Ansonia

The Ansonia High School football team has won sixteen state championships ('76, '77, '79, '81-'84, '87-'89, '94, '95, '02, '03,'06, '07

Notable People

Carl R. Ajello, Attorney General of Connecticut 1975-1983. During his term of office he was elected by his peers as President of the National Association of Attorneys General 1978-1979. He was succeeded by Joseph I. Lieberman.

David Humphreys, aide-de-camp to George Washington, diplomat, legislator, entrepreneur, poet and wit, among whose accomplishments was the introduction of Merino sheep to the United States. In 1789 he accompanied General Washington from Mt. Vernon to New York for the inauguration of the nation's first president. In 1791 became the first ambassador nominated and confirmed under the United States Constitution when posted to Portugal. The Humphreys House is a museum that is a favorite field trip destination for local schools.

Vincent R. Impellitteri, Mayor of New York City from 1950 to 1953. Elected to fill office vacated by William O'Dwyer. When denied support from Tammany Hall he ran as an independent in special election defeating Ferdinand Pecora by 250,000. He was succeeded by Robert F. Wagner, Jr.

General Samuel Jaskilka, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps 1975-1978, a highly-decorated veteran of the Korean War. Led first wave of Marines onto Red Beach in September 15, 1950 invasion of Inchon, Pusan Perimeter as Commanding Officer of Company E, 2d Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. Awarded Distinguished Service Medal and the Silver Star with Combat "V".

Nick Pietrosante, University of Notre Dame fullback, NFL Rookie of the Year 1959, Detroit Lions 1959-1965, was all-time leading rusher. Cleveland Browns 1966-1967. Multiple NFL Pro-Bowl selectee. Notre Dame annually recognizes an outstanding player with award in his memory.

Major General Reuben Henry Tucker III, a highly-decorated United States Army colonel who lead the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division in World War II. Serving under divisional commander James M. Gavin, Colonel Tucker is specifically referenced in Cornelius Ryan's well-known work A Bridge Too Far, published in 1974 which chronicles the 1944 airborne invasion of the Netherlands in "Operation Market Garden".

Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene, noted historian, pioneer in African American history, born in Ansonia on November 18, 1898. First black student to graduate from Ansonia High School. Matriculated at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and Columbia University, New York. Worked with Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History month and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Greene spent his teaching career at Lincoln University of Missouri and authored several books including The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620–1776, The Negro Wage Earner and numerous articles. As the civil rights movement heated up during the 1950s and 1960s, he was appointed to many civil and social rights commissions at the state and national level. He died at age 88 in January 1988 in Jefferson City, Missouri.

William Wallace, inventor, along with Moses Farmer of the first electric dynamo. The dynamo was first exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. A visit by Thomas Edison, to Wallace's brass manufacturing plant in Ansonia on September 8, 1878, accelerated the invention of the first electric incandescent lamp.

Pincus "Pinky" Silverberg, Flyweight Boxing Champion of the World in 1927. He had 82 professional fights in his 17 year boxing career. From 1920 to 1937 he fought in the U.S., Cuba, and Australia. No matter where he traveled he always returned to Ansonia where he died on January 16, 1964. He was truly Ansonia's champion. Pinky was inducted into the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame on November 30, 2007.

Bob Skoronski, NFL player for the Green Bay Packers. He was a member of the 1961, 1962, and 1965 NFL Champion teams, as well as the Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II Champion

Ashford

Notable People

Desireé Bassett (1992-), child guitar prodigy and recording artist.

Walter Eli Clark (1869–1950), journalist, last Governor of the District of Alaska and and the first Governor of the Alaska Territory was born in Ashford.

Clay Dreslough (1970-) Game designer and creator of the Baseball Mogul series of products.

Galusha A. Grow (1822–1907) Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1861 to 1863, was born in Ashford.

Elias Keyes, (1758–1844), born in Ashford, United States Congressman from Vermont.[5]

Thomas Knowlton (1740–1776) military officer in the American Revolution, whom led Knowlton's Rangers, America's first Army intelligence unit. He grew up in Ashford.

Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1861), born in Ashford, the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War, grew up on a farm in Ashford.[5]

Paul Newman (1925–2008), award winning actor, film director and philanthropist, was a seasonal resident of Ashford from the opening of the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in 1988.

Eliphalet Nott (1773–1866), native of Ashford, president of Union College, and from 1829 to 1845 simultaneously was president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was also the inventor of the first stove for anthracite coal

Avon

In 2005, Avon was named the third-safest town in America by Money Magazine

Berlin

Berlin is one of the birthplaces of interchangeable parts manufacturing and of the industrial revolution in the United States, in the workshop of Simeon North

Notable People

James Gates Percival, poet

Bethany

In 2007, Bethany was named Connecticut's #1 Small Town by Connecticut Magazine. The honor evoked pride from residents but also drew concern over the attention; residents continually seek to maintain Bethany's small-town charm and lifestyle

Notable People

David Hoadley (1774—1839), prominent architect

Silas Hoadley (1786—1870), clockmaker

Quincy Porter (1897—1966), Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer

R. W. B. Lewis (1917–2002), biographer and Yale professor Katharine Weber, novelist

Bethel

The first meeting of the Young Communist League was held in Bethel in May 1922.

Bicycle manufacturer Cannondale and battery manufacturer Duracell are headquartered in Bethel.

Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore and actress Meg Ryan are from Bethel.

In 1934, Rudolph Kunett started the first vodka distillery in the U.S. after purchasing rights to the recipe from the exiled Smirnoff family.

Bethel High School is home to an award-winning NJROTC unit. [1]

Notable People

P. T. Barnum (1810–1891) was born in Bethel at 55 Greenwood Avenue. He expanded the home during his youth after a fire destroyed the front of the building.[citation needed]

Dan Cramer a mixed martial arts fighter for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Allan J. Kellogg medal of honor recipient, born in Bethel.

Jan Miner (1917–2004) an actress who played Madge, the wisecracking manicurist in the long-running Palmolive dishwashing detergent television commercials, died in town.[citation needed]

Thurston Moore (born 1958), singer and guitarist for Sonic Youth, was raised in town.[3]

Noël Regney composer of the song "Do You Hear What I Hear" lived in Bethel from 1984-1998.

Meg Ryan was raised in Bethel.[citation needed]

Julius Hawley Seelye (1824–1895) a missionary, author, U.S. Representative, and former president of Amherst College who is said to have created the system of Latin Honors in use at many universities worldwide, was born in town.[citation needed]

Movies filmed in Bethel

The following films were at least partially shot in Bethel.[4] The Entrepreneurs (2008) Revolutionary Road (2008) Rise of the Dead (2007) The Case of the Cosmic Comic (1976) Rachel, Rachel (1968)

Bethlehem

Abbey of Regina Laudis - The town is home to the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis, founded in 1947, one of the first houses of contemplative Benedictine nuns in the United States. Robert Leather, a Protestant industrialist, donated 400 acres (1.6 km²) of land on which the convent is located. The convent now has 37 nuns. The Abbey is known for its commitment to the arts, especially the performance of Gregorian Chant. The acting background of Mother Dolores Hart, O.S.B., has prompted the convent to sponsor annual summer theatre productions. Hart has worked with fellow artists, including James and Dawn Douglas, to found The Act Association, a group that performs at The Gary-The Olivia Theater, an open-air venue which seats about 200 people. Built in 1982 with the help of actress Patricia Neal, this open-air theater seats about 200 people. Productions have included plays by Shakespeare, Sartre, opera and musical reviews. Patricia Neal and James Douglas appeared in She Stoops to Conquer in 1999.

Notable People

Dolores Hart, a former actress who appeared with Elvis Presley, became a Roman Catholic nun at the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in town, ultimately becoming head (or "prioress")of the convent. Her formal title now is the Reverend Mother Dolores Hart.

Joseph Bellamy (1719–1790), an influential Congregationalist theologian in the 18th century, was pastor at the Congregational church in town for 50 years, until his death.

David Leavitt (1791–1879), New York City banker, financier and art collector, born at Bethlehem to Connecticut legislator and businessman David Leavitt Sr.

Actress Christine Baranski and her husband, actor and playwright, Matthew Cowles.

Bloomfield

The New England Muscle Bicycle Museum, with 120 bicycles from the 1960s and 1970s, is open by appointment

Notable People

Lawrence Clay Bey (1965-), professional heavyweight boxer was born in town.

Edward H. Gillette (1840–1918), US Representative for Iowa was born in town.

Jessica Hecht (1965-), actress was born in town.

Anika Noni Rose (1972-), singer and actress was born in town

Joseph F. Ryter (1914-1978), US Representative for Connecticut was a resident and is buried in town.

Nykesha Sales (1976-), WNBA basketball player was born in town.

James Thorpe (1915-2009), Princeton professor and academic lived his later years and died in town.

Bolton

Notable People

Ralph Earl, artist and portrait painter, died in Bolton in 1801.

Ron Hainsey, NHL defenseman for the Atlanta Thrashers.

Simeon Olcott, US Senator from New Hampshire was born in Bolton in 1735.

George G. Sumner, (politician) Connecticut House of Representative for Bolton, Mayor of Hartford and Lieutenant Governor & Governor of Connecticut was a native.

William Williams, was born in Bolton on September 6, 1815.

Bozrah

Notable People

Sam Gejdenson, former United States congressman representing the second congressional district, was born of Jewish parents in a German displaced persons camp following World War II, then came to America with his family in 1950 to eventually settle on a dairy farm in town.

Reuben Hyde Walworth (1788–1867), a New York state jurist and United States Congressman, was nominated three times to become justice of the United States Supreme Court, but his nomination was thwarted on all three occasions

Bridgewater

Notable People

Van Wyck Brooks (1886–1963), a long-time town resident, was a literary critic, biographer, and historian.

Mia Farrow - Actress

Diane Sawyer

Mike Nichols - television reporter and film director

Luman Hamlin Weller was a United States Representative from Iowa.

Lanford Monroe (1950–2000), wildlife artist and sculptor

Philip Evergood - Artist

Charles Seeger- noted musicologist, and composer

Brookfield

Notable People

M. Jodi Rell, governor of Connecticut (resident since 1969)

Kari Wührer (born 1967), actress and singer of Cherokee and German descent.

Julia DeMato, contestant on American Idol

Will Denton, actor on the NBC series Kidnapped.

Brooklyn

It is home to the Brooklyn Fair, America's oldest continuously operating agricultural fair, as well as the Brooklyn Correctional Institution, a state-run medium security prison.

Brooklyn is the final resting place of Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam. Though he was originally buried in an above ground tomb in Brooklyn's South Cemetery, his remains had to be moved due to excessive visitors. In 1888, a statue of Putnam mounted on a horse was erected, and his sarcophagus placed in the foundation. The statue stands in the town green, in front of the town's post office.

Notable People

David Low Dodge, manager or the first cotton factory in Connecticut and one of the founders of the New York Bible Society and the New York Tract Society, was born in town.

Elijah Paine (1757–1842), a Federalist U.S. senator from Vermont (1795–1801) was born in town.

Israel Putnam, a general in the Revolutionary War and a legendary figure in his day, had a farm in Brooklyn, where he died in 1790, and was buried in an above-ground tomb in Brooklyn's South Cemetery.

Michael Bruce Ross (1959–2005) was a serial killer born in town.

Edith Roosevelt, the second wife of President Theodore Roosevelt, spent her summers in Brooklyn in the final years of her life

Burlington

Notable People

Samuel Griswold (1790-1867), industrialist, was born in Burlington.

Leonidas Lent Hamline (1797-1865), a Methodist Episcopal bishop and founder of Hamline University was born in Burlington.

Canterbury

In 1832, Prudence Crandall, a schoolteacher raised as a Quaker, stirred controversy when she opened a school for black girls in town. The Connecticut General Assembly passed the "Black Law" which prohibited the education of black children from out of state, but Crandall persisted in teaching, and was briefly jailed in 1832. Mobs forced the closure of the school in 1834, and Crandall married and moved out of state. Connecticut repealed the Black Law in 1838, and later recognized Crandall with a small pension in 1886, four years before her death. The school still stands in Canterbury, and currently serves as the Prudence Crandall Museum.

Notable People

Prudence Crandall (1803–1890), a schoolteacher who set up a school for black girls in town despite local resistance

John Adams, (1772–1863), born in Canterbury, noted educator and organizer of several hundred Sunday schools[1]

Horace Austin (1831–1905) the sixth governor of Minnesota (1870–1874), was born in town.

