November 16:The First Connecticut Governor Born in Connecticut

  The first thirteen chief executives of colonial Connecticut (including the governors of Saybrook and New Haven colonies, which merged with Connecticut by 1665) were all born in England. It was not until the second decade of the eighteenth century that Connecticut’s governor was a person actually born and raised in the Land of Steady…

October 15: Governor Resigns to Go to Russia

  Today in 1853, Thomas H. Seymour, one of Connecticut’s most accomplished — and controversial — 19th century politicians, stepped down as as Governor. He  resigned  to accept a nomination by the New Hampshire born and quite unlikely President (he was nominated by the Democrats on their 48th ballot) Franklin Pierce to serve as the…

June 21: “Poor Judgment” Costs a Governor His Job

  “I acknowledge that my poor judgment brought us here,” said John Rowland to a sea of reporters standing on the back lawn of the Connecticut Governor’s Mansion in Hartford. The date was June 21, 2004, and Rowland was announcing his resignation amid a federal corruption investigation and impeachment inquiry. His Lieutenant Governor, M. Jodi…

May 25: First He Invented the Soap Opera. Then He Entered Politics.

  When Chester Bowles and his friend William Benton founded the Benton and Bowles ad agency in 1929, they had two accounts and 12 thousand dollars. Seven years later – in the midst of the Great Depression – it was the sixth largest ad agency in America, with annual billing of over 10 million dollars….

April 9: Abraham Ribicoff, Governor & Barrier-Breaker

  On April 9, 1910, Abraham Alexander Ribicoff was born in a New Britain tenement house to Ashkenazi Jewish parents who had immigrated to Connecticut from Poland.  Over the course of his lifetime, he would spend nearly fifty years in public service, including overcoming entrenched anti-Semitism to become the state’s first governor of Jewish faith….

March 18: A Former Governor’s Worst Day

  The day after St. Patrick’s Day was anything but a lucky one for John G. Rowland.The ex-Governor found himself on the wrong end of the law on March 18, 2005, and then again 10 years later on the exact same date in 2015. Once considered one of Connecticut’s best and brightest politicians, Rowland first…

March 17: An Almost 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 1: The Nation’s True First President

  On this day in 1781, more than four years after they were first adopted by the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation became the supreme law of the United States after being formally ratified by all 13 states. As a result, the previous sitting president of the Continental Congress — a Connecticut lawyer by…

February 23: Connecticut Openly Defies a Hated President

  In the early 19th century, Thomas Jefferson, who was elected to two consecutive terms as President of the United States, proved to be a constant thorn in the side of Connecticut’s political leaders. Virtually all the members of Connecticut’s political “Standing Order” were staunch Federalists who vehemently disagreed with Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican political agenda and…