In 1638, John Winthrop the younger, who had in 1635 been appointed by the English patentees governor of the fort at Say brook, had made a purchase of land in the old Pequot territory. This, as covering land claimed by right of conquest, the unpatented court at Hartford persuaded the Commissioners of the United Col ouies to disallow on rather flimsy pretexts. Winthrop seems to have submitted with a good grace. In 1647 he took from the Hartford legislature his commission as the first magistrate in the settlement which in 1645 and 1646 he had founded at New London. These three settlements, then, with their dependencies — for the Saybrook foundation was never a factor in the history of the State — were the framework on which hangs the political history of Connecticut.2 They were all different, yet not sharply so, and the differences are also slight which we find in the schools of archi tecture that prevail among them. One typical plan will serve for all three. The differences which appear are differences of detail. These came from the constructive preferences of the carpenters and masons who literally founded and built the commonwealth, and who.