Nathaniel Palmer discovers Antarctica – Today in History

On November 18, 1820, Nathaniel Brown Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut, discovered the mainland of Antarctica, one of the seven continents. At 22, Palmer was an experienced sealer and the captain of the sloop Hero, part of a fleet of Stonington sealers. Stonington’s brisk trade in fur sealskins and seal oil made it a leading sealing port of the time.

In 1819, Palmer had been the second mate to Captain James Sheffield on board the brig Hersila, which had returned profitably to Stonington with 8,868 fur sealskins. Many of the traditional sealing locations off the coasts of South America and the Falkland Islands had already been depleted pushing the fleets farther south in search of new rookeries. When the fleet of seven Stonington vessels returned to the area of Hersila’s previous success, the South Shetland Islands, they found its seal population decimated.

Palmer’s experience with the area, and the size of the small sloop Hero, made him the ideal candidate to search for new rookeries. The Hero served as a tender, or supply ship, to the other vessels. It had a shallow draft of only 6 feet 9 inches, a length of 47 feet 3 inches, and a crew of 5 men. It was while searching for these rookeries that Palmer sighted land at Orleans Channel. To honor the Stonington captain’s accomplishment, Palmer Land, part of the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Palmer Archipelago bear his name. Although Palmer is not the only seafarer to earn credit for Antarctica’s discovery, his feat also bears witness to the wide-ranging territory covered by Connecticut’s seal trade.

To learn more:
The Stonington Historical Society - Nathaniel B. Palmer House

Foot Ball Match: Harvard vs. Yale – Today in History

Harvard vs. Yale, Foot Ball Match.
Hamilton Park, Saturday, Nov. 13th, 1875

On November 13, 1875, Yale and Harvard wore the first team uniforms in an American intercollegiate football game. This represented a significant departure from custom at a time when team mates typically took to the field dressed in mismatched gear. Then a hodgepodge of soccer and rugby rules, early foot ball took inspiration for its attire from the first American rugby uniforms. These consisted of long trousers tied at the ankles, a jersey, and a toque or a brimless close-fitting hat. The long trousers evolved to knee breeches or pants that fit more tightly to the skin, and at that first Harvard-Yale match, Yale wore dark pants, blue jerseys, and yellow hats while Harvard sported crimson knee breeches, shirts, and stockings.

Played at Hamilton Park in New Haven, the match was also the first time these schools met in what has become an annual rivalry. Yale guaranteed Harvard $75 to play and with tickets selling for 50¢ each 2,000 spectators filled the park. Following modified rugby rules, each team fielded 15 men. Harvard won 4-0 amid the endless protests of the players, spectators, and officials over the rules. Harvard and Yale agreed to play the next year’s game under the Rugby Union rules, and by 1876 Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia had organized the Intercollegiate Football Association.

Uniform of the first rugby team at Yale

October 27--Today in Connecticut History

Wo to Drunkards ~ Increase Mather

The Temperance Movement in Connecticut

The Drunkard's Progress From the First Glass to the Grave,
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Click the link for the full record.

On October 27, 1841, the steamboat Greenfield traveled a short ways down the Connecticut River with the purpose of transporting people to the Temperance Convention held in Middletown. The steamboat left Hartford’s Talcott Street dock at 7:30 in the morning and the fare was twenty-five cents.

Courtesy of the Connceticut Historical Society,
accessed from Connecticut History Online.
For full record, click HERE.

The two-day convention consisted of speeches and activities, including a procession that passed through William, Broad, Washington, and Main streets in Middletown. The procession incorporated music and marchers who ranged from children to “visiting strangers” to Wesleyan faculty and students. In addition, a local bookseller sold hymnbooks so that attendees could sing “Hurrah for Bright Water” and other temperance songs.

The temperance movement in the United States became a national crusade in the early nineteenth century with supporters of the movement objecting to alcohol’s destructive effects on individuals and communities. Supporters believed that the consumption of alcohol was responsible for personal and societal problems, including physical violence and unemployment. With influential crusaders like the Reverend Lyman Beecher, the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher, the movement took off and by 1834 some five thousand state and local temperance societies were affiliated with the American Temperance Society.

