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The Dutch in New England: More Than Sinterklaas and Koekjes

Today the remnants of the colonial Dutch in New England are pretty much limited to the region’s outer rim: At Smith’s Castle in North Kingstown, R.I., in Vermont’s oldest house in Pownal, on Leyden Street in Plymouth, Mass. and on a historic sign in Castine, Maine.

But the Dutch had more of a presence in early New England than along the perimeter, and far more than commonly acknowledged. The Dutch claimed much of Connecticut, for example, before English settlers crowded them out. The early Plymouth and Massachusetts colonists might not have survived had the Dutch not brought trade goods like tools and cheese, cannon and livestock. Rhode Islanders had an especially cozy relationship with Dutch traders, and the Dutch claimed part of Downeast Maine.

Don’t forget King William III was also a Dutch staedtholder.

When thinking about the history of British North America It’s easy to forget that William of Orange seized the English throne in 1688 with the help of Dutch troops. King Williams was not only a French prince but also a staedtholder – a Dutch earl or a duke — of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic.

Decades later, the English Parliament decided to tax tea to discourage the Dutch from smuggling the stuff into the colonies – hence the Boston Tea Party. The Dutch were also the first to salute the American flag and, therefore, the first to acknowledge the independence of the United States on November 16, 1776.

The Dutch in New England

In early 17^th century New England, colonists depended on Dutch traders because they had to. England was still recovering from Henry VIII’s shenanigans and had some catching up to do. Amsterdam, not London, had grown into the European capital of shipping, banking and finance.

“The British government and the British commercial world had not yet got their colonial act together,” wrote Charlotte Wilcoxen. The country ‘was still inexperienced at coordinating the production and distribution of goods,’ she wrote. “Her American colonies, victims of this ineptitude, were forced to look to the Dutch for supplies.”

A Dutch trading vessel, known as a fluyt.

In the 16^th and first half of the 17^th centuries, the Dutch were leading traders in the world, with outposts in Thailand, Brazil, Africa, Indonesia and the Caribbean.

Dutch merchants may have traded on the coast of New England as early as 1598. And they didn’t differ from the other European powers in wanting to expand in North America. One big reason: soft gold, otherwise known as beaver.

Beavers

From about 1550, all the best people in Europe had to have a beaver hat. They were soft, attractive, durable and expensive. The beaver hat craze nearly drove the Eurasian beaver to extinction, and sent trappers and traders to North America from Europe.

Nice hat. The Laughing Cavalier by Franz Hals.

Dutch traders set up trading posts along the coast from Maryland to Maine, and up the Hudson, Connecticut and Delaware rivers. They bought beaver furs from Indians in exchange for trade goods. They learned from the Pequot how to use wampum, or zewant, and then taught the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony how to do it.

In 1621, the Dutch government chartered the West India Company to, among other things, exploit the beaver trade and colonize North America. Three years later the Netherlands sent colonists to try to settle a wide swath Northeast territory.

In addition to New Amsterdam (New York) and Fort Nassau (Albany) the Dutch in New England eventually had a fort in Hartford, called Fort Hope. They also built a fort called Roduins, or Red Dunes, at the mouth of the Housatonic River. They had a trading post on Quetenis, what is now Dutch Island in Jamestown, R.I., and briefly set up a fort and a warehouse in Old Saybrook, Conn. The Dutch may also have settled along the coast of Maine.

Traces of the Dutch presence in the eastern part of upper New York State can be found in the Mooar-Wright House. Built around 1762, it has a Dutch frame around a typically English layout.

Mooar-Wright House

Bye-Bye Beaver

If beaver mortality is any indication, New England and Europe kept up a brisk trade during the first half of the 17^th century.

Europe’s insatiable appetite for beaver fur kept New England’s Indians busy trapping the creatures. The Dutch in New England tried to keep up with their demand for knives, axes, glassware and wool. From 1626 to 1632, the Dutch sent 52,584 beaver pelts back to the Netherlands.

It only got worse for the beaver. By 1650, trappers and traders were sending 80,000 beaver pelts a year to England and the Netherlands. Fifty years later, the once-plentiful beaver had disappeared completely from Massachusetts, and soon after vanished from Vermont and Connecticut.

Massachusetts

In 1635, a Dutch vessel stopped in Marblehead with 140 tons of salt and 10,000 pounds of tobacco. They probably sold salt to Marblehead’s cod fishermen before sailing back to Europe to unload their tobacco.

Dutch merchants also bought tobacco from Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims, after all, had lived for about a dozen years in Leiden, about 30 miles southwest of Amsterdam, and undoubtedly spoke at least some Dutch. When they arrived in Plymouth they built houses on Leyden Street in 1620. It’s still there.

Leyden Street in the 1800s

Plymouth Gov. William Bradford reported ‘profitable commerce’ with the New Amsterdam Dutch for ‘diverse years.’ Plymouth colonist Isaac Allerton brokered the sale of a Dutch ship from two Dutchmen in New Amsterdam.

Next door in Massachusetts, Gov. John Winthrop noted in his journal that the two colonies often traded with the ‘Dutch at Hudson’s River’ for sheep, beaver, cannon, sugar, wine and linen. Massachusetts, in fact, did so much trade with the Dutch that the colony used Dutch currency and passed a law in 1643 regulating its use.

One reason Massachusetts had to use Dutch currency was that the English Civil War, which started in 1642, pretty much ended trade between England and the colonies for a while. Colonists who needed supplies had to go Dutch — or perhaps Venetian or Spanish.

