The ancient historical records of Norwalk, Conn ... - Hay genealogy

310 'NORWALK.
called Arthur-Cull Bay, in New Jersey. On the 30th of the
same month he granted the petition and promised encouragement.
That place is now Elizabethtown. The principal petitioners
were in Jamaica in 1665, It is therefore to be presumed
that they sent out a colony.
Governor Nichols issued *' To the magistrates of the several
tounes upon Longisland," an order of election, dated James
ffort, in New York, 8th February, 1664, reciting that the inhabitants
had for a long time groaned under many grievous
inconveniences and discouragements occasioned partly from
their opposition to a foreign power, in which distracted condition
few or no laws could be put in due execution, bounds
and titles to lands disputed, civil liberties interrupted, and
from this general confusion private dissentions and animosities
had too much prevailed against neighborly love and
Christian charity, and in discharge of his duty " to settle good
and known laws," requiring two deputies to " a general meeting,"
to be chosen from each town " by the major part of the
freemen," and recommending " the choice of the most sober,
able 'and discreet persons, without partiality or faction," to
meet " on the last day of February at Hempstead." The delegates
from Jamaica were Daniel Denton and Thomas Benedict,
This is believed to be the first English legislative body
ever convened in New York.
In 1665, he was commissioned by Gov. Nichols^'^.s a Lieutenant
"of the Foot Company of Jamaica." His commission
was dated at " Fort James in New York, the 7th day of April,
1665." Whether he accepted the commission is not known.
It is certain, however, that he did not hold it long, as during
the same year he removed from the State to Norwalk, in the
Colony of Connecticut, with all his family. There they
lived together, and thence they scattered abroad in little
colonizing
parties to let in the light on other parts of the neighboring
wilderness, or to swell the numbers of the pioneer bands
who had already planted settlements in the vicinity.
In 1666, February 10th, he was chosen town clerk and selectman
of Norwalk