Leroy Anderson Composed Iconic Music in Woodbury

…utilizing his language skills as a translator and interpreter for the US Counter Intelligence Corps in Iceland during World War II. In all, Anderson spoke ten languages and his abilities…

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…students to educators to history enthusiasts. We provide engaging, well-researched stories about Connecticut history that link to reliable primary and interpretive resources. Our goal is to encourage readers to engage…

Site Lines: Connecticut’s Freedom Trail

…disparities. Sites Along the Trail Approximately 10% of the Connecticut Freedom Trail’s sites are individual gravesites, and nearly the same number of sites are cemeteries with multiple African American burials….

A Monument Memorializes the Fallen

…two officers and 49 enlisted men were killed or mortally wounded, while four officers and 172 enlisted fell by disease. In total, the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery Regiment suffered 227…

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Charles Goodyear

Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) Born in New Haven, Charles Goodyear attended school in Naugatuck and, in 1826, started the first retail domestic hardware store in the US with his father, inventor…

The Incident of the Stonington Schooner ‘Breakwater’: A View from Indian Country

…A Negro. These names together with my own show A crew of thirteen men before the Mast and four in the Cabin in all seventeen…[eighteen men appear on the original…

Mohegan Sacred Sites: Moshup’s Rock

…sites within this spiritual landscape is Moshup’s Rock. This site, negatively referenced by Christian missionaries as the “Devil’s Footprint,” is a rock embedded with the footprint of the giant named…

Site Lines: Monuments to Connecticut’s Lost County Government

…advanced architectural styles. Bridgeport native Warren Richard Briggs designed the Connecticut Building at the Chicago fair, and his proposal for Windham’s courthouse was chosen from among nine designs submitted. Briggs…

Site Lines: The Mysterious Blue Lights

…New London’s harbor and taken safe haven a few miles up the Thames River. Each of his stealthy attempts to escape his confined position had been thwarted by the appearance…

A Hip Road Trip

…young children, the drive-in allowed post-World War II parents to bring children (sometimes dressed in their pajamas), snacks, and drinks for a night out without hiring a babysitter. When it…

Notorious New-Gate Prison

…a picket fence encompassing an area of approximately 187 by 160 feet and then replaced by a wooden palisade in 1790. They built a 12-foot-high stone wall in 1802 in…

Site Lines: Silas Deane

…Congress, 1783, engraving – Yale University Art Gallery As the winds of war began to blow, Deane, then in his mid-thirties, entered the political arena as one of Connecticut Colony’s…

Site Lines: Fortresses of Faith, Agents of Change

By Mary M. Donohue and Whitney Bayers for Connecticut Explored Black churches have long been at the forefront in the battle for social progress and equality. Since the end of…

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Brass City/Grass Roots: What Makes a Farm a Farm? Other Sites of Food Production in Waterbury

…pigs, chickens, and cows as well as a large variety of fruits and vegetables, click to enlarge Even in the recent past, food-growing was woven into Waterbury’s civic fabric. In…

Cornfield Point: Old Saybrook’s Forgotten Scenic Alcove

…Hughes, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Ann Sheriden, Don Ameche, and Doris Day all stayed at the establishment. Even the Rockefellers allegedly visited. The 18th Amendment outlawing…

The Prospect Green as a Historical Narrative

…of the 75 men from Prospect who served in the Civil War—these men represented more than half the voting population of the entire town at the time. In front of…

Connecticut State Capitol

…century, Connecticut had two capitals: Hartford and New Haven. The state legislature rotated between the two cities, but by the 1870s, the practice of having dual capitols was awkward and…

The Forlorn Soldier Statue

…that people rejected it because the right foot was mistakenly thrust forward, which is opposite of the traditional parade-rest military pose. This statue faced years of environmental degradation, causing it…

The “Welcoming Beacon” of Sheffield Island Lighthouse

…the lighthouse until his death in 1845 when Lewis Whitlock became keeper and worked on the island through the advent of the Civil War. Sailors often complained that the light…

L.D. Brown and Son Silk Mill: A Staple in Middletown’s South Farms District

…the L. D. Brown & Son Mill struggled. Mill owners convinced a former Connecticut governor, Owen Vincent Coffin, and his son to enter a joint business venture with them to…

Navigating Connecticut Safely: The Green Book’s Role in African American Travel

…stations—even when passing through northern states. To address these concerns, Victor Hugo Green, a mailman from Harlem, New York, published The Negro Motorist Green Book in 1936. Commonly referred to…

Bradley International Airport Transforms Windsor Locks into Regional Gateway

…state purchased 1,700 acres of tobacco farmland in Windsor Locks and leased the site to the federal government. Soon an army air base was constructed on the site, named in…

“Outcasts” Build Their Own Village in 18th-Century Barkhamsted

…Farmington River in what became the town of Barkhamsted. While some details of the story (such as Mary’s Wethersfield origins) have not been conclusively proven, church and town records—along with…

Chamberlin Mill: A Woodstock Survivor

…mill structures that have occupied the Still River site since the 18th century (when Manasseh Hosmer was granted a deed for a grist mill and saw mill). For over two…

Connecticut Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home

…the state chartered the Connecticut Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home. A twenty-acre site on Prospect Hill in Cornwall (Gold’s hometown) was selected, but then Edwin Whitney stepped up. Edwin Whitney (1829–1867) was…

The Connecticut Town Green

…town green, Ram’s Pasture retains much of its colonial character. New Haven’s Green New Haven’s settlement began in 1638 when a company of English colonists led by merchant Theophilus Eaton…

Waste Not, Want Not: The Colonial Era Midden

…of being broken and then repaired by drilling pairs of holes along the breaks and then fastening the pieces back together with wire or staples. Leaky brass kettles were repaired…

Metal Homes for the Atomic Age

…the home’s exterior. A polyvinyl chloride gasket was set between each set of panels to ensure a tight seal. Advertisements boasted that the entire house could be put up in…

East Haven was Home to Connecticut’s First Iron Works

…Lake In 1655, with East Haven residents engaged primarily in farming, New Haven businessman Stephen Goodyear and Boston mining entrepreneur John Winthrop Jr. selected a site near the Saltonstall Lake…

Breaking the Myth of the Unmanaged Landscape

…encroach even on sequestered Indian lands, fencing them in, clearing and planting, removing timber, and allowing wayward livestock to damage crops. Tribes vigorously resisted, often channeling their protests through advocates…

I-95 Reaches New London

…across the Thames River between New London and Groton began in 1941. Despite delays caused by the United States’ entry into World War II, workers completed the bridge for its…

Marian Anderson’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement

…a Morning, Anderson recounts, without rancor, the prejudice she encountered even as her fame and career grew. She performed in concert halls where Black people could not attend, traveled to…

Hartford Protests in Support of Selma – Today in History: March 9

…members of the North End Community Action Project (NECAP), picketed in support of the voter registration marchers in Selma, Alabama, who had been attacked by state and local police with…

Road Signs of the Air

…the war ended, but by then airplanes, airways, and airports had better air navigation equipment. A federal program to revive the rooftop signs was considered in 1948, but at that…

The Rise of the “Second Home” Community in Sharon – Who Knew?