Today The Dutch House in Brookline, Mass., serves as a memorial of sorts to the Dutch in New England. Built as a pavilion in the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Brookline resident Charles Brooks Appleton saw it, bought it and had it moved to his hometown.

Rhode Island, aka Roode Eylandt

On the shore of Mill Cove off Narragansett Bay stands a large, plain, wooden house in a clearing. A Rhode Island merchant named Richard Smith, Jr., built it in 1678, after Narragansett Indians burned down the previous house during King Philip’s War. Smith fortified the big old colonial with two small cannons, thus earning the name “Smith’s Castle.” Today it’s a house museum, which in 2019 scheduled a holiday event, Christmas at the Castle, celebrating ‘Dutch influence on colonial life.’

Rhode Islanders like Smith got rich trading with the Dutch in New England. Dutch explorer Adriaen Block had explored Rhode Island and the interior of Connecticut in 1614, naming Block Island after himself and probably naming Rhode Island “Roode Eylandt.” The Dutch even tried to claim Rhode Island as a colony.

Smith Castle

Trading With the Dutch in New England

Nevertheless, Rhode Island probably had the most sustained and cordial trade relations with the Dutch in New England, according to Charlotte Wilcoxen. Rhode Islanders who did business with the Dutch included William Coddington, William Brenton, John Underhill, John Throgmorton and the father and son pair of Richard Smith.

Richard Smith, Sr., had set up a trading post in a place they called Cocumscussoc, now North Kingstown, with his business partner, Roger Williams. In 1651, he built a house there, 20 miles from the nearest settlement. Smith also had trading posts in Taunton, Mass., and in New Amsterdam, where he lived part time. He sent fish, beaver and salt to Europe in exchange for manufactured goods. Slaves and sugar came from the Dutch in the West Indies.

After Richard Smith died in 1666, his son Richard took over the business. Today the Smith Castle docents will tell you his family incorporated Dutch holiday traditions – such as Sinterklaas and koekjes — into their daily life.

Anglo-Dutch Wars

In the mid-17^th century the English began to block Dutch shipping in the English Channel and along other trade routes. That caused three Anglo-Dutch Wars, fought primarily at sea. The first broke out in 1652 and ended in 1654. The second lasted from 1664-67, and the third from 1672-74.

The New England colonies kept up commerce and correspondence with the Dutch during the wars. Rhode Islanders especially honored bans on Dutch trade more in the breach than in the observance.

Huys de Hoop, Connecticut

Connecticut probably had the testiest relations with the Dutch in New England, perhaps because familiarity bred contempt. Connecticut, after all, was cheek-by-jowl with New Amsterdam, and the Dutch early on claimed both the Connecticut and New Haven colonies.

Dutch settlements

The Dutch called the Connecticut River the Versche, or Fresh, River, and the Dutch made good use of it in the early 17^th century. They traded beaver for trade goods with the Indians. In 1633, they built a fort called Huys de Hoop, or House of Hope, on a tributary of the Versche in what is now Hartford. Today Huyshope Avenue connects the Connecticut Probation Department at one end with Aetna Ambulance Services at the other.

The Dutch intended the House of Hope to serve as the capital of Dutch Connecticut, which had amounted to a few tiny, scattered settlements – in Branford, Old Saybrook and New Haven. But they couldn’t keep up with the influx of English immigrants fleeing the Puritans in Massachusetts.

Groenwits

One exception was Greenwich, in the far southwestern corner of Connecticut. Today it’s called the Entryway to New England. In 1640, the Dutch considered it the westernmost settlement of New Amsterdam.

That year, two Massachusetts families, the Feakes and the Patricks, bought land from the Indians and called it Elizabeth’s Neck. Massachusetts had banished them for their support of the heretical Anne Hutchinson. The Feakes later built a house, the Feake-Ferris House, in what is now Old Greenwich.

Three months after their arrival, armed Dutch soldiers from New Amsterdam showed up in Elizabeth’s Neck. They gave the Feakes and the Patricks a choice: submit to Dutch rule or leave. They submitted. The Dutch then changed the settlement’s name to Groenwits and held it for the next 16 years.

Coincidentally, Greenwich was one of the first Connecticut towns to suffer Dutch Elm Disease in 1934.

Squabbling

The Dutch and the ever-increasing English squabbled constantly over their borders in Connecticut. It didn’t take long for English settlers from Massachusetts to surround the House of Hope in Windsor, Wethersfield and Hartford. Finally in 1650 the English and Dutch settled their boundary 50 miles west of the Connecticut River. Greenwich stayed with the Dutch.

The Dutch relinquished those claims at the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667. In exchange, they got concessions on the Indonesian spice trade including, ironically, nutmeg.

The Dutch eventually realized they couldn’t compete with the exploding English population in Connecticut. So they decided to consolidate their North American colony at the tip of Manhattan in New Amsterdam.

New Amsterdam

But even the retreat to New Amsterdam was fraught. The leadership in England, kings and Cromwell alike, dearly wanted to oust the Dutch from the North American colonies.

During the first Anglo-Dutch War, Oliver Cromwell outfitted an invasion force under Robert Sedgwick to take over New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam stayed in Dutch hands only because the two nations declared peace. Sedgwick turned north and captured Acadia instead.

