In 1831, Prudence Crandall opened the Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut, in order to provide an education to wealthy daughters of Eastern Connecticut families. After a successful inaugural year, Crandall received a request from twenty-year-old Sarah Harris, the daughter of a prosperous free African-American farmer and his wife, to attend the boarding…
Tag: june
June 26: Education Pioneer Sarah Pierce Born in Litchfield
On this day in 1767, education pioneer Sarah Pierce was born in Litchfield. As a teenager, her older brother sent her to New York after the death of her father, to learn to become a teacher so she could financially support herself and her siblings. Upon her return to Litchfield in 1792, Pierce opened…
June 25: Marilyn Monroe Takes Connecticut By Storm
On this day in 1956, the small, rural, western Connecticut town of Roxbury was swarmed by reporters who recently learned that the internationally-famous starlet Marilyn Monroe was in town visiting her fiancée, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller. Even though the couple had been dating for months, they had only announced their plans to marry…
June 24: Scandal-Plagued Celebrity Minister Henry Ward Beecher Born in Litchfield
Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most famous and influential — but also controversial — preachers and speakers of 19th century America, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on this day in 1813. Henry was one of many literary giants of the extended Beecher family: his father Lyman was also a notable preacher; his sister…
June 23: Eminent Domain Redefined in New London
On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Kelo v. City of New London, a case that redefined — and vastly expanded — the permissible boundaries of eminent domain in the United States. In the year 2000, the New London Development Corporation, acting under the city’s authority, moved to seize over 100 privately-held…
June 22: The Assassination of Elias Boudinot, Cherokee
The Cherokee leader Elias Boudinot first came to Connecticut in the 1820s to seek a formal western education at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall. Born as Gallegina Uwati into a prominent Cherokee family in 1802, he was sent north with the permission of tribal elders in hopes that his western education would help…
June 21: Governor John Rowland Resigns
“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…
June 20: CT Resident Helen Keller Honored by President Kennedy
Today in 1961, Easton resident Helen Keller received a birthday greeting from President John F. Kennedy containing high praise for her lifetime’s worth of hard work and advocacy for people who, like herself, were blind and/or deaf. In it, he wrote: “You are one of that select company of men and women whose achievements…
June 19: Connecticut Troops Patrol the Mexican Border
In June 1916, while the horrors of the Great War in Europe remained an ocean away, President Woodrow Wilson anticipated a more immediate threat along the United States’ border with Mexico. Earlier that year, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa had led a deadly raid into New Mexico that left an American town destroyed. After months…
June 18: The Flowering of America’s Oldest Municipal Rose Garden
For over a hundred years, crowds of visitors have flocked to Connecticut’s Elizabeth Park in June to witness thousands of roses in bloom in the park’s historic Rose Garden. One notable example of this annual pilgrimage occurred on this day in 1933, when nearly 15,000 people — some from as far away as California…
June 17: Windsor’s “Murder Factory” Story Kills at the Box Office
Today in Connecticut history, the Broadway comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace,” based on one of Connecticut’s most infamous true crime tales, wrapped up its wildly successful New York run after over 1,400 shows. The unlikely inspiration for “Arsenic and Old Lace,” written by Joseph Kesserling in 1939, was the story of Amy Archer-Gilligan, a…
June 16: The Liberty Bell Comes to Connecticut
On this day in 1903, one of the most iconic symbols of American freedom — the Liberty Bell — arrived in Connecticut as part of a multi-state tour. Most Americans today think of the Liberty Bell as a stationary, permanent fixture of Philadelphia; a typical “look but don’t touch” museum piece viewed from behind…