The first farmers in this area were the Indigenous people who lived along the Connecticut River, and artifacts from this first farming community were uncovered at the Morgan Trench archaeological dig in the Rocky Hill Great Meadows. Surface finds first discovered by Rocky Hill residents June and David Cooke in 1977 led to full scale digs by the Albert Morgan Society in 1986 and the 1990s in the Connecticut River floodplain, yielding caches of digging tools, antlers, points, pipes, deer, maize, pottery, and hickory nuts with the earliest radiocarbon date of A.D. 1170. As early as 1649, hundreds of acres of land were donated by Wethersfield to form Stepney Parish, later becoming Rocky Hill in 1843, and most of the land was used for agriculture closely tied to daily life and the maritime industry. Farmers regularly used the ferry to transport goods across the Connecticut River, and from 1750 to the 1820 they supplied sailing ships headed south from Rocky Hill Landing with products including apples, barley, beef, cider, corn, cows, flax, hemp, horses, mules, onions, pears, pork, rye, sheep, and wheat. The 1870 census listed 85 farmers in Rocky Hill, and from the mid 1800s to the early 1970s dairies covered the landscape, including Anulewizc, Backiel, Broadview, Boyd, Churchill, Elm Hill, E.P. Hayes, Hayes, C.B. Gilbert, Hillcres, Jensen, Krol, Pierczyk, Matway, Mingos, Meisterling Bros., Meon, Schultz, Smith, Sunny Crest, and Sun Valley. By 2022 no dairies remained in Rocky Hill after farmland was reduced and lost through the construction of Route I-91 in the 1960s, the building of the Silas Dean Highway in the 1930s, and the development of housing, condos, and businesses from the 1950s to the present, which slowly transformed the town into a modern suburb. In 2012 residents voted 3-1 by referendum to borrow up to $10 million to protect farmland, increase open space, and reduce residential sprawl, and in 2018 Rocky Hill became a Right to Farm town through the leadership of former Mayor Joe Kochanek.