…residents as well as those that attracted enormous crowds of visitors, summer vacationers, and estate owners. Sharon attracted a substantial vacation community and between 1880 and 1920, wealthy visitors refurbished…

Diamonds of the Past: Hartford’s Lost Ball Parks

By Mike Messina for Your Public Media There’s something magical when you first step out from the tunnel of a baseball stadium on a summer night. The field, as a…

The Legend of the Charter Oak

…were blown out in the midst of the debate, and when they were relit the charter was gone. It was supposedly given to Captain Joseph Wadsworth and hidden in a…

When Bozrah Provided Comfort to the Nation

…this period, Palmer Brothers employed between 100 and 300 workers at any given time (based on seasonal fluctuations in sales), and they all waited anxiously for an order to resume…

A Separate Place: The New Haven Colony, 1638-1665

…vessel, which unfortunately sank in the North Atlantic on its way to England. The English Civil War New Haven colonists welcomed news of the outbreak of the English Civil War,…

The 1961 Hartford Hospital Fire

…opposite side of the corridor. Flames emanating from the open chute eagerly consumed linoleum wainscotting, wallpaper, and cane-fiber ceiling tiles in the hallway. The burning building materials created clouds of…

The Seth Wetmore House: A Storied Structure of 18th Century Middletown

…in the Wetmore family for more than two centuries. (In 1986, Samuel and Helen Green, the owners at the time, sold the exquisite wood paneling in the home’s south parlor…

Maritime History: The Founding of the United States Coast Guard Academy

…duty as Coast Guard ensigns. As per their mission statement, the academy strives “to graduate young men and women with sound bodies, stout hearts and alert minds, with a liking…

Dinosaur Tracks Found – Today in History: August 23

…the area and in turn, the park has one of the largest on-site displays of dinosaur tracks in the world. The site was named Dinosaur State Park and designated as…

Putting History on the Map

…Connecticut Historical Society incorporate the memories of very old men. James Wadsworth drew his map of New Haven in 1748, when he was an 18-year-old student at Yale. When it…

Saving Sessions Woods

…girls with a basic camping experience, to teach them self-reliance, and to encourage them to engage in outdoor activities. Campers came for one or two weeks during summer vacation, between…

Trumbull’s Parlor Rock Park: A Premier Amusement Center of the Late 19th Century

…the frozen Lake High-High, developed the park into a year-round destination. Soon, the arrival of electric lights enabled Parlor Rock to expand even more. Once evening fell, hundreds of lights…

Discovered Dinosaur Tracks Re-Route Highway and Lead to State Park

…nature of the discovery and responded with public interest and cooperation. From the onset of discovery, the fossilized tracks in Rocky Hill encouraged an interest in local history. Given that…

Gallows Lane and the Execution of Barnett Davenport

…name implies, served as an execution site. In 1768, a Native American named John Jacob had been hanged there for the murder of another American Indian. In 1785, Thomas Goss…

The Hartford Circus Fire

…officials from some form of culpability. Four men faced charges for acts of negligence. Sited among these acts was a lack of fire preparation on the part of circus management….

The Colt Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company

…requested firearms by 1847. With his business now a success, Colt looked to expand his operations. In 1851 he became the first American manufacturer to open a plant in England….

A Public Responsibility: Conservation and Development in the 20th Century

…highway construction into the state forests. In 1965, such groups stopped I-91 from running through East Rock Park in New Haven. State laws and tax concessions encouraged maintenance of open…

The USS Nautilus: The World’s First Nuclear Submarine

…for public viewing. The USS Nautilus demonstrates Connecticut’s continuing maritime traditions and dedication to our national defense. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

The Automatic Gallows – Today in History: June 18

…violated the state constitution, all eleven death row inmates were resentenced to imprisonment for life without parole. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

Fitch Soldiers’ Home Closes – Today in History: August 28

…in various wars. Benjamin Fitch, a local Darien philanthropist and one of America’s first millionaires, established the home for men who served in the Civil War and for children whose…

Glastonbury

…the area was incorporated in 1693. Dating back to 1655, Glastonbury has the oldest continually operating ferry in the United States. It runs between South Glastonbury and Rocky Hill. During…

Accidental Shooting Leads to Witchcraft Conviction – Today in History: October 3

…before thy eyes thou hast of late years or still dost give entertainment to Satan the great enemy of God and mankind and by his help hast killed the body…

Goodspeed Opera House Opens – Today in History: October 24

…the theater have gone on to play on Broadway, and Goodspeed productions have won more than a dozen Tony awards. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating…

29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment

…and send them to the battlefield. Each regiment generally had one thousand men divided into ten companies. In November 1863, Connecticut’s governor and legislature decided African Americans would make up…

The Complicated Realities of Connecticut and the Civil War

…the Union Army, a number which represented 47% of men between the ages of 15 and 50. Ten percent of these men died and many more suffered horrible wounds and…

Sophie Tucker, The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas

By Jeannine Henderson-Shifflett Brash, bold and her own woman, Hartford’s Sophie Tucker enjoyed a long and successful career as an entertainer, performing for almost 60 years. Nicknamed “the Last of…

Connecticut 29th Mustered into Service – Today in History: March 8

…Most of the men joined the regiment in the last three months of the year when the volunteers were encamped in the Fair Haven section of New Haven. By January…

Bird’s-eye Views of Connecticut Offer Idealized Portraits of Progress

…innovations in transportation, wide-spread industrialization, and massive population growth fueled by immigration. Even small communities that retained much of their village character boasted of their few factories and commercial enterprises….

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Begins Serialization – Today in History: June 5

…few weeks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a 40-week serial. When the entire book was published in two volumes in March 1852—after building a huge audience during its serialization—ten thousand copies…

Child Labor vs. Schooling in 19th-century Naugatuck

…indifferent to their enforcement. Henry Barnard. Engraved by Henry Wright Smith, 1854. 2009.39.0 – Connecticut Historical Society In Naugatuck in 1850, concern over the quality of education offered to children…

About

Noah Webster and the Dream of a Common Language

…the English Language. Even with today’s spell-check and online resources, many Americans still think “Webster’s” when they have a question regarding spelling and word definitions. Yet, as major a contribution…

The Windsor Economy: A River Ran Through It

…1633, when the English learned of a Dutch trading post in what is today Hartford, Connecticut, they made a concerted effort to establish an English outpost on the Connecticut River…

Maria Colón Sánchez, State Representative and Community Advocate

…Colón Sánchez and others in Hartford’s Puerto Rican community continued to fight for their voice even as tensions with neighboring groups rose. In August of 1969 a bar brawl between…

Savin Rock Park: “Connecticut’s Coney Island”

…Haven, 1906, 1981.136.1 – Connecticut Historical Society Kelsey served with the 6th Regiment of the Connecticut Volunteers during the Civil War. An entrepreneur at heart, Kelsey spent his postwar years…

Laboring in the Shade

…leaves together to string on wooden lath. The laths are then hung up in the rafters of the slat-sided tobacco barns or sheds to cure. After curing, the tobacco is…

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Time in Connecticut

…Meadowood, the 285-acre area of land that King and other students worked during their summers in Connecticut. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

Prospect’s David Miles Hotchkiss and the Free Soil Party

…their entire lives, keeping the home in the family for over 160 years. Today the house is the headquarters of the Prospect Historical Society. This article has been updated, learn…

The Answer Is Risom!

…earlier, the tiny village had been delivered a stunning blow when its only major employer, Cluett-Peabody, abruptly closed its textile mill, began liquidating its assets and left more than a…

The Bryan-Andrew House: Still Standing After All These Years

…the pristine nature of many of its original features, the Bryan-Andrew House also hints at the changing tastes and styles of New England dating back to its colonial roots. Bryan-Andrew…

Literacy Tests and the Right To Vote

…Town Hall, Windsor, Conn. – Windsor Historical Society, Windsor If they had been living on their home island, the men would not have been able to vote in the upcoming…

Bradley Field Enters the Jet Age

…Boeing-720 aircraft. TWA and American Airlines soon followed suit, signaling the beginning of the end of piston-engine airline service. As jetliners increased in size and weight, the State undertook various…

Middletown’s Nathan Starr Supplied Cutlasses for the War of 1812

…thicker grip. Starr signed his last contract on August 21, 1826 for two thousand cutlasses and scabbards. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

The Hartford Courant: The Oldest US Newspaper in Continuous Publication

…Green often asked his readers to save their linen and cotton rags for use in paper production. A Revolutionary Paper Green eventually sold The Connecticut Courant to his assistant Ebenezer…

Early 19th-Century Immigration in Connecticut

…opening in the West created a demand for new sources of labor. Experienced Craftsmen Needed From the exhibit the “Irish Women in Domestic Service” – New Haven Museum In addition,…

The Battle of Groton Heights at Fort Griswold

…militia and local men were under the command of Colonel William Ledyard. After some fighting, the British gained the advantage and entered the garrison. Once the British had penetrated the…

Wethersfield Academy

…Connecticut exhibit that formerly hung in the Connecticut State Capitol and Legislative Office Building starting in 2000. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

Yankee Peddlers

…Connecticut exhibit that formerly hung in the Connecticut State Capitol and Legislative Office Building starting in 2000. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

A Connecticut Home That Dates Back to the 1600s!

