New Milford

This valley, known to the Potatuck Indians as Weantinock, was purchased from them in 1703 by a company chiefly from Milford, Connecticut, giving New Milford its name. Its earliest white inhabitant, Zachariah Ferriss, arrived in 1706, and the first permanent settlers, John Noble, his daughter Sarah, and John Bostwick, followed in 1707. Originally a plantation, the area was incorporated in 1712 with its first twelve families as the forty-seventh Connecticut town, and Daniel Boardman was called that year as the town’s first minister. The first meetinghouse was erected here in 1721, and the earliest school opened in 1729. In the summer of 1725, William Gaylord moved farther up the Housatonic River and settled the area now known as Gaylordsville. The first bridge over the Housatonic from sea to source was erected west of here in 1737. After the Lexington alarm in 1775, about 285 men enlisted in the Continental Army, and many in Captain Isaac Bostwick’s Company crossed the Delaware River with General Washington on the night of December 25, 1776, to fight at Trenton. Roger Sherman, who settled here in 1748 and represented New Milford in the General Assembly in 1755 and from 1758 to 1761, became the only man to sign the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. South of here lived Elijah Boardman, a patriot, member of the General Assembly, and United States Senator from 1821 to 1823. With the opening of the southern portion of the Housatonic Railroad in 1840, New Milford became an industrial and trading center for the surrounding region.

New Milford, Connecticut · United States