Excerpt from The Blue Laws of New Haven Colony, Usually Called Blue Laws of Connecticut; Quaker Laws of Plymouth and Massachusetts; Blue Laws of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina
The first settlers of the New-Haven colony, and also of the colony of Connecticut, were emigrants from England. Soon after the arrival of the former, in 1638. finding themselves destitute of any laws as rules of action to govern their small but intrepid band, knowing that all civil societies required laws, both for the protection of their persons and estates, the colonists soon organized and constituted a General Court, in 1639. appointed such officers as were required, constituted courts, and enacted such laws as the exigences of the occasion demanded, in the infancy of the government. And as their numbers increased, and settlements extended, other laws were enacted to punish offenders, protect life, liberty, and property from injury, and were added from session to session of the General Court. As no printing establishment had yet been in operation in the colony, the laws were promulgated to the people by written copies of them delivered to the constables in the jurisdiction, whose duty it was to declare them to their subjects on lecture days, and at such other times as the citizens of the plantations should be assembled. This mode of enacting and declaring the laws, continued until their laws became numerous, and therefore inconvenient and difficult, not only for the people, but the courts, to retain them in recollection. It was therefore ordered by the General Court of the Colony, in 1665, that some able, judicious and godly man should be appointed, to form a code of laws for the (New-Haven) colony. Governor Eaton was appointed for this purpose, and desired by the General Court, for his own instruction, and to aid him in this arduous task, to examine the laws of the colony of Massachusetts, and also the Discourse on Civil Government in a New Plantation, by the Rev. Mr. Cotton.
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