Then after Charles II got his throne back he decided he wanted New Amsterdam for his brother, the Duke of York. On Aug. 27, 1664, four English frigates under the command of Richard Nicholl sailed into the harbor. The Dutch, with few supplies, quickly surrendered.

New Amsterdam in 1884

As a Dutch minister, Samuel Drisius, wrote, “No relief or assistance could be expected while daily great numbers of Englishmen arrived from New England both on foot and on horseback hotly bent upon plundering this place.”

The city, now New York, stayed in English hands until July 1673, when it reverted to the Dutch. The Dutch held it until the end of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, when they gave it up in exchange for Surinam.

The Dutch influence in the region can still be seen in the region, from architecture to place names to New York Mets uniforms. The blue, white and orange colors go back to the 17^th-century Prinsenvlag, or Prince’s Flag, the naval flag of the States-General of the Dutch Republic.

Maine

In 1857, a military historian named Maj. Gen. J. Watts De Peyster read a paper before the New York Historical Society about Dutch settlement and exploration 250 years earlier.

“There never was a good piece of land that the Devil did not open his bag and shake out some Dutchman upon it,” he said. That land included ‘the rich lumber districts of Maine.’ The Dutch, he said, made several attempts to settle Maine to ‘share the prolific fisheries; the unsurpassed masting and lumbering facilities; and, at that time, the rich fur trade.’

Though Maine was, in the early 17^th century, the Province of Acadie, the Dutch planted the flag at least on the shores of Muscongus Bay at what is now Bremen. De Peyster said the Dutch language was perpetrated in the town by a steady stream of Germans who followed in the footsteps of those early settlers.

He also claimed a Dutch settlement had existed at one time on the Sheepscot River a mile above Wiscasset, and at Pemaquid.

For a century, de Peysters argument was neither proven nor disproven. But by the end of the 20^th century, archaeologists found extensive Dutch artifacts along the coast from Maine to Maryland.

The Flying Horse

Historians have not disputed the Dutch conquest of Castine. In August of 1674, the Flying Horse, a Dutch frigate, sailed into Penobscot Bay. The fighting force of 110 men easily overtook the 30 French soldiers at the fort of Pentagoet.

Marker showing the Dutch in New England

The Dutch commander, Capt. Jurriaen Aernoutsz, viewed Pentagoet as fair game. The French had allied with the English during the third Anglo-Dutch War. Though the English had settled with the Dutch, the French had not.

Aernoutsz then captured another French fort at Jemseg, and in both places he buried a bottle with a message in it. The message said Acadia belonged to the Dutch and was to be known as ‘New Holland.’ But he sailed away, the Dutch couldn’t hang on to Acadia and soon the French recovered the territory. They gave Pentagoet a new name, Bagaduce, but today it is known as Castine.

Dutch-American Heritage Day

Fast forward a century. On Nov. 16, 1776, an American warship, the Andrew Doria, sailed into the harbor of the Dutch Caribbean island Sint Eustatius. The Dutch governor ordered a friendly cannon salute. That angered the British, and they took control of the island a few years later. The Dutch got it back in 1784. In 1990, that day was proclaimed “Dutch-American Heritage Day.”

The Andrew Doria in Sint Eustatius

With thanks to Dutch Trade and Ceramics in America in the Seventeenth Century by Charlotte Wilcoxen and The New Netherlands Institute.

Images: Castine sign By No machine-readable author provided. Masonbarge assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=696875. Smith’s Castle By Mlanni98 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77139260. This story was updated in 2022.

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New England Witchcraft Trials: It Wasn’t Just Salem

Plenty of people in early New England were persecuted for witchcraft, and not just in Salem, Mass.

Witches had troubled the European colonists from the get-go. In 1635, Plymouth Colony made it a crime to “form a solemn compact with the devil by way of witchcraft.” As late as the 19^th century, women were persecuted for cursing butter churns, making animals sick and causing people to die.

“Examination of a witch” by Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1853)

Salem’s witchcraft hysteria was just the most spectacular (and certainly the most memorable) of the witch trials. Two hundred people faced charges, and 20 died at the executioner’s hand. But Hartford had its own mini-witch hysteria, as did many towns scattered throughout New England.

Connecticut Witchcraft Prosecutions

In Connecticut, witch hysteria took hold 45 years before Salem began its mass executions. The colony formally tried 43 people for witchcraft (Massachusetts tried 50.) Most were acquitted or escaped, but nine men and two women were executed as witches between 1647 and 1663. The first, a woman from Windsor named Alse Young, died, as the others would, on the basis of flimsy evidence. She went to the gallows on the site of the Old State House.

The witch hysteria peaked during the “Hartford Witch Panic.” It started in 1662 when a young Hartford girl died after claiming a neighbor, Goodwife Ayres, tormented her. In 1662, Goodwife Ayres and her husband sensibly skipped town.

More accusations followed for the next 50 years in the Connecticut River towns of Hartford, Windsor, Farmington and Wethersfield. Most, however, resulted in acquittals as Connecticut judges came to their senses.

By 1715, the law making witchcraft a capital offense was off the books, and the witchcraft hysteria died down. (Click here for more about the Hartford Witch Panic.)

The Witch No. 1, lithograph, J.E. Baker.

Disturbing Witches

Your chances of getting hauled into court for witchcraft got better if your neighbors didn’t like you. Often the people accused of dealing with the devil were shrewish or grouchy or arrogant. Sometimes they lived on a town’s margins, and took the blame for its misfortunes.

