The other settlers who remained upon the river suffered very much, and were finally reduced to the necessity of eating acorns and ground-nuts, which they dug out of the snow.

A great number of the cattle perished, and the Dorchester Company "lost near L2000 worth."[50] These calamities were soon forgotten; and as soon as the first flowers of spring suggested the end of the dreary winter season, the Newtown people prepared to move.

Selling their lands on the Charles River to the congregation of Rev.Thomas Shepard, the whole body, in June, 1636, emigrated through the green woods, musical with birds and bright with flowers, under the leadership of their two eminent ministers, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone.[51] Among the lay members of the community were Stephen Hart, Thomas Bull, and Richard Lord.[52] A little later the churches of Dorchester and Watertown completed their removal, while a settlement was made by emigrants from Roxbury under William Pynchon at Agawam, afterwards Springfield, just north of the boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut.[53] At the beginning of the winter of 1636-1637 about eight hundred people were established in three townships below Springfield.

These townships were first called after the towns from which their inhabitants removed--Newtown, Watertown, and Dorchester; but in February, 1637, their names were changed to Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor.

The settlements well illustrate the general type of New England colonization.