Archives

Enfield Shaker's Village Enfield Rose Conrad This area was once occupied by the only Shaker settlement in Connecticut. Dissenting from many activities of American society, the Shakers were associated with reform movements, including feminism, pacifism, and abolitionism. The diary of one member records the visits of fugitive slaves to the settlement, including Sojourner...

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Hartford Barbara West Jarvis Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), an antislavery novel of enormous impact in the United States, had lifelong associations with Hartford. She permanently moved to the city in 1864 and resided at 73 Forest Street from 1873 until her death in 1896. Her home is operated as a museum by the Ha...

Frank T. Simpson House Hartford Iva Allison Dr. Frank T. Simpson was born in Alabama in 1907, graduated from Tougaloo College, and moved to Hartford in 1929. He was active in social work in the city and in January 1944 became the first employee of the Connecticut Inter-Racial Commission, one of the first state civil rights organizations in the United States. Simpson ev...

Barkhamsted Light House Barkhamsted Gay Gardner Wilson At this site was a village made up of Native Americans, African Americans, and whites who in their time were considered outcasts. The village was established ca. 1740 by Molly Barber, a white woman from Wethersfield, Connecticut, and her husband, James Chaugham, a Narragansett Indian from Block Island in Long Islan...

Archer Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church Windsor Iva Allison A community of African Americans developed in the Hayden Station area during the nineteenth century. One of the religious and social centers for this community was the Archer Memorial Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church. Its first building was constructed under the guidance of the Reverend Dennis Scott White, ...

The Freedom Trail Quilt project and the display of the quilts in the Connecticut State Library's Museum of Connecticut History represent an acknowledgement by public and private groups of the great significance of the Freedom Trail story within the history of Connecticut and the nation.

Lantern Block Tora Sterregaard The North Star and lantern are the key elements of the logo of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

Fort Griswold Groton Jacqueline Owens, Janice Trolin Fort Griswold is one of the few locations in Connecticut where a Revolutionary War battle took place. The American defenders, greatly outnumbered, were local militia for the most part and included two African Americans: Jordan Freeman and Lambert Latham. During the battle, Freeman helped spear a British officer, an i...

Prudence Crandall House Canterbury Rebecca Sipple This imposing late Georgian-style house was purchased by Prudence Crandall in 1831 to be a private academy for local young women and men. When she admitted Sarah Harris, an African American student, Crandall found that parents of white students objected. In April 1833, she opened her house as a boarding school for young...

Hempstead Historic District New London Sheila Yee Littlejohn Located in the center of New London and surrounding the seventeenth-century Joshua Hempstead House, the Hempstead Historic District includes houses that were purchased by free African Americans in the 1840s. These properties were sold by Hempstead descendants, who were abolitionists, to Savillion Haley, who b...