Eunice Cole of Hampton, N.H., was difficult, unlikeable and didn’t have much money. From 1656 to 1680 she went to court three times to face charges. She was in and out of prison for slanderous speech and familiarity with the devil. She did perform one near-magic feat: dying peacefully in her own bed at the age of 90. (Read more about Eunice Cole here.)

Just because a jury found you not guilty of witchcraft didn’t mean your persecution ended. A Boston jury exonerated Mary Webster of Hadley, Mass., but that didn’t stop her neighbors from disturbing her.

The Puritans believed ‘disturbing’ witches – beating or restraining them – prevented them from casting spells. Mary Webster’s neighbors dragged her from the house, hanged her from a tree until she nearly died, than buried her in the snow and left her. She survived, and spent the rest of her life known as ‘Half-Hanged Mary.’

Mary Webster was lucky compared to Susannah Martin of Amesbury, Mass. A neighbor first accused her of witchcraft in 1669. Susannah’s husband sued the neighbor for slander, and ultimately she was cleared of the charges. But the taint of the accusation lingered, and she was charged again during the Salem witchcraft hysteria of 1692. She died on the gallows at the age of 70 with three other accused witches. (Read about Susannah Martin here.)

Court of Oyer and Terminer

In Salem and nearby towns, officials began rounding up suspected witches even before Gov. William Phips ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened.

William Phips

As the storm gathered, Philip English may have been a target because of his wealth. Essex County’s High Sheriff George Corwin had a nasty habit of seizing the property of accused witches and dividing the spoils with his deputies.

Corwin arrested Philip English’s wife Mary on April 18, 1692. Five weeks later, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was formed to investigate the disturbances in Salem. (Read more about it here.) The court quickly turned into a killing machine.

Philip English followed his wife to jail when a neighbor accused him of witchcraft. She said he pinched her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t touch his ‘Devil’s book.’ Philip and Mary English managed to flee to New York until the bloodshed ended.

Two hundred (perhaps a few more) were charged in what historians now believe was a massive case of petty jealousies and score settling. Nineteen died by hanging, one man was crushed to death and five people died in jail.

The Salem bloodlust

But then the Puritan leaders came to their senses and realized the witchcraft trials were a shocking case of government run amok — and an embarrassment. After the 20 alleged witches were executed in Salem, Mass., no one was indicted, convicted or executed for witchcraft in New England. One of the witch trial judges, Samuel Sewall, even apologized for his role in the witch hysteria. (Read about Judge Sewall here.)

Samuel Sewall.

Witchcraft After the Trials

That didn’t mean people stopped believing in witches. Rhoda Dustin was known as the Witch of Weare, N.H., but lived in an era when witchcraft prosecutions had died down. She was born in 1736, and with her husband ran an inn. The townspeople believed she could fly, inflict illness on people and curse butter churns so they wouldn’t make butter. Though they gossiped about her and tried to counteract her curses, she was never tried and died peacefully in Vermont in 1824.

Hannah Cranna, like Susannah Martin and Eunice Cole, was a shrew. But she was born nearly a century after the witch trials ended, in 1783. Hannah married Capt. Joseph Hovey, probably much older than she, and they lived in Monroe, Conn.

Hannah Cranna’s headstone.

No whisperings of witchcraft followed her until her husband died suspiciously. He went out for a walk one night and fell over a cliff in an area he knew well. People thought she’d cast a spell on him.

From then on, Hannah lived in poverty, and used her reputation for witchcraft to extort food and firewood from her neighbors. She never went to trial, though neighbors talked about her.

When she died, her neighbors ignored her wishes and buried her after sundown. When they returned to her house, it had gone up in flames, sealing the legend of Hannah Cranna, witch. (Read more about Hannah Cranna here.)

This story was updated in 2022.

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The Wallingford Tornado of 1878 Unleashes Terror on an Unsuspecting Town

The Wallingford Tornado of 1878 ranks as one of the worst natural disasters to ever strike Connecticut. It caused so much damage the ruined town center became a tourist attraction.

The town then was a burgeoning community of about 4,000 people along the Quinnipiac River. Many of its residents were Catholic immigrants who worked in two large silver factories.

The Wallingford Tornado wasn’t the only destructive tornado to hit Connecticut. The state has, along with western Massachusetts, a tornado alley that has experienced some of the worst damage in U.S. tornado history.

And in 1878, it took the Wallingford Tornado just moments to inflict terrible destruction on an unsuspecting town.

An empty shell left by the Wallingford Tornado. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.

Connecticut Tornado History

Connecticut ranks only 43rd in the United States for tornado frequency, and most Connecticut tornadoes are weak. But occasionally an intense tornado strikes, and the state’s dense population gives the weather system more opportunity to wreak havoc. A Connecticut tornado can cause as much damage as its Midwestern siblings.

The first record of a Connecticut tornado happened in 1648. The settlers didn’t have much to say about it, other than on June 14, a ‘great tempest’ toppled trees somewhere near Hartford.

Then on June 20, 1682, a tornado destroyed forests in southern Connecticut. In the worst hit town, Shelton, the tornado left scarcely a tree standing along a half-mile-wide path.

During the Four State Tornado Swarm of 1787, at least five tornadoes starting in New Britain struck Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, killing two in Wethersfield. The first went from New Britain to Coventry in Connecticut, while another traveled from Killingly to Mendon, Mass. A third struck northeast of East Windsor and the fourth injured two while moving from Northborough, Mass., to Framingham, Mass. The fifth hit Rochester, N.H.