William Durkee Williamson (1779–1846) a governor of Maine (1821) was born in town.

Charles Rocket, born Charles Adams Claverie (1949–2005), actor and former resident, who died in town.

Moses Cleaveland (1754–1806), a surveyor and namesake of Cleaveland, Ohio.

Ephraim Paine (1730–1785) delegate for New York to the Continental Congress in 1784, was born in town.

Margaret Wise Brown, childhood home of

Canton

Notable People

Lucien Barbour (1811–1880), U.S. Representative for Indiana was born in town.

Philemon Bliss (1813–1889), U.S. Representative for Ohio was born in town.

Danny Hoffman (1880-1922), major league baseball player was born in town.

Uriel Holmes (1764–1827), U.S. Representative for Connecticut lived his later years and died in town.

Anson Greene Phelps(1781–1853), industrialist and philanthropist, grew up in town.

William E. Simonds (1842–1903), US Civil War veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and U.S. Representative for Connecticut was born in Collinsville, Connecticut.

David Vaudreuil (1966-), Major League Soccer player and coach grew up in town.

Chester

The 1959 film It Happened to Jane was filmed in Chester.

Notable People

Art Carney (1918–2003), actor was a resident and died in town.

Paul Hopkins (1904–2004), major league relief pitcher was born in town.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), artist.

Richard Sachs (1953-), bicycle framebuilder and cyclist lives in town.

Morley Safer (1931-), CBS news correspondent and anchor on "60 Minutes"[4]

Max Showalter (1917–2000), film and television actor retired to Chester.

Washington F. Willcox (1834-1909), US Congressman was a resident.

Clinton

Clinton is known as the bluefish capital of the world. The Bluefish Festival had been and is held annually at the Clinton marina, however in the summer of 2008 it was held at the Clinton Town Hall due to marina construction.

Notable People

Horatio Wright: Civil War general and later, Chief of Army Corps of Engineers

Dr. Seuss: Children's book writer summered here

Abraham Pierson: One of the founders of Yale University

Erica Hill: CNN Headline News news anchor

Charles Morgan: Railroad and shipping magnate

Jared Eliot: Minister, physician, agriculturalist

Colchester

Ranked 57th on the "100 Best Places to Live" in all of the United States, conducted by CNN.

Notable People

John Adams, (1772–1863), founder of Phillips Exeter Academy, was the principal of the Bacon Academy here from 1803-1810.[3]

William Adams, (1807–1880), born in Colchester, noted clergyman and president of the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.[3]

Stephen F. Austin, (1793–1836), attended Bacon Academy in 1803.

Edward Sheffield Bartholomew, (1822–1858), sculptor

Jonathan Coulton, (1970-), is a singer-songwriter.

Henry C. Deming, (1815–1872), mayor of Hartford, mayor of New Orleans, Colonel in the Union Army and US Congressman.

Rick Derringer, (1947-), rock artist and producer.

Ezra Hall Gillett, (1823–1875), author, clergyman, and professor.

Prince Saunders, (1775-1839), attorney general of the Republic of Haiti.

Lyman Trumbull, (1813–1896), born in Colchester, became influential as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Illinois during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Abigail Goodrich Whittelsey, (1788–1858), editor.

Ron Wotus, (1961-), Bacon Academy graduate (1979), San Francisco Giants bench coach.

Colebrook

Notable People

Abiram Chamberlain (1837–1911), the 60th Governor of Connecticut was born in Colebrook.

Donald Barr, (1921-2004), novelist, educator, and book reviewer for the New York Times, retired to Colebrook in the 1980s.[4]

Jonathan Edwards (the younger) (1745–1801), theologian, lived and preached in Colebrook for four years.

Short story writer Harris Merton Lyon lived in North Colebrook.[5]

James Phelps (1822-1900), judge, Connecticut Representative and Senator, and US Congressman was born in town.

Lancelot Phelps (1784-1866), US Congressman and father to James Phelps was a long time resident.

Ammi Phillips (1788–1865), artist, was born in Colebrook.

Thomas Robbins (minister) (1777-1856), Congregational minister, bibliophile, and an antiquarian died in Colebrook.

Julius Rockwell (1805–1888), judge and US Congressman for Massachusetts was born in town.

Columbia

Notable People

Anthony Gregorc, psychologist.

Dwight Loomis (1821-1903), US Congressman and Connecticut Supreme Court judge.

Cornwall

In 1939 poet Mark Van Doren wrote "The Hills of Little Cornwall", a short poem in which the beauties of the countryside were portrayed as seductive:[1] The mind, eager for caresses, Lies down at its own risk in Cornwall;

The town was also home to the Foreign Mission School.

Notable People

Ira Allen, born in Cornwall, was one of the founders of Vermont[4]

John Sedgwick, born in Cornwall, Civil War General in the Union Army Sam Waterston, lives in West Cornwall,

actor Tom Jones, composer, The Fantastiks

Oliver Platt, actor

Charles Van Doren, historian, former quiz show contestant, lives in Cornwall

In Popular Culture

The fictional private boarding high school "Cornwall Academy" from the movie Outside Providence (1991) is located in Cornwall, Connecticut.

In the show Supernatural (Season 2 Episode 11 Playthings), Sam and Dean Winchester explore a haunted bed and breakfast in Cornwall, Connecticut

Coventry

The birthplace of Captain Nathan Hale, Coventry is home to the Nathan Hale Homestead, which is now a museum open to the public.

American portrait painter Benoni Irwin (1840–1896) drowned in Coventry Lake. Irwin, a Yonkers, New York resident, had a summer home on the shore of Coventry Lake. On the evening of August 26, 1896, Irwin lost his balance and fell from a boat while trying to adjust the focus on his camera. He had been taking photographs of the lake at sunset. His head hit the edge of the boat as he fell, knocking him unconscious. His body was immediately recovered. He is buried in Nathan Hale Cemetery with his wife, Adela, and daughter, Edith

Notable People

Jesse Root (1736–1822) was a Coventry resident who served in the Continental Congress representing Connecticut from 1778 until 1782 and sat as chief justice of the state's Supreme Court from 1796 to 1807. Buried in Nathan Hale Cemetery.

Nathan Hale (1755–1776), captain in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and official State Hero of Connecticut, was born in town. Empty grave in Nathan Hale Cemetery. [6]

Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834), an important figure in the Second Great Awakening, an eccentric, itinerant minister, was born in town.[7]

George N. Barnard (1819–1902), photographer who joined Mathew Brady in recording the American Civil War, worked briefly with photographic pioneer George Eastman, and the Eastman Kodak Company, was born in town.[8]

Benoni Irwin (1840–1896), American portrait painter and summer resident, drowned in Coventry Lake. Buried in Nathan Hale Cemetery.

Adelma Grenier Simmons (1903–1997), author and one of the leading herbal figures in America in the 20th century, owned and operated Caprilands Herb Farm for over 65 years, lived in town.

David Hayes (born 1931), artist, American Modern Master of painted steel sculptures, lives in town.

Darien

A relatively small community on Connecticut's "Gold Coast", it is one of the most affluent towns in the United States With a median home price of approximately $1 million, Darien is one of the most expensive places to live in North America, and was rated one of the best places to live in America by CNN in 2005.

An ambulance service, known as "Darien EMS – Post 53" is the only ambulance service in the nation staffed and run entirely by high school student volunteers

Gentleman's Agreement and sundown towns Laura Z. Hobson's bestselling 1947 novel Gentleman's Agreement was set in Darien. The book highlights American anti-Semitism via an unwritten covenant that prohibited real estate sales to Jews.

Historian James Loewen's 1999 book Lies Across America paints Darien as a "Sundown town" "notorious for [its] racial policies." In or around 1948, according to resident Larry Abbott, a sign hung on Hollow Tree Ridge Road reading "Gentiles Only."

Notable People

Charles Lindbergh the late aviator, and his wife, author Anne Morrow Lindbergh lived on Tokeneke Trail.

Steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie vacationed for several summers at what became the Convent of the Sacred Heart (divided into many private estates in the 1970s) at Long Neck Point.[22]

Christopher Shays, the former Republican congressman representing Connecticut's Fourth District, was born in Darien (and now lives in Bridgeport).

Christopher Plummer (who lived on Long Neck Point, and now lives in Weston),

Kate Bosworth,

Topher Grace, and

Chloë Sevigny.

Actres Carol Kane attended Cherry Lawn School in Darien until 1965.

Film director Gus Van Sant went to high school in Darien.

Gerry Mulligan,one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history, lived in Darien in later life and died there in 1996.

Guitarist Chris Risola of Steelheart grew up in Darien.

Musician Moby grew up there during his adolescence.

Rudolph Valentino was said to have had a Spanish-style home at the entrance of Salem Straits.

Actor Frank Poretta and his wife, soprano and former Miss Ohio, Roberta Palmer-Poretta, have lived in Darien for many years; their son Frank is an opera singer.

Emmy-winning television producer and writer Tom Gammill also grew up in Darien.

Leslie Groves - military head of the Manhattan Project, lived in town after the project ended.

Irish-born opera singer John McCormack was said to have lived in a large waterfront home with a large dock on Pear Tree Point Road[citation needed], just past the curve near Pear Tree Point Beach.

Paul Manship, sculptor of the Prometheus figure at Rockefeller Center, spent summers living on Leroy Avenue and working on his art in the early 1930s.

Margaret Bourke-White, the late photojournalist, lived in town first with author Erskine Caldwell, then in the same home after their divorce.

Helen Frankenthaler, a major American Abstract Expressionist painter, has lived in Darien in later life and has maintained her primary studio there.[41]

Novelist and playwright Richard Bissell lived in Darien from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s. He's best known for writing the novel that became The Pajama Game, a hit on Broadway and in movie theaters.

Artist John Stobart lived on Crane Road for many years and prints of his historical painting of Ring's End Landing were popular in the 1970s, after the town's 150th anniversary.

Producer and NBC executive Grant Tinker reared his family there in the 1960s and 1970s.

New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

Kiss drummer Peter Criss also had a home in Darien.

One infamous native of Darien is convicted rapist Alex Kelly, who fled the United States to escape prosecution. His story was dramatized in the television movie Crime in Connecticut: The Story of Alex Kelly.

In film Films at least partially filmed in Darien with release date.[42] My Soul to Take (2010) (aka "25/8") The Best Laid Plans (2009) Birds of America (2008) (aka "The Laws of Motion"). Revolutionary Road (2008) Buttercup (2007) The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) Ode to Fredo (2007) Ready for Action[43] The Stepford Wives (2004) American Dream (2002) Cannonball Run II (1984) The Stepford Wives (1975) Gentleman's Agreement (1947) The Convent of St. Birgitta, which houses a Swedish order of nuns, has a large waterfront plot with a panoramic view of Scott's Cove. The convent offers room and board to guests or small groups looking for a spiritual retreat

Deep River

Every year on the third Saturday in July, Deep River hosts the Deep River Ancient Muster. It is the largest one day gathering of fife and drum corps in the world

Notable People

Paul Hopkins, pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Gretchen Mol, actress.

Alpheus S. Williams, lawyer, judge, journalist, U.S. Congressman, and a Union general in the American Civil War.

David Bushnell, inventor

Derby

Charlton Comics, a comic book publishing company that existed from 1944 to 1986, was based in town.

Antoine Fuqua's upcoming kidnap and revenge drama Prisoners cast the town of Derby in Connecticut as itself in the film. Fuqua and crew will be using the local police insignia, the town seal and 750 of the locals as extras. Hugh Jackman is rumored as the main character as well as Christian Bale and Russell Crowe considering the co-starring role.

Notable People

Edward Wooster (1622–1689), "the first permanent settler in Derby"

Samuel George Andrews, (1796–1863), born in Derby, United States Congressman from New York[5]

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett (1833–1908), the first black American diplomat (appointed in 1869 to Haiti), was raised in Derby.

Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man comics hero, once lived in town.

Anthony DiRienzo, Derby's first mayor of Italian descent, also Derby's longest serving mayor.

Isaac Hull (1773–1843), commodore in the U.S. Navy; commanded U.S.S. Constitution among other ships, and nephew of William Hull William Hull (1753–1825), general in the American Revolutionary War, governor of Michigan Territory, and uncle of Isaac Hull David Humphreys, American Revolutionary War soldier, public official and entrepreneur

Orson Hyde (1805–1878) a leader in the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) movement, raised in town

Elizabeth Ann Whitney (1800–1882), early Latter Day Saint (Mormon) leader born in town

Brian Dennehy, actor in movies such as First Blood and Cocoon, lived in Derby during his early life and was a Boy Scout in Troop 3, based in Derby.

