statutes charged a fine not exceeding fifty dollars to any person who engaged on Sunday in secular business, labor, keeping open a shop, warehouse, manufacturing establishment, and exposing any property for sale.
Statutes fined any person not more than four dollars who, on Sunday, attended a concert of music, danced, engaged in a sport or other public diversion. Saloons and sale of liquor was prohibited on Sunday.
Judges, magistrates, clerks of courts and officials were required to take an oath, which universally was raising the right hand in the presence of the magistrate, always beginning with the words "You solemnly swear" and ending with the invocation "So Help You God".
Statutes against blasphemy and profanity existed since the settlement of the colony, with severe punishments. Statutes of 1642 and 1650 provide that one who blasphemes God, any person of the Holy Trinity, the Christian religion, or the Holy Scriptures, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars and imprisoned not more than one year. One who shall use any profane oath or wickedly curse anyone shall be fined one dollar.
It was customary to open daily sessions of both houses of the General Assembly with prayer by chaplains appointed by each body whose salaries were fixed by law. Supreme and Superior courts were opened with prayer by a clergyman who was paid an honorarium.
The governor proclaimed a day of thanksgiving in the late autumn to be observed as a religious holiday.
Christmas received little recognition among the Congregationalists of Connecticut and the other New England States until the latter half of the nineteenth century when Episcopalians and Catholics population increased, resulting in December 25th being declared by statute a legal holiday.
Earlier settlers proclaimed by legal authority a day in early spring for fasting and prayer. The governor customarily selected Good Friday as the annual spring fast. Though Christmas and Good Friday have been recognized by the civil authority, no statute ever compelled their observance.
In 1835 a census taken by Bishop Fenwick of Boston found only 720 Catholics in Connecticut, and in 1844 only 4,817 Catholics. By 1890, due in large part to Irish immigration, Catholics increased to 152,945, outnumbering the communicants of all Protestant denominations. In 1899, with the immigration of Germans, Italians, French Canadians, and Poles, Catholic population in Connecticut exceeded 250,000, and in 1908 reached 395,354, with a remaining non-Catholic population of 725,000.
In 1843, Hartford Jews petitioned the legislature to amend the State Constitution to permit public worship by Jews, followed by the prompt enactment of an enabling public act, which set in motion the beginning of synagogue building which contributed to the growth of the Jewish community as well as to the architecture of the state. Connecticut, being one of the few states to do so, has inventoried the entire state's historic Jewish religious sites, listing 46 historic synagogue buildings.
Russian Jews settled in Hartford, Connecticut between 1881 and 1930, and after 1975, Soviet Jews emigrated.> 1635CH001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1635CH001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Connecticut History, beginning in 1635, from William J. Federer, The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, Inc., 2009).