Igor Sikorksy Dies – Today in History

Igor Sikorsky in the VS-300

On October 26, 1972, aviation pioneer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky died at his home in Easton, Connecticut. Founder of the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation, Sikorksy moved the company to Stratford, Connecticut in 1929, establishing the company as a major player in aviation design with the twin-engined S-38 amphibian aircraft. The S-38 enabled Pan American Airways to open air routes into South America and the Caribbean paving the way for the development of commercial air travel. Sikorsky was a gifted aeronautical engineer and was determined to solve the problem of vertical flight. He is credited with designing the world’s first practical single-rotor helicopter in 1939, the VS-300, the basis for the later XR-4 design - the first successfully mass produced military helicopter - an invaluable tool in search, rescue, and supply missions. Always the pioneer, Sikorsky insisted that he flew the trial flight of any new design himself and his company captured many world aviation records including: the first flight over the Andes Mountains, the first transoceanic air service, the longest-range commercial aircraft and numerous altitude records.


To learn more:
New England Air Museum
Igor Sikorsky’s patents-
Patent Number 1,848,389 - Aircraft of the Direct Lift Amphibian Type
Patent Number 1,879,716 - Amphibian Aircraft
Patent Number 1,994,488 - Direct Lift Aircraft

Connecticut’s Youngest City – Who Knew?

Settled in 1648, West Farms (now West Haven) was a part of the original New Haven Colony. In 1719, it became the separate parish of West Haven, and in 1822, after several failed attempts at incorporation, it joined with neighboring North Milford to become the town of Orange. In 1921, West Haven split from Orange to become a separate town, and was finally incorporated in 1961 as a city, making it the last city incorporated in the state. West Haven is perhaps best known as the home of Savin Rock Amusement Park, a popular late nineteenth century seaside resort that ran along the west side of New Haven Harbor and over the years evolved into a general amusement park. Savin Rock Amusement Park closed in the 1960s but remains a cultural icon in Connecticut memory.

End of Wilcox's Pier, Savin Park, West Haven.
Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society and Connecticut History Online

Elizabeth Jarvis Colt Born – Today in History

Armsmear, Wethersfield Avenue, Hartford
Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society
and Connecticut History Online

On October 5, 1826, Elizabeth Jarvis was born in Hartford. When she was thirty, she married industrialist Samuel Colt and just six years later, upon his death in 1862, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt inherited controlling interest in Colt’s Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, the largest firearms manufacturer in the world. Elizabeth maintained control of the factory for most of her life, rebuilding and improving the armory after the devastating fire in 1864 that leveled the structure and the famous Colt dome.

Elizabeth Jarvis Colt went on to become a respected civic leader, art patron, and philanthropist. Known as the “The First Lady of Hartford", she served for twenty-two years as the president of Union for Home Work, which provided daycare for the children of working mothers, meals, and access to a library and classes. Elizabeth was also the first President of the Hartford Soldiers Aid Society, an organizer of the first Suffragette convention in Connecticut in 1869, and the founder of the Church of the Good Shepherd. Upon her death, in 1905, Elizabeth bequeathed her vast collection of art to the Wadsworth Atheneum and funded the first wing in an American municipal museum to be named for a woman, the Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt Memorial Wing. Her commitment to the city of Hartford was also reflected in her bequest of the grounds and gardens of her beloved estate, Armsmear, to the city of Hartford, to form the 140-acre Colt Park. Armsmear itself became a home for the widows and dependents of Episcopal clergymen.

To learn more:
Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame - Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt biography

American Architect Ithiel Town Born - Today in History

On October 3, 1784, prominent American architect and engineer, Ithiel Town was born in Thompson. One of the first professional architects in the United States, he initially trained with Asher Benjamin in Boston, and in 1810 began his professional career when he designed the Asa Gray House in Cambridge. From 1829 to 1835, Town partnered with Andrew Jackson Davis to form one of the first architectural firms in the United States, and together they designed noteworthy Greek, Gothic, and Egyptian revival buildings including the State Capitol in New Haven, and City Hall and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Samuel Russell House, Middletown (with David Hoadley)

In addition to building design, Town also studied engineering and in 1820 received the patent for a wooden truss bridge known as Town’s Lattice Truss. The design fastened diagonally set planks with nails into a crisscrossing truss system secured at the top and bottom. This innovative design eliminated the need for large, expensive timbers and could be quickly built by readily available materials. Widely used throughout the United States in the nineteenth century, the design can still be seen in two of Connecticut’s remaining covered bridges, Bull’s Bridge in Kent and West Cornwall Bridge in Cornwall and Sharon.