…Thomas Lee was a man of great fortune living in Sussex, England, when he and his family left their homeland in 1641 for the promise of the Saybrook Colony in…

The 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment Leaves for War – Today in History: March 19

…Civil War, they were presented with their state (regimental) flag in Fair Haven. According to The New Haven Daily Palladium, a local Black woman presented the dark blue silk flag…

James Lindsey Smith Takes the Underground Railroad to Connecticut

…Smith In the spring of 1838, Smith found a chance to escape in a canoe with two other enslaved men, Zip and Lorenzo. After stealing a larger boat, they sailed…

Hard Times: Governor Wilbur Cross and the Great Depression in Connecticut

…and Letters of Laurence Sterne. He retired from Yale in 1930 at the age of 68. Then, at a time in life when most men rest on their academic laurels,…

Connecticut’s Loyal Subjects: Toryism and the American Revolution

…South who were, by that time, more firmly established and often apt to embrace the patriotic sentiments of their communities, the Episcopalian clergymen of Connecticut were fervent in their support…

Ida Tarbell: The Woman Who Took On Standard Oil

…Tarbell moved to Paris. She had written a series of articles about women of the French Revolution and she went to France to research a projected biography of one of…

Dr. Mary B. Moody Challenges Victorian Mores About Women in Medicine

…establishment of the Dispensary for Women and Children. A Female Physician in New Haven The Moody family then moved to New Haven, where Lucius Moody established the Connecticut office of…

The Land of Nod Farm, East Canaan, Connecticut

By Sara VanDeusen The important contributions made by the iron industry in Canaan, Connecticut, have been the subject of much celebrated research. The iron that poured out of Connecticut’s northwest…

The Kewpies Buy A House in Westport

…Pre-dating the introduction of Mickey Mouse, the Kewpies promoted everything from Jell-O to Cologate and adorned licensed merchandise from salt and pepper shakers to baby rattles, making Rose O’Neill the…

Connecticut’s First Municipal Electric Utility

…few years later, for homes and businesses. Four more municipalities acquired their own facilities between the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1976 a wholesale power supply…

Weston

An affluent residential town, Weston is home to a large portion of the Lucius Pond Ordway/Devil’s Den Preserve, Fairfield County’s largest tract of protected land. The area retains signs of…

Connecticut Turnpike Opens – Today in History: January 2

…toll barrier systems in place at Greenwich, Norwalk, Stratford, West Haven, Branford, Madison, Montville, and Plainfield. The original passenger car toll for the entire 129-mile route was $2.10, but the…

James Abbott McNeill Whistler: A Young Artist in Pomfret

…spent his adolescence by stating: “If I ever make the journey to America, I will go straight to Baltimore, then to West Point, and then sail for England again.” Over…

Buckling Up For Auto Safety

…require seat belt usage for children four to sixteen years old. In 1982, Connecticut enacted a child auto restraint law that required children younger than a year old to be…

The Storied History behind Connecticut’s Nicknames

…Provisions State Another early moniker originated during the Revolutionary War when Connecticut provided generous “provisions” in the form of men, food, cannons, and other supplies to the Continental army, which…

Derby’s Osbornedale Farms, Frances Kellogg, and the Dairy Industry

…Osborne family got its start in dairy agriculture when Wilbur Fisk and Ellen Lucy Osborne and their family bought an 1840 farm in Derby and began experimenting with the cross…

Sarah Harris Fayerweather

…is a freelance writer and an English and Journalism teacher at Amity Regional High School in Woodbridge. This article has been updated, learn more about content updating on ConnecticutHistory.org here….

Weir Farm the Result of a Trade – Who Knew?

…Carlsen, Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, and John Henry Twachtman. Designated a National Historic Site in 1990, the 60-acre Weir Farm National Historic Site includes…

Ridgefield

…A battle site during the Revolutionary War, a British cannonball can still be seen in a corner post of Keeler’s Tavern. Today, Ridgefield is home to Weir Farm National Historic…

Nathan Hale Hanged in New York – Today in History: September 22

…the Battle of Long Island, and on September 8, 1776, Hale volunteered to go behind enemy lines to report on British troop movements. On September 21, part of lower Manhattan…

Hiram Bingham III: Machu Picchu Explorer and Politician

…the ancient Inca village of Machu Picchu, which was unknown beyond a small number of indigenous people and, possibly, missionaries who had earlier traveled through the area. Often referred to…

Airborne Pioneers: Connecticut Takes Flight

…which he then tested and sold. But Nelson’s failure to secure a United States Navy contract for a two-engine seaplane put an end to his aeronautical enterprise. In 1913, a…

Salisbury Iron Forged Early Industry

…ingots called pigs. When the pigs had cooled enough to maintain their form they were broken in half and stacked. Next, they were loaded into wagons, weighed, and taken to…

Dedication

…teachers and school children. He launched the project in 2008 with a Digital Startup Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and later secured major funding from the US…

When Old Saybrook Was a College Town

…but New Haven outbid them all, and despite Saybrook’s residents taking to the streets in protest, the Collegiate School moved to New Haven. Two years later, the school received a…

The Steady Evolution of a Connecticut Family Business

…partnership, and meet the needs of the English firm, conditions that had been lax under Bacon’s leadership. According to Ellsworth, “The general unsatisfactory situation … convinced the English partners that…

Farmington’s Hospital Rock Dates Back to 18th-Century Smallpox Inoculation

…smallpox while serving in the Continental Army. Both men apprenticed themselves in medicine at an early age and were established physicians when founding the smallpox inoculation hospital in 1792. Isolated…

The Sand Hogs Set the Foundation for the Bulkeley Bridge

…that there had been any concerted action by the Black workers at all. He told a reporter that an air engine had broken down and that’s why work had been…

The Art of Burying the Dead: Exploring Connecticut’s Historic Cemeteries

By Mike Messina for Your Public Media The Ancient Burying Ground in Hartford is the city’s oldest historic site and was its only cemetery from the 1640s to the early…

Improving Sea Transportation: Guilford Goes About it the Light Way

…a group of drunken visitors from New Haven became unruly, damaging the island’s facilities and provoking an altercation with the lighthouse keeper. From Smithsonian Test Site to McKinney National Wildlife…

Connecticut Yankee Brings Power to the People

…more costly choice for energy production. In 1996, the Board of Directors determined the Connecticut Yankee plant was no longer cost-effective and voted to end its 29-year operation. Decommissioning the…

The Great Danbury State Fair & Early 20th-Century Outdoor Advertising

…another had he not turned his back to the gazing passengers when he stopped at the window of the ticket office. When he did this it was all off, the…

Hidden Nearby: John Brown’s Torrington Birthplace

…purchased by Brown’s father, Owen Brown, in 1799. John Brown was named for his grandfather, who died when Owen Brown–one of 11 children–was five years old. With the family in…

A Valley Flooded to Slake the Capital Region’s Thirst

…neighbor, Harold Birden , the other holdout. Still, true to the spirit of the protest, LeGeyt ‘s Store remained open until November 1934, when Charles and Mae finally sold. Harold…

Southbury Takes On the Nazis

…Koehler (two Bundists from New York) began clearing brush at the site when a wave of policemen stormed the camp and arrested the two men for violating Connecticut blue laws…

Designed to Heal: The Connecticut General Hospital for the Insane

…medical treatment. For example, the mentally ill were often kept in jailhouses, thereby reinforcing the association between mental illness and criminal behavior. Even after the discontinuation of this practice, options…

Remembering Civil War Prisoners of War

…General Assembly appropriated $6,000 in 1906 for a monument to be placed at the Andersonville Prison site. The committee wanted the statue to represent all the men who had been…

