Connecticut
is very fortunate to have had a significant number of dedicated
historians who, since the 1960s, have studied and written about the
state’s history. While their dissertations and journal articles may be
too specialized for genealogists, their more general state histories
serve our needs.
Albert E. Van Dusen, former
Connecticut State Historian and professor of history at the University
of Connecticut, wrote my favorite state history: Connecticut.
Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated, Connecticut will
provide answers to most of your questions within its carefully crafted
overview of important events in Connecticut’s history. The chapter
“Migrating Yankees,” for example, explains why, beginning in the 1750s
and continuing for more than 100 years, Nutmeggers left Connecticut for
destinations north, south, and west. Among the reasons Van Dusen cites
were a rapidly growing population, poor land, inadequate transportation,
the end of the French and Indian Wars, and the lure of speculation in
cheap land available elsewhere. On the other hand, if your ancestor
migrated into Connecticut to work in a munitions factory during World
War I or II, you can learn about the importance of that industry to the
state’s economy – and to the nation.
A more
scholarly study of Connecticut history can be found in Harold J.
Bingham’s four-volume History of Connecticut. The first two
volumes deal with state history; the third covers histories of
Connecticut business and industrial firms up to 1950; and the fourth
focuses on family and personal records of several hundred prominent
Nutmeggers who were alive in 1962. Although I would choose Van Dusen’s
volume to provide background information about specific historical
topics, Bingham’s volume could be very helpful if your Connecticut
ancestor was in business or industry or was a leading light.
David Morris Roth, former professor of history at
Eastern Connecticut University and director of The Institute for
Connecticut Studies there, wrote Connecticut: A Bicentennial History
as part of The State and Nation series. Easy to read and shorter than
the other histories (and therefore lacking in detail), Roth’s volume
provides an accurate overview of Connecticut history. Possibly easier to
locate than the previous publications, this volume might answer your
questions.
Bruce Fraser, longtime director of
the Connecticut Humanities Council, wrote The Land of Steady Habits: A
Brief History of Connecticut as a contribution to the 200th
anniversary of Connecticut’s statehood. His goal was to provide the
general reader with a brief, analytical overview of the state’s diverse
history. Emphasis is on such characteristics of the state as
conservatism, local control, and ethnic and social diversity. Fraser
also brings up contrasts in Connecticut. One of the wealthiest states in
the nation, Connecticut has three of the nation’s poorest cities, its
political influence has always far exceeded it small geographic size,
and Connecticut’s diverse ethnic and social mix contrasts with its
Yankee reputation.
The Miracle of
Connecticut by Ellsworth S. Grant, Hartford businessman, historian,
and descendant of an old Connecticut family, is a study of important
achievements in Connecticut history as seen through the eyes of those
who made that history happen – the state’s movers and shakers. Chapter
headings include Connecticut Yankees, Government, Enterprises, Preachers
and Teachers, Manufacturing and Invention, and Arts and Culture. A list
of 100 representative Connecticut personalities begins with early- to
mid-1600s Reverends Thomas Hooker and John Davenport and ends with
mid-twentieth-century inventors Edwin Land and Igor Sikorsky. While
Grant’s study is definitely not a social history that focuses on the
lives of ordinary people, it provides insights into the diverse
contributions of the state’s prominent residents.
David Roth edited the five-volume Series in
Connecticut History, which, while written for high school history
students, covers Connecticut’s history in considerable detail with the
use of specific examples and case studies. Each of the professional
historians who contributed to the series wrote about the period in
Connecticut history that he or she knew best. The five volumes are Puritans
against the Wilderness, Connecticut History to 1763; From Revolution to
Constitution, 1763-1818; Preachers, Rebels, and Traders, 1818 to 1865;
From Yankee to American, 1865-1914; and A Diverse People, 1914 to
Present.
Each volume begins with a list of
dates important in one period of Connecticut history. Within these
well-indexed books, researchers will find information on most important
topics in Connecticut history. Extensive information on Connecticut’s
border disputes with Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York is
included. Or if you seek information on the immigration of Irish into
Connecticut during the potato famine, you will not be disappointed. A
chapter on the Civil War features descriptions of life on both the
homefront and battlefront.
Between 1973 and
1979 the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut
published thirty-five monographs in its Connecticut Bicentennial Series.
Edited by former Trinity College Professor of History Glenn Weaver and
written by scholars and historians, each booklet deals with one aspect
or person of importance during the Revolutionary era (1763-1787).
Several volumes contain biographies of Revolutionary leaders. Others
consider such topics as Connecticut Loyalists, black soldiers in the
Revolution, and the role of Connecticut women during the Revolution.
Anyone with ancestors in Connecticut during the eighteenth century, and
particularly during the Revolutionary years, will find these volumes of
interest. Possibly difficult to locate elsewhere, these slim volumes can
be purchased from the Institute for Connecticut Studies, Eastern
Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226, telephone
877-587-8693.
The Literature of Connecticut
History, compiled by Connecticut State Historian and professor of
history at the University of Bridgeport, Christopher Collier and Bonnie
B. Collier, is not a comprehensive history but rather an extensively
annotated bibliography that covers published scholarship in the field of
Connecticut history through 1981. Brief, informative historical essays
introduce most sections.
Omitted from the
bibliography are town histories, histories of churches and graveyards,
genealogies, city directories, and historic house surveys.
Following a short introduction, the section on
“Witchcraft in Connecticut,” for example, contains a list of eleven
books or articles on that subject. If Connecticut’s Loyalists are of
interest, you will find three pages of references to that subject. Or if
you wonder how your ancestors got around, every mode of transportation
is covered in a separate chapter. Do you need information on
Connecticut occupations such as raising tobacco, oystering, or clock
making? You will find references to these jobs and many more. And if,
heaven forbid, an ancestor served time in a Connecticut prison,
references to that subject are also included.
