Connecticut was founded by a small group of Puritans who migrated to New England between 1632 and 1642.
In 1614, the Dutch sailor, Adriaen Block, explored the Connecticut River and 19 years later, a Dutch trading post was established at the site of Hartford. Soon after, a group of traders from Plymouth built a stockade at Windsor. Settlement of the three founding towns of Connecticut took place shortly thereafter.
A group of seventy unhappy inhabitants of Dorchester, led by a Roger Ludlow, moved to Windsor during the summer and fall of 1635. They settled close to the Plymouth group and bought them out in 1637.
Wethersfield was founded in 1635-36 by a group of thirty families from Watertown led by two ministers, Richard Denton and John Sherman.
The last, and most famous, of the migrations to the Connecticut River Valley occurred in June 1636, when Thomas Hooker's flock of 100 travelled overland from Newtown to the site of Hartford.
Similar motives drove all three groups of settlers - dissatisfaction with the religious and political leadership in Massachusetts Bay and the fertile farm land on a navigable river. Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was established in November 1635.
The tiny colony's first governor was John Winthrop, Jr. (1605/6-1676), but its two real leaders were Lion Gardiner (1599-1663), who constructed the fort at Saybrook, and George Fenwick (d. 1657), who ruled over the trading post and fort until 1664 when it became part of Connecticut.
The defeat of the Pequot Indians in 1637 led to a more detailed review of the shoreline of Long Island Sound. As a result, the large harbor at Quinnipiac (New Haven) was deemed to be particularly attractive. Ouinnipiac's proximity to New Amsterdam and the desire to exploit the local fur trade were also factors in persuading the Reverend John Davenport (1597-1669/70) and wealthy merchant Theophilus Eaton (1590-1657/58) to locate their biblical commonwealth on this spot in 1638.
Both colonies incorporated additional towns within their jurisdictions. The New Haven Colony eventually included the towns of Milford, Guilford, Stamford, Branford, and Southold.
The larger Connecticut colony included Farmington, Middletown, New London, Sonington, Norwich, Stratford, Fairfield, and Norwalk.
