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Roger Ludlow (1590-1664) was one of the founders of the Colony of Connecticut. He was born in March 1590 in Dinton, Wiltshire, England. Roger was the second son of Sir Thomas Ludlow of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire and Jane Pyle, sister of Sir Gabriel Pyle. He matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford in 1609 or 1610, and was admitted to the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in 1612.

Ludlow sailed to America in May 1630 aboard the ship Mary & John with his wife Mary Endicott, a sister of Governor John Endicott of Massachusetts. They settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts, where they remained for five years. During that period he was chosen magistrate in the Court of Assistants for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was elected as Deputy Governor in 1634. During this time Ludlow successfully negotiated the first treaty between the English and the Pequot. In 1635 he was defeated by John Haynes for Governor.

In 1635 Roger Ludlow joined with other Puritans and Congregationalists who were dissatisfied with the rate of Anglican reforms, and sought to establish an ecclesiastical society subject to their own rules and regulations. The Massachusetts General Court granted them permission to settle the cities of Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford in the area now known as Connecticut. Ownership of the land was called into dispute by the English holders of the Saybrook Patent of 1631 that had been granted by Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick. The Massachusetts General Court established the March Commission to mediate the dispute, and named Roger Ludlow as its head. The Commission named 8 magistrates from the Connecticut towns to implement a legal system. The March Commission expired in March 1636, after which time the settlers continued to self-govern.

In late 1636 and the spring of 1637 the burgeoning Connecticut colony faced armed conflict known as the Pequot War. The Connecticut towns decided to send a force of more than 70 soldiers along with Narragansett and Mohegan collaborators into the attack upon a Pequot settlement that became known as the Mystic massacre on May 26, 1637. While Ludlow did not participate in the Mystic attack, his role in the General Court meant that he took part in the decision to send the force. After the destruction at Mystic Ludlow did leave the Windsor area to pursue Sassacus and other Pequot survivors, first to Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut river, then westward toward the Mattabesset village known as "Sasqua". On July 13, 1637 the battle in swamps around Sasqua signalled the final military defeat of the remaining Pequots.

On May 29, 1638 Ludlow wrote to Massachusetts Governor Winthrop that the colonists wanted to "unite ourselves to walk and lie peaceably and lovingly together." Ludlow was a framer of a document called the Fundamental Orders, which was adopted on January 14, 1639. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is the world's first written constitution for a self-governing people.

Roger Ludlow was a magistrate in 1637 and 1638, and was then named as the first Deputy Governor of Connecticut. He was also chosen as a Magistrate in 1640, and every year from that date until he left the colony in 1654, except in 1642 and 1648, when he was again chosen Deputy Governor. In 1643 Ludlow was one of the representatives from Connecticut in the negotiations which led to the con-federation of the colonies.

He founded Fairfield, Connecticut in 1639. He recalled the southwestern Connecticut area from the battle at Sasqua that had taken place two years prior. The effort at settlement in the area may have been part of an effort to obtain a Connecticut title to the area instead of allowing the land to be sold to the Dutch from New Netherland or the New Haven Colonists. He also purchased the land that would become Norwalk in 1640.

In 1646 Ludlow was asked by the Connecticut General Court to draft a comprehensive set of laws "grounded in precedent and authority and fitted to the necessities of the new civilization." The result was “The Code of Laws of 1650”, or Ludlow Code, which is archived in the Connecticut Colonial Records.

In 1654 Ludlow returned to England, then later moved to Ireland, where he died in 1664.

Roger Ludlowe Middle School and Fairfield Ludlowe High School, both in Fairfield, are named for him.

See also

• List of Lieutenant Governors of Connecticut
• Saybrook Colony

References

1. "Dinton - British History Online". Retrieved 2008-09-17.
2. Sir Thomas was the great uncle of Edmund Ludlow the soldier, parliamentarian, and author.
3. ^ Taylor, John M. (1900)
4. Taylor, John M. (1900); page 22
5. Taylor, John M. (1900) page 33
6. Permission was also granted to settle Springfield, Massachusetts but by 1638 that city left the others to instead be part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See Horton, Wesley W. (1993-06-30) for details.
7. The Saybrook Patent is also known as the Warwick Patent in some literature. See "Full text of "The Warwick patent"". The Acorn Club. Retrieved 2008-09-16.
8. Horton, Wesley W. (1993-06-30). The Connecticut State Constitution: A Reference Guide. Reference guides to the state constitutions of the United States. Vol. no. 17. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. p 2. ISBN 0313285659. OCLC 27066290. Retrieved 2008-09-17. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help)

Bibliography

1. Taylor, John M. (1900). Roger Ludlow The Colonial Lawmaker. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's, Knickerbocker Press.
2. Cohn, Henry S. (1988). Connecticut Constitutional History, 1636-1776.
3. Fennell, Christopher Fennell (1998). Plymouth Colony Legal Structure.
4. Gocher, W. H. (1904). Wadsworth, or the Charter Oak.

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