Nick Pietrosante, NFL Fullback for the Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns and Notre Dame Fighting Irish, was born in Derby.

Alan Schlesinger, former Derby mayor and unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Durham

In the 1830s Durham came to prominence as the birthplace of Richard P. Robinson, who was tried for and acquitted of the infamous murder of Helen Jewett

Notable People

The Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey, first graduate of Yale University.

Moses Austin, (1761–1821), born in Durham, noted businessman involved in the lead industry[4]

Stephen F. Austin, Son of Moses Austin and founder of Texas.

Chauncey Goodrich (1759–1815), lawyer and politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. In the Sixth Congress, he served with his brother, Elizur.

Elizur Goodrich (1761–1849), lawyer and politician Phineas Lyman (1716–74) major general in the Connecticut militia during the French and Indian War who later led settlers to a tract of land near Natchez, Mississippi

James Wadsworth (1730–1816) lawyer, the second-highest ranked militia officer in the state during the American Revolutionary War and a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1784.

Eastford

Notable People

Andrew T. Judson (1784–1853), United States federal judge and US Congressman.

Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1613), the first Union General to be killed in the Civil War is buried here in his family plot.

East Granby

Notable People

Walter Wick, author of the I Spy find-it-in-the-picture book series In popular culture East Granby was noted in book "The Black Box," a record of airplane CVR Recordings.

East Granby was the site of the American Airlines flight 1572 incident, which clipped the tops of trees in East Granby as it came in for a landing at Bradley International Airport. This incident appeared the first in the book.

East Haddam

Notable People

George Comer (1858–1937), polar explorer and whaler who called East Haddam his home for most of his life. The Comer Strait of northern Southampton Island and the almost flightless Gallinula comeri were named in his honor.

Christopher Dodd, one of Connecticut's two Senators, lives in East Haddam when Congress is not in session.

Bill Griffith (*1944) famous cartoonist.

Uriel Holmes (1764–1827), United States Representative from Connecticut was born in East Haddam.

Joseph Spencer, lawyer, soldier, and statesman during the Revolutionary War, was born and died in East Haddam.

East Hampton

Notable People

William A. O'Neill (August 11, 1930 – November 24, 2007), a 20th century U.S. political figure, most notably as Governor of Connecticut from 1980 to 1991, was a native and lifelong resident of East Hampton.

Mark Mulcahy, the former front-man for the New Haven-based band Miracle Legion and current solo recording artist, is a native of East Hampton.

Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd, a popular novelist, lived at "Faraway Farm" near East Hampton in the early 20th century.

East Lyme

The Thomas Lee House, built circa 1660, is the oldest house in Connecticut that is still in its primitive state. This building is located in the southwestern section of East Lyme, adjacent to Rocky Neck State Park, at the intersection of Connecticut Route 156 and Giants Neck Road. Co-Located on this site is the one room Little Boston Schoolhouse

Notable People

John McDonald plays professional baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Ed Toth is a professional musician with The Doobie Brothers, formerly with Vertical Horizon and Jennifer Culture.

Pete Walker played professional baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Jeremy Powers is a professional racing cyclist riding for Cannondale.

William Colepaugh, (1918–2005) a Nazi-sympathizer who grew up on Black Point, traveled to Germany in 1944 to be trained as a spy.

Tom Danielson (1978-), is a professional road bicycle racer.

Charles Drake (real name "Charles Ruppert"), (1917–1994), actor in over 80 films and numerous television shows.

Otto Graham, (1921–2003), Hall of Fame professional football player.

Howie Mandel, Host for Deal or No Deal, resides in East Lyme.

William Nathan Harrell Smith, (1812–1889) a Congressional Representative from North Carolina. Attended schools in East Lyme.

Vladimir Peter Tytla, (1904–1968) known as Bill Tytla was one of the original Disney animators

Easton

On June 1, 1968, the deaf and blind activist Helen Keller died at the age of 87 in her Easton, Connecticut home, where she chose to spend her final days. Her house is still intact today and has been owned by several families since her death.

The 2009 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree was a 76-foot Norway Spruce donated from a private residence in Easton.

Notable People

Anne Baxter, a weekend resident.[9]

Phoebe Brand, blacklisted actress, married to Morris Carnovsky, Group Theatre (New York).

Elise Broach, children's book author, is a current resident.

Morris Carnovsky, blacklisted actor, Group Theatre (New York).

Hume Cronyn, actor and husband of Jessica Tandy[9]

Edna Ferber, playwright and novelist, was a weekend resident.[9]

Eileen Fulton was a resident.[9]

Helen Keller, blind-deaf-mute author, lived in town.[9]

Dan Rather, former CBS News anchor, has been a weekend resident.[9]

Jessica Tandy, actress (wife of Hume Cronyn)[9]

Johnny Winter, blues guitarist, is a current resident

East Windsor

Notable People

Jonathan Edwards, a colonial American Congregational preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans.

Lorrin Andrews (1795–1868), born in East Windsor, Congregational Church clergyman missionary to Hawaii, translated the Bible into the Hawaiian language, judge, and first Associate Justice of Hawaii State Supreme Court[2]

John Warner Barber (1798–1885), an engraver whose books of state, national, and local history featured his vivid engravings, said to have caught the flavor and appearance of city, town, and countryside scenes in his day, was born in town.

Israel Bissell (1752–1800), a post-rider in Massachusetts originally from East Windsor, alerted the colonists of the British attack on April 19, 1775. He rode for four days and six hours covering the 345 miles from Watertown, Massachusetts, to Philadelphia along the Boston Post Road. He was carrying a message from General Joseph Palmer. The message was copied at each of his stops, and he shouted "To arms, to arms, the war has begun."

Daniel Bissell (1754–1824), a soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, was the last recipient of the Badge of Military Merit, one of only three awarded by George Washington himself. Under Washington's direct orders, he became a spy in British-occupied New York City and decided he had to join the British Army to get the desired information, which he memorized before returning to the American side. He was born in town.

Eliphalet Chapin (1741–1807), a cabinetmaker and furniture maker in town whose furniture design is regarded as one of the most elegant of its time. He was born in town.

Frederick Holbrook (1814–1909), governor of Vermont, was born in town. Eli Terry (1772–1852) was an influential clockmaker and the first inventor to receive a United States patent for a clock mechanism. He introduced mass production to clock manufacturing, making them affordable for the average person. He was born in town.

Kevin Olson (born 1989), minor child star in films such as Stuart Little 2. Went to elemntary and middle school here.

Ellington

Notable People

Faisal Alam, born in 1977, moved to Ellington at age ten. Founder of the Al-Fatiha Foundation, an organization for LGBT Muslims.

John H. Brockway (January 31, 1801 – July 29, 1870), a U.S. Representative.

Orlow W. Chapman, born in 1832 in Ellington. A New York Politician, he served as the Solicitor General of the United States from May 29, 1889 until his death by pneumonia on January 19, 1890.

Echo Chernik, born Heather McKinney (Chernik) August 30, 1973 in Ellington. An Art Nouveau artist working as a mainstream advertising and publishing illustrator, currently working on high profile advertisements and poster design.

Reverend Henry Weston Smith, born January 10, 1827 in Ellington. A Methodist preacher, he was the first of any denomination to preach in the Black Hills of South Dakota, arriving in Deadwood in 1876. Smith was murdered within months of his arrival and is buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Deadwood, along with Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane.

Mike Vranos, founder of the hedge fund Ellington Management Company

Essex

Essex is one of the few American towns to ever be attacked by a foreign power; this occurred on April 8, 1814, and the economic losses were among the largest sustained by the United States during the War of 1812. Twenty eight vessels, with a total value estimated to be close to $200,000 (at a time when a very large two story home in Essex would have been worth no more than $1,000), were destroyed by the British.[1] One historian has called it the "Pearl Harbor" of that war

Franklin

Notable People

Lafayette S. Foster (1806–1880), United States Senator and Connecticut Supreme Court judge was born in Franklin.

Uriah Tracy (1755–1807), patriot, United States Representative, United States Senator and first person interred in the Congressional Cemetery was born in town

Goshen

Notable People

William R. Brewster, American Civil War general

David Darling, cellist and composer

Daniel S. Dickinson, U.S. Senator Asaph Hall, astronomer credited with discovering the moons of Mars

Madeleine L'Engle, author

Ivan Lendl, professional tennis player

Frederick Miles, U.S. Representative

Mary Pope Osborne, author

Kevin Phillips, U.S. author and political analyst

Isaac Williams, Jr., U.S. Representative

Granby

Notable People

Joe Bouchard (b. 1948), musician, member of Blue Öyster Cult

Jesse Camp (b. 1979), MTV VJ

Chauncey Forward (1793–1839), U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania

Philip C. Hayes (1833–1916) U.S. Representative from Illinois

Byron Kilbourn (1801–1870), surveyor and politician

Rebecca Lobo (b. 1973), former Women's National Basketball Association player

William M. Maltbie (1880–1961), Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court

Garrett Lucash (b. 1978), figure skater

Aaron Draper Shattuck (1832–1928), painter of the White Mountain School

Griswold

Notable People

Moses Coit Tyler (August 2, 1835 - December 28, 1900), author, was born in Griswold.

Guilford

It was named one of the top 100 places to live in the United States by Money magazine in 2005

Haddam

The town was also home to the now decommissioned Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Reactor.

Notable People

Samuel Arnold (Connecticut) (1806–1869), US Congressman was born and died in Haddam.

David Brainerd (1718–1747), missionary, was born in Haddam.

Illeana Douglas (1965-), actress, director, screenwriter, and producer grew up in Haddam.

David Dudley Field I (1781–1867), Congregational minister and author lived in Haddam for 22 years.

David Dudley Field II (1805–1894), lawyer and law reformer and US Congressman was born in Haddam. Brother to Stephen Johnson Field.

Stephen Johnson Field (1816–1899), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was born in Haddam.

Asahel W. Hubbard (1819-1879), judge and US Congressman for Iowa was born in Haddam.

David McDowell (1963-), psychiatrist

Alexander Shaler (1827–1911) , General for the Union Army was born in Haddam.

Literary References

The "thin men of Haddam" are apostrophized in stanza seven of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens:[5] O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

East Haddam's "Devil's Hop Yard" was referenced in H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror.

Hampton

Notable People

John Brewster Jr. (1766–1854) deaf, itinerant, prolific painter, was born in town.

Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–1895), the author of American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, an evangelical abolitionist who was born in town, where he lived until 1825 when his family moved to upstate New York.

Edwin Way Teale (1899–1980), American naturalist and author, lived on a farm in rural Hampton with his wife Nellie from 1959 until his death in 1980. Their time at the farm named Trail Wood is chronicled in Teale's book A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm (1974). The property is now managed as a nature preserve by the Connecticut Audubon Society.

Hartland

Notable People

Asher Benjamin, architect

Harwinton

Notable People

Jonathan Brace (1754–1837), judge and US Congressman was born in town.

George S. Catlin (1808–1851), US Congressman was born in town.

Elam Luddington (1806–1893), Mormon pioneer to Utah and was the first mormon missionary to preach in Thailand was born in Harwinton.

Luman Watson (1790-1834), clockmaker, was born in town.

Hebron

Notable People

William A. Palmer - (1781-1860) - US Senator and Governor of Vermont.

John Samuel Peters, (1772-1858) - 26th Governor of Connecticut

Kent

Notable People

Seth MacFarlane (b. 1973), animator, TV producer and director and voice actor who created Family Guy and American Dad!, born in Kent, as well as his sister Rachael MacFarlane (b. 1976).

William H. Armstrong, author of "Sounder"

Ted Danson, actor and graduate of Kent School.

Oscar De la Renta, designer

Peter Gallagher, actor

Steve Katz, founding member of rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears

Adam Kennedy (1922–1997), actor, author, painter, died in Kent

Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, has a home in town and often does television interviews from Kent.

Patti LuPone, singer and actress

Edmund Morris, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer

Lynn Redgrave, actress

Trudie Lamb-Richmond, Schaghticoke elder, former Tribal Chairwoman, American Indian activist, author, educator, cultural leader, Storyteller, and tribal historian.

Joe Bouchard, founding member of rock group Blue Öyster Cult

James Burnham, American political theorist, spent his final years in Kent, where he died.