The Worcester tornado of 1953, one of the 25 worst tornadoes in U.S. history, killed 90 people in a 90-minute terror spree.

And back in Connecticut in 1979, the Windsor Locks tornado was one of the most destructive in history, killing three people and causing millions of dollars of damage.

Damage caused by the Wallingford Tornado.

The Wallingford Tornado

The Wallingford tornado struck furiously around 6 pm on Friday, Aug. 9, 1878. The black funnel cloud appeared over Mt. Tom and hit the Community Lake and created a 200-foot-high water spout.

Then it headed for the center of town.

Wallingford was completely unprepared for the disaster. The Wallingford Tornado ripped up trees from their roots, destroyed orchards and tore down at least 40 houses and 50 barns. It caused a fire to start, but fortunately rain put it out quickly.

The Wallingford Tornado also took off the top two floors of the new brick schoolhouse, wrecked the windmill, a brick factory and the Catholic church. The collapsing buildings killed most of the victims.

All that took two minutes.

In the end, the storm killed 34 people, mostly Catholic, at the rate of one person every four seconds. The tornado severely injured another 28 people and inflicted minor injuries on 42.

The Wallingford Tornado also uprooted telegraph and telephone wires, cutting off communication. A 12-year-old boy named John Hoey rode on horseback to Meriden, the next town, to seek help. Within an hour of the tornado touching down, trains began to arrive with rescuers. Seven doctors came a half hour later and turned Town Hall into a hospital.

Aftermath

The Catholic Church buried 25 of the victims on Sunday, two days after the Wallingford Tornado struck. Ten thousand people came to the funeral.

Over the next few days, special trains carried thousands more sightseers to see the destruction. They could buy refreshments to help raise money for the survivors. Factories in New Britain closed to workers could travel to Wallingford to view the carnage.

This story was updated in 2022.

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The Rise and Fall of the Connecticut Borough

For over 200 years Connecticut has had a somewhat unique type of local government – a borough, of which nine currently survive. The borough has provided public services that its parent town would not or could not afford.

Vermont, with its incorporated villages, is the only other New England state that allows similar responsibilities below the town level. (Notably, Connecticut had two incorporated villages—Litchfield and Wethersfield—during the nineteenth century).

In the six New England states, the town formed the original basis for local government. In Connecticut, towns began to form in the 17th century. By the end of the 18^th century, towns geographically encompassed the entire state.

These creatures of the state used tax revenues for building and maintaining roads, caring for the poor, providing education, and for several administrative and regulatory purposes. However, in the 19^th century residents in some towns eventually wanted a broader range of public services. So to achieve their aims, they sought permission from the state to create an incorporated borough that would be located within and subordinate to the town government.

The Borough of Bridgeport

Bridgeport became the first borough by special act of the state General Assembly in October 1800. It was located in part of the town of Stratford on Long Island Sound in the southwestern part of the state. Originally called Pequonnock in the 17th century, it was renamed Newfield around 1777. Starting as a farming and fishing community, it grew into a bustling whaling, shipbuilding, and trading port after the mid-18th century.

Based on its prosperity, the citizenry sought and received permission for a borough to supply more services. The act of incorporation of the borough provided for the election by secret ballot of a warden (chief executive), six burgesses, a clerk, treasurer and bailiff. Among the initial powers granted: the right to sue and be sued; purchase, hold, and convey real and personal property; levy taxes; layout highways; create a fire department; and make by-laws (e.g., regarding markets and commerce, streets, wharves, anchoring and mooring of vessels, trees, animals, buildings, burial of the dead and public lighting).

Since the borough was subordinate to the town government, its residents had dual residency and paid both town and borough taxes. In 1821 the Town of Bridgeport—including the Borough of Bridgeport–were separated from the Town of Stratford. In 1836 the borough became the City of Bridgeport.

More Boroughs

Clinton, Conn., 1881. Killingworth lies on the upper left. Map courtesy Library of Congress.

Four other boroughs were soon created near Long Island Sound. A year after Bridgeport, Stonington was incorporated—currently the oldest continuous borough in the state. Guilford followed in 1815, then both Killingworth and Essex in 1820. Killingworth disincorporated in 1838—the first to do so—with the creation of the town of Clinton. Essex disincorporated in 1854 and Guilford in 1939.

After 1820, boroughs formed within inland towns. Although agriculture dominated economic activity in the early 19th century, manufacturing enterprises slowly began to develop across the state. Their success depended upon navigable rivers, a sufficient labor supply and competent management. This was clearly evident in the last half of the nineteenth century, especially within or near towns in the Naugatuck Valley.

Manufacturing grew because of greater interconnections of the railroad, telegraph and telephone systems. Further population growth and increased incomes then fueled a desire for boroughs to provide more governmental services. Thus, between 1800 and 1899, 39 boroughs were created.

Hats, Brass, Pins

Birdseye view of Danbury, Conn., in 1875. Map courtesy Library of Congress.

One of the earliest boroughs with a manufacturing base was Danbury, incorporated in 1822, known for its hat making. Another example was Waterbury, incorporated in 1825, known for its brass industry. Waterbury and Danbury became cities in 1853 and 1889, respectively.

In the latter half of the century, two notable examples were Wallingford and Shelton. Wallingford, incorporated in 1853, became known for Britannia ware and disincorporated in 1958. Shelton, incorporated in 1882, was known for making corsets, paper, bolts and pins. It consolidated with its town in 1915.