Understanding the Environmental Effects of Industry by Examining the Starr Mill

…time, enterprising industrialists and manufacturers began to harness swiftly flowing New England rivers (like the Coginchaug) to power machinery in factories, thus bringing about changes to the local environment; the…

Danbury Hangings: The Executions of Anthony and Amos

…the death of a convicted black rapist. Reports of black-on-white rapes in post-Revolutionary America often focused on the “ruined innocence” of white women. This not only fueled the “myth of…

The Collapse of the L’Ambiance Plaza

By Patrick J. Mahoney Not long after lunch on April 23, 1987, workers returned to their normal routines at a construction site near Bridgeport’s central business district. The site was…

Map – Connecticut Landmarks of the Constitution

…Connecticut, and the state was home to its first director. 35. Darien: Stephen Tyng Mather House, NHL 36. Northwestern corner of the state: The Appalachian Trail U.S. Fish and Wildlife…

Instruction by Mail: The Famous Artists School

…flat envelope to Westport. On-site instructors, working under the direction of guiding faculty, then critiqued the student work by drawing or painting corrections on a tissue or acetate overlay. Learning…

A Good Spot and a Healthy Place: A Short History of Charles Island

…1893, two fishermen became stranded there and had to be rescued when the tide came in and caught them off guard. Then, in 1903, four campers found themselves “storm-bound and…

Benedict Arnold Turns and Burns New London

…New London harbor, complained frequently that he had not enough cannon, not enough powder, and not enough men. Fort-Griswold, 1781 – University of Connecticut Libraries’ Map and Geographic Information Center…

Land Purchase Becomes Bushnell Park – Today in History: January 5

…because of the potential property tax loss, and the public could not imagine Bushnell’s proposed location—a site he himself termed as “hell without the fire”—as a lush, green park. The…

Rivers of Outrage

…modern environmental crisis. In the end it was the actions of ordinary citizens, operating through the courts, that began a long journey toward waterway restoration by laying its legal foundations….

Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Captures the Gilded Age in Norwalk

…the Gilded Age when New York’s railroad tycoons built summer homes along the New England shoreline. Constructed between 1864 and 1868, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion is a significant model of Second…

New England Society for Psychic Research: Connecticut Paranormal Investigators Leave Legacy of the Occult

…of a haunted dwelling somewhere in New England, he traveled to the site and sketched the home. When he offered his drawing to the homeowners, they welcomed him inside and…

Jonathan Trumbull’s Lebanon War Office: The “Pentagon of the Revolution”

…brick chimney and clapboarded exterior located facing the Lebanon Town Green close to its original site. It operated primarily as a mercantile and office for the captain’s shipping business until…

The Industrial Might of Connecticut Pegmatite

…Rocks Quarry in Middletown was the site of the disastrous Kleen Energy power-plant explosion in February 2010. The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection owns several abandoned pegmatite quarries and allows…

The Old Leatherman Alive in Our Memories

…story can be only patched together from their observations and interactions. Mitten owned by the Leatherman – Connecticut Historical Society From his first appearance until the end of his life,…

Hartford’s Nook Farm

…Nook Farm When Harriet Beecher Stowe moved her large family to Hartford and built a home at Nook Farm in 1864, it had been a dozen years since the publication…

Turnpikes and Transportation in Sharon

…trails and paths, often followed older Native American routes. As surveyors mapped new towns, they made allowance for roads between proprietary allotments, often in a rectilinear grid pattern (inevitably disrupted…

Bird’s-eye Views of Rockville Chart Textile Industry’s Growth

…textile industry in New England entered a long period of decline. Today some of the mills survive as apartment buildings (1877: #22 The Florence Mills, left center) and as sites…

Anson Dickinson: Milton’s Painter of Portrait Miniatures

…discovered that he had been intently engaged in painting. Dickinson’s work was evidently of such beauty that he was released from the terms of his apprenticeship, and he embarked on…

And They’re Off!: Harness Racing at Charter Oak Park

…move in unison) or trotting (when the front and back legs on opposite sides move together). The horses in the images for this article are all trotters. An Early Example…

Connecticut’s Black Governors

…blacks even donned white wigs—then popular among colonial magistrates and legislators. Gravesite of Boston Trowtrow, Old Norwichtown Cemetery, a site on the Freedom Trail. The inscription reads: “In Memory of…

Bridgeport’s Catastrophic 1911 Train Wreck

…least one lawsuit over who bore responsibility followed in the weeks after the wreck. Criticism of engineer Arthur Curtis came from multiple sources, including from New Haven Railroad officials, when…

Thomas Hooker: Connecticut’s Founding Father

…west to the Connecticut River and then south to the future site of Hartford. There was already a scattering of settlements in the Connecticut Valley when Hooker and his congregation…

Connecticut Yankee and Millstone: 48 Years of Nuclear Power

…high expectations for the economic potential of peaceful nuclear energy. An enthusiastic 1962 article in the Hartford Courant, titled “Atoms Now Power Homes,” predicted that nuclear power would soon compete…

Mary Townsend Seymour: Hartford’s Organizer, Activist, and Suffragist

…youngest of their seven children. Mary’s childhood is not well-documented, but at the end of her mother’s life in 1888, the Seymours—a prominent family in Hartford’s Black community—adopted 15-year-old Mary….

Peter Prudden: Milford’s First Minister

…England Peter Prudden Homelot Sign, opposite side – Emily Clark Called one of the “worthiest of the honored founders of New England,” Reverend Peter Prudden was born in Hertfordshire, England,…

First Commercial Telephone Exchange – Today in History: January 28

On January 28, 1878, the Boardman Building in New Haven became the site of the world’s first commercial telephone exchange, the District Telephone Company of New Haven. The exchange was…

The Beadle Family Murders – Today in History: December 11

…ill all night. He struck his wife and each of his children with the ax on the side of the head as they lay sleeping in their beds. He then…

William Redfield Born – Today in History: March 26

…northeast, but trees to the west had fallen in the opposite direction. From these observations, he was able to demonstrate that tropical storms move in a cyclonic path and his…

Freighter Worcester Launched – Today in History: April 5

…Groton Iron Works, formed in 1917, had a main yard on the Thames River in Groton and a second yard on the site of the former Palmer shipyard in Noank….

Buffalo Bill Cody Visits the Monument of Uncas – Today in History: July 2

…shows in the 1880s, was touring the Northeast when he came to lay a wreath on the site of the Uncas monument, a memorial to the Mohegan sachem. Cody was…

Creating Candlewood Lake – Today in History: July 15

…pipe and then held in a large reservoir. When needed, this water would flow back down into a turbine which produced the electricity. It took Connecticut Light & Power 26…

Danbury Prison Protest – Today in History: August 11

…prisons was a conscientious objector. The strike on August 11 over racial segregation is especially significant as no prisons up to that point had been desegregated. When the warden announced,…

Ashford

…Ashford from Boston to Connecticut. Notable sites in this largely residential community include the June Norcross Webster Scout Reservation and the late-Paul Newman’s The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp….

Cornwall

…industries. Famous as the site of the Foreign Mission School and the Cream Hill Agricultural School, Cornwall has also been called the “Home of the Covered Bridge,” in reference to…

Old Saybrook

…Saybrook in 1636. Named for Lord Saye and Sele and Lord Brooke, Saybrook was its own colony until 1644 (when it joined the Connecticut Colony). It then incorporated as a…

World-renowned Maker of Axes: The Collins Company of Canton

…his widow moved the family to Hartford. Samuel was 24 years old and David age 21 when they decided to open an axe factory with their cousin William Wells. The…

The Early Years of the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company

…the Pratt & Whitney manufacturing process. Pratt & Whitney engineers continued to innovate, increasing the power of their engine designs throughout the war years. By the end of the war,…

Steam Railroads Transform Connecticut Travel and Commerce

…Hartford & New Haven Railroad from Hartford to Springfield and the Boston & Albany Railroad in Massachusetts, the New York & New Haven created the first all-rail route between New…

East Granby

…loyalists. By the time of East Granby’s incorporation in 1858, the prison had been closed several years; then, as now, its ruins drew tourists to the dairy and tobacco farming…

East Hartford

…products vital to the effort. Today, the site of the company’s former airfield is home to the popular sports and entertainment stadium, Rentschler Field, one of East Hartford’s chief attractions….

