Connecticut Trivia & Tidbits - Page 15

Looking for Connecticut trivia? Try our list Connecticut little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The first almanac in America, The Cambridge Alamanack, was printed in New Haven in 1684.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

When British officials in Hartford tried to seize Connecticut’s colonial charter in 1682, Captain Joseph Wentworth hid the document in a hollow oak tree—which thereafter became known as the Charter Oak.

first appeared: 10/14/2001

The first coin-operated pay phone was patented in 1889 by William Gray of Hartford, just 12 years after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

first appeared: 10/7/2001

Israel Putnam (1718-1790), one of Connecticut’s generals during the American Revolution, was called “Old Wolf” because, in his days as a farmer, he had an encounter with a wolf that had been preying upon his sheep. Putnam crawled into a cave to find and kill the animal at considerable risk to his own life.

first appeared: 9/30/2001

Sea Capt. Nathaniel Palmer of the Borough of Stonington (pop. 1,036), while in command of the ship Hero, discovered Antarctica in 1820.

first appeared: 9/23/2001

Monte Cristo Cottage, Eugene O’Neill’s childhood home in New London (pop. 25,671), was the setting for his autobiographical drama Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

first appeared: 9/16/2001

Although large commercial typewriters were in use by the late 1860s, the nation’s first moveable—or portable—typewriter was patented by G.C. Blickensderfer, a resident of Stamford, in 1892.

first appeared: 9/9/2001

Samuel Colt (1814-1862) invented the first practical multi-shot pistol, receiving his patent in 1836. Manufacturing the “six-shooter” in Hartford, his sales of the pistol to the U.S. Army made him one of the wealthiest men of his time.

first appeared: 9/2/2001

Windsor (pop. 28,237) was this state’s first town. Settled by the English in the 1630s, it united with the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield in 1639 to form the colony of Connecticut.

first appeared: 8/26/2001

In 1985, Denise L. Matthews of Old Saybrook (pop. 10,367) became the first woman to graduate at the head of the class of a military academy—in this case, the Coast Guard Academy in New London.

first appeared: 8/19/2001

Serving as deputy commissary to the Continental Army, Christopher Leffingwell sent food, arms, and clothing from Connecticut to enable the army to survive—earning Connecticut a nickname as the “Provisions State.” Leffingwell’s own mill in Norwich was the first paper mill in the state and provided paper for bullet cartridges.

first appeared: 8/12/2001

Connecticut adopted Prudence Crandall (1803-1890) as its state heroine in 1995. Crandall established the first academy for African-American women in New England in 1833. The Prudence Crandall House in Canterbury (pop. 4,692) is a National Historic Landmark.

first appeared: 8/5/2001

Wethersfield (pop. 25,700) has one of the country’s oldest continuing volunteer fire departments, formed shortly after the town was settled in 1634.

first appeared: 7/29/2001

The American Bittern, an endangered species in this state, is so rare only one sighting of a nest has been confirmed in the last 10 years. This heron, which requires a large wetland habitat, points its bill straight up when frightened.

first appeared: 7/22/2001

A resident of Thomaston (pop. 2,000), Eli Terry (1772-1852) built the first shelf clock in the United States—the “pillar scroll top”—in 1814.

first appeared: 7/15/2001

One of the world’s oldest church bells tolls from the tower of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in East Haddam (pop. 6,700). Cast for a Spanish monastery in A.D. 815, the bell was salvaged after Napoleon’s troops destroyed the monastery.

first appeared: 7/8/2001

In 1866, the world’s first steam-powered automobile was manufactured in Bridgeport by a company called H. A. House.

first appeared: 7/1/2001

Born in Bethel (pop. 17,757), circus great Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum (1810-1891) introduced several new terms into the language—including jumbo, throw your hat in the ring, the greatest show on earth, and rain or shine.

first appeared: 6/24/2001

Some lines of Yankee Doodle, the state song, are based on history. During the French and Indian Wars, a group of Connecticut volunteers marched into the British camp with chicken feathers stuck in their hats. The British regulars laughed at their dress, calling them “macaronis,” a common London term for a “dandy,” or someone preoccupied with clothes and manners.

first appeared: 6/17/2001

One of Connecticut’s nicknames, The Nutmeg State, comes from a story that early Connecticut traders made wooden nutmegs and sold them as real ones for shipping to British markets. (Nutmeg is the seed of a tropical tree, ground into a spice.)

first appeared: 6/10/2001

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