Sidewalk No-Nos

In addition to the customary set of by-laws, many boroughs also dealt with special concerns. For example, West Haven and West Stratford, prohibited riding bicycles on sidewalks, while Bethel residents could not fly kites on streets and sidewalks.

Creation of the final six boroughs occurred in the early decades of the twentieth century: Farmington and Ridgefield in 1901, Groton and Woodmont in 1903, Bantam in 1915, and Unionville in 1921. Ridgefield disincorporated in 1921, as did Farmington and Unionville in 1947. Groton became a city in 1964.

Altogether, between 1800 and 1921, 45 boroughs were created. However, between 1800 and 1991 when Stafford Springs became the latest borough to disincorporate, 15 of them disincorporated from their parent town, 15 eventually became cities, four became part of a new town, one (Clifton) became part of a new borough (Winsted), and one (West Stratford) became annexed to Bridgeport.

No New Boroughs

Stonington, Conn., in 1885. Library of Congress.

Two new options for districts may explain why no new boroughs formed since 1921, despite an outward migration from more populated to less crowded areas—a process that accelerated after World War II. One possibility: the creation of special taxing districts. These districts (e.g., fire and utility districts) can offer one or more public services, while remaining independent of their town governments. Although the exact number is unknown, they have continued to proliferate. The other option available for providing more services is a 1957 “Home Rule” law that allows towns to change their form of government (e.g., to create a mayor-council system) to better deal with citizen demands.

Nine Boroughs

Of the nine boroughs that currently exist, the prospects for their continued survival differ. Naugatuck, Bantam, Litchfield, Fenwick, Woodmont, and Stonington—the latter four in summer resort areas—appear to be working fairly well. Naugatuck is somewhat unusual. Known for its rubber production (Goodyear) and naugahyde (a synthetic leather material), it consolidated with its town in 1895 but retained its borough form of government.

Meanwhile, Newtown, Danielson, and Jewett City have encountered budgetary pressures in previous years. Their future is more problematic as their town governments have already taken over many of their functions. So far, the majority of residents of these nine boroughs remain proud and self-protective and would be very reluctant to see them disappear. Thus, an anachronistic type of local government continues to survive.

About the author: Edward T. Howe, Ph.D., is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, of Siena College near Albany, N.Y. He has written academic articles about the bell industry in New York, incorporated villages in Vermont, and nationwide taxation of the electric utility industry. He has also written about the small bells made in Connecticut for the New England Historical Society. This story updated in 2022.

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Lydia Sherman, the Derby Poisoner, Commits the Horror of the Century

Lydia Sherman had an unfortunate addiction to murder. She went on a decades-long killing spree in New York and Connecticut, poisoning at least eight children and three of her husbands.

Lydia Sherman

Her sensational trial in 1872 resulted in newspaper headlines that called her “America’s Queen Killer,” “The Poison Fiend,” “The Modern-Day Lucretia Borgia” or simply, “The Derby Poisoner.”

While awaiting trial, she wrote a best-selling confession, called, The Poison Fiend!: Life, Crimes, and Conviction of Lydia Sherman, (the Modern Lucretia Borgia,) Recently Tried in New Haven, Conn., for Poisoning Three Husbands and Eight of Her Children : Her Life in Full! Exciting Account of Her Trial–the Fearful Evidence : the Most Startling and Sensational Series of Crimes Ever Committed in this Country : Her Conviction and Confession.

Lydia Sherman

The childhood of Lydia Sherman offers few clues to her emergence as a serial killer. She was born Lydia Danbury on Christmas Eve, 1824, in Burlington, N.J. A year after her birth, her mother died, and she went to live on her uncle’s farm until she turned 16. Then she went to live with her brother in New Brunswick.

She was slim and pretty, with blue eyes, dark hair and porcelain skin. She also had a strong attachment to the Methodist church. At 18, she attended a Methodist dinner and met Edward Struck, a widowed blacksmith with six children. Shortly afterward, he proposed marriage. She said ‘yes.’

They set up housekeeping in New York City and had eight children of their own. With such a large family to support, Edward Struck decided he needed more income. So he got a job as a New York City police officer. But a few years into the job, witnesses charged him with cowardice during a hotel robbery in Manhattan. Edward Struck lost his job.

How It Started

Edward Struck sank into depression, refusing to leave the apartment or his bed. Lydia decided to put him out of his misery.

One day she went to the drugstore to buy arsenic, easy to obtain as a rat-killing poison in the 19^th century. She stirred a thimbleful into Edward’s oatmeal – though a few grains will kill a man – and after several agonizing hours he died. First his throat burned, then he suffered excruciating abdominal pains and diarrhea, then convulsions and finally death.

Months earlier, their two-year-old daughter Lydia contracted measles but died of similar symptoms. Her mother never admitted to killing her, though she confessed to killing eight other children. .

Child Killer

As the Civil War raged, Lydia created carnage in her own household. Without any means of support and young children to feed, Lydia decided her youngest three — Martha Ann, 6; Edward, Jr., 4 and William, 9 months old — “could do nothing for me or for themselves.” She decided to put them out of the way the same way she had disposed of their father. Less than six weeks after killing Edward Struck, Lydia poisoned her three children.

Three of her older children stayed alive, at least for a while, by finding work to support the family. But then George, 14, contracted lead poisoning from his job as a painter. He took to his bed, a fatal mistake. His mother gave him arsenic in his tea.