Griswold

…Griswold, incorporated in 1815. In 1895, Jewett City incorporated as a borough of the town. Today, Griswold is home to Hopeville Pond State Park, former site of a woolen mill….

Montville

…reservation that, although within Montville’s borders, is a sovereign nation. The Mohegan Sun casino resort, which draws millions of visitors per year, is one of the area’s most notable sites….

Plymouth

…character and colonial charm. The diversified buildings, sites, and historic town green of its Plymouth Center Historic District demonstrate the typical evolution of an industrial village up to the 1900s….

Putnam

…Israel Putnam. As with many New England towns, Putnam’s growth came from its river, the Quinebaug. In the mid-1700s, grist and saw mills supported the local farming economy. By 1855,…

Salem

…sites in the country. Today, Salem is a small bedroom community and is known as the home of adventurer Hiram Bingham III, who discovered Machu Picchu, and his son Hiram…

First New-Gate Prisoner – Today in History: December 22

…the shorter shaft and a small wooden lodge at the top. Aided by an accomplice, rumored to have been a woman, Hinson escaped on January 9 by means of a…

General Joseph R. Hawley Helps Commemorate Connecticut’s Civil War Soldiers

…a monument to its Civil War veterans. Purposefully placed in prominent locations and often by the veterans themselves, the monuments were meant to be seen. The unveiling of monuments usually…

1938 Hurricane Fuels Charcoal Business – Who Knew?

…that the hurricane of 1938 which devastated the Quinebaug Forest ended up driving the development of the charcoal industry in Union. The Quinebaug Forest Company began in the early 1900s…

The Tariffville Disaster – Today in History: January 15

…cause of the deaths, bridge experts blamed the accident on a train derailment while railroad officials, of course, took the opposite side. They claimed that the bridge had been weakened…

West Cornwall Covered Bridge: An Icon of New England Craftsmanship

…England architecture that it has been the subject of a booklet by historian Michael Gannett and appears in the opening scenes of the 1967 dramatic film, Valley of the Dolls,…

Science

…University, the University of Connecticut, other educational centers, and corporate sites are working on advances in genetics, aerospace technology, sustainable energy, and disease prevention to name but a few areas….

Osborn Correctional Institution

…State Prison had housed both men and women (in separate parts of the prison) and operated as a state-of-the-art facility focused on changing the prison experience from one of punishment…

Levi Pease, Stage Route and Transportation Innovator

…century. Ad for Stage service, Connecticut Courant, August 6, 1792 Pease was born in Enfield, Connecticut, in 1740. He was working as a blacksmith when he enlisted in the army…

James Mars’ Words Illuminate the Cruelty of Slavery in New England

…children born to enslaved parents would be free upon reaching their age of majority—25 for men, 21 for women. While the enslaved could not be sold out of state, they…

Tradition and Transformation Define Hartford’s Jewish Community

…generally with a good singing voice), a shochet (a ritual slaughterer, trained in Jewish law, who certifies that the animal has been killed humanely and can be eaten), and a…

The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, Hartford

…the $60,000 budget. Finally, they called on George Keller, who had earlier hoped to be consulted on the project and, when he was not, abstained from the competition. When Keller…

Hilda Crosby Standish, Early Proponent of Women’s Reproductive Health

…couple had five children, and she decided that maintaining a full-time private practice in obstetrics would not leave enough time for her family. Instead, Standish led sex education classes for…

Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber

…improvement of rubber. “Miracle Material” has Fatal Flaw Born in 1800 in New Haven and raised in Naugatuck, Goodyear was 33 years old when he decided to venture into rubber…

Historic Preservation

…in the state’s historic places. Early preservation focused on houses, often restored by women’s organizations and made into museums. The Works Progress Administration drove preservation efforts in the early 20th…

Barn Design in Connecticut

…England Studies from Boston University, has written and published extensively on pre-1850 New England agriculture and social history and is curator of collections at Worcester Historical Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts….

Ferry Boats a Way of Life in Early Connecticut

…Joshua Hempstead of New London wrote of using the ferry between New London and Groton frequently. Hempstead owned property in both New London and Stonington and often transported goods and…

John Ledyard, Connecticut’s Most Famous Traveler

…the ward of his uncle, Thomas Seymour, and apprenticed in Seymour’s law office, but a different path opened for him in the spring of 1772 when he enrolled at Dartmouth….

Connecticut Origins Shape New Light Luminary Jonathan Edwards

…find a single, central location for the college had been completed and the New Haven site was chosen along with a new name, Yale College, after a benefactor. Students from…

Painter, Muralist, Sculptor Sol LeWitt born – Today in History: September 9

…site-specific works meant to be painted over and destroyed. To emphasize that the idea, rather than its execution, represented the artist’s true creation, Lewitt often turned the implementation of the…

The Stonington Battle Flag

…Ghent in December 1814, ending the war. The flag remained in the care of Francis Amy, orderly sergeant of the 8th Company, until his death in 1863. The flag then…

The Derby Silver Company

…when the railroad was built through Shelton in 1888. The company made toilet articles, mirrors, combs, clocks, brushes, tableware and flatware, tea sets, children’s cups, loving cups (trophies), candlesticks, fruit…

The Industrial Revolution Comes to Jewett City

…The Industrial Revolution in the United States began in earnest with the formation of textile mills along the waterways of the towns of New England. Samuel Slater, an Englishman with…

A Godmother to Ravensbrück Survivors

…the women being used for these lab experiments. The young women were subjected to up to six operations each, including having the bones and muscles in their legs broken, cut…

Pequot War

…Connecticut is proof of a people’s endurance and a collaborative project funded by the National Park Service is under way to identify and preserve sites associated with the Pequot War….

Connecticut Arms the Union

…and pursuit of profit in Model 1861 Springfield rifle musket manufacture, 8 Connecticut entrepreneurs and established gun-makers together delivered an extraordinary 37% of the war’s-end rifle contract total: more than…

The Ebenezer Avery House – Who Knew?

…to the Association by direct descendants of the Avery men who served in the Battle. Courtesy of the State Parks Division of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection….

From the State Historian: Discovering the Explorer Hiram Bingham III

…claimed to have been the first at Machu Picchu, only the first to understand its historic significance. The bitterly contested artifacts dispute between Peru and Yale lasted nearly a 100…

Murder on the Map: The Mysterious Death of Captain George M. Colvocoresses

…went to Ward’s Restaurant instead. After revisiting the Sterling House to return a hotel key he had forgotten to give back the previous week, he then stopped at Wheeler’s drug…

Remembering Fredi Washington: Actress, Activist, and Journalist

…because of her race, but unlike Peola, she never denied her African American heritage. She helped found the Negro Actors Guild of America in 1937 and served as Entertainment Editor…

Today in History – Fales & Gray Explosion Underscores Need for a Hartford Hospital

…walls of the building for a hundred feet in length.” Workmen were buried in the rubble when the roof and walls caved in. Sixteen workers were killed, and “a great…

Connecticut’s Naval Contributions to the Civil War

…passage. Farragut quickly ordered her engines full ahead and the Albatross’s engines full aback to dislodge the flagship. It worked, and both vessels, now free of the mud, steamed safely…

Stepping Back in Time: North Stonington Village Historic District

…Places in 1983, the Stonington Village Historic District features buildings, canals, bridges, and machinery that recall life in a typical early 19th-century New England mill village. Samuel Richardson originally acquired…

Semi-Pro Baseball in Sharon – Who Knew?

