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Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Bridgeport, Norwalk, W Hartford, Danbury, East Hartford, Greenwich, New Britain, Wallingford, Westport, Cheshire, Fairfield, Farmington, Hamden, Manchester, Meriden, Stratford, Bristol, Enfield, Groton, Middletown, New Canaan, Newington, Ridgefield, Storrs Mansfield, Suffield, Unionville
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Before the
arrival of European settlers in the 1500s and 1600s,
Connecticut was home to a number of indigenous peoples. The
Dutch navigator, Adriaen Block, was the first European of
record to explore the area, sailing up the Connecticut River
in 1614, and though the Dutch established a trading post, it
was the British who fully colonized the area In 1633, Dutch
colonists built a fort and trading post near present-day
Hartford, but soon lost control to English Puritans
migrating south from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island, New York, and the
Puritans and Pilgrims from Massachusetts, learned of the
fertility of the soil on the Connecticut River, and both
laid claim to territory, but both hesitated for awhile in
making any settlement. However, in October, 1633 (three
years after Winthrop's Fleet had started the populating the
Massachusetts Bay Colony), a small vessel sailed from
Plymouth, with the design of erecting a trading-house on the
bank of the Connecticut; but when they had sailed up the
river to the location of the present city of Hartford, they
found the Dutch had gotten there before them, and had
erected a fort.
The Dutch forbade them to advance and threatened to fire
upon them. The English ignored the threats and sailed right
past them! They landed at a spot within the limits of the
present town of Windsor, and built a trading-house there.
Windsor is approximately 40 miles inland, to the north, from
the Long Island Sound coast.
The next movement towards settling Connecticut was in July,
1635, when at Wethersfield a settlement was made. This
settlement is about 10 miles south, or closer to the coast,
than Windsor had been. Since Windsor was just a trading
post, Wethersfield, then was the first English settlement in
Connecticut, five year after the Massachusetts Bay Colony
had begun and fifteen years after the beginning of the
Plymouth Colony.
The next settlement was at or near the first intrusion into
Connecticut, at the Plymouth trading-house, in the summer of
1635, by people from Dorchester. They gave the settlement
the name of Windsor. The next year, Mr. Hooker, with his
congregation, removed from Cambridge (then Newtown) to
Connecticut and founded the town of Hartford, in between
Windsor and Wetherfield. These three towns, Wethersfield,
Windsor and Hartford, soon associated, and chose magistrates
to regulate their common interests. At about this same time,
in 1635, John Winthrop, the younger, had established a fort
on the coast at Saybrook, near the mouth of the Connecticut
River.
The Pequot War ensued in 1637, culminating in the
destruction of the Pequot Indian Camp and massacre of many
Indians by the white settlers. At the close of the Indian
troubles, in 1639, George Fenwick arrived from England, and
came over to take charge of the colony by authority of the
"Company". New Haven, on the coast, west of Saybrook, was
settled about this time, followed by Milford, yet further
west on the coast, then Guilford, Fairfield, Stratford, and,
in 1660, Norwich was settled.
English settlements, established in the 1630s at Windsor,
Wethersfield, and Hartford, united in 1639 to form the
Connecticut Colony and adopted the Fundamental Orders.
Connecticut played a prominent role in the Revolutionary
War, serving as the Continental Army's major supplier.
Sometimes called the “Arsenal of the Nation,” the state
became one of the most industrialized in the nation.
From the first, Connecticut enjoyed a great measure of
political independence, proclaiming in its Fundamental
Orders of 1639 a democratic principle of government based on
the will of the people. These Fundamental Orders are said to
have been the first written Constitution of a democratic
government; that's why Connecticut today is nicknamed "The
Constitution State." Meanwhile, the Puritan colony at New
Haven adopted its own Fundamental Agreement, proclaiming the
Scriptures to be the supreme law in civil affairs. Despite
their differences, the two colonies were joined (under a
royal charter in 1662), and together they formed one of the
more fiercely independent of the original 13 British
colonies, defying the crown as early as 1687 and
contributing huge numbers of troops to the Revolutionary War
effort.
Connecticut's homogeneous, community centered form of
government, out of the mainstream of royal imperial affairs,
remained focused on the town and its people. With events of
the impending Revolution espousing the principles of freedom
of expression, Connecticut began to move away from a solely
town focus and look out toward the broader community of
colonies opposing Royal authority. Connecticut people fought
on both sides of the conflict, with many Loyalists migrating
north and east to Canada and its eastern provinces.
During the American Revolution, Connecticut gave freely of
her blood and wealth. Her soldiers were on the battle line
from Quebec to Carolina. It was General Israel Putnam at the
battle of Bunker Hill who cried: "Don't fire until you see
the whites of their eyes!" Patriot-spy Nathan Hale, as he
was about to be hanged by the British, said: "I regret that
I have but one life to lose for my country."
By the end of the Revolution family farms were unable to
support the large number of young people in the area. The
population boom made it necessary for more and more
descendants of original settlers to leave for the north,
west, and south to provide for themselves and their
families. Cheaper, available land elsewhere provided much of
the motivation. Farms gave way to the newly burgeoning
Industrial Revolution, and new ethnic groups wended their
ways along the Long Island Shoreline of Connecticut's
growing metropolitan areas.
To George Washington, Connecticut was "The Provision State"
because of supplies contributed to his army by Gov. Jonathan
Trumbull - the only Colonial governor, incidentally, to
support the cause of America's independence from Great
Britain.
After independence was secured, Connecticut quickly got down
to business. Textile and paper mills, along with metal
forges and shipyards, were the state's industrial mainstays
and attracted immigrants from across Europe, such as the
Portuguese who settled in Mystic. Once the trauma of the
Civil War passed, industrialization increased, slowed only
by the hard times of the Great Depression.
From 1703 to 1875, Connecticut had two capitals; sessions of
the General Assembly met alternately in Hartford and New
Haven. Since then, the capital has been Hartford.
Connecticut has prospered with the growing importance of
service industries, especially insurance (dozens of
companies are headquartered in the state, with Hartford
being the unofficial insurance capital). Its proximity to
New York City makes Connecticut an important business
center, as well as the site of many of New York's suburbs.
Thus, the state's fortunes are tied very closely to the
economic health of New York and the nation.
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