Falkner Island is a 2.87-acre (1.16 ha) crescent-shaped island located in Long Island Sound 3 miles (5 km) off Guilford, Connecticut, United States. The island has been visited by the Native Americans for thousands of years. Its Quinnipiac name is "Massancummock", meaning "the place of the great fish hawks". In 1641, Henry Whitfield and the founders of Guilford purchased the island from the Mohegan tribe's sachem, Uncas, as part of a transaction for the land east of East River. Purchased by the Stone family in 1715, it remained in the family until it was sold to the government in 1801.
Guilford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, that borders Madison, Branford, North Branford and Durham, and is situated on I-95 and the Connecticut coast. The town is part of the South Central Connecticut Planning Region. The population was 22,073 at the 2020 census.
Thomas Hooker was a prominent English colonial leader and Congregational minister, who founded the Connecticut Colony after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts. He was known as an outstanding speaker and an advocate of universal Christian suffrage.
Theophilus Eaton was a wealthy New England Puritan merchant, diplomat and financier, who took part in organizing and financing the Great Puritan Migration to America. He was a founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a founder and eventual governor of New Haven Colony. He also cofounded Boston, Massachusetts, Greenwich, Connecticut and Eaton's Neck in New York.
New Haven Colony was an English colony from 1638 to 1664 that included settlements on the north shore of Long Island Sound, with outposts in modern-day New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The colony joined Connecticut Colony in 1664.
The Connecticut Colony, originally known as the Connecticut River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became the state of Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settlement for a Puritan congregation of settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Thomas Hooker. The English would secure their control of the region in the Pequot War. Over the course of the colony's history it would absorb the neighboring New Haven and Saybrook colonies. The colony was part of the briefly-lived Dominion of New England. The colony's founding document, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut has been called the first written constitution of a democratic government, earning Connecticut the nickname "The Constitution State."
Roger Ludlow (1590–1664) was an English lawyer, magistrate, military officer, and colonist. He was active in the founding of the Colony of Connecticut, and helped draft laws for it and the nearby Massachusetts Bay Colony. Under his and John Mason's direction, Boston's first fortification, later known as Castle William and then Fort Independence was built on Castle Island in Boston harbor. Frequently at odds with his peers, he eventually also founded Fairfield and Norwalk before leaving New England entirely.
Francis Higginson (1588–1630) was an early Puritan minister in Colonial New England, and the first minister of Salem, Massachusetts. He was an ancestor of Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Edward Hopkins was an English colonist and politician and 2nd Governor of the Connecticut Colony. Active on both sides of the Atlantic, he was a founder of the New Haven and Connecticut colonies, serving seven one-year terms as Governor of Connecticut. He returned to England in the 1650s, where he was politically active in the administration of Oliver Cromwell as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and member of Parliament. He remained in England despite being elected Governor of Connecticut in 1655, and died in London in 1657.
Christ Church with St Ewen is a Church of England parish church in Broad Street, Bristol, England.
Thomas Welles is the only person in Connecticut's history to hold all four top offices: governor, deputy governor, treasurer, and secretary. In 1639, he was elected as the first treasurer of the Colony of Connecticut, and from 1640 to 1649 served as the colony's secretary. In this capacity, he transcribed the Fundamental Orders into the official colony records on 14 January 1638, OS,. He was the magistrate during the first witch trials, the Hartford or Connecticut Witch Trials.
The Henry Whitfield House is a historic house located in Guilford, Connecticut, down the street from the town green. This house dates from 1639, having been built just before the town of Guilford was settled. It is the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England. It also served as a fort to protect the community with its massive stone walls. Henry Whitfield was a Puritan minister who had come from England to flee religious persecution, and the settlers built the house for him. The house was remodeled in 1868 and opened to the public in 1899 as the Henry Whitfield State Museum, the first Connecticut state museum. It was restored in 1902–04 and again in the 1930s, and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. It was named a State Archeological Preserve in 2006.
William Leete was Governor of the Colony of New Haven from 1661 to 1665 and Governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1676 to 1683.
Wequash Cooke was allegedly one of the earliest Native American converts to Protestant Christianity, and as a sagamore he played an important role in the 1637 Pequot War in New England.
Lieut. Joseph Judson was an early New England colonist best known for co-founding the town of Woodbury, Connecticut.
John Gregory, a cobbler and tanner, was a founding settler of Norwalk, Connecticut. He was a deputy of the General Court of the Connecticut Colony in the sessions of October 1659, October 1662, May 1663, May 1665, October 1667, May 1668, May and October 1669, October 1670, October 1671, May 1674, May 1675, October 1677, May 1679, October 1680, May 1681, October 1695.
Thomas Sheafe D.D. was a Canon of Windsor from 1614 to 1639.
The Whitfield family was a prominent American political family of the Southern states. The Whitfields formed the American branch of the British Whitfield family - having descended from the British aristocracy, particularly the Earls of Kilmorey and having established colonial residency under Sir. Thomas Whitfield, whom headed East India Trading for the British Empire. In early days of Colonial America, the family emigrated to Virginia in the seventeenth century, particularly, Nansemond County, Virginia from Lancashire, England.
Guilford Historic Town Center is a large historic district encompassing the entire town center of Guilford, Connecticut, in the United States. It is centered on the town green, laid out in 1639, and extends north to Interstate 95, south to Long Island Sound, west to the West River, and east to East Creek. It includes more than 600 historic structures, most built between the late 17th and early 20th centuries, reflecting the town's growth and history during that time. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Plantation Covenant of Guilford, Connecticut, sometimes called the Guilford Covenant, was a covenant signed on June 1, 1639 by English colonists during their Atlantic crossing as the founding document of what would become Guilford, Connecticut.