…team after a stint with the Philadelphia A’s) made up the roster of pros. Of course, most of the players were just regular local men, out to enjoy the fun,…

Norwich in Perspective

…seen from a high vantage point. Although these prints often idealized the built environment’s virtues and downplayed its flaws, they nonetheless provide historians with useful information. Norwich, Conn., tinted lithograph,…

Nancy Toney’s Lifetime in Slavery

…to Reverend Andrew Eliot, minister of the First Congregational Church in Fairfield (then called Christ’s Church). Her father, Toney, belonged to Jeremiah Sherwood in nearby Green Farms. Church records show…

A Sign of the Times Blends Masonic and Patriotic Imagery

…the 18th and 19th centuries, taverns often provided convenient venues for exchange of news, exotic traveling entertainments, and, not surprisingly, even political debate, public and private. The Holcomb sign, with…

Julian Alden Weir

Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919) Julian Alden Weir, a leading figure in American Impressionism, was a member of the Cos Cob Art Colony and a founder of the Ten American Painters,…

A Patriotic Legacy in Print

…Major Commandant Oliver H. Perry captured six vessels from the British Royal Navy, the most powerful maritime force in the world. Perry’s famous exclamation, “We have met the enemy and…

Waterbury’s Holy Land

…to reopen to the public in September of 2014, even as the renovations continued. Holy Land USA, replica of Jerusalem, with Garden of Gethsemane to the right, circa 1950s –…

Gifford Pinchot: Bridging Two Eras of National Conservation

…they were then known, totaling 56 million acres. In 1910, when he left the service, there were 150 national forests totaling 172 million acres. Nationally, Pinchot’s reputation today rests largely…

Hervey Brooks’s 19th-Century Pottery Barn

…and platters that he then sold or exchanged with neighbors for goods and services. Redware Pudding Pot, Hervey Brooks, Goshen The life of a farmer-potter meant that Brooks did not…

The Great Remedy: Picturing the Emancipation Proclamation

…of blackstrap molasses, with directions “one dose to be taken on January 1, 1863. Continue if necessary.” A portrait of Abraham Lincoln shows the President seated, pen in hand, with…

Benjamin Dutton Beecher had a Penchant for Invention

…fanning mill machine followed in the footsteps of similar machines patented by men like Thomas S. Barnum of Sharon in 1812 and Joel Soper of Windsor in 1814. The idea…

Connecticut’s Christmas Town

…envelope and the words, “Merry Christmas from the little Town of Bethlehem.” Hearing about this innocuous gesture of holiday spirit, Johnson’s uncle wrote a story about it that ended up…

Philip Johnson in His Own Words

…1985 when Johnson was 79. The interviews were, by Stern’s and Johnson’s agreement, to remain unpublished until after Johnson’s death (which occurred in 2005). Philip Johnson by Carl Van Vechten,…

The Frost House Once Offered Travelers a Warm Welcome

…eventually purchased the home in 1820. Frost used the home to launch his own successful bolt-making enterprise (which lasted into the 20th century). When a fire badly damaged the home…

W. J. Squire’s Gill Net Manufactory in East Haddam

…known as Goodspeed’s Landing and was a few hundred yards east of the present site of the Goodspeed Opera House. Mesh gill nets had openings of various sizes, depending upon…

A World in Motion: Artist and Sculptor Alexander Calder

…in mechanical engineering. He held a variety of engineering jobs over the next few years but found none satisfying. In the fall of 1923 he began to attend drawing and…

A Woman Who Developed Tolerance: Leila T. Alexander

…Day, she made a momentous life decision in choosing social work in Waterbury’s North End over a teaching job in Philadelphia. Her post was the Pearl St. Neighborhood House, then…

Fighting Sons of Erin: Connecticut’s Irish Regiment in the Civil War

…their own churches, became American citizens, and participated in politics. Even as their numbers increased, the Irish encountered prejudice and discrimination. State laws were enacted to hamper their efforts to…

A Unique Island Attraction in Bridgeport

When Bridgeport annexed the borough of West Stratford in 1889, the acquisition came with a a small 37-acre parcel of land on a barrier island at the mouth of Bridgeport…

Harkness Memorial Park Offers a Glimpse into Early 20th Century Wealth

…with disabilities. Between 1953 and 1954, the state doubled the number of handicap-accessible cabins from 6 to 12, allowing over 1,000 children to spend part of their summer relaxing and…

North Branford Vied for the Title of “Shredded Coconut Capital of the World” – Who Knew?

…when water was drawn from a well with a bucket. Though the coconut meat had initially been discarded, Maltby began making shredded or “dessicated” coconut from the meat and Northford…

Greenwich Emergency Responders: On the Move Overtime

…is not limited to, ambulances, rescue trucks, pumping engines, motorcycles, boats, and bicycles. – images courtesy of the Greenwich Historical Society Karen Frederick, Curator and Exhibitions Coordinator, and Anne Young,…

“An Admirable Portrait” of Frederick Douglass

…Colored Volunteers. In January 1864, Douglass had addressed the men of the 29th encamped in New Haven, waiting to be mustered in. Congress finally granted equal pay to African American…

Hidden Nearby: Henry Obookiah’s Cornwall Grave

…as a 15- or 16-year-old, Henry was taken aboard the merchant ship Triumph, commanded by Captain Britnall and bound for New Haven. While on board the ship, Henry befriended Thomas…

Ending the Danbury Shakes: A Story of Workers’ Rights and Corporate Responsibility

…one. In 2003, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, with federal assistance, planted on one factory site Eastern cottonwood trees that had been genetically engineered to absorb mercury from the…

Hidden Nearby: The Bantam Lake Ice House

…seven days a week in the mid 1920s) cut channels into the lake and then utilized poles to float the ice to a ramp on which rested a conveyor belt….

The Many Layers to Onion Farming in Westport

…and oxen teams then carried the onions to the shipping docks. There, men like Captain John Bulkley and his brother Peter piloted their schooners full of onions, oats, butter, eggs,…

Preserving Connecticut’s Natural Beauty: Connecticut’s First State Parks

…enjoyed by future generations. While the state park system, like the federal national park system, intended to maintain these properties in their natural state, the parks were also meant to…

Reckoning with the Dutch: the Treaty of Hartford, 1650

…York and New England. Published by Johannes van Keulen, Amsterdam, 1687 – Connecticut Historical Society, 2012.172.2 The Dutch names that persist on Dutch maps through the end of the 17th…

Setting the Table in Historic Style: Connecticut Views on Staffordshire China

…Cole’s earliest patrons. Views of the Samuel Russell House in Middletown and the New Haven Green are by Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892), then a young architect at the beginning of…

The Who, What, Where, When and Why of Archives: How to Use Them

…definition is that “[materials are] preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain.” Enduring value is a subjective judgment, but someone has to determine whether one…

Transit of Venus: German Scientists Visit Hartford

By Ben Gammell In December 1882, a German scientific commission sent a team of astronomers to Hartford, Connecticut, to observe a rare astronomical event. The transit of Venus (when the…

Connecticut and American Impressionism

…in this state a landscape that was intimate, rural, and soothing at a time when America had become urban, industrial, and restive. The themes they explored were those first seen…

Peter’s Rock: North Haven History with a View

…miles of trails that wind through its hills, offering hikers and outdoor enthusiasts a heavily wooded retreat. The area remains the largest tract of open space left in North Haven.…

Hidden Nearby: Jedediah Strong’s Milestone

…the bank’s lawn. However, when it was erected 225 years ago, travelers, moving only as fast as their horse or feet could take them, almost certainly saw the engraved stone:…

Hidden Nearby: Goshen’s Liberty Pole

…were conical-shaped hats, often made out of felt or other soft material; they were associated with the quest of Roman slaves for freedom.) Liberty poles were often seen flying a…

The Day Four Trains Collided in East Thompson

…into the engine of the Southbridge Freight. The crash destroyed both engines, but there were no fatalities. The most urgent dilemma was that one of the jackknifed railcars landed on…

A Life Lived in a Rapidly Changing World: Samuel L. Clemens

…Samuel Clemens was born on November 30‚ 1835, in Florida‚ Missouri‚ the sixth of seven children. At the age of 4‚ Sam and his family moved to the small frontier…

Olin Library and The Debate About Open Space at Wesleyan University

…“streets or open space.” The complaints inspired by Bacon’s plan confirm environmental historian William Cronon’s argument that land preservation is about more than the physical environment; it is also about…

Killingworth’s Automated Attraction – Who Knew?