Lydia’s 12-year-old daughter Ann Eliza was the next to go, as she didn’t have a job and had always been sickly. John, 16, had moved out of the house, which probably saved his life. Eighteen-year-old Lydia, the last child living at home, had a job as a retail clerk. But then she fell ill and had to stay in bed. Soon, her mother got rid of her the same way she got rid of the others.

Then she got a job as a nurse.

Move to Connecticut

By the end of the Civil War, Lydia’s stepson Cornelius Struck grew suspicious about Lydia and shared his concern with the district attorney. The DA promised an investigation, but nothing happened.

Confessionaal best-seller by Lydia Sherman

When the Civil War ended, Lydia got a job selling sewing machines in New York City. She met John Curtiss, a customer impressed with the 41-year-old’s nursing experience. In 1867, he hired her to take care of his elderly mother in Stratford, Conn.

After eight months with the old lady, she encountered a rich widower named Dennis Hurlburt in the local grocery store. She still had her looks and enough charm to convince Hurlburt he needed her as his housekeeper. She accepted the job, and soon he asked her to marry him.

On Nov. 22, 1868, Lydia married Dennis Hurlburt and made sure he wrote her into his will. Fourteen months into the marriage, she noticed his hands shaking while he shaved for church. He said he felt dizzy, and couldn’t shake it off.

She decided he suffered from some malady, so she put him out of his suffering with a large dose of arsenic in his clam chowder. Three excruciating days later, Hurlburt died, leaving Lydia $20,000 worth of real estate and $10,000 in cash.

Eight weeks later, she met a Derby, Conn., factory mechanic named Horatio Sherman, a recent widower with four children. They married within a few months later, and she moved to Derby.

Lydia Sherman Unmasked

Horatio Sherman, unaware of his wife’s murderous proclivities, drank heavily and spent her money freely. One day, while drunk, he ranted that he wished his sickly infant son Frankie would die to end his suffering.

George Frederick Barker, who discovered the arsenic used by Lydia Sherman

Lydia Sherman took the hint, and mixed a little arsenic into the baby’s milk. He died quickly. The next month, her 14-year-old stepdaughter Ada came down with the flu. Doctors couldn’t help her but Lydia Sherman knew how to take care of her.

The death of his beloved daughter caused Horatio Sherman to go on a bender. Lydia decided to make her husband sick of liquor, so she spiked a bottle of brandy with arsenic. When he took to his bed, she left the brandy by his bedside.

When Dr. J.C. Beardsley came to treat Horatio, he grew suspicious of his strange symptoms. Horatio, inevitably, died, and the doctor asked Lydia Sherman if he could order a post mortem. She agreed.

Beardsley sent Horatio Sherman’s organs to Yale for analysis. Sure enough, Yale professor George Frederick Barker found large quantities of arsenic in Horatio Sherman’s body.

Autopsies performed on Dennis Hurlburt and Frankie and Ada Sherman found more arsenic.

Arrest and Trial

Lydia Sherman had moved to New Brunswick to live with her family, but on June 7, 1872, police arrested her for murder. They took her to New Haven to await trial.

Her trial began on April 16, 1872 and lasted eight days. Lydia Sherman appeared prim and proper in court, wearing a black alpaca dress, a shawl, gloves, a straw hat with a thin veil. She steadfastly claimed her innocence. But the jury, faced with overwhelming evidence, convicted her of the second-degree murder of Horatio Sherman.

Tabloids called it the Horror of the Century.

Five years into her prison sentence, she pretended to have a serious illness and escaped. She got a job as a housekeeper to a rich widower in Providence. He survived his employee, probably because authorities tracked her down after a week and sent her back to prison in Wethersfield, Conn..

Lydia Sherman died on May 16, 1878, from cancer. No one gave her any arsenic to put her out of her misery.

With thanks to Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History by Ray Bendici. This story was updated in 2022.

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River Gods of the Connecticut River Valley Create A World of Their Own

During the 150 years before the American Revolution, a series of aristocrats known as the River Gods ruled the Connecticut River Valley.

Their domain had its own economy and culture, which eventually resembled England more than settlements to the east or the west. The River Gods owned vast farms and shipyards, traded with the West Indies and fed the coastal cities with their produce and meat.

They supported a large class of artisans who fed their thirst for status by building large houses with elaborate doorways. The craftsmen filled the River Gods’ houses with fine furniture, paintings, textiles and ceramics. When they died, elaborate headstones marked their graves to show their prominence in life.

John Adams, on a visit to Middletown, Conn., in 1771, rhapsodized about Connecticut River Valley. “When I first opened into the Town which was upon the Top of a Hill, there opened before me the most beautiful Prospect of the River, and the intervals and Improvements on each Side of it,” he wrote. “…[A]nd on the right Hand is a fine level Tract of Land as rich as the Soil of Egypt.”

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow (1836) by Thomas ColeView from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow (1836) by Thomas Cole

The River Gods

Many of the River Gods already had standing and wealth when they arrived in the Connecticut River Valley. William Pynchon, the first of the River Gods, came to Massachusetts in 1630 as a prominent member of John Winthrop’s party. He owned a plantation in Roxbury, Mass., originally ‘Rocksbury’ because of the stony soil.

Pynchon didn’t like farming among rocks, so in 1636 he moved west and founded Springfield on the boulder-free meadows on the Connecticut River banks.

