Migration from Connecticut

By Barbara Lacey, St. Joseph College

A massive migration from Connecticut took place from the mid-eighteenth century to the 1840s. Even earlier, settlers had given in to feelings of restlessness, looking for new places to establish homes and towns. Early in the eighteenth century, the expansion was to the frontiers of New England. Substantial numbers of settlers in western Massachusetts were from Connecticut towns such as Canterbury, Suffield and Enfield. Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was populated by families from a section of Wethersfield, Connecticut, while Williamstown was a conglomerate of a number of Connecticut River towns.

After the French and Indian War, a new outbreak of expansion to the north and west began as Connecticuters experienced the pressure caused by an expanding population and a limited supply of good farmland. Many a Connecticut soldier, on the long overland marches across New England and New York, made detours and sought land bargains. Governor John Wentworth (1737-1820) of New Hampshire, who claimed most of the contested territory between Maine and New York, readily offered townships to individuals from Connecticut. Citizens from eastern Connecticut, notable for their conservative political and religious outlook, established towns in the area east of the Green Mountains. People from western Connecticut, rugged individualists and radical political thinkers, founded towns west of the mountains. Between 1761 and 1776, seventy-four towns were planted in the area which was to be Vermont. These towns were named after the Connecticut origins of their settlers: Berlin, Bristol, Canaan, Chester, Colchester, Cornwall, Fairfield, Guilford, Hartford, Manchester, New Haven, Norwich, Plymouth, Pomfret, Salisbury, Stamford, Windham, Windsor and Woodstock. Perhaps the most memorable of the early settlers were the Green Mountain boys—Ethan Allen (1737-1789) and his brothers, originally from Salisbury, Connecticut, who organized the Onion River Land Company and acquired sixty thousand acres of land in Vermont. Holding title to it through force of arms, Allen advertised the virtues of the land and brought in numerous Connecticut people. Even in this haven for dissenters, the prevailing religion was Congregational, and the communities were organized as townships according to traditional Connecticut practice.

A less fortunate "New Connecticut" was taking shape in Pennsylvania. In 1662 Charles II had granted Connecticut a charter with a western boundary of the Pacific Ocean. As land hunger and a high birth rate persisted in Connecticut, the vast, fertile Susquehannah lands in Pennsylvania, within Connecticut's 1662 western claim, seemed the best hope for the future. In 1750, a Simsbury group petitioned the General Assembly for a grant in this area. In 1753, petitions from residents in Canterbury, Farmington, Plainfield, Voluntown, and Windham requested the right to purchase land from the Indians in the Wyoming Valley adjacent to the Susquehannah River. Joined by additional petitioners from Greenwich, Norwich, Stonington, and Suffield, these Connecticuters formed the Susquehannah Company to establish a settlement in Pennsylvania to "spread Christianity" and promote their "temporal interests." In 1762, two hundred colonists tried the Wyoming Valley but encountered only hostility and hardship. The Pennsylvanians resented their coming, and the Indians met them with devastating attacks. In 1774, the Connecticut General Assembly supported the efforts of its migrants by establishing a town, Westmoreland, in the Susquehannah region. While Connecticut was divided on this policy, Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785) and the easterners in the General Assembly pressed the British Privy Council for a favorable settlement of the land dispute with Pennsylvania.

The American Revolution ended restraints by the British government. Frontiers seemed open, and traffic to the west drew people from nearly every town in Connecticut. Windham, the first stopping point on the "Great Road" to Albany, to the Genesee, and to places beyond, saw more traffic than it would for another century. Upstate New York filled rapidly with settlers from New England, many originally born in Connecticut, and the region was soon transformed from a wilderness into a "well-inhabited and well-cultivated" country.

