The following are excerpts from,Hartfords First Church, Rockwell Harmon Potter: The 16th Minister, Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., Hartford, CT, Printer, Ist Church of Christ Hartford, Publishers. "The First Church of Christ in Hartford had its origin in Old England. It was born in the Puritan Movement among the churches of Essex County .......... The Reformation had been at work among earnest and eager spirits in these churches for more than a generation. Throughout the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth the spirit and purpose of the new and freer forms of the Christian faith had been moving toward expression in shaping the organization and procedure of the ancient churches in the towns and countryside. .......... In the third decade of that great seventeenth century Thomas Hooker, a Fellow of Emmanuel College of Cambridge, was asked to serve as lecturer in the ancient parish Church of St. Mary's at Chelmsford. He had been a diligent and faithful student in his course at Emmanuel and upon his graduation had been appointed to a fellowship, one of the duties of which was to serve as occasional lecturer in parishes within the reach of Cambridge where his services might be desired........ Accordingly when ecclesiastical authority denied the continuance of this ministry to the church in Chelmsford, these who had been won to it sought some means by which they might have this privilege granted to them for the future. The news had come to them of the new world overseas which was being opened to English settlers, and in which there was the opportunity for a larger economic life, for political freedom and for a religious liberty, which they came to feel they could not enjoy in the church of their birth and early training. A group of those stirred by this hope proposed to Mr. Hooker that they would make the great adventure to the new world and establish themselves there as a colony on condition that he undertake to go with them as their minister, or at least to follow them and assume leadership as their Pastor and Teacher as soon as the way might be opened to him........ In 1632 the group of those who were moved to under- take this adventure carried out their plans and set sail for the new world. They arrived in Massachusetts Bay and began "to sit down at Mount Wollaston". They found welcome from the settlers that had preceded them and later were assigned to the land bordering the north side of the Charles River where now the city of Cambridge stands. There they established themselves, calling their community the New Town to distinguish it from earlier settlements which were nearer the shores of the Bay" The book goes on to indicate that Hooker's group petitioned for and received the lands, that were to be the city of Hartford ,from the General Court. In an earlier book, The First Church in Hartford, on page 58, regarding the above migration is a footnote "Wm. Goodrich, Edward Elmer, John Benjamin........arrived in Boston in the "Lion", Sept. 16, 1632. Simon Sackett and Wm. Spencer, who also came to Hartford, were in Newtown before the arrival of the Braintree Company from Mt. Wallaston in August, 1632." Sorry I seem to have lost the citation for this book but it is available at the Godfrey Library. I found it interesting that this group seem to have come for their own reasons, instead of at the behest of Gov. Winthrop. It would also appear that Simon Sackett may have been part of this grand plan to establish a new church before they left England. It also speaks to a timeframe for Simon's arrival. If any one is interested, I can send the whole 1st chapter Hartfords First Church, as an attachment. It is pages. Tom Smith