Covered bridge, Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth

Covered bridge, Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth – Bill Cannon

Killingworth, in Middlesex County, is located in south-central Connecticut and includes Chatfield Hollow State Park. Europeans established a plantation here in 1663, naming it Homonoscitt after the Hammonasset people who inhabited the area. In 1703, the state General Assembly granted incorporation to Kenilworth, which in time became known as Killingworth. Its original lands reached the shore and, until 1838, included present-day Clinton. Historically an agricultural community, Killingworth today is a rural, residential area. Its noteworthy citizens include the infamous Abel Buell. This 18th-century counterfeiter and inventor engraved one of the first maps of America and invented an early lapidary, or gem cutting machine.

More on Killingworth from the CT Digital Archive

Browse more interactive content on the CT Digital Archive website.

Read More

Featured

Killingworth’s Automated Attraction – Who Knew?

In the 1890s Clark Coe created an attraction of life-sized moving figures called the Killingworth Images on his farm on Green Hill Road. …[more]

Learn More

Places

Department of Energy & Environmental Protection. “Chatfield Hollow State Park,” 2012. Link.
“Killingworth Historical Society,” 2012. Link.

Documents

Buell, Abel. “Abel Buell, of Killingworth in Connecticut, Jeweller and Lapidary, Begs Leave to Aequaint the Public, and the Printers of the Several Colonies, That He Hath Discovered the Art, and Hath Alreday Entred Upon the Business of Founding Types...” Edes & Gill, May 1769. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. “Killingworth - WPA Architectural Survey,” 2014. Link.
“Killingworth Collection.” Connecticut Digital Archive, n.d. Link.

Books

Killingworth Historical Society, and Thomas Lentz. A Photographic History of Killingworth. Killingworth, CT: Killingworth Historical Society, 2004.
Field, David. A Statistical Account of the County of Middlesex, in Connecticut. Middletown,  CT: Clark & Lyman, 1819. Link.
Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Middlesex, Connecticut: From Actual Surveys. New York, NY: F.W. Beers & Company, 1874. Link.
Beers, J.B., & Company, and Henry Whittemore. History of Middlesex County, Connecticut, with Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men. New York, NY: J.B. Beers & Company, 1884. Link.