Killingly

Notable People

Mary Dixon Kies (1752–1837), the first woman in the United States to receive a patent (in 1809, for a method of weaving straw with silk or thread). Kies was born and lived in South Killingly, an unincorporated village in the Town of Killingly.

Francis Alexander, (1800–1881), born in Killingly, was a portrait painter[4]

William Torrey Harris (1835–1909), a philosopher who introduced reindeer to Alaska, educator (and later U.S. Commissioner of Education) who introduced the first permanent kindergarten, and lexicographer who introduced the "divided page" into dictionaries (the 1909 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary). He was born in North Killingly. He also founded the first philosophical journal in the country.

Sidney P. Marland, Jr. (1914–1992), U.S. Commissioner of Education from 1970 to 1972 and then the first Assistant Secretary of Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1972 to 1973, under President Nixon. Marland was born in Danielson, a borough of the Town of Killingly.

Killingly may be the only town in the nation to be the birthplace of two U.S. Commissioners of Education. Charles Tiffany (1812–1902) born in town, owner of Tiffany and Company (and father of the more famous Louis Comfort Tiffany, a designer) Ebenezer Young (1783–1851) was a United States Representative from Connecticut

Killingsworth

In the late 17th century, Killingworth became the birthplace of what would eventually become Yale University. The Rev. Abraham Pierson, the college's first president, taught some of the first classes in his Killingworth home - which is actually in present-day Clinton, Connecticut. However in 1701, the college's first official home was constructed in Old Saybrook on the peninsula known as Saybrook Point. Eventually the school was moved to its present-day home in New Haven

The town was the subject of the poet H.W. Longfellow's poem "The Birds of Killingworth" published in "The Tales of the Wayside Inn".

1999: The largest tree in Rockefeller Center history, 100 feet (30 m) high, was chosen from Killingworth, CT.

Notable People

Jeff Bagwell, former Major League Baseball player for the Houston Astros, lived in Killingworth.

Carleton Beals, radical American journalist, author, historian, and a crusader with special interests in Latin America[7].

Abel Buell, publisher of the first map of the new United States created by an American, was born in Killingworth[8].

Jonathan Bush, American banker and the uncle of President George W. Bush[9].

Hugh Lofting, author of the Doctor Doolittle series.

Ledyard

Notable People

Frederick Ayer (1822-1918), industrialist, was born in Ledyard.

Ron Jirsa (1959-), men's college basketball coach, was born in Ledyard.

Fuller Potter (1910-1990), abstract expressionist artist, lived most of his life in town

Lisbon

Notable People

Elias Perkins (1767–1845), United States Representative. Jeannine Phillips (1984–), Miss Connecticut USA (2006).

Litchfield

In October 1777, William Franklin, the son of Benjamin Franklin, may have been jailed in the Litchfield jail because he was a Loyalist.[3]

Beginning in 1784, Litchfield lawyer, Tapping Reeve, systematized his law lectures for young students, creating the Litchfield Law School. Reeve was the first to develop a series of formal, regular lectures that insured that all students had access to the same body of knowledge. Among those who attended was David Sherman Boardman, a prominent nineteenth-century lawyer and judge in the county.

Established in 1792, Sarah Pierce's Litchfield Female Academy was one of the first major educational institutions for women in the United States.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Edward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and Catharine Beecher all grew up in Litchfield where their father, Lyman Beecher was the minister.

Notable People

Ethan Allen

Andrew Adams

Henry Ward

F. Norton Goddard

Uriel Holmes

Phineas Miner

Dick Ebersol

Samuel S. Phelps

Oliver Wolcott, Sr.

Admiral Charles B. McVay III

Madeleine L'Engle

Oliver Wolcott, Jr.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Jerome Fuller

Lyme

Lyme and its neighboring town Old Lyme are the namesake for Lyme disease.

Notable People

Robert Ballard Oceanographer, lives in the town

Joan Bennett (1910–1990), a film and television actress, was buried in town after her death in Scarsdale, New York.

Hiel Brockway (? -1842), founder of Brockport, New York

Zebulon Brockway (1827–1920) a penologist some have called the "Father of prison reform" in the United States, was born in town.

Dominic Dunne, famous author, had a house in Hadlyme for many years until his death.

Ezra Lee (1749–1821), Commander of the Turtle submarine during the Revolutionary War, and world's first submariner.

Matthew Griswold (1714–1799) governor of the state (1784–1786), was born in Lyme.

Harry Holtzman (1912–1987), an abstract artist who lived in town

Beatrice Lillie, Canadian-born actress, had a house on Grassy Hill Road in the 1970s.

Roger Hilsman, World War II hero, post-war diplomat and author, long-time town resident

Robert Mulligan (1925–2008), film director, most notable work To Kill a Mockingbird.

Jonathan Parsons (1705–1776), prominent "New Light" clergyman who was influenced by Jonathan Edwards when Edwards taught at Yale.

Samuel Holden Parsons (1737–1789), active Patriot before and during the American Revolution and brigidier general in the Continental Army, was born in town.

Jedediah Peck (1748–1821), called the "Father of the Common School System" of the State of New York.

Ansel Sterling (1782–1853), a United States Representative from Connecticut. Brother of Micah Sterling.

Micah Sterling (1784–1844), a United States Representative from New York. Brother of ANsel Sterling.

Morrison Remick Waite (1816–1888) a chief justice of the United States (1874–1888) was born in town.

Wequash, Native American leader, buried in Lyme in 1642

Madison

Bill Clinton mentions the town in his autobiography, My Life.

Notable People

Jim Calhoun (b. 1942) head coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team, which won two national championships, and who was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005

Ranulf Compton (1878–1974) was a United States Representative from Connecticut.

Rob Moroso, NASCAR driver

Jacques Pépin, Celebrity chef[4]

Sally Benson, screenwriter "Meet Me in St. Louis"

Elizabeth Bentley, Soviet Spy

Westbrook Pegler, anti-New Deal columnist

John Gunther, author "Death Be Not Proud", "Inside Europe"

Wheeler Williams, Sculptor (1897–1972)

Thomas Chittenden, Founder of the independent Vermont Republic and first Governor to the State of Vermont.

Cornelius Bushnell, Financier for the American Civil War ironclad ship USS Monitor and a railroad pioneer and investor.

Laurence Witten, antiquarian bookseller who sold the Vinland Map to Yale University

Charles Kullman, tenor with the Metropolitan Opera

Edgar Snow, journalist, author, and Cold War-era China expert who knew Mao

Grover Whalen, politician and public relations genius known as "Mr. New York"

Frank Duryea, with his brother he invented the gasoline engine and developed the first commercially manufactured automobile

Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer

Peter Hastings Falk, expert on American art

Jill Abramson, editor of the New York Times

Marlborough

Notable People

Larry Boardman - boxer, was born in Marlborough.

Mary Hall - suffragist, first female lawyer in Connecticut was born in town

Middlebury

Notable People

William Hawkins Abbott, (1819–1901), born in Middlebury, pioneering petroleum refiner and businessman [5]

Grant Goodeve, (1976–present), actor, was born in Middlebury.

John G. Rowland, (2006–present), former Connecticut Governor who resigned and pleaded guilty in federal court to a one-count with conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud and tax fraud.[6]

Katie Stevens, (1992–present) , American Idol contestant

Monroe

The town was featured in Forbes' "Best Places to Live" feature article

Notable People

Ferdie Catropa, professional golfer is a resident.

Mike Gminski, former Duke basketball standout and NBA player. An assortment of Mike Gminski memorabilia, including shorts he wore while playing for the 76ers, is on display in a glass case outside the gymnasium at Fawn Hollow Elementary School.

Jesse Schwartz, the voice of Leo on Little Einsteins. He currently lives in Monroe.

Ed Wojna, former Major League pitcher.

Mary O'Hara, author of "My Friend Flicka" and several other books, lived on an estate called Tyrawley on Bagburn Hill Road for nearly 20 years.

Montville

Mohegan Sun Casino Located in Uncasville, Mohegan Sun is one of the largest casinos in the world. The Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut created the casino in 1996. With over 250,000 square feet (23,000 m2), the Mohegan Sun complex now features a luxury hotel, entertainment theater, and more than 20 restaurants and stores.

Notable People

George Miller Beard (1839–1883) a neurologist who coined the term "neurasthenia" in 1869.

Sidney E. Frank (1919–2006), billionaire businessman who promoted Grey Goose vodka and Jägermeister.

Ned Hanlon, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame[2]

James Hillhouse (1754–1832), real estate developer who constructed significant areas of New Haven. He was a congressman, U.S. Senator and, for many years, treasurer of Yale University.

Samson Occom (1723–1792), Mohegan minister and preacher.

Oliver Hillhouse Prince (1787–1837), represented Georgia in the U.S. Senate for less than a year.

Notable People

Chuck Aleksinas (1959-), former NBA basketball player.

James Morris III (1752–1820), Revolutionary War and War of 1812 officer and educator, lived and died in the town which was renamed for him

New Canaan

The town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States. In 2008, CNN Money ranked New Canaan first in the nation with the highest median family income

New Canaan was an important center of the modern design movement from the late 1940s through roughly the 1960s, when about 80 modern homes were built in town. About 20 have been torn down since then.[4] "During the late 1940s and 50s, a group of students and teachers from the Harvard Graduate School of Design migrated to New Canaan ... and rocked the world of architectural design", according to an article in PureContemporary.com, an online architecture design magazine. "Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John M. Johansen and Eliot Noyes – known as the Harvard Five – began creating homes in a style that emerged as the complete antithesis of the traditional build. Using new materials and open floor plans, best captured by Johnson's Glass House, these treasures are being squandered as buyers are knocking down these architectural icons and replacing them with cookie-cutter new builds."[5] "Other architects, well known (Frank Lloyd Wright, for example) and not so well known, also contributed significant modern houses that elicited strong reactions from nearly everyone who saw them and are still astonishing today ... New Canaan came to be the locus of the modern movement's experimentation in materials, construction methods, space, and form", according to an online description of The Harvard Five in New Canaan: Mid-Century Modern Houses, by William D. Earls

Notable People

Thomas J. Baldwin, CEO of Morton's Restaurant Group – resident[25]

Emily Barringer (1876–1961), physician and the first female ambulance surgeon – lived in town.

Glenn Beck, conservative TV show host on Fox News; host of radio's The Glenn Beck Program - resident [26]

Lorenzo Borghese, the bachelor for season nine of The Bachelor

Solon Borglum, sculptor L. Paul Bremer, Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for postwar Iraq – raised in New Canaan

H. Keith H. Brodie, former Duke University president – former resident Bliss Carman, Canadian poet – resident for the last 20 years of his life (1909–1929)

Henry S. Coleman (1926–2006), acting dean of Columbia College, Columbia University who was held hostage during the Columbia University protests of 1968.[27]

Anthony Comstock namesake of Comstock Law, born in town (George Bernard Shaw coined "comstockery" after him), namesake of Comstock Hill Rd in town

Harry Connick Jr., singer – resident

Ann Coulter, conservative author and media personality – raised in town

Norman Cousins, editor, peace activist – former resident[28]

Roland Crandall, early animator – lived in town

A. J. Cronin, Scottish-born novelist – former resident

Paul Dano, actor – raised in town

Jack Douglas, writer – former resident

Phoebe Dunn (author) Writer and photographer – former resident (until her death)

Gerald Green (1922–2006), author of The Last Angry Man among other works – lived in town

Florence Harding, former First Lady – lived in town as a young woman.

Katherine Heigl, actress – raised in town

Carl Hovde (1926–2009), professor and dean during the Columbia University protests of 1968.[29]

Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric – lives in town

Philip C. Johnson (1906–2005), architect who built and lived in the Glass House in town

David Letterman, Late Show host – former resident

Christopher Lloyd, actor – his mother, who was a member of the Lapham family, sold Waveny Park to the town of New Canaan.

Douglas Marland, soap opera head writer

Martin Mull, actor and comedian of Roseanne and My Bodyguard, moved to town when he was 15 and graduated from New Canaan High School

David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways – resident

Eliot Noyes, Architect – former resident. Member of The Harvard Five, a group of architects including Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores and John Black Lee who built modern homes in the town from the 1940s through the '70s.

