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Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…In 1903, however, the two men declared bankruptcy, in part because of the failure of this endeavor. Sources describe the mill as “financially embarrassed, heavily indebted.” Entering receivership, the mill…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…not enough cannon, not enough powder, and not enough men. Fort Griswold, 1781- University of Connecticut Libraries’ Map and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) New London’s Strategic Role Before the war,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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 mineral clubs access…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…blacks even donned white wigs—then popular among colonial magistrates and legislators. Gravesite of Boston Trowtrow, Old Burying Ground, Norwich, a site on the Freedom Trail. The inscription reads: “In Memory…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…but maintains a prominent home overlooking the Derby Green. Over half a century after the first two listings, Connecticut has over 1,500 sites on the National Register of Historic Places….
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadCharles 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…
Read…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…
ReadYouTube – The story of the Salisbury Iron District. Sharon Historical Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgPocrRQAak Traces of Connecticut’s iron age can still be found in the state’s northwest corner where its production…
Read…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 for king and country. The…
ReadAn 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
ReadThomas 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…and remains, a symbol of our enduring tradition of representative government and self-rule. The legend behind the tree begins in 1662 when King Charles II of England granted the Connecticut…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…“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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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.,…
Read…of the statue was 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…
Read…was a highly capable artist entrusted with all of Batterson’s most important sculptures. Neither Forlorn Nor Forgotten explains that the footing of the soldier intentionally helped balance the statue. Unfortunately,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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 pulled it to the ground….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…on the site of an earlier house where their son Nathan had been born. Antiquarian George Dudley Seymour acquired the house in the early 20th century and restored it as…
Read…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…
Read…and price into mini-neighborhoods of 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…two of them to Nero. Upon Beebee’s death, Nero finally regained all his children. He emancipated all four (then between the ages of 26 and 34) in 1801. Nero Hawley,…
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Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…jobs to fight in the military. Even though companies laid off many women when the war was over, the experience redefined women’s societal roles and ability to pursue work outside…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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:…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadThe 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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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 and 1900, cultivated…
Read…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…
Read…New Haven’s Fair Haven oyster shops in 1858. These Fair Haven oysters were then shipped inland to such cities as St. Louis and Chicago. By the 1890s, the world’s largest…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBenjamin 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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.…
Read…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…
Read…it did to every state. Some 55,000 Connecticut men joined the Union Army, a number which represented 47% of men between the ages of 15 and 50. Ten percent of…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination against African Americans and women. The law was supposed to ensure the equal application of voter registration…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
ReadOn 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…centered on the design of an efficient, air-cooled radial engine. Unlike the V-8 automotive engine adapted for aviation use, or existing liquid-cooled radial engines, an air-cooled radial would provide more…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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….
Read…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….
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadWhen 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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadBy 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…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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….
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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,…
Read…early 20th century. Stereo views were taken with a special camera with two lenses, resulting in two nearly identical photographs which created a 3-D effect when placed side-by-side on a…
Read…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,…
Read…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…
Read…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…
ReadJulian 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,…
Read…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…
Read…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 –…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
Read…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…
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