Freeholders and other
Inhabitants of the respective Townes and Places." The governor, deputy
governor and secretary and the first assistants were appointed. After the
first year, the assistants were to be annually elected by the General
Assembly. Under this charter, with the exception of the deputies, the
only elective officers whose functions were at all general in their
nature were the county treasurers, and they were chosen upon the basis of
the town rather than upon the basis of the provincial suffrage.

* * *

New Hampshire owed its original settlement to John Mason, a London
merchant, who was associated with Sir Ferdinand Gorges in obtaining a
grant of land in 1622, from the Merrimac to the Kennebec and inland to
the St. Lawrence. Gorges and Mason agreed to divide their domain at the
Piscataqua. Mason, obtaining a patent for his portion of the territory,
called it New Hampshire, in commemoration of the fact that he had been
governor of Portsmouth in Hampshire, England. The Rev. Mr. Wheelwright,
brother of Anne Hutchinson, founded Exeter. The New Hampshire settlements
were annexed by Massachusetts in 1641, and remained dependent on that
colony until 1680, when New Hampshire became a royal province, ruled by a
governor and council and house of representatives elected by the people.
The settlers of New Hampshire were mostly Puritans, and thoroughly in
sympathy with the political-religious system of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts obtained jurisdiction over Maine through purchase from
Gorges, and that territory remained attached to Massachusetts until 1820.
Vermont had no separate existence until the Revolution.

* * *

The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were in full sympathy with the
religious and political system of Massachusetts. The first meeting of all
the "free planters" of New Haven was held on the fourth day of June,
1639, for the purpose "of settling civil government according to God, and
about the nomination of persons that might be found by consent of all,
fittest in all respects for the foundation work of a church." The meeting
was opened with prayer. There was some debate as to whether the planters
should give to free burgesses the power of making ordinances, but it was
ultimately decided to do so. The minutes of the meeting show that this
decision was arrived at on the authority of several passages from the
Bible-