He started a naming trend that described the grassy meadows that attracted more settlers: Enfield, Bloomfield, Longmeadow, Hatfield and Greenfield.

Pynchon probably heard about the River Valley’s fertile open lands from Edward Winslow of Plimoth Plantation. Indians had come to Plimoth and Boston in 1631 to hype the Connecticut River to the Puritans. The Indians wanted to trade with the English settlers, and they viewed the English as potential allies against the Pequots.

Edward Winslow

Intrigued, Edward Winslow visited in 1632 to check out the Indians’ claims, and wrote a report about the Valley.

Other families followed William Pynchon to the lower part of the Connecticut River. When the new settlers divided up land, they did it according to status and wealth. The wealthiest 10 percent along the Connecticut River got between 30 and 40 percent of the land. The poorest 50 percent got 10 to 20 percent of the land. (By today’s standards, that level of equality is remarkable).

Prosperity

Agriculture flourished in the red sandstone-based soil, unique to New England. The River Gods produced more than enough for themselves, so they sold the surplus to Boston at a high profit. They came to dominate local business and politics, ran the local militias and chose the ministers.

Pynchon, for example, owned a quarter of the land, a grist mill and the town’s store. He chose the town’s minister, traded furs and shipped surplus produce and livestock down the river. He and his son ran what became Hampshire County like a colony within a colony.

William Pynchon

In addition to the Pynchons, the River Gods who came to dominate the Massachusetts river towns in Hampshire County included Ashleys, Dwights, Partridges, Porters and Williamses. Some of the more prominent River Gods in Massachusetts:

Oliver Partridge, born in Hatfield (1712-1792). Military commander, congressman and patriot.
Timothy (1752-1817) and Theodore Dwight (1764-1846). Both born in Northampton. Timothy IV was a minister, author and president of Yale. Theodore was a journalist, editor of the Hartford Mirror and the New York Daily Advertiser.
Ephraim Williams, Jr., born in Newton (1715-1755). Later moved to Stockbridge. Soldier and benefactor of Williams College.

Springfield originally belonged to Connecticut, but Pynchon managed to move it to Massachusetts after a dispute with Connecticut’s leaders. In his absence, River Gods in Connecticut emerged as families of merchants and ministers that intermarried. They included Allyns, Chesters, Hamlins, Pitkins, Talcotts, Welleses and Wolcotts. A few of the best known Connecticut River Gods:

Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797), born in Windsor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, congressman, governor and general under George Washington.
Joseph Talcott (1669-1741), born in Hartford, governor of the Connecticut Colony.
Thomas Welles (1594-1660), born in England, moved to Wethersfield, governor, deputy governor, treasurer and secretary of the Connecticut Colony.

Peace

Wars between the French and Indians limited the settlement of Connecticut River towns in parts of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and even in Connecticut.

Between 1675 and 1678, for example, King Philip’s War wiped out Deerfield and Northfield in Massachusetts, and Suffield and Simsbury in Connecticut. After that, Indians frequently raided many of the surviving Massachusetts river towns.

It wasn’t until the French and Indian wars ended in 1763 that settlers established towns in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Once they did, the towns grew quickly.

The Industrial Revolution was underway, and waterpower became an important reason to settle. The River Gods prospered from the Caribbean trade and shipbuilding. In fact, Connecticut River shipyards built more than 4,000 vessels in the 19^th century.

The farmers began to specialize. Wethersfield, Conn., for example, specialized in onions. Hadley, Hatfield and Deerfield concentrated on livestock. The River Gods of Glastonbury, Hartford and Windsor grew tobacco. And Enfield, Suffield, Longmeadow and Northampton grew so much wheat they earned the designation of New England’s first wheat belt.

More Like England

Lady Williams and Child, by Ralph Earl, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By 1771, the road from Windsor, Conn., to Hartford was settled like one continuous street, noted John Adams. A traveler named Samuel Davis wrote in 1789 that the churches in Suffield had steeples, unlike the ones between the coast and the Connecticut River. He noted the larger houses – the ones belonging to the River Gods – had been painted.

After the American Revolution, travelers noted the valley resembled England more than any other part of the country.

But the River Gods created their own unique culture, filling their houses with clocks and paintings, richly hung beds, upholstered chairs, mirrors and silver. They hired artisans to produce elaborate doorways, vine-and-leaf carved chests (known as Hadley chests), decorated board chests, baroque-style iron door latches and portraits in the style of Ralph Earl.

The River Gods, though, didn’t take on an identity the way the Boston Brahmins did. Part of that had to do with the political division of the Connecticut River Valley. To the south, the boundary between Connecticut and Massachusetts divided the River Gods. To the north, the river itself divided New Hampshire and Vermont.

A Common Character?

Timothy Dwight, one of the Massachusetts River Gods

In 1806, Yale president Timothy Dwight visited the Connecticut River Valley on horseback. “The inhabitants of this valley … possess a common character, and in all the different states resemble each other more than their fellow citizens who live on the coast resemble them,” he wrote.

At the time, however, the local culture was on the wane, wrote William Hosley, Jr., in his introduction to The Great River, Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, published in 1985 to commemorate the 350^th anniversary of the settlement of the Connecticut River Valley.

“Regional culture may have been more apparent in its decline than while it flourished,” wrote Hosley.

Images: Dwight House By Historic-Deerfield – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17941799

With thanks to The Great River, Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, published by the Wadsworth Athenaeum. This story was updated in 2023.

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