About events or activities that occurred across the state, in addition to Windsor
The early morning hours of January 24, 1925 were frigid. Nonetheless, men, women, and children from all over the Windsor area dressed in their warmest clothes to view the long anticipated spectacle: a total eclipse of the sun.
The Hartford Courant's Fresh-Air Excursions were one of the many programs, clubs, and organizations that made Rainbow Park an annual destination during the late 1890s. Rainbow businessmen Henry Snow and Samuel Vernon opened the park in 1895, the year the Hartford Street Railway Company completed the trolley line to Rainbow.
They are the red sandstone markers set on the sides of the roads with the letters H or H.C. chiseled into them. The letters indicate the number of miles to the Hartford Court House, today known as the Old State House. In 1787 the Connecticut legislature ordered that “towns shall set up milestones on mail routes, marking distances from the county towns."
This map shows Windsor's various daughter, granddaughter, adopted daughter, and step-daughter towns. The green areas show the land originally within Windsor's boundaries (dotted lines separate slices of towns originally from Windsor). Map by [...]
The Farmington River winds its way through the entire width and much of the length of Windsor. It crosses major roads in two locations: Palisado Ave. and Poquonock Ave. Over the centuries, numerous bridges have spanned the Farmington in both locations, several of which are featured here.
It came unexpectedly while people were picking apples, preparing dinner, coming home from school, and tending Windsor's tobacco crop. September 21st, 2018 marked the 80th anniversary of the Great Hurricane of 1938 that struck Windsor and New England for two hours late on a Wednesday afternoon.
What would it be like to come to this town after a harrowing ocean voyage and adjust to a new climate, new foods, new working conditions, and racial prejudice, as well? Fay Clarke Johnson tells the story of Jamaicans who left their lovely, temperate island to find work in the Connecticut River Valley during WWII in her 1995 book Soldiers of the Soil.
Across the road from the Strong-Howard House stands the First Church of Windsor. Looking back on the church’s history, there was a peculiar practice called “seating the meetinghouse” whereby all the parishioners were assigned their seats according to their wealth, position in the community, age, sex, etc.
Most people know that there were once two ferries in Windsor: the Rivulet Ferry on the Farmington River and the Bissell Ferry across the Connecticut River. However, there was also another, almost unknown, ferry operating here in the 18th century. It was called the Wolcott Ferry.
Everyone pretends to be a wee bit Irish on March 17, but Windsor has a stronger connection to the Emerald Isle than one day of shamrocks and green attire. In fact, Irish immigrants flocked to Windsor during the 19th century looking for work and a safe place to raise their families. Twenty percent of Windsor’s population was first or second-generation Irish by 1860.