Connecticut Trivia & Tidbits - Page 9

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

The first phone book was published in New Haven in February 1878. It was one page long and included 50 names. No numbers were listed because the operator connected callers.

first appeared: 2/8/2004

“Jimmy” Hepburn, born on Nov. 8, 1909 in Hartford, was an athletic tomboy who played boys’ sports and disliked her real name, Katharine.

first appeared: 2/1/2004

The state’s first Colonial export to England was sassafras, a tree whose parts can be used in making everything from perfumes to tea and beer.

first appeared: 1/25/2004

Old Newgate Prison in East Granby (pop. 4,745) was a copper mine in the early 1700s, before its tunnels became the first state prison in America in 1773, lasting until 1827. It is now a National Historic Landmark and a leading state tourist attraction.

first appeared: 1/18/2004

Prudence Crandall (1803-1890) was a devout Quaker who in 1833 established a school for black girls in Canterbury (pop. 4,692). Today, the school’s former home is a National Historic Landmark.

first appeared: 1/11/2004

Prescott S. Bush of Greenwich was elected town moderator before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952. One of his five sons is former President George Herbert Walker Bush, and his grandson is President George W. Bush.

first appeared: 1/4/2004

If you fly west from any point in Connecticut, you enter New York state, and if you fly due east from the state’s southwest corner, you also encounter New York, in the form of Long Island.

first appeared: 12/28/2003

The 1929 Mystic Seaport in Mystic (pop. 4,001) is America’s leading maritime museum, and protects the world’s largest collections of boats and sea-related photography.

first appeared: 12/21/2003

During the 19th century, the state led the nation in the number of patents issued per capita. Its inventors included Eli Whitney, Charles Goodyear and Samuel Colt.

first appeared: 12/14/2003

In 1878, the world’s first commercial telephone exchange opened in a storefront in the Boardman Building in New Haven with eight lines and 21 subscribers.

first appeared: 12/7/2003

Connecticut politician Roger Sherman broke the impasse at the 1787 Constitutional Convention by suggesting the Connecticut Compromise. This plan proposed equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House.

first appeared: 11/30/2003

The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs (pop. 10,996) preserves puppets built by University of Connecticut students for Puppet Theatre productions. Puppets from all corners of the globe are on display as well.

first appeared: 11/23/2003

The word game Scrabble, invented in the early 1930s, was originally called Lexico. Initially rejected by game companies, it was first manufactured in 1949 in a private home in Newtown (pop. 25,031).

first appeared: 11/16/2003

The Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship to retire from service, is berthed at Mystic Seaport in Mystic (pop. 4,001).

first appeared: 11/9/2003

The Quinebaug & Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor is considered the last unspoiled rural valley between Boston and Washington, D.C.

first appeared: 11/2/2003

While working as a corporate executive for a Hartford insurance company, Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) found time to pen poetry on his commute to and from work. Today, he is considered one of America’s renowned poets.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

Epitaph collectors often quote the line written on the Putnam (pop. 9,002) grave of Phineas G. Wright. Wright, who died in 1918 at the age of 89, is immortalized with the inscription: “Going, But Know Not Where.”

first appeared: 10/19/2003

In an effort to relieve her son’s asthma, Margaret Rudkin baked him bread made with stone ground whole wheat in the 1930s. Her bread recipe ultimately launched the Pepperidge Farm business, named after the family’s Fairfield farm.

first appeared: 10/12/2003

Opened in 1998, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Ledyard (pop. 14,687) features a walk through an 18,000-year-old glacial crevasse and a 16th-century American Indian village, both complete with sounds and smells.

first appeared: 10/5/2003

Hartford native George Capewell invented the horseshoe nail in 1881, earning the city the nickname Horseshoe Nail Capital of the World. Capewell Horsenails Inc. still operates in nearby Bloomfield (pop. 19,587).

first appeared: 9/28/2003

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