After the Revolution, Connecticut gave up its claim to the Susquehannah region of Pennsylvania in return for a grant by Congress to the Western Reserve, three million acres extending halfway across Ohio. A portion of the Reserve was set aside to compensate residents of Danbury, Fairfield, New Haven, New London, and Norwalk, who had suffered property damage from the British during the Revolution. The rest of the Reserve was sold for $1.2 million to Oliver Phelps (1749-1809), a land speculator who already owned more land than any individual in North America. Phelps and his associates organized the Connecticut Land Company, setting aside an endowment fund for education and arranging to survey the new acquisition. In 1796, Moses Cleavelend of Canterbury and a party of fifty conducted the survey, selecting an attractive spot near the junction of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie for the chief settlement of the Reserve. He set off a ten-acre public square, divided the town into lots, and thus established the town that was named for him.

Emigrants from Connecticut to the Western Reserve in the 1790s and early 1800s suffered hardships in isolated cabins set in the wilderness. Roads were primitive, and markets for produce were few. But after the War of 1812, as the Indians withdrew and markets developed, a tide of pioneers set out for the Reserve. Advertisements gave glowing descriptions of the new country, and land agents offered easy terms for purchase. More than thirty Connecticut town names were transplanted to Ohio. The exodus limited Connecticut's population growth to one-seventh that of the United States as a whole.

Despite the concern of Connecticut officials, the tide of emigration to Ohio swelled. Middlebury was founded by Captain Joseph Hart of Wallingford. Twinsburgh got its name from twin brothers, Aaron and Moses Wilcox from North Killingsworth. David Hudson of Goshen named an Ohio town after himself and built a Congregational church and a schoolhouse for the growing community. Among the early settlers of Hudson was Owen Brown of Torrington, who established a tannery where his son John worked for twelve years; his son, John Brown (1800-1859), would achieve national attention for his activities on the eve of the Civil War. At Hudson in 1826 the college that became Western Reserve University was founded on the model of Yale.

The migration continued beyond Ohio, but to a lesser extent. Indiana attracted few settlers from the East because the region was inhabited earlier by people from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, who monopolized the territorial offices. Still, a few citizens from Connecticut put down their roots in the Hoosier state. Wolcottville, Indiana, was named for an influential settler, George Wolcott of Torrington. LaGrange and LaPorte counties attracted many Connecticut families. And Solon Robinson (1803-1880), born in Tolland, made his mark. He traveled west as a peddler, opened a store in the Indiana woods, and traded with immigrants and Indians. In 1836, he organized the Squatters' Union to protect the homesteads of five hundred settlers in Lake County. The union members received much publicity and were able to secure their land at government, not speculators', prices. Soon after, Robinson founded a national agricultural society which was instrumental in establishing the United States Department of Agriculture.

Indiana did not receive as many settlers from the East as did Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1817, four Collins brothers from Litchfield settled Collinsville, near St. Loius, and established a sawmill, a gristmill, shops, and a distillery. When temperance tracts by Dr. Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), minister in their hometown, reached them, they abandoned the distillery. A few years later, their father came west to visit and remained to help establish Illinois College at Jacksonville. The school was headed by Edward Beecher (1803-1895), Lyman's son, who left his pulpit in Boston to work for abolition in his new post. Chicago was also influenced by Connecticut people, notably by Walter L. Newberry (1804-1868) of Windsor, who made a fortune buying and selling Chicago land and left much of his wealth to found the research library which bears his name.

In Michigan, too, Connecticut people made their influence felt. Stephen Mack of Lyme became a storekeeper in Detroit in 1810. He and his wife were among the first four settlers in Pontiac. Another Connecticut man, Andrew Mack of New London, brought sheep over the Cumberland Mountains and started a wool factory in Cincinnati. He joined the Army, served at Detroit, and stayed on to become the city's mayor in 1834. The second governor of the state was William Woodbridge, born in Norwich. Isaac Crary (1804-1854) of Colchester became an outstanding public official who set aside a million acres of public land for education purposes. He helped draft plans for the Michigan primary school system and the state university and was the first representative sent to Congress from Michigan. Numerous families from New Milford, Norwich, and Stamford settled in Berrien County in southwestern Michigan.

