The day after St. Patrick’s Day was anything but a lucky one for John G. Rowland, who found himself on the wrong end of the law on March 18, 2005, and then again 10 years later on March 18, 2015. Once considered one of Connecticut’s best and brightest politicians, Rowland first won elected office…
March 17: A Forgotten Civil War Hero, Statesman, and Patriot.
A Civil War general who served in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Siege of Petersburg, and other notable campaigns, Connecticut’s Joseph R. Hawley was, during his lifetime, one of Connecticut’s most distinguished and celebrated citizens. A graduate of Hamilton College in New York, Hawley had a gift for both writing and public…
March 16: Quick— What Rhymes with “Connecticut”?
In late 1977, temporarily setting aside the politics of a struggling national economy and election-year posturing, the Connecticut General Assembly took up the daunting task of selecting an official state song for the state of Connecticut. The request for a state song first came from then-governor Ella Grasso’s predecessor, Thomas Meskill, who was reportedly…
March 15: Should Boston Own the Connecticut River?
In the late 19th century, the city of Boston, like most of New England’s other cities, experienced a period of incredible growth thanks to increasing industrialization and a rising tide of European immigration. By the early 20th century, Boston city officials realized they were only a few decades away from a full-blown crisis if…
March 14: Eli Whitney Patents the Machine That Would Lead to Civil War
Today in 1794, Eli Whitney, one of Connecticut’s most influential inventors, received a patent for the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized cotton production by optimizing the laborious task of cleaning seeds from raw cotton bolls. Born in Massachusetts in 1765, Eli had exhibited both interest in, and talent at, manufacturing early in life,…
March 13: A City, State, & Country Divided: The New Haven Black Panther Trials
Today in 1970, the stage was set for one of the most polarizing trials of the modern Civil Rights era. Bobby Seale, national chairman of the militant black power organization Black Panthers, arrived in Connecticut to stand trial for allegedly ordering the murder of a New Haven man killed 10 months earlier. The Black…
March 12: The “Great White Hurricane” Paralyzes Connecticut
When snow started falling across the state in the early hours of March 12, 1888, Connecticut residents thought nothing of it. It wasn’t unusual to have light to moderate snowfall in early March, and the forecast for that day called for “fair weather, followed by rain.” Later that morning, amid moderate snowfall, most Connecticans…
March 11: She Taught a Man’s World How to Build a Business
When Beatrice Fox Auerbach became president of Hartford’s G. Fox & Company in 1938, in an era where there were scarcely any female retail executives in the United States, neither she nor any of the popular department store’s board members expected her to remain in the position for very long. But instead of stepping…
March 10: Actor, Socialite, Editor, Playwright, Filmmaker, War Correspondent, Ambassador, & Connecticut’s 1st Congresswoman
Connecticut’s first congresswoman, Clare Boothe Luce, was one of the most professionally accomplished women of her time. Ann Clare Boothe was born on March 10, 1903. Her parents encouraged her early love of music and the performing arts. After acting in a few minor theater roles as a young adult, she married New York…
March 9: He Put the Iron in “Old Ironsides”
Today in 1798, 25-year-old Isaac Hull, who was destined to become one of the United States’ most famous heroes of the War of 1812, began his distinguished career in the Navy after accepting a commission as a fourth lieutenant aboard the U.S. frigate Constitution. Born in 1773 in Derby, Connecticut, young Isaac was raised…
March 8: A Fearful and Spreading Disease? Or A Vampire Attack?
Today in 1845, 24-year-old Lemuel Ray died in Jewett City, a borough in the rural Eastern Connecticut town of Griswold. The young man, one of several children born to the Ray family, had died from tuberculosis, a disease then commonly known as “consumption” because of the way its victims would lose weight and become…
March 7: New Haven Hides the Killers of a King
Soon after the then-separate Connecticut and New Haven colonies were established in the 1630s, their country of origin, England, was thrown into a long and brutal civil war pitting English Puritans against King Charles I. The Parliamentarians, as the king’s enemies called themselves, were ultimately victorious, and, after taking control of the government, they…