Amazing Tales from Off and On Connecticut‘s Beaten Path

During COVID, a Connecticut resident tracked down – and then drove – all 100 of Connecticut’s original turnpikes, which serviced all but five of the state’s municipalities. Some are interstate highways today; others are neglected, torn-up, and nearly forgotten paths through woodlands. John Schwemmer, an aerospace engineer from Windsor Locks, had to match up ancient and current maps to even find the present-day locations for many of...

We know that vast sums of money passed through Connecticut during the Revolutionary War to pay soldiers for their service. Rumors remain to this day that two shipments were stolen, buried, and never recovered. These stories – from East Thompson and East Granby – involve millions of dollars in gold coins, banknotes, and possibly other relics. Many have searched for this missing Revolutionary War treasure, but none have found it. Hea...

There’s a nearly forgotten, 100-mile-long trail that brought the founders of Connecticut from the Massachusetts Bay Colony nearly 400 years ago. The gorgeous and rustic Old Connecticut Path runs through northeast Connecticut’s so-called “forgotten corner” in Windham County (including the towns of Thompson, Woodstock, Eastford, Ashford, Willington, Tolland, Vernon, Manchester, and Hartford). Much of the trail is still in its natural...

Refrigeration, as a technology, is only about 100 years old. Before then, people kept food chilled in an insulated ice box. You needed to routinely place large chunks of ice in the ice box to make sure food didn’t spoil. For 150 years, the harvesting of ice from ponds and lakes in Connecticut was a big business. We’re going to learn how this was done from the Research Director of the White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield...

Connecticut has 21 active and inactive lighthouses – from Greenwich to Stonington. Some are on land, and some are built on rock outcroppings in Long Island Sound. Each lighthouse “blinks” in a unique rhythm, or character, so sea captains know which lighthouse it is. The oldest lighthouse museum in the country is in Stonington, and we’ll hear from the Executive Director of the Stonington Historical Society (which owns the museum), E...

Connecticut produced a lot of “firsts” for the new United States. Among them was clock-making. Plymouth, Bristol and Waterbury were the leading clock manufacturing centers in the country for more than a century. While the technology for making clocks was brought here from England, an ingenious advancement by Eli Terry brought a breakthrough approach to mass production that was copied by other businesses as the industrial revolution...

Ever since The New York Times reported in 2017 the existence of the Pentagon’s secret UFO tracking program, and both government and academia now say there’s something to UFOs, the matter has come out of the closet. In Connecticut, many sightings have occurred over the years, including a famous series of incidents over the western portion of the state in the 1980s. From the Roswell, New Mexico incident to the U.S. Navy pilots who we...

Rail travel in Connecticut is nearly 200 years old and during that time the state has suffered numerous fatal train accidents. Several incidents set records for accidents in the history books. Seven crashes - in Bridgeport, Darien, East Thompson, North Branford, Norwalk, Ridgefield, and Trumbull - dating back to 1853, killed 85 people and injured hundreds of others, many quite seriously. Host Mike Allen recounts the backstories beh...

Rochambeau’s French Army helped the Americans win the fight for independence against Britain in 1781. Yet, they had to overcome multiple cultural and economic hurdles to do so. Among the issues: Hussar Soldiers wore colorful and distinctive uniforms and were brave fighters, but they only spoke German and occasionally pillaged livestock and crops from the citizens of rural, English-speaking Lebanon, CT where they spent the winter of...

Connecticut’s largest lake is actually a major hydroelectric generating facility. Candlewood Lake, bordering five towns in western CT, is nearing 100 years old. It’s been generating green electricity since long before the term came into vogue. The story behind its creation – the clearing of 4,500 acres of land, the building of a massive earthen dam to hold 46 billion gallons of water, and the flooding of two former villages – is no...

Connecticut’s rivers – like so many around colonial America – were the waste receptacles of their time. Sewage and industrial waste, bulky garbage and many other items clogged and polluted the waterways people depended on for drinking water and transportation. The rivers smelled horrible and were unhealthy. What turned them around were pivotal court cases involving New Britain’s use of Piper Brook, towns using the Naugatuck River, ...

The bells that are (1) on all Good Humor trucks, (2) marked the rounds between Mohammed Ali’s iconic boxing matches, (3) gave Clarence his wings at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, and (4) open and close trading on the New York Stock Exchange each day all have one thing in common – they were made by Bevin Bells in East Hampton, CT. East Hampton – or “Bell Town” as they call themselves – has been the center of U.S. bell manufacturi...

Whaling was a critical part of the Connecticut economy for 200 years, ending only in the 1920s. Of the 2,700 wooden whaling ships built over that time, only one remains – the Charles W. Morgan, anchored at Mystic Seaport in CT. Voyages lasted for several years, with 60 whales caught on each trip for blubber, oil and bone. The oil literally made the Industrial Age possible by lubricating machine parts. It’s an amazing story, as told...

In the 1600s and 1700s, Connecticut owned a wide swath of land all the way across the country, ending at the Pacific Ocean. They gave all of it to the federal government – except for 3 million acres in Ohio (the so-called Western Reserve). Today, many town names in northeast Ohio are based on Connecticut namesakes – including Cleveland. This very early “wild, wild west” story includes land speculators, wagon train settlers, and dis...

It’s the longest-running ferry service in the United States, having started back in 1655. It only lasts 4 minutes and covers about a quarter mile, but nautically, the ever-changing currents, tides, rain, wind, and fog make it quite challenging. While its capacity is just three cars, the Rocky Hill-Glastonbury Ferry is a crucial service for thousands of commuters and other riders each year who need to cross the Connecticut River. He...

Nathan Hale is Connecticut’s official State Hero, so designated by the Legislature. Yet, there remain some aspects of his famous capture and execution by the British as America’s first spy that are subject to different accounts. There is even some uncertainty as to whether he actually said the famous final words attributed to him: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” We’ll separate the fascinating fact f...

Through the late 1800s, the temperance movement built up political strength and by 1919, Congress passed a Constitutional Amendment ushering in the Era of Prohibition. The making and sale of alcohol was prohibited. Just two states refused to ratify it – and Connecticut was one of them. There were 1,500 speakeasies in the state, rum-runners operating on Long Island Sound, and only a dozen federal agents assigned to enforce the ban s...