ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

From Suffield To Saybrook

An Historical Geography of The Connecticut

River Valley In Connecticut Before 1800

by THOMAS REED LEWIS, JR., Ph.D.

Thesis director: Professor Peter O. Wacker



This study in cultural historical geography deals

with the impact of people on the landscape of the

Connecticut River Valley in Connecticut prior to 1800.

Europeans first came to the Connecticut River Valley

about three hundred and fifty years ago. Low open land

including Indian old fields and a river with few rapids

and no waterfalls attracted settlement. Four of the five

original towns in Connecticut Colony were located in the

Connecticut River Valley. By 1640 settlement nuclei had

been established at Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield and

at Saybrook. After 1640 settlement diffused from the

earliest river towns to the last of the river meadows and

terraces, and to land in eastern and western Connecticut.

The towns established in the Connecticut River Valley

were large, averaging seventy-seven square miles in size as

late as 1758. Early valley settlement was nucleated and

centered upon the meeting house, garrison house and common.

However, analysis of old maps indicates that nucleated

settlement did not persist for long. By 1700, the quest

for more farm land and living space and the establishment

of outlying mills had created a settlement pattern more

diffused than nucleated. Linear street patterns prevailed

initially, but by 1670 the diffusion of settlement was

being accompanied by the emerging dominance of Irregular

street patterns.

Mid-eighteenth century farming practices were far

different from the forest grazing of cattle and hogs which

typified agriculture during the valley's frontier phase.

Although the colonists were probably aware of the need to

conserve the woodland because they had experienced fuel

shortages in England, widespread clearing took place. As

the average population density grew from forty-two people

per square mile in 1752 to sixty-five people per square

mile in 1782, average farm size decreased. The Connecticut

valley colonist was never truly self-sufficient. From the

earliest years trade took place between places in the valley

and in New England and New York. As the eighteenth century

progressed, the farmers responded to a rising commercial

market by shifting their emphasis from tillage to grazing.

By 1775 large quantities of livestock, saltmeat, butter,

cheese, flour and other commodities were being produced for

market. Tobacco, cattle and onions dominated the export

trade. Ferries, small boats and canoes combined with an

adequate road network enhanced the possibilities for internal

trade and travel.

The predominantly English Protestant colonial settlers

in the Connecticut valley built four basic house types.

Because these people diffused from the timber growing areas

of England, there were few masons and a wood framed building

tradition prevailed. Houses of stone or log were never

common even though these materials were abundant in the

natural environment. Pre-nineteenth century house type

farms persist in the valley and mirror the first effective

settlement by the English between 1630 and 1639. Single

family dwellings continue to be built which reflect salt

boxes, overhangs and gambrels - all traditions brought by

the English. Tax records listing fireplace numbers in

houses indicate that the two room cottage was the dominant

house type in the Connecticut River Valley during the

colonial period. However, field work revealed that today

pre-nineteenth century built two room cottages, "I" houses

and salt boxes appear with almost equal frequency.

Numerous structures dominated t h e cultural landscape.

The wooden English barn was the most prominent farmstead

building. Bank barns and connecting barns have never prevailed

in the valley. Water mills, windmills, stone fences

and differing types of wooden fences were common.

Although a well-developed hierarchy of administrative

central places did not develop between Suffield and Saybrook

prior to 1800, a hierarchy of central places based on a

variety of goods and services did emerge. Outlying centers

supporting single functions such as taverns, gristmills,

boatyards and warehouses arose at sites usually some two

to three miles apart. Villages spaced eight to ten miles

apart including at least a gristmill, fulling mill, tavern,

meeting house and Sabbath day house, served both as economic

and administrative centers on the middle level of the central

place hierarchy. two urban towns, Hartford and

Middletown, emerged. These centers provided a variety of

goods and services, some on streets segregated according

to function, and acted as entrepots for an agricultural

hinterland that included the network of central places

which had emerged by the initial years of the nineteenth

century.