Timeline: Settlement of the Colony of Connecticut
May 26, 2021 • Pre-Colonization and Settlement Up Through 1763, Hide Featured Image, John Davenport, John Winthrop Jr., Everyday Life, Exploration and Discovery, Pequot War, The State

Detail from the map Novi Belgii Novaeque Angliae nec non partis Virginiae tabula multis in locis emendata per Nicolaum Vissche, ca. 1685, illustrating the location of the House of (Good) Hope - Mystic Seaport and Connecticut History Online

1614
Dutch explorer Adriaen Block sails along the Connecticut coastline and up the Connecticut River.
1631
The Earl of Warwick signs the “Warwick Patent,” a deed of conveyance granting land rights in what is now southeastern Connecticut.
1633
The Dutch establish a fort, the House of (Good) Hope, at the modern-day location of Hartford.
William Holmes, of the Plymouth Colony, establishes a trading post where the Farmington River meets the Connecticut River. It is arguably the first English settlement in Connecticut and ultimately becomes the town of Windsor.
1634
Captain John Oldham establishes a settlement south of the Dutch in Hartford that eventually becomes the town of Wethersfield.
1635
Engineer and soldier Lion Gardiner is hired to erect a fort at Saybrook, establishing the Saybrook Colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River.
 1636
Thomas Hooker and a group of settlers from Massachusetts found Hartford.
The Colony of Connecticut is formed when the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield join together.
1637
The Connecticut Colony formally declares war on the Pequot.
1638
1639
Settlers establish the towns of Fairfield, Guilford, Milford, and Stratford.
John Haynes is chosen as Connecticut’s first governor.
1643
Connecticut becomes a founding member of the New England Confederation.
1644
The Saybrook and Connecticut colonies unite.
1646
The New London area, originally founded by John Winthrop Jr., is established.
1647
In Hartford, authorities hang Alse Young, the first person in Connecticut to be executed for witchcraft.
1650
The legislature passes the code of laws drawn up by Roger Ludlow.
1662
John Winthrop Jr. acquires a royal charter meant to unite the colony of Connecticut with the New Haven Colony. It ends up serving as Connecticut’s constitution for the next 156 years.
1665
Authorities complete the unification of the New Haven and Connecticut colonies.

Learn More

Websites

Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center. “Battlefields of the Pequot War,” 2016. Link.
Connecticut State Library. “John Winthrop, Jr.,” 2016. Link.

Places

“The Indian & Colonial Research Center,” 2016. Link.

Documents

Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. “Digitized Reprint - The Charter of Connecticut, 1662,” 2016. Link.
Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. “Founding Documents of Connecticut - Warwick Patent Copy by John Winthrop, Jr., 1662, with Transcript,” 2016.
Connecticut State Library. “Research Guide to Colonial Witchcraft Trial Materials,” 2016. Link.
Government Printing Office. “The Avalon Project: Fundamental Agreement, or Original Constitution of the Colony of New Haven, June 4, 1639.” Yale Law School, 2016. Link.
Yale Law School. “The Avalon Project: Fundamental Orders of 1639,” 2016. Link.
State of Connecticut. “Transcript of the Charter of the Colony of Connecticut, 1662,” 2016.

Books

Gardiner, Lion, and W. Dodge. A History of the Pequot War, or, a Relation of the War Between the Powerful Nation of Pequot Indians, Once Inhabiting the Coast of New-England, Westerly from Near Narraganset Bay and the English Inhabitants, in the Year 1638. Cincinnati, OH: J. Harpel for W. Dodge, 1860. Link.
Van Dusen, Albert E. Connecticut. New York, NY: Random House, 1961.
Atwater, Edward. History of the Colony of New Haven to Its Absorption into Connecticut. New Haven: Edward E. Atwater, 1881. Link.
Manack, Richard. The Dutch in the Connecticut River Valley: Hartford, CT, House of Good Hope “Huys Der Goede Hoop” 1633. Hartford, CT: New Netherland Nautical, Inc, n.d.
Connecticut General Assembly, and Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connecticut. Committee on Historical Publications. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. Edited by George Matthew Dutcher. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1934.
Fraser, Bruce, and Connecticut Historical Commission. The Land of Steady Habits: A Brief History of Connecticut. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Commission, 1988.

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