Maxwell Perkins, editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and others – former resident

Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, sports talk-show personality formerly of WFAN radio, currently with Sirius XM Radio – resident

Paul Simon, singer and songwriter – resident

Warren Allen Smith, author of "Who's Who in Hell"

Stuart Symington, U.S. senator and secretary of the Air Force – died in town

Arthur Szyk, anti-Nazi cartoonist and book illustrator and artist

Bill Toomey, 1968 Olympic decathlon champion – former resident

Heidi Voight, Miss Connecticut 2006, actress – resident

Barry Williams of The Brady Bunch – former resident

Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News – resident

Max Pacioretty, Montreal Canadiens forward

New Canaan in the media

Films shot in New Canaan Movies at least partially filmed in New Canaan:[30] The Best Laid Plans (2009) Made for Each Other (2009) Revolutionary Road (2008) Peter (2004) The Stepford Wives (2004) The Object of My Affection (1998) The Ice Storm (1997)

Books about New Canaan

Public Schools Should Learn to Ski, by Stephen E. Rubin The Ice Storm, by Rick Moody References in popular culture In the movie Fools Rush In, Matthew Perry's character grew up in New Canaan. The exteriors of Waveny Mansion are used as Palmer Cortlandt's home in the ABC soap opera All My Children. Karen suggests that Jack's father may be one of the "eight Black brothers of New Canaan, CT" in an episode of Will and Grace. In the ABC drama Commander in Chief, Geena Davis' family home was in New Canaan The Neighbors are Scaring My Wolf by comic writer Jack Douglas was a 1968 book based on his experiences living in town. In The Cricket In Times Square, main character Chester Cricket lives near New Canaan. In one of the books in the series Gossip Girl, a minor character says he needs to stop in New Canaan. The Official Preppy Handbook makes reference to New Canaan as one of the "preppiest" towns in the country. In the ABC television series Sports Night, Managing Editor Isaac Jaffe (played by Robert Guillaume) lives in New Canaan. In the 1947 movie Gentleman's Agreement, New Canaan is mentioned as a heavily anti-semitic town that won't allow real estate to be rented or sold to Jews. In the USA television series Royal Pains Hank tells Tucker to take his father to a fictional rehab center called simon ranch in New Canaan CT.

New Fairfield

Notable People

Jennifer Rizzotti, UCONN Basketball Player, who once was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated Emmure, (Joe & Ben Lionetti) metal band signed to Victory Records

Norfolk

Norfolk is perhaps best known as the site of the Yale Summer School of Music – Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which hosts an annual chamber music concert series in "the Music Shed," a performance hall located on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel estate to the west of the village green.

Notable People

Professor Michael I. Pupin,

James Laughlin,

Brendan Gill

Secretary of the Treasury William Windom.

Mark Twain was a sometime summer visitor to Norfolk, and a stained glass window at the Church of the Transfiguration (Episcopal) commemorates his wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens.

The town of Norfolk owes much to the benefactions, over the course of several generations, of the extended Battell family, which made a large fortune in the early 19th century from cheese, trading and speculation in Western lands. Notable members of this family include Joseph Battell, the merchant who founded the fortune and built the family's imposing seat (known as "Whitehouse") overlooking the Village Green; Robbins Battell, who was largely responsible for positioning Norfolk as a summer resort; Miss Isabella Eldridge, who built and endowed The Norfolk Library; and Ellen Battell Stoeckel, whose charitable trust provides the campus for, and helps underwrite, the Yale Summer School of Music – Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

William Henry Welch, the founding dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was born in Norfolk, scion of a family of Norfolk physicians.

Hayden Carruth published a book of "Norfolk Poems" in 1962, and these poems mention numerous Norfolk sites and residents.

In "The Lightning Keeper," a 2006 novel by Starling Lawrence (editor-in-chief of W W Norton), the town of Beecher's Bridge is based on Norfolk, to which the author's family has longstanding ties, and some of the novel's characters echo actual Norfolkians of the late 19th and early 20th century.

North Branford

Notable People

John Denison Baldwin (1809–1883). a politician, Congregationalist minister, newspaper editor, and popular anthropological writer.

Chris Hetherington (born 1972), a former fullback in the NFL, was born in town.

Ellsworth Foote, politician, born in North Branford.

John Leslie Hotson, author and scholar, died in town.

Adam LaVorgna, an American actor.

Paul F. Zukunft (born c. 1955), Coast Guard rear admiral

Old Lyme

The Lyme in Lyme disease was named after the town. It was discovered in 1975 after a mysterious outbreak of what appeared to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in children who lived in Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut

Notable People

Jim Calhoun (1942- ), head coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team, which won two national championships, and who was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, began his career as a coach in town at Lyme-Old Lyme High School.

Elisabeth Gordon Chandler (1913–2006), sculptor, resident, and founder of the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts

Lois Darling (1917–1989) Artist and illustrator[3]

Walker Evans Evans lived in Old Lyme until his death in 1975.[4]

Elsie Ferguson (1883–1961), actress and resident

Ella T. Grasso (1919–1981), politician (D) and resident, first female governor of Connecticut, first woman to be elected governor in the United States who was not the wife or widow of a governor, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

John McCurdy (b.1724) George Washington stayed at his home during the Revolutionary War. He was also the grandfather of Connecticut Supreme Court judge Charles McCurdy. His home was the resting place for General Washington on April 10, 1776 while traveling to New York City to take on the mighty British Army and formidable Navy. (source: Papers of George Washington, Connecticut State Library)

Luanne Rice (1955- ), novelist and resident

Albert Einstein had a summer home on the Old Lyme shore.

Sally Jessy Raphael (1935- ), talk show host and resident

Herb Chambers (1941- ), Owner and CEO of Herb Chambers Companies, contributor to Lyme Academy: College of Fine Arts.

Chris Elliot, actor and screenwriter. Known best for his supporting role in the 1998 comedy There's Something About Mary.

Peter Karter, founder of early recycling company

Henry Ward Ranger (1858–1916), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Childe Hassam (1859–1935), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Wilson Irvine (1869–1936), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Ellen Louise Wilson (1860–1914), first wife of president Woodrow Wilson, came as an art student to the Florence Griswold House Willard Metcalf (1858–1925), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Diana Muir, writer and historian

Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996) American naturalist, ornithologist, artist, and educator.

Edward Charles Volkert (1871–1935), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Clark Voorhees (1871–1933), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony

Old Saybrook

On October 9, 1701 the Collegiate School of Connecticut was chartered in Old Saybrook. It moved to New Haven in 1716, and was later renamed Yale University.

The Turtle - the first American submarine - was invented in Westbrook Connecticut in 1775 by David Bushnell; a replica is housed at Old Saybrook Senior High School.

Notable People

Vin Baker — Professional basketball player in the NBA (1993–2006)

Art Carney — Academy Award– and Emmy Award-winning American actor in film, stage, television and radio.

Katharine Hepburn — A four-time Academy Award–winning American star of film, television and stage, she lived in the borough of Fenwick.

John Clellon Holmes — American writer and poet associated with the "Beat Generation" crowd.

Ann Petry — African-American novelist, journalist and biographer.

Elmer Eric Schattschneider — A prominent political scientist and former president of the American Political Science Association from 1956 to 1957

Orange

Notable People

Josef and Anni Albers, noted artists, lived in Orange

William Atherton, character actor, was born and raised in Orange

Christopher Collier, historian, professor and winner of the Newbery Honor lives in Orange

John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, was raised in Orange

Henry Lee, former resident, notable for his forensic investigations of famous crimes.

Patrick B. O'Sullivan, U.S. representative and judge, lived in Orange.

Stephen Valiquette, Backup goaltender for the New York Rangers.

Timothy Sykes, noted Hedge Fund manager and penny stock trader

Oxford

In 2001, Oxford made international headlines when 94 year-old Ottilie Lundgren mysteriously died of anthrax. At the time, there was a spread of anthrax attacks in New York and Washington, and this case baffled law enforcement. No additional cases in the area suggested Lundgren's death was the result of accidental cross-contamination of the mail

Plainfield

Plainfield's most famous son is the 1950 American League Rookie of the Year, Walt Dro

Plymouth

Notable People

Judson Allen, United States Congressman from New York[2]

Ted Knight, American actor (from Terryville)

Eli Terry, clockmaker

Calista Flockhart, actress.

Pomfret

Notable People

Jim Calhoun (b. 1942), head coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team, lives in the town.

Rivers Cuomo (b.1970), lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Weezer, lived in the town in Swami Satchidananda's ashram as a child.

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947), designer of the Singer Building designed the main buildings of the Pomfret School Campus.

Bertram Goodhue (1869–1924), an architect renowned for his work in the neo-gothic style and the designer of notable typefaces, was born in town.

Robert Hillyer (1895–1961), poet, novelist, and critic, lived in the town.

Lois Orswell (1904–1998), collector of abstract expressionist art, lived in the town.

Asa Lyon (1763–1841) a United States Representative from Vermont was born in town.

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908), poet, story-writer, and critic, was born in town.

Israel Putnam (1718–1790), a Major General serving George Washington, lived in the town.

Swami Satchidananda (1914–2002), Indian religious figure, lived in the town.

Liev Schreiber (b. 1967), Tony award winning actor, lived in the town.

Solomon Spaulding (1761–1816), is believe to have authored the Manuscript Story while staying at the Post Road Tavern in the town.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), a painter and printmaker, lived in the town.

Renée Zellweger (b. 1969), Academy Award-winning actress

Portland

Brownstone quarried in Portland was used in the construction of Hartford's Old State House in 1796. The vast majority of the brownstone buildings in Connecticut (see College Row at Wesleyan University and the Long Walk at Trinity College) as well as the famous brownstones in New York City were built with brownstone from Portland's quarries.

Notable People

Julius L. Clarke (1828–1907), newspaper publisher and politician, was born in a part of Chatham that became Portland.

Willard Gildersleeve (1886–1976), college football coach was born in the village of Gildersleeve in Portland.

Guy Hedlund (1884–1964), silent movie actor was born in town.

Oscar Hedstrom (1871-1960), co-founder of the Indian Motorcycle Company lived in town and is buried in Portland.

Florence Fleming Noyes (1871-1928), dancer and founder of The Noyes School of Rhythm.

John Popielaski (1968-), poet, lives in town.

Preston

On 4 August 1954, an Air France Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation flying from Orly Airport to Idlewild Airport crashed near Preston, Connecticut.[5]

Notable People

Nathan Belcher (1813–1891), lawyer, Connecticut state Senator, and US Congressman was born in Preston.

Jonathan Brewster (1593–1659), is buried in Preston

Isaac E. Crary (1804–1854), the first elected US Congressman from the state of Michigan was born in Preston.

William Howard Doane (1831–1915), composer

Beriah Green (1795–1874), abolitionist and author, was born in Preston.

Clarence Ellis Harbison (1885-1960), animal psychologist lived his later life and died in Preston.

John Haskell Hewitt (1835–1920), classical scholar and professor, was born in Preston.

George D. Prentice (1802–1870), controversial newspaper editor, was born in town.

Henry Brewster Stanton (1805–1887), abolitionist, social reformer and husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in town.

George A. Starkweather (1794–1879), US Congressman for New York was born in Preston.

Henry H. Starkweather (1826–1876), postmaster and US Congressman was born in Preston.

Joseph Steward (1753-1822), artist, studied and lived in Preston.

Prospect

Hollywood screenwriter John Fusco grew up in Prospect and was a student at Algonquin and Long River Middle Schools. He is the writer of the movies "Crossroads," "Young Guns," "Young Guns II," "Babe," "Thunderheart," "Hidalgo," "Dreamkeeper," "Loch Ness," "The Forbidden Kingdom," and the animated hit "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," which was nominated for an Academy Award. The 1988 film Galactic Gigolo was filmed in and around Prospect, which was also the setting for the film.

Putnam

In 2006, the town made national news after an individual was shot twice by masked robbers while waiting in a group overnight outside a local Wal-Mart for the release of the PlayStation 3 video game console. The alleged perpetrators were apprehended.[1]

Putnam was also the unlikely base of operations for the All-Russian Fascist Organization, a pre-war Russian emigre group that advocated fascism for the country under Anastasy Vonsyatsky

Notable People

Bruce Boisclair - baseball outfielder

Henry Breault - decorated sailor

Brooke Brodack - actress and comedian

Lewis C. Carpenter - congressman from South Carolina

John N. Dempsey - mayor and governor of Connecticut

Candy LaChance - baseball first baseman

Richard Normand Langlois - economist and professor

William St. Onge – congressman

Michael Bruce Ross - serial killer

Bob Schaefer - baseball coach

Rollie Sheldon - baseball pitcher

Gertrude Chandler Warner - children's author

Redding

Mark Twain, a resident of the town in his old age, contributed the first books for a public library which was eventually named after him

Notable People

Leonard Bernstein (in the 1950s),[5]

Comedian Michael Ian Black,

Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates)[5],

Jascha Heifetz (in the 1940s)[5],

Charles Ives[5],

Hope Lange[5],

film director Barry Levinson

rock singer Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday who was Joel Barlow High School softball coach while his daughters attended the school during the 1990s),

actress Jessica Tandy and her husband Hume Cronyn (in the 1940s and 1950s)[5]

Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary.

