In the school's first three decades, three gifts established Yale's collection. In 1714, Jeremiah Dummer, Connecticut's colonial agent in Boston, wrote to distinguished English scholars requesting gifts of books for the colony's college, then operating in Saybrook, Connecticut. Over 800 volumes arrived in Boston and were sent to the college. Among the contributors were leading scientists including Isaac Newton, John Woodward, and Edmond Halley, who sent copies of their own tracts among their donations. Religious figures, including Richard Bentley, White Kennett, and Matthew Henry, fortified the theological collections, and other books arrived from Richard Steele, Richard Blackmore, and Dummer himself, who ultimately gave the college about two hundred books.