The Emigrant Henry Doude

Henry Doud is numbered among those who are considered the founding fathers of America. New England in 1639 was made up of three colonies Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. The New Haven Colony had seen its first settlers,who arrived in 1638, who founded the city of New Haven. In 1639 the Reverend Henry Whitfield organized a company with the intent of also settling in the New Haven Colony. They arrived August 31, 1639 to establish a new community that they named Guilford. As they approached the new world they signed a covenant binding them to a common cause.------ “We whose names are here underwritten, intended by God’s gracious permission to plant ourselves in New England. And if it may be, in the southerly part about Quinnipak, do faithfully promise each, for ourselves and our families and those that belong to us, that we will, the Lord assisting us, sit down and join ourselves together in one entire plantation and be helpful each to the other in any common work, according to every man’s ability, and as need shall require, and we promise not to desert or leave each other or the plantation, but with the consent of the rest, or the greater part of the company who have entered into this engagement. As to our gathering together in a church way the choice of officers and members to be joined in that way we do refer ourselves, until such time as it please God to settle us in our plantation. In witness whereof we subscribe our names”. ------One of the names so subscribed is Henry Doude. These compacts set the stage for the new political viewpoint that came out of the new world. The religious convictions that led these men to leave Europe became the driving force behind the Congregational Societies that dominated American life for the next two hundred years. These men became the founding fathers for a new country, a new political philosophy, a new religious sensibility, and established family names that are interwoven into the history of America. The town history of Guilford writes of him “He was located on land which lies about one quarter mile from the northeast corner of the Green, on the road extended, which passes up the east side of the Green, It is not far distant from the house now occupied by William Doud, one of his descendants, Whether he lived there at the time of his death or not, and where he was buried is unknown”. Henry died in 1668. To those of us who have spent time in Guilford that is an easy map to follow. The original Green is still the center of the community and is lined with houses constructed in the early history of the town. ------Two of Henry’s grandsons took Griffin girls to wed. Lyman Doud, Lyman/Joseph/Joseph/ Thomas/Thomas/Henry, married Fanny Griffin, Fanny/Edward/ James/ Samuel. Reuben Doud, Reuben/Abraham/Abraham/Thomas/Henry, married Polly Griffin, Polly/ Samuel/ Samuel. The Doud’s, like the Griffins, were serious about their religion. The Congregational mindset that we have described on the blog applies equally to the Douds. Their names fill the pages of the records of the Congregational Societies in Guilford and Madison. The depth of their religious convictions is illustrated in this article submitted by one of Henry Doud’s and Reuben Doud’s great grandson Terry Collins. It comes from a history written in 1950s by an author who was using material compiled by the Collins family over several generations.----------“Henry Doud was probably born of folk who had lived and died in that same small part of England since the dawn of history. He was of the blood of those who had first put stone to stone to build the parish church in Saxon times, near a thousand years ago. Thirty miles South of Guildford was the sea. It is unlikely that he had ever seen it, or a ship upon it. The sea to him was many months of unimaginable dangers westing to America. America was a place where dangerous sea met dangerous forest. Only a blazing belief in the exhortations of Preacher Whitfield, and a great personal force and courage, could assert that this of America was not a madness.------Henry Doud was a true “Puritan”. He was not simply a non-conformist to the state religion as were the kindly Brownists, who left England for Holland, and then for America on the Mayflower, because they believed that all men should be free to worship God as they thought right. He was one of those grim, fanatical people who were sure that their way of worship was the only right way, and who would dare an ocean to make a new country where their way was absolute. Had Henry Doud remained in England for another three years it is unlikely that he would ever had become the progenitor of an American family. For by then, the battle was joined in England, the Puritan flood to America dammed, Puritans were busy defeating and beheading the king-and were to enforce their way upon England until people wearied of it grimness.”