The photographer Edward Steichen purchased a farm that he called Umpawaug in 1928.[6] Steichen lived there until his death in 1973.[7] After his death, Steichen's farm was made into a park, known as Topstone Park.[8] Topstone Park is open seasonally to this day.[9]

Mark Twain, who lived on present-day Mark Twain Lane and owned property in town until his death in 1910;

Joel Barlow, a poet and diplomat, born in town;

Howard Fast (in the 1980s)[5];

Flannery O'Connor (who wrote her novel Wise Blood while a boarder at the home of fellow writer Robert Fitzgerald and family on Seventy Acre Road from 1949 to 1951).

Dan Beard, an illustrator and one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, lived on Great Pasture.[5]

Dick Morris, political consultant and author

Charlie Morton, a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, grew up in Redding and attended Joel Barlow High School.

Joan Walsh Anglund, born January 3, 1926, author and illustrator of children's books, moved to Redding in 1976. She lived with her husband on the corner of Blackrock Turnpike and Church Hill Road. Ruth Stout (1884–1980), writer about organic gardening and author of "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back", lived on Poverty Hollow.

Lawrence Kudlow, host of Kudlow and Company television program

John Byrum, film director and screenwriter, is a longtime resident.

Orville Schell, civil Liberties lawyer[5], has lived in town.

Alfred Winslow Jones, called "the father of the hedge fund industry," lived on Poverty Hollow Road.[5]

Major General Samuel Holden Parsons, commander in the Continental Army under Gen.

Israel Putnam, later chief judge of the Northwest Territory, lived on Black Rock Turnpike.[5]

Movies filmed at least in part in Redding (in reverse chronological order) A Georgetown Story (2005–2008)-- Documentary about Georgetown, part of Redding. Old Dogs (2007/ 2008)-- Filmed in Redding Community Center, Putnam Park Reckless (1995) -- filmed in Georgetown Other People's Money (1991) -- filmed in Georgetown The Stepford Wives (1975) The Last House on the Left (1972) Rachel, Rachel (1968) -- filmed in Georgetown Valley of the Dolls (1967) -- filmed in Redding Center

Ridgefield

In 2006, the tree selected to display in Rockefeller Center, New York for the Christmas season came from Ridgefield.

Notable People

actor Robert Vaughn and actor/playwright

Harvey Fierstein, who live in town,

Erland van Lidth de Jeude went to Ridgefield High School in downtown Ridgefield and graduated in 1972.

Eugene O'Neill,

Howard Fast

Cornelius Ryan.

Children's book author Richard Scarry,

Maurice Sendak and

Andy Luckey

Ridgefield is home to American portrait artist John Howard Sanden.

Cartoonist Roz Chast, a frequent New Yorker magazine contributor,

Businesswoman Carolyn Kepcher, who appeared on the NBC show The Apprentice,

Judy Collins

author and former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, Lawrence Bossidy.

Conductor Maxim Shostakovich once lived in town,

Time magazine owner Henry Luce and his wife, Clare Boothe Luce

Jeremiah Donovan was a United States Representative from Connecticut.

A notable metropolitan opera singer from the early 20th century Geraldine Farrar lived in a house on West Lane.

Theodore Sorenson, former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, was once a town resident.

Ira Joe Fisher, a poet who is also a weatherman on CBS television, lives in town as does veteran newsman Morton Dean.

John H. Frey, minority whip of the Connecticut House of Representatives is a longtime resident.

Curt Onalfo, former head coach of the Kansas City Wizards and D.C. United, went to Ridgefield High School.

The 1939 film, "In Name Only" starring Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis, is partially set in Ridgefield, and the very opening shot is of the wooden sign at the corner of Main St. and Branchville Road opposite what is now Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church.

In the 1941 film The Lady Eve starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwick, Fonda's character hosts lavish parties in a fictional town called Bridgefield, CT, a town full of millionaires, right outside of New York. This fictional town is based on the town of Ridgefield, CT

Rocky Hill

In 2003, Rocky Hill was voted the #1 Sportstown in Connecticut by Sports Illustrated for demonstrating high quality involvement in facilitating and enhancing community sports.[1]

In 2007, Rocky Hill was named #35 in Money Magazine's 'Best Places to Live Top 100', citing easy commuting to Hartford, local job availability, strong schools, and a central location between New York City and Boston.[2]

Rocky Hill is the home of is one of the largest dinosaur track sites in North America, Dinosaur State Park.

Rocky Hill also was once the former headquarters of Ames Department Stores, which ceased business operations in 2002.

Roxbury

Notable People

Ethan Allen (January 21, 1738 – February 12, 1789) Early American revolutionary and guerrilla leader, Green Mountain Boys

Seth Warner (May 17, 1743 - December 26, 1784) Green Mountain Boys

Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) American playwright

Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962) Actress

Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) American sculptor and artist

Frank McCourt Author, Angela's Ashes

Stephen Sondheim Broadway playwright

Dustin Hoffman Actor

Denis Leary Actor

Mercer Mayer Children's book author (Little Critter)

Richard Widmark (December 26, 1914 – March 24, 2008)Actor

William Styron (June 11, 1925 - November 1, 2006) Author, Sophie's Choice

Graydon Carter Editor, Vanity Fair

Salem

Notable People

Hiram Bingham III, 1875–1956, adventurer; discovered Machu Picchu. Lengthy resident.

Hiram Bingham IV, 1903–1988, American Vice Consul in Marseilles, France, during World War II; rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Hometown and lengthy resident.

Samuel M. Hopkins, 1772–1837, lawyer and United States Representative for New York was born in Salem.

Rachel Robinson, b. 1922, widow of baseball great Jackie Robinson and civil rights activist. Lengthy resident.

Oramel Whittlesey, 1802–1867, founded Music Vale Seminary, the first accredited music school in the United States. Hometown and lengthy resident

Salisbury

Notable People

Ethan Allen made munitions in Lakeville during the American Revolution.

Charles B. Andrews (1834-1902), Governor of Connecticut (1878-1881).

Martin Chittenden (1763–1840), Governor of Vermont (1813–1815), was born in town.

Nathaniel Everts (1748–1835), Revolutionary War captain in the Colonial Army.

Jeff Greenfield, ABC television newsman

Margaret Hamilton (1902–1985), actress who played The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, spent her last years in town.

Edward Herrmann (b. 1943), film and television actor, lives in town.

Myron Holley, Erie Canal builder

Maria Bissell Hotchkiss, widow of Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, founded the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville.

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) founded the Institute of General Semantics at a country estate in the Salisbury hamlet of Lime Rock and directed it until his death. The Institute remained there until 1981 when it moved elsewhere.[6]

Frederick Miles (1815–1896) was a United States Representative from Connecticut.

Peter Buell Porter (1773–1844), U.S. Secretary of War (1828–1829), was born in town.

Georges Simenon (1903–1989), prolific Belgian author, most notably of the Maigret novels, lived for a time in a large house called "Shadow Rock Farm" in the Lakeville section of town.

Wanda Landowska (1879–1959), famous harpsichordist, was a resident in Lakeville from 1949 until her death in 1959.

Maurice Firuski (1894–1978), famous alumnus of Yale University.

Meryl Streep the Oscar winning stage and screen veteran lives in Salisbury with her family

Rip Torn, American television and film actor.

William Henry Barnum, (1818–1889) United States Representative and Senator, and longest-serving Chairman of the United States Democratic Committee, as well as President of Barnum & Richardson Company, lived all his adult life in Lime Rock, a hamlet of the Town of Salisbury

Scotland

Notable People

Samuel Huntington (1731–1796) a leading Patriot in the American Revolution who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the Declaration of Independence, was born in Scotland.

Seymour

Notable People

John William De Forest (1826–1906), a soldier and writer best known for his Civil War novel Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty, was born in town.

Carlos French (1835–1903) was a United States Representative from Connecticut.

Robert Tuttle Morris (1857–1945) was a surgeon and author born in town.

John D'Agostino (b. 1982), a professional poker player, is a Seymour resident.

Alyssa Naeher (b. 1988), American soccer player and Seymour resident

Sharon

1960: Young Americans for Freedom is founded at the estate of William F. Buckley, Jr. in Sharon. The founding statement of this group will thus be known as the Sharon Statement

Notable People

Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, a leading 19th century American ordnance engineer. His widow Maria Bissell Hotchkiss founded the Hotchkiss Library in Sharon in her husband's memory.

Frank Grimes, who founded the Independent Grocers Association in Sharon in 1926.

Ansel Sterling was a United States Representative from Connecticut.

William F. Buckley Jr. grew up in Sharon, at the Buckley family home ("Great Elm").

Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick have a house and live part time in Sharon.

Michael J. Fox and his wife Tracy Pollan have a house and live part time in Sharon.

Bradley Whitford and his wife Jane Kaczmarek have a house and occasionally spend time in Sharon.

Campbell Scott lives in Sharon.

Jasper Johns currently resides in Sharon.

Jane Curtin, actress and comedienne, resides in Sharon.

Sam Posey, a retired American racecar driver and sports broadcast journalist, resides in Sharon.

According to recent published Associated Press news reports, former Witchblade actress, Yancy Butler currently resides in Sharon.

The presence of Sharon Hospital, a sizeable regional hospital, has led to Sharon being birthplace to several people who did not live in the town:

Samuel Berger, U.S. National Security Advisor to President Bill Clinton. Born in Sharon on October 28, 1945, but raised in nearby Millerton, New York.

Michael Cole (born Michael Shawn Coulthard), announcer on WWE Raw and former journalist with CBS Radio. Born in Sharon on December 8, 1966, but raised in nearby Amenia, New York.

Philip Amelio, 1980s child actor. Born in Sharon on November 3, 1977, but raised in nearby Pine Plains, New York.

Sherman

Sherman has been named "Best Small Town in Connecticut" three times by Connecticut Magazine

Notable People

Blackleach Burritt, noted clergyman in the American Revolution.

Martha Clarke, American director and choreographer.

Arshile Gorky, abstract expressionist painter, lived in Sherman on Spring Lake Road. He is buried in North Cemetery in town.

Mikhail Baryshnikov lived in Sherman for a time with his family.

Bob Iger, Disney CEO, has a home in Sherman.

Howard Schatz, American photographer and ophthalmologist.

Jeffrey Toobin, American lawyer, author and legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker.

George Wunder, artist for 26 years on Terry and the Pirates

Rob Zombie - American musician, songwriter, filmmaker, and voice actor

Daryl Hall A musician who recently bought a home in Sherman

Vinnie Colaiuta World renowned drummer owned a home here for a short time

Somers

In 2007, Money Magazine named Somers, Connecticut 53rd on its list of 100 Best Places to Live, based on "economic opportunity, good schools, safe streets, things to do and a real sense of community."

Notable People

George Abbe (1911–1989), poet.

William Strong (1808–1895), US Congressman from Pennsylvania and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was born in Somers

Southbury

In the 1920s, Russian expatriates Count Ilia Tolstoy, son of author Leo Tolstoy, and George Grebentschikoff founded an artists' colony at the end of Main Street, known as Churaevka (or Russian Village). At its peak, Churaevka had a printing press used by Russian and Ukrainian scholars and novelists. Visitors to the colony included the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Most of its immigrant population is now gone, but St. Sergius Chapel, designed by Nobel peace prize nominee Nicholas Roerich and built in 1932-33, remains. Churaevka is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Notable People

Howard Malcolm Baldrige a Politician and Lawyer and father of Howard M. Baldrige, Jr. and Letitia Baldrige.

Philip Evergood (1901–1973), a painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer, resided in town.

Wallace Nutting (1861–1941) a famed photographer (and also a minister, author, lecturer, furniture maker) moved his photography studio to a farm in town from New York City in 1899. in 1912, he moved again to Framingham, Massachusetts.

Leland Stowe (1899–1994) Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the first to recognize the expansionist character of the German Nazi regime.

Ed Sullivan (1901–1974), iconic television personality & host of a popular television variety show, had a country home in town.

