By Adam

      A man from the Netherlands named Adriaen Block was the first European to come to Connecticut.  He found a wilderness area and said, “This land is ours.”  The Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island, New York and the Puritans and Pilgrims from Massachusetts heard about the fertile soil on the Connecticut River.  Both claimed territory.  Dutch traders had established a permanent settlement near Hartford in 1633. 

       In October of that year, a small ship sailed from Plymouth, with the plan of building a trading-house on the bank of the Connecticut River. When they had sailed up the river, they found the Dutch had gotten there before them and had built a fort.

       The colonists bought land from the Indians. The Indians were angry when the colonists told the Indians to get off their land. The Indians used to call Connecticut, Quanecticut.

       By 1756, there were 127,000 white people, 3,000 black people, and only 617 Indians living in the colony.  About 90 percent of Connecticut’s people lived and worked on small farms.  Farmers had great success growing crops such as corn, wheat, peas, and tobacco.  On the coast, fishermen caught tons of fish and searched for whales.  Whale oil was used in lamps.  Umbrellas and clothing were made from whalebone. 

       Their houses were made out of wood and clapboard, or shingle siding.  There were few doctors in Connecticut in the colonial times.  Illnesses and injuries were treated with home remedies.  For a toothache, they pricked their tooth with a pine tree sliver, or spread fresh cow manure on their face!  Yuck!  For chicken pox, they thought they should lie down in the chicken house until a black hen walked over them!  For warts, they rubbed a potato on the wart and then buried the potato or spit on the warts every morning.  People would never do that now!

       In 1775, the Revolutionary War began.  It started because the colonies did not want to be controlled by England anymore.  Finally, after eight years, the colonists won their freedom. In 1788, Connecticut was the fifth state to ratify the Constitution. 

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Last Updated: 02/23/06