Town designed his own home on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, as well as other homes in the area. In his home, he had one of the largest and most influential architectural libraries of the time. He left much of its contents to Yale University when in 1844 he died. Town is interred in New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery.

In 1839, Town commissioned renowned Hudson River School master,
Thomas Cole to execute a painting called The Architect's Dream,
which now hangs in the Toledo Museum of Art.

Nathan Hale Hanged in New York – Today in History

Courtesy of the Hartford History Center,
Hartford Public Library and
Connecticut History Online.
For the full record, click HERE.

On September 22, 1776, the British hanged Revolutionary War soldier Nathan Hale for spying. Born in Coventry in 1755, Hale attended Yale College at thirteen and later became a schoolteacher. After hostilities erupted in Lexington and Concord in 1775, Hale joined a Connecticut militia and participated in the siege of Boston. In July 1755, Hale joined the Continental army’s Seventh Connecticut Regiment under Charles Webb of Stamford. Hale was promoted to captain and in early 1776, he commanded a small unit defending New York City. The British captured New York City during the Battle of Long Island, and on September 8, 1776, Hale volunteered to go behind enemy lines and report on British troop movements.

On September 21, part of lower Manhattan was suspiciously burned in the Great New York Fire of 1776. After the fire, the British captured more than two hundred American supporters. Hale, despite being disguised, was apprehended and questioned, and physical evidence of his spying activities was found on him. On the morning of September 22, Hale was marched along the Post Road to the Park of Artillery, to a public house called the Dove Tavern, and hanged. He was twenty-one years old. (This location is at the present day 66th Street and Third Ave. There are two other sites in Manhattan that also claim to be the hanging site.)

Many accounts of that day state that Hale was composed and spoke eloquently before his hanging. British officer Frederick MacKensie wrote in his diary on that day:

He behaved with great composure and resolution, saying he thought it the duty of every good Officer, to obey any orders given him by his Commander-in-Chief; and desired the Spectators to be at all times prepared to meet death in whatever shape it might appear.

Hale’s body was never recovered, and over the years, Nathan Hale’s memory and his sacrifice for his beliefs have been honored with everything from postage stamps to statues. In 1985, Nathan Hale became Connecticut’s official state hero.

To learn more:
Visit Nathan Hale’s home in Coventry. Visit Connecticut Landmarks for more information.
Connecticut Society for the Sons of the American Revolution - Nathan Hale's life

Early Turnpikes in Connecticut

At a crucial time in the young nation’s history when neither national nor state governments could provide funds for good roads construction, state charters allowed groups of investors to purchase shares of stock in turnpike corporations. In exchange for building and maintaining turnpikes with private funds, the turnpike company could charge travelers a toll for the use of its facility, and thereby make a profit for its shareholders. This model of a privately owned stock corporation chartered and regulated by the state government was first used for turnpikes but would be applied to other modes as well to provide transportation services for the citizens of Connecticut.

Hartford and New Haven Turnpike tickets, 1801.
Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society
and Connecticut History Online. 

Between 1792 and 1839, about one hundred private turnpike corporations were chartered in Connecticut, and collectively these turnpike companies constructed a network of 1,600 miles of toll roads throughout the state, or more than 40 percent of all turnpike mileage in New England. Competition among the many commercial centers and port cities in Connecticut was one reason that so small a state was eventually covered with an extensive web of toll highways. As early as 1807, a visitor to the state, Edward Augustus Kendall, found in Middlesex County, “as in almost every other direction a turnpike-road; for these roads being here made objects of private gain . . . they are established with avidity, on the smallest prospect of advantage.”
The typical Connecticut turnpike in cross section was a simple design: a convex earthen roadbed, crowned at the centerline and sloped toward drainage ditches that ran along both sides of the roadway.

