New Haven's leaders were businessmen and traders, but they were never able to build up a large or profitable trade because their agricultural base was poor, farming the rocky soil was difficult, and the location was isolated.

Eaton returned to Boston, leaving seven men to remain through the winter and make preparations for the arrival of the rest of the company.

[3] The first English settlers gave their settlement the name Quinnipiac (rendered in various spellings, including “Quinipiek” in local records from the time[4]).

), when records of the plantation’s general court note “This towne now named Newhaven [sic].”[6] The settlers had no official charter.

[9] According to its terms, a court composed of 16 burgesses, i.e. voting citizens, was established to appoint a magistrate and officials and to conduct the business of the plantation.

:[11] On October 23, 1643, in the context of the formation of the New England Confederation, composed of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Connecticut Colonies, for joint military action against threats of attack by natives, the New Haven Plantation and its subsidiary settlements, Stamford and Southhold on Long Island, were combined with the independent towns of Milford and Guilford and named the New Haven Colony which then joined the Confederation.

[citation needed] In 1642, 50 families on a ship captained by George Lamberton settled at the mouth of Schuylkill River to establish the trading post at what is today Philadelphia.

The Dutch and Swedes who were already in the area burned their buildings, and a court in New Sweden convicted Lamberton of "trespassing, conspiring with the Indians.

According to Cotton Mather in his Magnalia Christi Americana, the settlers gathered on the beach where they saw a detailed vision of a ship in the aftermath of a storm.

"[21] In 1660, following the Stuart Restoration, Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe, two of the 59 commissioners who signed the 1649 execution warrant of Charles I, fled England to North America.

New Haven urgently needed a royal charter, but the colony had made enemies in London by hiding and protecting the regicide judges.

[22] An uneasy competition ruled New Haven's relations with the larger and more powerful Connecticut River settlements centered on Hartford.