Joel Hinman (1802–1870), Chief Justice, Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, was born in Southbury.[39]

Gladys Taber (1899–1980), Author of 59 books and columnist in the Lady's Home Journal, lived in "Stillmeadow," a 1690 farmhouse off of Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury starting in 1933 (summers only) and 1935 (full time).[40]

Victor Borge (1909–2000), comedian, owned the Colonial House in Southbury, which now serves as a community center.[41] His estate & cornish hen game farm is now Heritage Village.

Polly Bergen actress, recording artist and successful entrepreneur. Bergen calls a vintage house on several wooded acres in the South Britain area her home.

Sada Thompson actress of stage, screen and television, perhaps best known for her role on the long-running ABC drama "Family".

Jan Miner (1917–2004) actress. Miner's prolific career began in radio and spanned all media for decades, with an emphasis on many highly regarded stage performances. She most likely will be forever remembered as "Madge the Manicurist", a role she enjoyed for nearly 3 decades in dozens of TV commercials for Palmolive dishwashing soap.

Linda Cohn Sportscaster on the ESPN network.

David Pollitt - David Pollitt is a convicted serial rapist who had moved into his sister's home in a Southbury neighborhood in October 2007 which was met with heavy protest. A state judge in New London rejected a request by state officials to have Pollitt placed somewhere else, such as an inpatient treatment center. Judge Susan Handy said Pollitt has paid his debt to society. Neighbors however held several protests and town-wide meetings to discuss this event. Many were disgusted that a convicted rapist could move into their quiet neighborhood on Fox Run Road , despite that Pollitt was put under house arrest and electronic monitoring. Neighbors concerns included the fact that during his nearly 25 years in prison, David Pollitt refused all offers for rehabilitation therapy. Pollitt's teenage nieces, who would be living in the same house upon his release, represented the lone voices defending him. As part of the terms of his probation, Pollitt has to wear a global positioning satellite tracking device and register as a sex offender. One interesting fact is that five other convicted sex offenders live in Southbury yet residents have not protested their status in town. However, it was the severity and repetitive nature of David Pollitt's crimes which created the issue. David Pollitt's serial rape convictions is tied with only by one other sex offender in the state of Connecticut

Denying Nazi group a pre-war foothold - In November 1937 residents of the farming outpost got word that a man by the name of Wolfgang Jung had purchased 178 acres (0.72 km2) in the town. Residents quickly looked into his plans and discovered that he was a member of the German-American Bund, an organization of ethnic Germans living in the United States who supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Its leader, Fritz Kuhn, was considered the leading anti-Semite in the country. Word soon got out that they were in fact planning to build their largest training facility in the country. Residents objected by calling a town meeting and set up a zoning department with one simple rule, no military activity excluding the United States army. The law was adopted December 14 and the Bund stopped work and eventually sold the land

Sprague

Notable People

Leo Connellan (1928–2001), poet, lived his later years and died in town.

Charles S. Whitman (1868–1947), judge and the 41st Governor of New York, was born in town.

Stafford

Notable People

Jack Arute (1952?-), sports commentator and president Stafford Motor Speedway.

Penny Bacchiochi (1961?-), current Connecticut House of Representatives legislator was raised in town.

Moses G. Leonard (1809–1899), US Congressman for New York was born in town.

Erasmus D. Peck (1808–1876), US Congressman for Ohio was born in town.

Charles Lewandoski (1985-), Current NASCAR Nationwide Series driver.

Sterling

Sterling made world news on 12-09-09, when a Holstein cow was born on a local farm with a white cross on its forehead. A Wisconsin professor said that white markings on the head of Holstein cows are not unusual, though "the shape of a cross is unique". The cow was dubbed "Holy cow".

Notable People

Charles Dow (1851 – 1902), journalist and founder of the Dow Jones & Company was born in Sterling.

Allen Cleveland Lewis (1821 – 1877), founder of the Lewis Institute (later the Illinois Institute of Technology) was born in Sterling.

Tom "T-Bone" Stankus, musician

Stonington

Stonington repulsed two British naval bombardments. One, during the American Revolution, was a desultory bombardment by Sir James Wallace in the frigate Rose on August 30, 1775. The other was a more damaging three-day affair between August 9 and 12, 1814. During the War of 1812, four British vessels, HMS Ramillies, HMS Pactolus, HMS Dispatch, and HMS Terror, under the command of Sir Thomas Hardy, appeared offshore on August 9, 1814. The British demanded immediate surrender, but Stonington’s citizens replied with a note that stated, "We shall defend the place to the last extremity; should it be destroyed, we shall perish in its ruins." For three days the Royal Navy pounded the town, but the only fatality was that of an elderly woman who was mortally ill. The British, after suffering many dead and wounded, sailed off on 12 August. The American poet Philip Freneau wrote (in part): "The bombardiers with bomb and ball Soon made a farmer's barrack fall, And did a cow-house badly maul That stood a mile from Stonington. They kill'd a goose, they kill'd a hen Three hogs they wounded in a pen— They dashed away and pray what then? This was not taking Stonington. But some assert, on certain grounds, (Beside the damage and the wounds), It cost the king ten thousand pounds To have a dash at Stonington.

The Stonington Harbor Light, a low stone building, was the first lighthouse established by the U.S. Federal Government, in 1823.

In the 19th century Stonington supported a small fishing, whaling and sealing fleet, with some direct trade with the West Indies, enough in volume for it to be made a Port of Entry in 1842; the small granite Customs House faces Main Street just north of Cannon Square.

Notable People

The very young Nathaniel Palmer, in charge of the sloop Hero, was seal hunting in the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctic summer season of 1820-1821. Sent southwards in November to investigate a volcanic eruption on the horizon, he sighted Antarctica. Palmer Land on the Antarctic Peninsula is named after him, and Stonington Island, near Antarctica, is named after the town. Palmer also helped develop the clipper ship, the fastest sailing ship of the nineteenth century.

the explorer Edmund Fanning, who discovered Palmyra Island south of Hawai'i;

Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Fanning;

the Beaux-Arts architect Edward P. York, of York and Sawyer;

the poet Stephen Vincent Benét, and

the garden essayist Eleanor Perenyi.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, whose 'Water Street' evokes Stonington, moved to town in 1955.

Ruth Buzzi of television's "Laugh In" was born and brought up where Buzzi Memorials sits on Stonington Road.

Harpsichord maker David Jacques Way's workshop was in Stonington.

Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, also had a summer house located in the Borough.

Since 1999, Stonington has been the home of 2004 World Series of Poker champion Greg "Fossilman" Raymer.

Stonington has also been a destination for many famous persons, such as Viggo Mortensen, who rented a home in the area, and his The Lord of the Rings costar Elijah Wood; television host Conan O'Brien, whose sister lives in the Borough; and others, such as George Hamilton, Jimmy Fallon, Trey Anastasio of Phish and Dick Vitale of ESPN.

Stonington has been the home to several on-location movie shoots, including Steven Spielberg's Amistad and the Julia Roberts breakthrough movie, Mystic Pizza.

Italian tenor, Sergio Franchi, also maintained a home in Stonington. Former United States Congressman and 2010 United States Senate hopeful Rob Simmons currently resides in Stonington

Suffield

Notable People

Rev. Ebenezer Gay, a renowned Congregational minister;

U.S. Postmaster General Gideon Granger;

real estate speculator Oliver Phelps, once the largest landowner in America;

composer Timothy Swan;

architect Henry A. Sykes;

sculptor Olin Levi Warner;

Seth Pease, surveyor of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio, most of which were controlled by Suffield financiers and speculators; and

Thaddeus Leavitt[2], inventor of an early cotton gin, merchant and patentee of the Western Reserve lands.[3]

Thanks to the town's early prominence and wealth, it boasts an astonishing collection of early New England architecture.[4]

The Kent family, for whom the town's library is named, originated in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and boasted relations to many prominent early New England families, including the Dwight family of Northampton, Massachusetts, the Hooker family of Hartford, the Dudleys of Guilford, Connecticut and the Leavitts of Suffield.[5][6] Descendants of Robert Olds, who arrived from Sherborne, Dorset, in 1667, include automotive pioneer Ransom Eli Olds, Copperhead Ohio politician Edson Baldwin Olds, his great-grandson USAAF General Robert Olds, and his son, iconic USAF fighter pilot Robin Olds.

Thomaston

Notable People

Michael J. McGivney(1852–1890), Roman Catholic priest and founder of the Knights of Columbus died in Thomaston.

Grattan O'Connell(1902–??), born in Thomaston, early professional football player.

Thomas James Reeves (1895–1941), born in Thomaston, was a US Navy radioman killed during the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. In 1943, the destroyer escort USS Reeves (DE-156) was named in his honor.

Seth Thomas (1785–1859), was a famous 19th century American clock maker and pioneer of mass production. The town is named after him

Thompson

Thompson has the highest-banked race track (Thompson International Speedway, a 5/8 mile oval) in New England. This speedway holds one of the biggest race programs in New England, "The World Series of Auto Racing", where 14 divisions and about 600 cars show up each fall. Another claim to fame is that the Tri-State Marker is located just on the border of Thompson.

The term "Swamp Yankee" is thought to have originated in Thompson during the American Revolution in 1776.

Thompson is also known as the site of the Great East Thompson Train Wreck in 1891, one of the worst train wrecks in American history and the only one to involve four trains.

Notable People

George Whitefield Davis (1839–1918), engineer and Major General in the United States Army, military Governor of Puerto Rico and the first military Governor of the Panama Canal Zone was born in Thompson.

Simon Larned (1753–1817), Revolutionary War Captain, War of 1812 Colonel and US Congressman for Massachusetts was born in Thompson.

Andrew Mamedoff (1912–1941), pilot whom fought for the RAF and died during the Battle of Britain, was born in Thompson.

James Brown Mason (1775–1819), two term US Congressman for Rhode Island was born in Thompson.

Ossian Everett Mills (1846–1920), founder of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, was born in town and is buried in a small family plot in Thompson.

Dr. James M. Munyon (1848–1918), was born in Thompson.

John E. Tourtellotte (1869–1939), architect, was born in East Thompson, Connecticut.

Ithiel Town (1784–1844), architect and civil engineer was born in Thompson.

Anastasy Vonsyatsky (1898–1965), a Russian anti-Bolshevik émigré and fascist leader of the All Russian National Revolutionary Party lived in and is buried in Thompson.

Tony Willman (1907-1941), racecar driver was born in Thompson.

Tolland

In 2005, Tolland was voted the 29th best place to live in America by CNN/Money magazine,[citation needed] and in 2009, it was voted the 27th best place to live in America by CNN/Money magazine.[1]

In April 2008, Wes Craven began filming scenes for his 2009 movie My Soul to Take inside the former Tolland High School

Notable People

Daniel C. Burbank (1961-), NASA astronaut was raised in town and graduated Tolland High School.

Henry D. Cogswell (1820–1900), dentist and a crusader in the temperance movement was born in Tolland.

William W. Eaton (1816-1898), US Congressman and US Senator was born in and was a resident of Tolland.

Jonathan Hatch Hubbard (1768–1849), US Congressman for Vermont was a born in Tolland.

Charles R. Ladd (1822–1903), laywer, politician and Massachusetts Auditor was born in Tolland.

David Passaro (1966-), CIA contractor and former US Army Ranger graduated from Tolland High School.

Shubal Stearns (1706–1771), evangelist, preacher of the Separate Baptists was a resident.

James Stevenson (1981-), actor grew up in Tolland.

Loren P. Waldo (1802-1881), lawyer and US Congressman was a resident

Union

Notable People

Alonzo Horton, considered the second founder of the city of San Diego, California, and the founder of Hortonville, Wisconsin, was born in Union on October 24, 1813. His family moved away from the area in 1815.[4]

Moses G. Leonard (1809–1899), a United States Representative from New York, grew up in Union but was born in nearby Stafford.[5]

Ebenezer Stoddard (1785–1847), a United States Representative from Connecticut and Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, was born in Union

Warren

Notable People

Lorenzo Carter (1767-1814), the first settler of Ohio, was born in Warren.

Warren is the birthplace of Charles Finney.

Director Milos Forman lives in Warren with his wife, Martina Forman, an author.

Morton Gottlieb (1921–2009), theatrical and film producer was a resident.

Painter Cleve Gray lived there until his death

Writer Francine du Plessix Gray resides there.