While some turnpike building consisted of little more than an upgrade of an existing roadway, other turnpikes were constructed, in whole or in part, on a new alignment, which often required cutting a path through wooded areas, leveling hills and filling in boggy marsh lands, all of which was accomplished by workmen using little more than an ox-drawn cart or wagon, and picks, shovels and hoes crafted by the local blacksmith. Other construction equipment included a flattened metal disk called a “one-horse shoe” on which large rocks could be hauled away; an ox-drawn scraper to smooth the dirt surface of the roadway; and a plow to dig out drainage gutters along the edges of the roadway.

The relationship to the "road now laid" to the
Talcott Mountain Turnpike (now Albany Ave.)
and the Farmington Turnpike, 1801.
Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society
and Connecticut History Online.

The financial success of individual Connecticut turnpikes varied greatly, depending on the road’s volume of traffic, and the availability of nearby public roads that travelers could use to avoid a particular turnpike or toll gate. Only twenty of the one hundred operating turnpikes in Connecticut during the nineteenth century showed profits ranging from three to ten percent for ten years or longer. One exceptional road chartered in 1798 was part of the heavily traveled route to Albany, New York, and so the Talcott Mountain Turnpike from Hartford to Avon earned an average profit of nearly eleven percent for four decades running in the first half of the nineteenth century. But such success was rare, and tempered by the four in five turnpike companies that operated with little or no return on their investment. Many individual turnpike corporations found themselves unable to maintain their routes as their charters required due to low revenues, so their roadways were returned to public ownership and toll-free travel. The toll gate of Connecticut’s last privately owned turnpike was removed on February 9, 1897.

Overall, the impact of toll roads on Connecticut during the nineteenth century was a positive one. These privately constructed highways provided for the surge of overland travel, including regular stagecoach service, and made possible the growth of trade and commerce within Connecticut, and beyond, in the first decades of the nineteenth century. At a crucial point in the state’s history, with no assistance from state or national government, merchants, bankers, and other local businessmen took the risk necessary to provide the highways along which Connecticut commerce could thrive. And because many turnpike investors were businessmen in their communities, those who did not profit directly from their financial investment very probably benefited through the trade and business opportunities their turnpikes made possible.

By Richard DeLuca
~A project of the Connecticut Humanities Council

World’s First Helicopter – Today in History

Image from June 27, 1940 article from Flight Magazine.

On September 14, 1939 the VS-300, the world’s first practical helicopter, took flight at Stratford, Connecticut. Designed by Igor Sikorsky and built by the Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corporation, this was the first helicopter to incorporate a single main rotor and tail rotor design. Piloted by Sikorsky, the September 14 tethered flight lasted just few seconds. The first free flight took place on May 13, 1940. The innovative 28-foot diameter three-blade rotor allowed for variable pitch of the blades with a blade speed of 250 to 300 mph. The concepts demonstrated in the VS-300 were the basis for the first production helicopters and became the standard for helicopter manufacturing across the world. Sikorsky submitted a patent application (no. 1,994,488) for a direct lift aircraft on June 27, 1931, which included all the major engineering features of the VS-300. The patent was granted on March 19, 1935. Presented to Henry Ford and included to his Edison Museum in Dearborn, Michigan on October 7, 1943, the VS-300 today remains on display at the Henry Ford Museum.



To learn more:
The Patent - Direct Lift Aircraft
The Igor I Sikorsky Historical Archives
The Henry Ford Museum - Heroes of the Sky

Parachutist snagged in midair

Today in Connecticut History – September 13, 1966  

1954 ad for Pioneer Parachutes from Flight Magazine.

On this day in 1966, Charles (Chuck) Alexander became the first human to be captured by an aircraft in flight. A test parachutist for the Pioneer Parachute Company of Manchester, Connecticut, the 27-year-old was grabbed out of the air by a plane flying 120 miles an hour. Testing a method to rescue fighter pilots bailing out over the jungles in Vietnam, the technique was also being considered for the recovery of manned Gemini and Apollo space capsules. More than 100 military observers and newsman watched the air-to-air demonstration at the Sussex County Airport in Georgetown, DE. Jumping at an altitude of 8,500 feet, from a single-engine Cessna, and falling 1,100 feet a minute Alexander’s parachute was snagged by the hook of a C-122 transport plane.

