PREFACE,

The early annals of a State require no formal introduction tothe descendants of its founders. If the transcriber have well accom-plished the task which a love of the olden time impelled him toundertake, and which the liberality of the Legislature supplied, inpart, the means of prosecuting, no doubt can exist as to the favorablereception of the volume now presented to the citizens of Connecticut .The value which may attach to it must, of course, mainly dependupon the degree of confidence entertained in its accuracy as a ‘ true,full and literal copy of the original Record.’ The professions orassurances of the transcriber, could do little to impart such confi-dence ; nor could they give additional weight to the certificate ofofficial authentication, or to such internal evidence of reliability as,it is hoped, a careful perusal of the volume may supply.

A notice of the condition and arrangement of the original records,and of the plan adopted by the transcriber in the construction of thiswork, may not, however, be deemed inappropriate.

The first volume of the Colony Records is in three parts, origin-ally bound in as many separate volumes. The first of these consistsof the records of the General and Particular Courts, commencingwith the session held at Newtown, (Hartford, ) April 26th, 1636,(by the magistrates commissioned by Massachusetts , to ‘ govern thepeople at Connecticut, ’*) and closing with the December session ofthe Court of Magistrates, 1649. Next following, (separated by afew blank pages from the Court Records,) are the records of Wills

* The commission “to severall persons, to govern the people at Connecticut for the spaceof a year [then] next coming,” was granted by the General Court of Massachusetts , March 3d,1635(6,)—after consultation with John Winthrop , then lately “ appointed governor by certainnoble personages and men of quality, interested in the said River , which are yet in England.”The commissioners named were Roger Ludlow Esq., William Pincheon Esq., John Steele, Wil-liam Swaine, Henry Smith, William Phelps, William Westwood and Andrew Ward. See thecommission, at length, in Hazard’s State Papers, Vol. 1, p. 321.