…that in the 1890s Clark Coe created an attraction of life-sized moving figures called the Killingworth Images on his farm on Green Hill Road. Man on Hog by Clark Coe…

Alse Young Executed for Witchcraft – Today in History: May 26

…Square in Hartford, now the site of the Old State House. Alse Young was not the only person in Connecticut executed for the crime of witchcraft. Mary Johnson of Wethersfield…

Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy

…born in Litchfield in 1767. She never married and instead dedicated her life to educating young women. Pierce’s father died when Sarah was 16, and her brother, John Pierce Jr.,…

Civil War Monuments and Memorials in and Around the State Capitol

…discovered original research; they utilized primary and secondary source materials; they photographed, visited, and wrote research papers. The result of their hard work is that 15 monuments now have written…

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: Connecticut Lessons from a Tragedy

…charge seriously. Management fired her from the Sage Allen department store for trying to organize a union. Three hundred Hartford tailors at ten clothing stores were then locked out of…

The Long, Ambiguous History of Connecticut’s Blue Laws

…to reinforce preexisting English claims of religious fanaticism and bigotry within the New England colonies. Other scholars assert that given Peters’s bizarre descriptions of the topography of the colony and…

Orville Platt Helps Define International Relations after the Spanish-American War

…of probate in Meriden. From 1855 to 1857 he served in the Connecticut State Senate, and then as the secretary of state. He then went on to the Connecticut General…

The Language of the Unheard: Racial Unrest in 20th-Century Hartford

…or women. The Hartford coalition attending the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs in August 1963 included religious leaders, business leaders, men and women, blacks and whites – Photographer…

Hartford and New Haven: A Tale of Two Capitals

…Town Green. Following a vote by the New Haven City Council in 1885, a sizable crowd of roughly 3,000 spectators witnessed the building’s ceremonial demolition. New Haven, Conn. Comprising a…

Carl Sandburg, Poet from the Grassroots, Reaches Connecticut Audiences

…in Washington, Connecticut, bought some of Sandburg’s herd. The goats—Babette, Coty, and Tenu—eventually returned to North Carolina when Sandburg’s home became a national historic site. Today, however, if the general…

Breaking the Mold: Tradition and Innovation in the Work of Elbert Weinberg

…sculptures of biblical and mythological figures that were enthusiastically received when he exhibited them in the United States. The Wadsworth Atheneum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of…

Nathan Hale: The Man and the Legend

…now the Hale Homestead in Coventry in 1776, on the site of an earlier house where their son Nathan had been born. Antiquarian George Dudley Seymour acquired the house in…

Intertwining Family Businesses

…and Southerners erupted in civil war, Johnson sold his interest in the lower mill and erected a third twine mill located between the original two. His business acumen brought the…

Wesleyan Hills Helps Redefine Suburbia

…seven to ten houses in each cul-de-sac. Each mini-neighborhood had a “common green” or “hub,” where children played and neighbors gathered. Dense hedges separated adjacent neighborhoods from each other, which…

The Ku Klux Klan in Connecticut

…part of the state over the next two years. The most dramatic of these actions was on March 21, 1981, when several dozen robed Klan members and supporters rallied at…

A 1947 Movie Details the Unsolved Murder of a Bridgeport Priest

…possession charge. Four people identified Israel as the man who ran from the site of the murder. He was known to have been in the area at the time and…

Vietnam Protests in Connecticut

…Haven, for example, organized events at the Ingall’s Skating Rink protesting the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program on the Yale campus. New Haven was also the site of events…

Hope for the West: The Life and Mission of Lyman Beecher

…found a growing audience throughout the United States, England, and the European continent. His outspoken stance on the issue was only one example of Beecher’s moral leadership and guidance during…

Florence Griswold’s Home: A Story of Perseverance and Community

…colony consisting almost entirely of men, with the notable exception of Matilda Browne and the tolerated presence of Ellen Axson Wilson, Woodrow Wilson’s artist wife. Griswold even converted the central…

The Importance of Being Puritan: Church and State in Colonial Connecticut

…During the 1630s, more than 21,000 Englishmen left their homes and crossed the Atlantic to pursue God’s work in New England. Puritanism Arrives in America It all happened very rapidly….

Ellis Ruley: Art that Celebrated Life

…brought five children and an enslaved heritage to her marriage. Together, the couple had seven children, forming a large family, that like other Norwich blacks, lived in poverty. The town…

The “Red Scare” in Connecticut

…from the Colt Firearms Factory, as well as “two small machine guns.” Classified by federal authorities as an “enemy alien,” Mark Kulesch had no right to a trial. It did…

Ernest Borgnine: Breaking the Hollywood Mold

…lived for a brief time in North Haven and Hamden and then settled in New Haven where they rented a house on Bassett Street. The family had a garden in…

Boot Blacks and the Struggle to Survive in Hartford

…the post office. There, men who loafed around the area threw coins into the crowd and cheered when the boys fought over the money. The Board of Aldermen held hearings…

Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker (1586–1647) Thomas Hooker was born in a small English village in 1586. He attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge University where he decided to become a minister. Opposition to…

Speaking under the Open Sky: Frederick Douglass in Connecticut

…went on to address the people of Meriden in 1868. Despite racist treatment by Steven Ives, the landlord of the Meriden House where Douglass stayed, the speech was very well…

“Something to Show for Our Work”: Building Brainard Airport

…project, married men without children found themselves restricted to working a maximum of 2 1/2 days a week. Officials allowed men with four or more children to work 5 1/2…

One of the Honored Dead: General J. K. F. Mansfield

By Nancy Finlay Joseph King Fenno Mansfield was born in New Haven on December 22, 1803. He grew up in his grandfather’s house in Middletown, and at 15 earned admission…

“The Basque Game in Town”: The Heyday of Jai Alai in Connecticut

…decades. The game consists of players competing in an enclosed three-walled court (in what can be described as a variant of handball), during which ball speeds have been recorded upwards…

Mariann Wolcott and Ralph Earl – Opposites Come Together and Make History

…young men of The Sons of Liberty jumped the tall protective fence of nearby Bowling Green Park. They then tied ropes around the equestrian statue of King George III and…

Pope Park – Yesterday and Today

…happiness of a company’s employees. Workers and their families craved respites from busy industrial life, and passive recreation and open space provided that. When Albert Pope created Pope Park, he…

The Deplorable History of Hartford’s Seyms Street Jail

…the jail’s boiler room. The hot floors burned men’s feet; there were no windows or light, and when confined there the men received only small amounts of bread and water…

The Battle for Cockenoe Island

…scrub frequented by fishermen, clammers, duck hunters, and nature lovers. Naiad Einsel, Save Cockenoe Now, 1967, oil on canvas – Westport Historical Society Then, in the mid-1960s, the Bridgeport-based power…

Muzzy Field: A Historic Ball Park Survives in a Post-Industrial City

…became one of the most beloved ballparks in all of New England. Besides hosting New Departure company teams, the ballpark was the site for amateur, semi-professional, and professional games. Throughout…

The White Plague: Progressive-Era Tuberculosis Treatments in Connecticut

…Florida, the American Southwest, or Switzerland, while the poorer victims relied on a statewide system of sanatoriums. Hartford County Sanatorium in Newington, the New Haven County Sanatorium in Meriden, and…

A Baltic Mill Helps Found a New Town

…mill doubled its employment in the 1860s, bringing new populations of largely Irish and French-Canadians to the area. By 1870, 804 men, 396 women, and 210 children worked in the…

Farmington

…can see several sites associated with the abolitionist movement and Amistad trial of 1841. Hill-Stead Museum, Miss Porter’s School and other early buildings preserve the town’s historic character while corporate…

Groton

The New London County town of Groton sits between the Thames and Mystic Rivers on the eastern end of the state’s shoreline. Europeans settled this Pequot land in 1650, and,…

Killingly

…town began as several mill villages sited on its abundant waterways, including the Five-Mile and Quinebaug Rivers. In the early half of the 19th century, Killingly was the largest producer…

