On October 3, 1979, a devastating tornado hit the village of Poquonock in Windsor at 3 PM. Three people were killed, 143 hospitalized and 350 others were treated in emergency rooms. Sue Banks was one of the Poquonock residents at home with her children that afternoon. These are her memories from that day.
A rhetoric scholar reexamines Windsor’s early growth through land deed transactions between the Native people and English settlers.
2019 marks the 125th anniversary of Windsor's Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth Chapter of the DAR. For the occasion, we are republishing this history of the national and local DAR organizations. It originally appeared in The Windsor Town Crier newspaper in December, 1916.
In 1903 the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) acquired, restored, furnished and opened the Oliver Ellsworth Homestead in Windsor, Connecticut. It’s a milestone that represents the beginning of the landmark-as-museum phenomenon in Connecticut.
Princess Julia Grant Cantacuzène Speransky was a charter member of and museum collections donor to Windsor Historical Society. She was also a descendant of Windsor founder Matthew Grant.
When we receive donations for our museum and archives collections, one of the first tasks we undertake is to determine the importance of the objects and figure out if and how they fit into the history of our town. While that is simple enough to say, the process can be painstaking, alternating between fulfilling and frustrating, but always fascinating.
In 1711, Connecticut outlawed walking “in the night season” to discourage people from being out at night drunk and making a commotion. The following 1770 document from our collection reflects this law in action. It's a detailed and vivid formal complaint about some late-night shenanigans, unappreciated by the victim of those shenanigans.
Elaine joined us in 1990 as a library assistant and later as the volunteer librarian, in charge of cataloging and ordering books, keeping the library in order, and coaching the many patrons who visit it.
Windsor Historical Society operates two historic house museums, including the 1767 Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee House. In its time it was the largest home on the Palisado Green. In 1992, the town leased the Chaffee House to Windsor Historical Society to operate as a museum. How would we furnish it?
For students of Windsor’s early history, there are few figures more important than Matthew Grant. It is thanks in large part to his careful record keeping during his years as town clerk that we are able to piece together much of our information about Windsor’s beginnings.