James Fitch

Born: Saybrook; August 2, 1649
Died: Canterbury; November 10, 1727

Entry by Bruce P. Stark

James Fitch was a land speculator and magistrate. In 1660 his father, Reverend James Fitch (1622-1702), led a group of people to settle the town of Norwich. Raised on the frontier in close contact with Indians, Fitch gained knowledge of the unsettled eastern Connecticut lands and learned to manipulate the Indians who owned them. In 1680 and 1684 Owaneco, chief of the Mohegans, granted Fitch title to a large tract of land, the Quinebaug lands, in northeastern Connecticut. His acquisition and later disposal of Indian lands drew to his side all those who claimed title by native right and who entered the political arena in order to maintain the land they claimed.

Fitch was first elected deputy from Norwich in May 1678 and three years later was chosen to the Connecticut Upper House. Fitch opposed the Dominion of New England, and upon its overthrow in the spring of 1689 he was a leader in the movement to restore charter government. The old rulers of the colony procrastinated, but Fitch aroused the freemen to demand new elections and the reestablishment of the old government. In this effort he was successful, but the old magistrates, most of whom had willingly acquiesced to Governor Andros' rule, managed to retain their former offices. James Fitch was a powerful and disturbing figure to those who cherished traditional patterns of deference and who opposed his speculations and sale of lands in eastern Connecticut. He might have won control of the government had it not been for Fitz-John Winthrop (1638-1707). Winthrop secured reaffirmation of the Connecticut charter, thereby propelling himself into the governor's chair and restoring the good image of those who had a decade earlier supported the Dominion of New England.

The enemies of James Fitch quickly went on the offensive. Previously county courts were presided over by a local assistant like Fitch, but new legislation vested all appointive power in the hands of the General Assembly. In the 1698 election Fitch lost his Council seat. Although he was to regain it in 1700, political fortunes tuned against him. He was placed on the defensive and eventually lost control of the Quinebaug lands. He retired to Canterbury where he died in 1727.

James Fitch was for a period of almost twenty years one of the most powerful men in the colony. To his enemies he was "Black James" or the "Great land pirate," but he led a faction devoted to charter government and native right that helped mark the transition from Puritan commonwealth to provincial Yankee society.

For Further Reading

Bushman, Richard L. From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967. See chapter 6.

Poteet, James M. "More Yankee than Puritan: James Fitch of Connecticut." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 133 (April 1979), 102-17.

* Entry under revision.