- a project of the Connecticut Humanities Council

The Collins Company, Canton

Manufactured by the Connecticut firm of Collins Company, and founded by brothers David and Samuel Collins in 1826, the Collins Axe Company was the first firm in the United States to manufacture axes ready to use. Founders Samuel and David Collins were born into a wealthy family. Their father, Alexander Collins, was a lawyer in Middletown, and their mother Elizabeth was from the wealthy Watkinson family of Hartford. When Alexander died in 1815, his widow moved the family to Hartford. Samuel was 24 years old and David was 21 when they decided to open an axe factory with their cousin William Wells from Hartford

The Collins Company complex.
Courtesy of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Collins Company factory opened in 1826 with the purchase of an old gristmill along the Farmington River in Canton and a few acres of land. The company started small with eight men each making eight axes per day. At the time, workers earned $14 to $16 a month. As the company grew and gained a national reputation for its high-quality axes, new orders flooded in and the company hired workers from Connecticut and surrounding states to meet the demand. Throughout its 140-year history, the company produced and sold axes, machetes, and other edge tools to most of the world.

Axe-making dominated Collinsville’s economic life. Immense grinding stones from Nova Scotia filled the shop-yards. Shipments of coal were transported to the factory to feed the forge fires, first by oxen then later by barges on the Farmington River. In his diaries, Samuel W. Collins credits much of the company’s success to Elisha K. Root of Chicopee, Massachusetts, a “mechanical genius” who in 1832 started at the company as a journeyman machinist. During his seventeen years with the company, he improved many of the company’s production machines, and devised new patents. In 1845 Root became the superintendant of Collins & Company, but left the company in 1849 to supervise the Colt Armory in Hartford. He later became president of the Colt Arms Company.

In the early 1830s, the company was dealt a financial blow when Hartford banks began demanding immediate payments on their loans, but the company restructured and was renamed the Collins Manufacturing Company. In the 1840s, the company expanded abroad with the machete, and sold more than 150 varieties of machetes in thirty-five countries, supplying 80 percent of the world’s machetes at that time.

In the 1850s, Samuel W. Collins secured a rail line for Collinsville to transport his goods and material by offering the railroad company a right of way through company land as well as a depot and $3,000. In the 1860s, the company began making steel plowshares and by 1870 the company was making one hundred plows a day. Around that time, the company built several dams along the Farmington River to produce hydroelectric power to run its factory. Its product line grew to include 1,300 types of edge tools, including axes, adzes – a tool for smoothing or trimming wood – machetes, hatchets, picks, knives, swords and bayonets.

Scout Axe advertisement from
Boy's Life magazine, April 1925.

In May of 1871, Samuel W. Collins died, having managed the daily operations of the company for forty-five years. At the time of his death, the Collins Company had produced more than fifteen million axes, and had annual sales of more than $1 million. David Collins had died in 1862, and William Wells, the brothers’ cousin, had died in 1831. The company continued to operate successfully, and flourished during World Wars I and II, but after the Flood of 1955 wiped out the railroad line, the company could not match the foreign competition. Portions of the business were sold to the Stanley Works in New Britain and to other firms. In 1966, the Collins Company closed after 140 years in business.


• The company’s client list included John Brown, who bought pikes for his raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and Admiral Robert Peary, who carried Collins tools to the North Pole in 1909.

• The rail line Samuel Collins secured for Collinsville is now a walking and biking trail.

• At the Collins Company, Elisha Root invented the important industrial technique of die casting, the process of making an object by pouring molten metal into a die, or form, and allowing it to harden.

• The Collins Company constructed housing for its employees, as well as stores, a church, bank and hotel. In the 1920s, the company owned as many as one hundred ninety houses in Collinsville.

• Collinsville is an almost totally intact nineteenth century mill town. Today, about two dozen of the more than fifty original factory buildings remain, and are occupied by antiques dealers, offices, and artists’ studios. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, it is one of the more than two hundred surviving manufacturing villages established in Connecticut during the nineteenth century. Its architectural diversity presents sophisticated interpretations of popular eighteenth- to twentieth-century styles, as well as significant provincial interpretations of these styles and vernacular buildings.


For more information on the Collins Company, please visit the Canton Historical Society's website.