In Wisconsin and Minnesota, Connecticut migrants were relatively few, but they numbered among the early settlers. Timothy Johnson and family, from Middletown, claimed the one thousand acres of land which became Watertown, Wisconsin. The Kellogs of Canaan settled in Sylvania, Wisconsin, in such numbers that the place was known as Kellog's Corners. Another Connecticut citizen, Louis Harvey (1820-1862) of East Haddam, had a varied career in Wisconsin. He taught school, opened his own academy, and edited a newspaper. In 1862, he was elected governor of the state, but drowned a month after he was installed, while delivering food to Wisconsin soldiers in the Union Army. Harvey was one of four early governors of Wisconsin born in Connecticut.

In Minnesota, a number of towns were named after the Connecticut hometowns of early emigrants, including New Hartford, New Haven and Winsted. Connecticut manufacturers relocated here, including Horatio Lillibridge, who established the first cracker factory in 1856. Cyrus Northrup (1834-1922) of Ridgefield was president of the University of Minnesota from 1844 to 1911.

The Southwest did not attract many New Englanders, with the notable exception of Texas. The first American settlement there was planned by Moses Austin (1761-1821), a native of Durham. At the age of sixty, after a lifetime of relocating, Moses Austin set out for a new frontier in Texas. In 1821, he arrived at San Antonio and received permission to establish a colony. He died soon after, but his son carried out his plan. Stephen Austin (1793-1836) selected land on the Gulf, brought in three hundred families, and established the first settlement of Anglo-Americans in Texas. Austin was their leader, serving as lawmaker, judge, and military commander. In 1836, he was secretary of state of the Republic of Texas.

To the north, into Iowa, the Dakotas, and Kansas, moved Connecticut farmers, storekeepers, educators, and missionaries. Among them was the famous and controversial John Brown (1800-1859). At the age of fifty-five, he joined five of his sons in Kansas and fought to keep the territory free from slavery. In the confrontation between abolitionists and proslavery men, Brown and his sons attacked a farmhouse in the middle of the night, killing six men. A few years later he raided the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, violently thrusting himself into national prominence.

As the frontier moved toward the Pacific, the stream of Connecticut emigrants slowed to a trickle, but still included a number who distinguished themselves. Wilbur Stone (1833-1920), born in Litchfield in 1833, became editor of a Colorado newspaper, worked to promote the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and was elected to the Colorado Supreme Court. Another native of Connecticut, Frederick Pitkin (l837-1886) of Manchester, served as governor of Colorado from 1879 to 1883.

Connecticut people joined the gold rush to California after 1849. In the 1860 census, about three thousand of California's residents claimed Connecticut as their place of origin. A few rose to positions of influence. Stephen Field (1816-1899), born in Haddam, was elected the first mayor of Marysville, California. He wrote the state's judiciary act, became chief justice of California, and was appointed by President Lincoln to the United States Supreme Court. Collis Potter Huntington (1821-1900) of Harwinton set out for California in search of gold, but stayed to set up a store. He eventually made his fortune promoting the Central Pacific Railroad, which became a section of the first transcontinental railroad.

The steady migration from Connecticut of enterprising and adventurous people enriched settlements throughout the land. Though far from home, Connecticut Yankees built homes and churches in their familiar style; established government, schools, and colleges in the New England tradition; and contributed hard work, inventiveness, and a solid faith in the future.

While many New Englanders emigrated, those from Connecticut seemed outstanding to some observers. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French historian and commentator on the American scene, singled out tiny Connecticut as a state which had contributed a disproportionate number of leaders to the Federal government. In 1831 one-third of the United Stales Senate and one-fourth of the House of Representatives had been born in Connecticut, a situation which de Tocqueville characterized as "one very great miracle" in the creation of American civilization.

For Further Reading

Boyd, Julian. The Susquehannah Company: Connecticut's Experiment in Expansion. New Haven, Connecticut, 1935. Tercentenary pamphlet XXXIV.

Hatcher, Harlan H. Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio. Indianapolis, Indiana, 1949.

Holbrook, Stewart H. The Yankee Exodus. New York, 1950.

Lee, W. Storrs. The Yankees of Connecticut. New York, 1957.

* Entry under revision.