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While Middlesex County is one of the most historic communities in the nation, some of its past is little known. Researchers found dinosaur tracks in Middlefield that date back 200 million years. The author of Dr. Dolittle, Hugh Lofting, lived in Killingworth, and a young Dr. Seuss spent summers in Clinton. Constance Baker Motley, the first female African American federal judge, resided in Chester. A Portland lake has water levels that fluctuate for no apparent reason. An Essex blacksmith shop was America's oldest continuously run family business. Local authors Robert and Kathleen Hubbard reveal these and many other unforgettable stories.

Almost everyone is familiar with the name of at least one Revolutionary War battle. Some, like Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown are household names. Others are less well known but readily recognized when mentioned. An engagement in Connecticut during the war’s seventh year, commanded by one of history’s most infamous military names, is not among them. Matthew E. Reardon has set out to rectify that oversight with The Traitor’s Homecoming: Benedict Arnold’s Raid on New London, Connecticut, September 4–13, 1781. By 1781, the war in North America had reached a stalemate. That changed during the summer when the combined Franco-American armies of Generals George Washington and Jean-Baptiste comte de Rochambeau deceived British General Sir Henry Clinton into believing they were about to lay siege to New York City. In fact, they were moving south toward Yorktown, Virginia, in a bid to trap Lord Cornwallis’s British army against the sea. Clinton fell for the deception and dispatched former American general Benedict Arnold to attack New London. Clinton hoped to destroy the privateers operating out of its harbor and derail militia reinforcements and supplies heading from Connecticut to the allied armies outside New York City. Situated in southeastern Connecticut, New London was the center of the state’s wartime naval activities. State and Continental naval vessels operated out of its harbor, which doubled as a haven for American privateers. Arnold landed on September 6 and, in a textbook operation, defeated local militia, took possession of the town, harbor, and forts, and set New London’s waterfront ablaze. But that is not how it is remembered. The Connecticut governor’s vicious propaganda campaign against the British and Arnold, who was already infamous for his treachery, created a narrative of partial truths and embellishments that persist to this day. As such, most of the attention remains on the bloody fighting and supposed “massacre” at Fort Griswold. There is much more to the story. The Traitor’s Homecoming uses dozens of newly discovered British and American primary sources to weave a balanced military study of an often forgotten and misunderstood campaign. Indeed, Reardon achieves a major reinterpretation of the battle while dismantling its myths. Thirteen original maps and numerous illustrations and modern photographs flesh out this provocative and groundbreaking study.

This 1995 book presents an alternative and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion.

The story of the eighteenth century preacher David Brainerd has been told in dozens of popular biographies, articles, and short essays. Almost without exception, these works are celebratory, even hagiographic in nature, making him into a kind of Protestant saint, a model for generations of missionaries. This book will be the first scholarly biography of Brainerd, drawing on everything from town records and published sermons to hand-written fragments to tell the story not only of Brainerd's life, but of his legend.

In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, For Want of Wings is Jill Hunting’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history. In her quest to piece together fragments of her family’s past, Hunting ends up crisscrossing the United States, from California to Connecticut. On her first trip across the Colorado Rockies to the fossil bed site near Russell Springs, Kansas, Hunting brings along her then twenty-six-year-old daughter. When the book opens, mother and daughter are both at crossroads, each seeking to understand the impact of personal decisions on the landscape of her life. As Hunting ventures forward, she encounters unexpected resources, such as ten-year-old triplets who converse with her about dinosaurs and a Connecticut museum where portraits of her ancestors hang on the walls. Through lively descriptions of these visits, Hunting advances a view of history as nonlinear and full of unlikely coincidences. For Want of Wings is also the carefully researched story of the least known of Yale’s four expeditions into the American West, led by eminent paleontologist O. C. Marsh; the friendship between Russell’s father and abolitionist John Brown; a portrait of a mother and daughter evolving in self-understanding; and an inquiry into matters of race in American history and the author’s own family. In the end, all these pieces converge, like fragments of a fossil, to form an exquisitely patterned work of historical exploration.

The state of Connecticut has 170 town or village greens that still exist today. These greens date back to Colonial times where they served as the physical and spiritual centers for these early towns. Today many town greens continue to be the center of town events, fairs, and other gatherings. Connecticut Town Greens will explore the history of these remarkable greens and provide a guide to current events.

Connecticut Coast is a richly illustrated history of the Nutmeg State’s storied shoreline, from New York State to Rhode Island. Researched and written by a longtime expert in Connecticut history, it comprises a brief narrative on each of the twenty-four shoreline communities, accompanied by the area’s best historic photography. Sidebars sprinkled throughout present lighthouses, fishing and shellfishing, transportation, storms, and more—from the legendary Savin Rock Amusement Park to stylish Jackie Kennedy christening the USS Lafayette in Groton.