Within
one of these very readable, yet scholarly volumes you should be able to
find information about important events in Connecticut history that
affected the lives of your Connecticut ancestors. You will learn what
life was like in the past, the factors that may have led ancestors to
migrate or remain, and the challenges and opportunities Nutmeggers faced
in their daily lives during nearly four centuries.
Books discussed in this article:
Bingham, Harold J. History of Connecticut. New
York: Lewis History Publishing Co., 1962. 4 volumes, 975 pages.
Collier, Christopher and Bonnie B. Literature of
Connecticut History. Middletown: Connecticut Humanities Council,
1983. 376 pages.
Fraser, Bruce. The Land of Steady Habits: A
Brief History of Connecticut. Hartford: Connecticut Historical
Commission, 1988. 80 pages.
Grant, Ellsworth S. The Miracle of
Connecticut. Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1992 and
1995. 335 pages.
Roth, David Morris. Connecticut: A
Bicentennial History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979. 231
pages.
Roth, David Morris, editor. Series in
Connecticut History. Chester, Conn.: Pequot Press, 1975. 5 volumes.
I. Van Dusen, Albert E. Puritans
against the Wilderness, Connecticut to 1763. 150 pages.
II. Roth, David M. and Freeman Meyer. From
Revolution to Constitution, Connecticut 1763-1818. 111
pages.
III. Trecker, Janice Law. Preachers,
Rebels and Traders, Connecticut 1818 to 1865. 95 pages
IV. Andersen, Ruth O.M. From Yankee to
America. Connecticut 1865 to 1914. 110 pages
V. Jannick Jr., Herbert F. A Diverse
People, Connecticut 1914 to Present. 124 pages
Van Dusen, Albert E. Connecticut. New York:
Random House, 1961, 470 pages.
Weaver, Glenn,
editor. Connecticut Bicentennial Series. Hartford: American Revolution
Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1973-1979, 35 booklets.
I. Barrow, Thomas C. Connecticut
Joins the Revolution (1973)
II. Collier, Christopher. Connecticut in the Continental
Congress (1973)
III.
Callahan, North. Connecticut’s Revolutionary War Leaders (1973)
IV. White, David O. Connecticut’s
Black Soldiers, 1775-1783 (1973)
V. Destler, Chester M. Connecticut, the Provisions State
(1973)
VI. East, Robert A. Connecticut’s
Loyalists (1974)
VII.
Frost, J. William. Connecticut Education in the Revolutionary Era
(1974)
VIII. Tucker, Louis
Leonard. Connecticut’s Seminary of Sedition; Yale College (1974)
IX. Roth, David M. Connecticut’s
War Governor: Jonathan Trumbull (1974)
X. McDevitt, Robert F. Connecticut Attacked: A British
Viewpoint, Tryon’s Raid on Danbury (1974)
XI. Daniels, Bruce Colin. Connecticut’s First Family: William
Pitkin and his Connections (1975)
XII. Stark, Bruce P. Connecticut Signer: William Williams
(1975)
XIII. Hayes, John T. Connecticut’s
Revolutionary Cavalry: Sheldon’s Horse (1975)
XIV. Cutler, Charles L. Connecticut’s
Revolutionary Press (1975)
XV. Fennelly, Catherine. Connecticut Women in the Revolutionary
Era (1975)
XVI. Warren,
William Lamson. Connecticut Art and Architecture: Looking Backwards
Two Hundred Years (1976)
XVII. Cohen, Sheldon S. Connecticut’s Loyalist Gadfly: Reverend
Samuel Andrew Peters (1976)
XVIII. Parker, Wyman W. Connecticut’s Colonial and Revolutionary
Money (1976)
XIX. Willingham, William F. Connecticut Revolutionary: Eliphalet
Dyer (1976)
XX. Gerlach,
Larry R. Connecticut Congressman: Samuel Huntington, 1731-1796
(1976)
XXI. Main, Jackson
Turner. Connecticut Society in the Era of the American Revolution
(1977)
XXII. Niven, John. Connecticut
Hero: Israel Putnam (1977)
XXIII Myer, Freeman W. Connecticut Congregationalism in the
Revolutionary Era (1977)
XXI Kuslan, Louis I. Connecticut’s Cannon: The Salisbury Furnace
in the American Revolution (1977)
XXV. Ifkovic, John W. Connecticut’s Nationalist Revolutionary:
John Trumbull, Junior (1977)
XXVI. Wallace, Willard M. Connecticut’s Dark Star of the Revolution;
Benedict Arnold (1978)
XXVII.
Rome, Adam Ward. Connecticut Science, Technology, and Medicine in
the Era of the American Revolution (1978)
XXVIII. Steiner, Bruce E. Connecticut Anglicans in the Revolutionary
Era: A Study in Tensions (1978)
XXIX. Walsh, James P. Connecticut Industry and the Revolution
(1978)
XXX. Littien, Ronald
John. Connecticut’s Young Man of the Revolution: Oliver Ellsworth
(1978)
XXXI. Wilson, Ruth Mack .
Connecticut’s Music in the Revolutionary Era (1979)
XXXII. Warfle, Richard T. Connecticut’s
Western Colony: The Susquehanna Affair (1979)
XXXIII Thompson, Marvin G. Connecticut
Entrepreneur: Christopher Leffingwell (1979)
XXXIV Rommel, John G. Connecticut’s
Yankee Patriot; Roger Sherman (1979)
XXXV. Cummin, Katherine H. Connecticut
Militia General: Gold Selleck Silliman (1979)
Hankins, Jean F. Index to Vol I-XXXV, Connecticut
Bicentennial Series. Hartford: American Revolution Bicentennial
Commission of Connecticut, 1982.