mber in practice.

No one but a church-member could be elected governor, and in choosing
assistants the vote was taken upon each assistant in turn, and he had
to be voted out before any nomination could be made.[16] In none of
the colonies was the tenure of office more constant or persevering. In
a period of about twenty years Haynes was governor eight times and
deputy governor five times, Hopkins was governor six times and deputy
governor five times, while John Winthrop, the younger, served eighteen
years in the chief office.

The Connecticut government thus formed rapidly extended its
jurisdiction. Although Springfield was conceded to Massachusetts the
loss was made up by the accession, in 1639, of Fairfield and
Stratford, west of New Haven, and, April, 1644, of Southampton, on
Long Island, and about the same time of Farmington, near Hartford. In
1639 a town had been founded at Fort Saybrook by George Fenwick, who
was one of the Connecticut patentees.[17] In the confusion which
ensued in England Fenwick found himself isolated; and, assuming to
himself the ownership of the fort and the neighboring town, he sold
both to Connecticut in 1644, and promised to transfer the rest of the
extensive territory granted to the patentees "if it ever came into his
power to do so."[18] As the Connecticut government was entirely
without any legal warrant from the government of England, this
agreement of Fenwick's was deemed of much value, for it gave the
colony a quasi-legal standing.

In 1649 East Hampton, on Long Island, was annexed to the colony, and
in 1650 Norwalk was settled. In 1653 Mattabeseck, on the Connecticut,
was named Middletown; and in 1658 Nameaug, at the mouth of the Pequot
River, settled by John Winthrop, Jr., in 1646, became New London. In
1653 Connecticut had twelve towns and seven hundred and seventy-five
persons were taxed in the colony.[19]

While Connecticut was thus establishing itself, another colony, called
New Haven, controlled by the desire on the part of its leading men to
create a state on a thoroughly theocratic model, grew up opposite to
Long Island. The chief founder of the colony was John Davenport, who
had been a noted minister in London, and with him were associated
Theophilus Eaton, Edward Hopkins, and several other gentlemen of good
estates and very religiously inclined. They reached Boston from
England in July, 1637, when the Antinomian quarrel was at its height,
and Davenport was a member o