Newtown

…buttons, combs, folding boxes, and fire hoses. The town was also the site of mica and feldspar mines. Industry declined during the 20th century, and Newtown became a residential community…

Prudence Crandall

…admitted an African American student, Sarah Harris. Many parents removed their children as a result. Crandall stood firm, re-opening the school as an academy for young black women, the first…

Death and Mourning in the Civil War Era

…ideal of the good death. Oftentimes, families were not able to locate or identify the dead, and even when the deceased could be located, efforts to ship them home often…

Branford Gets On the Trolley

…story of trolley transportation in Branford does not end there. In 1945, sensing the demise of the trolley era, trolley enthusiast Wadsworth G. Fyler, along with numerous other investors and…

Dynamic Tensions: Conservation and Development up to the 1920s

…Connecticut’s rural agriculture by the end of the 19th century. Urbanization and industrialization polarized attitudes toward land use. Motorized transportation, suburbanization, and utility services further stressed Connecticut’s environment. Between 1850…

Medicine Woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon and Mohegan Cultural Renewal

…history due to his collaboration with the English during the Pequot War. Despite the negative implications of an English alliance, Uncas was able to secure the safety of his people…

Oystering in Connecticut, from Colonial Times to the 21st Century

…imported 2 million bushels of oysters to New Haven’s Fair Haven oyster shops in 1858. These Fair Haven oysters were then shipped inland to such cities as St. Louis and…

The Successes and Struggles of New Haven Entrepreneur William Lanson

By Peter P. Hinks Little is known about the early life of William Lanson, a remarkable black entrepreneur who contributed to New Haven’s civic growth in the first half of…

Andover to Woodstock: How Connecticut Ended Up with 169 Towns

…to incorporated town then ecclesiastical society—continued to occur in areas of Connecticut not yet settled by Europeans until the mid-1700s. At that point, the entire colony had been apportioned. In…

The Path to Ashford’s Progress

…England by Frederic J. Wood By the early 1800s, travel through Ashford facilitated the creation of numerous small stores, grain mills, saw mills, and tanneries. Then, in 1809, the Tolland…

Branford’s History Is Set in Stone

Benjamin Green opened Branford’s first quarry in 1858. The unusual pink granite found at the Stony Creek site in Branford brought in numerous competitors, and in less than 50 years…

The Rogerenes Leave Their Mark on Connecticut Society

…group active in the New London area for about 200 years. Although often referred to as Rogerene Quakers, and sometimes just called Quakers, the Rogerenes had no connection to the…

Waterbury Burns – Today in History: February 2

…rapidly through to South Main Street, and jumped across the street, shriveling the buildings like paper.” By the time the fire was extinguished, 42 buildings had been destroyed with damages…

Wethersfield Prison Blues

…parts of the prison. Incarcerated women cooked, cleaned, and repaired clothing used in the prison, as well as made cigars. Male prisoners worked as carpenters, coopers (makers of bound wooden…

The Danbury Fair, 1869-1981

…by the mid-20th century so many visitors traveled by car that park officials instituted a turnstile system for entering the fair, where drivers parked within enclosures then walked onto the…

First New-Gate Prisoner – Today in History: December 22

…the shorter shaft and a small wooden lodge at the top. Aided by an accomplice, rumored to have been a woman, Hinson escaped on January 9 by means of a…

Civic Center Roof Collapses – Today in History: January 18

…and diagonal beams that supported the two layers. Builders fabricated the 1,400-ton, 108,000-square-foot roof on site and raised it into place with temporary lift towers. They then built concrete support…

A Connecticut Slave in George Washington’s Army

…that while he was alive he released two of them to Nero. Upon Beebee’s death, Nero finally regained all his children. He emancipated all four (then between the ages of…

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Rosamond Danielson: Windham County Suffragist and Community Leader

…her progressive mindset. Women Suffrage March, ca. 1913 – Hahn Family photo album. 2009.382.0 – Connecticut Historical Society Becoming a Notable Local Suffrage Leader Danielson became active in the women’s…

The Minute Man, Westport CT

…patriots who defended the country when the British invaded Connecticut at Compo Beach on April 25, 1777, and in the ensuing two days of conflict at Danbury and Ridgefield. H….

The Wallingford Oneida Community

…the breeding of children with special characteristics; significant changes in the role of women (e.g., communal childcare and participation in community activities); and the sharing of all possessions and resources….

Marian Anderson

…outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Anderson spent the later years of her life living in Danbury, Connecticut. Her studio there is now a site on the Connecticut Freedom…

The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in Bridgeport: The Case of Bryant Electric

…Work Factory work in the early 1900s was extremely difficult and often dangerous, and wages were low even at prosperous companies like Bryant. Workers struck the plant a number of…

LGBTQ+ Mental Health Treatment in the 20th Century

…the law. Between 1909 and 1963, Connecticut sterilized approximately 557 people—92 percent were women—with 74 percent identified as mentally ill and 26 percent considered “mentally deficient.” While much of the…

Julian Alden Weir: The “Heart” of American Impressionism

…the skills of Japanese artists, allowing him the opportunity to try different types of patterning, cropping, and toning. Along with Hassam, Twachtman, and seven others, Weir formed “The Ten American…

The Connecticut Houses that Ended Up in Massachusetts

…1818 in the South End neighborhood of Goshen for his red earthenware pottery making. Even though red earthenware was going out of style, Brooks continued to make pottery until his…

The Merger That Was Not Meant To Be: Yale University and Vassar College

…dates, dances, and other social events in New Haven or at other campuses. Alternately, unofficial events such as the Yale-Vassar Bike Race pulled Yalies west—the men leaving New Haven at…

Banner Lodge: A Vacation Playground for an Excluded Population

…when middle-class families began taking summer vacations, often staying for weeks at cottage communities or resorts at the shore or in the mountains. There was, however, a dark side to…

James Merrill: Connecticut’s First Poet Laureate

…age eight and enjoying opera by eleven. While a teenager at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, Merrill completed a book of poetry which his father had published with the…

Derby Day on the Housatonic

…Derby Day Becomes a Formal Event The new boat house and rowing course provided excellent facilities for viewing a race. Spectators could enjoy every stroke of the oarsmen due to…

The Amos Bull House and Sterling Opera House: The First Connecticut Listings on the National Register of Historic Places – Who Knew?

…but maintains a prominent home overlooking the Derby Green. Over half a century after the first two listings, Connecticut has over 1,500 entries on the National Register of Historic Places….

Connecticut College for Women: The State’s First All-Female Institution of Higher Learning

…liberal arts education for women. An Opportunity to Educate Women Preliminary Plot Plan for the Connecticut College for Women, 1914 – Internet Archive In the United States, women’s colleges began…

Charlton Publications: Song Lyric Printing Business to Major Player in the Comic Book Industry

…in New England and the Mid-Atlantic who sold a total of seven million copies a month. He switched printing houses regularly to circumvent pressure from the American Society of Composers,…

Middletown’s Beman Triangle: A Testament to Black Freedom and Resilience

…Americans were numerous enough and had gained enough of an economic foothold to form their own institutions and property-owning neighborhoods. Middletown’s free people of color established their first church and…

Connecticut’s Valley Forge: The Redding Encampment and Putnam Memorial State Park

…preserve the encampment site. Other tracts of land were either donated or purchased to complete the state park and its 42-foot granite obelisk was built in 1888. This article was…

Power of Place | Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

New London’s Hygienic Art Building

…Brothers started a delicatessen in the building. In 1931, the Sigros family bought the business and renamed it the Hygienic Restaurant and Delicatessen. The Hygienic Restaurant became a popular 24-hour…

Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824 Tour of Connecticut

…the General’s honor. New Haven John Warner Barber, Public square or green, in New Haven, 1825, wood engraving. 1950.575.3 – By John Warner Barber, Connecticut Museum of Culture and History….

Nathaniel Lyon: First US General to Die During the Civil War

…through Public Domain. Nathaniel Lyon was born on July 14, 1818 in Ashford, Connecticut (now part of Eastford) to Amasa Lyon and Kezia Knowlton Lyon. One of seven children, Lyon…