The town of Canaan is located in Litchfield County in the northwest corner of the state, close to both New York’s and Massachusetts’s borders. In 1738 the area now known as Canaan—and also as Falls Village to its residents—was sold at auction in New London as part of the Western Lands sale. Its first proprietors cleared the land and built homes, some of the first in the area. For over 100 years Canaan played a major role in the northwest corner’s iron industry, building stack furnaces to accommodate iron ore mined from nearby Salisbury. As the iron industry waned at the end of the 19th century, Canaan reverted back to the quiet, peaceful town that remains today.
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Websites
Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. “Catherine Roraback,” 2017. Link.
Places
“Lawrence Tavern.” National Register of Historic Places, 2016. Link.
“The Falls Village - Canaan Historical Society,” 2016. Link.
Documents
Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. “Canaan - WPA Architectural Survey,” 2016. Link.
“Canaan Collection.” Connecticut Digital Archive, n.d. Link.
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. “Finding Aid to the Catherine Roraback Collection of Ericka Huggins Papers,” 2016. Link.
Tobacco Grower’s Mutual Insurance Co. “Important to Tobacco Growers -Advertisement for Hail Insurance, 1881.” Mercantile Printing House, 1881. Connecticut Historical Society. Link.
Fagan, L. “Map of the Town of Canaan, Litchfield Co. Conn.” Philadelphia, PA: Richard Clark, 1853. Connecticut Historical Society. Link.
Books
Felton, Harold. Canaan: A Small New England Town During the American Revolutionary War. Falls Village, CT: Bramble Company, 1990.
Pawloski, John. Connecticut Mining. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2006.
J.W. Lewis & Company. History of Litchfield County, Connecticut, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of the Prominent Men and Pioneers. Philadelphia, PA: J.W. Lewis & Company, 1881. Link.