Connecticut takes its name from the Mohegan word, “Quinnehtukqut,” referencing the long, winding river flowing through the area utilized by Native Americans for thousands of years. To compete with Dutch traders along the Connecticut River, English Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay colony established the first permanent European settlement in Connecticut in 1633. Connecticut was the fifth state to join the union (1788), and its abundant water power and poor, rocky soil promoted the growth of heavy industry through much of the 19th and early 20th centuries—making it a leading producer of iron, vulcanized rubber, rolled brass, textiles, bicycles, clocks, helicopters, and firearms. Today, Connecticut hosts a diverse array of cultures and lifestyles characterized by its sprawling suburbs, its densely populated urban centers, thriving insurance and small manufacturing industries, the traditional farming communities found in the Litchfield Hills and its northeastern “quiet corner,” and its bustling shoreline vacation spots.
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Timeline: Settlement of the Colony of Connecticut
A timeline displaying the major events leading to Connecticut statehood, including its settlement by the Dutch, the origins of Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor, the founding of the Connecticut, New Haven, and Saybrook colonies, and Connecticut's acquisition of a formal charter from England. …[more]
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Websites
Connecticut Secretary of State. “Connecticut State Register & Manual,” 2016. Link.
Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development. “State Register of Historic Places,” 2017. Link.
Places
“Connecticut State Library.” Accessed October 2, 2013. Link.
“Connecticut State Museum of Natural History,” 2016. Link.
Books
Roth, David. Connecticut. New York, NY: Norton, 1979.
Van Dusen, Albert E. Connecticut. New York, NY: Random House, 1961.
Hart, Samuel, Jonathan Trumbull, Frank R. Holmes, and Ellen Strong Bartlett. Connecticut as a Colony and as a State; or, One of the Original Thirteen. Edited by Forrest Morgan. Vol. 1. Hartford, CT: The Publishing Society of Connecticut, 1904. Link.
Buel, Richard, J. Bard McNulty, and (first) Acorn Club of Connecticut. Connecticut Observed: Three Centuries of Visitors’ Impressions, 1676-1940. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Humanities Council, 1999.
Hughes, Arthur H., and Morse S. Allen. Connecticut Place Names. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Society, 1976.
Beers, F. W. County Atlas of Middlesex, Connecticut: From Actual Surveys. New York, NY: F.W. Beers & Company, 1874. Link.
Faude, Wilson H. Hidden History of Connecticut. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
Bingham, Harold J. History of Connecticut. New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1962.
Mangan, Gregg. On This Day in Connecticut History. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2015.
Fairfield Museum and History Center. “The Collier Collection of Connecticut History Books,” 2016. Link.
Norton, Frederick Calvin. The Governors of Connecticut: Biographies of the Chief Executives of the Commonwealth That Gave to the World the First Written Constitution Known to History. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Magazine Company, 1905. Link.
Fraser, Bruce, and Connecticut Historical Commission. The Land of Steady Habits: A Brief History of Connecticut. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Commission, 1988.
D.H. Hurd & Company. Town and City Atlas of the State of Connecticut. Boston, MA: D.H. Hurd & Company, 1893. Link.