Writer Phillip Roth maintains a house in Warren

Washington

Notable People

The Rolling Stones, rock band [20]

Christine Baranski, actress [9]

Peter Brimelow, magazine editor and anti-immigration activist [10]

Santiago Calatrava, architect[11]

Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine [12]

Jim Dine, artist [13]

Benjamin Delahauf Foulois (December 9, 1879 - April 25, 1967), pioneer military aviator, both born and buried in Washington

William Hamilton Gibson (October 5, 1850 - July 16, 1896), illustrator, author and naturalist

Frederick Gunn, abolitionist, educator, and inventor of summer camp[14][15]

Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece [16]

Thomas Hastings (1784–1872), composer whose most famous work was the hymn Rock of Ages

Conan O'Brien, comedian [17]

Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece [16]

Moses Pendleton, choreographer [18]

Joan Rivers, comedian [19]

Ehrick Rossiter, architect [21]

Scott Rudin, film producer [22]

George Soros, financier [23]

Art Spiegelman, cartoonist [24]

James Taylor, musician [25]

William vanden Heuvel, diplomat and author [26]

Heather Watts, dancer [27]

Damian Woetzel, dancer [28]

Jonathan Wolken, choreographer [29]

Stuart Woods, author [22]

In Popular Culture

Washington Depot inspired the fictional town of Stars Hollow in the WB/CW television series Gilmore Girls.[30] Portions of the 1981 horror movie "Friday the 13th, Part 2", were filmed in New Preston

Waterford

Notable People

Veronica Ballestrini, country music artist

Martin Branner, cartoonist (Winnie Winkle)

Billy Gardner, MLB player/manager

Audrey Meadows, actress (The Honeymooners)

Jesse Metcalfe, actor

The Waterford Speedbowl is a racetrack recognized under NASCAR’s Whelen All-American Series, and holds touring events throughout the year including the True Value Modified Series, International Super Modified Association, and North Eastern Midget Association. The track formerly held events sanctioned by the Whelen Modified Tour and the Busch East series. It is usually open every Saturday and includes events such as burnout contests and car shows.[3] As of September 2009, Waterford is the new home of the game show Deal or No Deal.

Watertown

Notable People

Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, (1853–1937) 31 mayor of Chicago (1905–1907); governor of Illinois (1913–1917) was born in Watertown.

Benjamin B. Hotchkiss (1826–1885), for whom The Hotchkiss School was named by his widow, was one of the leading American ordnance engineers of his day. He made his money by founding a successful munitions company in France after the American Civil War. He was born in Watertown but in early childhood moved to Sharon.

John Trumbull (1750–1831), American political satirist and poet, was born in Watertown.

Allen B. Wilson and Nathaniel Wheeler started their Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company here. It was one of the first manufacturers of sewing machines

The Taft School, a private boarding school

Notable Alumni:

Stevan Dedijer '30, Founder of the Research Policy Institute, Croatian Intelligence

Alfred G. Gilman '58, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine

Mason Gross '29, President of Rutgers University

Samuel T. Orton 1897, pioneer in study of dyslexia

T. H. Breen '60, Guggenheim fellow, history professor Arts and entertainment

Trey Anastasio '83, Phish Lead guitarist

Dudley Taft '84, Sweetwater, Guitars, Vocals

Jeff Baxter '67, musician (Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers)

Henry Beard '63, cofounder, National Lampoon, co-author, Bored of the Rings

Peter Berg '80, actor/director

Mary Chapin Carpenter '76, Five-time Grammy-award winner.[4]

Spencer Treat Clark '05, Actor Gladiator, Mystic River, Unbreakable, and The Last House on the Left

Nelson Antonio Denis '72, Film Director, Screenwriter

Adam Duritz '82, lead singer of Counting Crows

James Franciscus '53, actor The Naked City, Longstreet Grant Goodeve, actor, Eight is Enough Deane G. Keller '17, Painter and educator[5]

Ralph Lee '53, Guggenheim fellow and Obie Award winner

Mark Winslow Potter '48, painter

Steve Sandvoss '98,

Actor Fred Small '70, Singer-songwriter

Karen L. Thorson '78, producer, The Wire, The Unusuals

Joseph Irwin Miller '27, American industrialist, Cummins Engine Company

John M. Schiff '21, Investment banker, philanthropist, honorary chairman of Lehman Brothers.[6]

George Weyerhaeuser '44, Chairman and CEO, Weyerhaeuser Company[7]

Nathaniel Neiman Craley, Jr. '46, U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania[8]

Richard Funkhouser, U.S. Ambassador to Gabon

Robert C. Hill '38, United States Ambassador to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Spain and Argentina

William S. Mailliard '35, U.S. Congressman, California[9]

Manuel Rocha '69, United States Ambassador to Bolivia 2000-02

Earl T. Smith '22, United States Ambassador to Cuba (1958-59)

Michael P. W. Stone '42, U.S. Secretary of the Army

Robert Taft 1906, U.S. Senator from Ohio 1939-53, majority leader

Robert Taft, Jr. '35, Republican Congressman 1963-65, 1967-71, Senator 1971-76

Bob Taft '59, Governor of Ohio

William Howard Taft III '33, United States Ambassador to Ireland Robert F. Wagner '29, mayor of New York

John S. Wold '34, U.S. Congressman, Wyoming[10]

Flemming L. Norcott, Jr. '61, Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court[11]

Robert W. Sweet '40, federal judge who heard New York Times v. Gonzales concerning the Judith Miller controversy.[10]

Darren Bragg '87, professional baseball player

James Driscoll '96, professional golfer[12]

Patrick Kerney '95, professional football player

Allison Mleczko '93, gold medalist in first women's Olympic ice hockey game at Nagano; silver medalist in 2002. [13]

Max Pacioretty '07, professional hockey player for the Montreal Canadiens

Barbara Potter '79, Hall of Fame professional tennis player

James Stillman Rockefeller '20, Olympic gold medalist, 8-man rowing (Paris, France)

Ryan Shannon '01, professional hockey player

Tammy Lee Shewchuk '96, Olympic gold medalist in women's ice hockey, Salt Lake City

Steven J. Erlanger ’70, Paris bureau chief (formerly Jerusalem bureau chief) for The New York Times

Varian Fry '26 Journalist and "the American Schindler"

Philip K. Howard '66, founder of Common Good, author of The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America[14]

Thomas Kuhn '40, author of Structure of Scientific Revolutions, coined the phrase "paradigm shift"

John Merrow ’59, Peabody Award-winning journalist and producer

Josh Quittner '75, author, editor Business 2.0 David Kenyon Webster '40, American soldier, journalist, and author

Westbrook

David Bushnell, the inventor of the submarine, was born in what is now Westbrook in 1742. The name of his submarine was the "Turtle".

Art Carney, Academy Award-winning actor, lived in Westbrook for some time before his death in 2003 at a rest home in Chester.

Notable People

Everett Bacon (1890–1989), athlete and World War I veteran was born in town.

Vicki Hearne (1946—2001), animal trainer, author and literary critic was a long time resident.

George Lessey (1879–1947), silent movie actor lived his later years and died in Westbrook.

Weston

A meteor exploded above the town December 14, 1807.[7] Six pieces, totaling 28 pounds (13 kg), were recovered and examined by scientists, who issued a report. This was the first time that people realized the nature of meteors

Notable People

George Balanchine (1904–1983), choreographer and influential figure in ballet, lived in town[10]

Paul Cadmus (1904–1999), painter, lived in town[22]

Frank Converse (born 1938), actor[10]

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004), comedian, lived in town[6]

Bette Davis (1908–1989), actress, lived in town[6]

Jose Feliciano (born 1945), singer and songwriter[23]

Mariette Hartley (born 1940), actress, native of Weston[24]

Evan Hunter (1926–2005), author who wrote under the pen name "Ed McBain"[25]

Erica Jong (born 1942), author[6]

Eartha Kitt (1927–2008), entertainer, moved to town in 2002[26]

Lawrence Langner (1890–1962), playwright, author, and producer. Lived on what is now called Langner Lane.[27]

Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991), actress [10]

Brent Musburger (born 1939), sportscaster, lived in town[6]

James Naughton (born 1945), actor[28]

Katherine Ordway (1899–1979), 3M heiress, philanthropist, supporter of land conservation, funded the purchase of part of Devil's Den, lived in town[29]

Christopher Plummer (born 1929), actor[30]

Robert Redford (born 1936), actor, had a home in town[31]

Keith Richards (born 1943), musician, member of The Rolling Stones [32]

Fritz Reiner (1888–1963), Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and other notable orchestras. Lived on Davis Hill beginning in 1938.[33]

John Seigenthaler, Jr. (born 1955), former NBC News weekend anchor.[34]

James Thurber (1894–1961), writer[

Wilton

AIG Financial Products is headquartered in the town.[6] Its trading in credit derivatives essentially bankrupted its parent company, AIG, and helped create the global financial crisis of 2008–2009.[7][8]

Notable People

Sophie Cabot Black, poet who grew up in and lives in town.

Robert Sidney Bowen, an author, lived here in the 1940s.

Chance Browne, cartoonist of syndicated comic strip Hi and Lois

Dave Brubeck, jazz musician[12]

David Canary, actor, All My Children [13]

Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, authors.

Paul Dano (born 1984), actor born and raised in town[14]

Matt Davies Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist.

Bern Dibner, electrical engineer and historian of science[15].

Ace Frehley, rock guitarist, lived in Wilton in the early 1980s[16]

Charles Grodin, actor[17]

Johnny Gruelle, artist who created Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy

June Havoc, actress, who also renovated buildings to create the Cannon Crossing center of small shops. Her sister Gypsy Rose Lee frequently visited her.[18]

Patty Hearst, now known as Patricia Hearst-Shaw, heiress and actress[19]

Lydia Hearst-Shaw, supermodel and heiress

Ira Levin, writer, lived in Wilton in the 1960s and claimed in a March 27, 2007 letter to the New York Times that he based the fictional town of Stepford on Wilton.[20]

Kristine Lilly, US Olympic Soccer Team, holds world record for most professional soccer match appearances in history[21]

Joe Pantoliano, actor[22]

Steve Phillips, Former NY Mets General Manager and former ESPN baseball analyst

Charles E. Pont, artist and Baptist minister, lived here from 1958 until his death in 1971.

Randy Rasmussen, former left guard of the New York Jets for 15 years (1967–1981), started in Super Bowl III[23]

David Rovics (raised in Wilton), political activist and singer-songwriter.

John Scofield (not a current resident, but grew up in the town), jazz guitarist for Miles Davis

Christopher Walken, actor[24]

Chris Elliott, actor/comedian [25]

Abby Elliott, actress/ comedian[26]

David W. Karnes, former Marine Corpsman that rescued two officers at the World Trade Center

Sterling Hayden, actor

Fernando Fernandes, Legendary Futballa, "Teacher"

Daryl Hawk, documentary photographer

Winchester

Notable People

Phineas Miner (1777–1839), a United States Representative from Connecticut, was born in Winchester.

Ralph Nader (b.1934), noted political activist and consumer advocate, was born in Winchester.

Windham

Notable People

Eleazar Wheelock (1711–1779) a Congregational minister, orator, educator, and founder of Dartmouth College, was born in town.

Eliphalet Dyer (1721–1807) a lawyer, jurist, and delegate for Connecticut to the Continental Congress, was born in town.

William Hebard (1800–1875) a United States Representative from Vermont was born in town.

George Hewitt Cushman (1814–1876), engraver and painter of miniature paintings and portraits

Windsor Locks

Windsor Locks won the 1965 Little League World Series.

Windsor Locks High School won the 2005 and 2006 Class S State Championships in Baseball.

Windsor Locks High School won the 2001 basketball state championship

Winsted

Notable People

Crane Brinton, historian

James P. Glynn, congressman

David Halberstam, journalist and author Arphaxed Loomis, congressman

Ralph Nader, author and activist

Rose Nader, activist

Henry R. Pease, senator

Charles H. Smith, historian of science

James Wakefield, congressman

Wolcott

Notable People

Amos Bronson Alcott, (1799–1888), born in Wolcott, teacher, writer, and founder of the utopian community "Fruitlands"[3]

William Andrus Alcott, (1798–1859), born in Wolcott, teacher and noted author of over 100 books[3]

Seth Thomas (1785–1859), famous clock maker born in Wolcott

Woodbridge

In 1661, the town was the location of one of the hideouts of the "Regicides" -- three of the judges who signed the death warrant for King Charles I of England. The ruins of their hideout can be found on the nearby West Rock ridge, which run along the town's eastern border.

Notable People

Thomas Darling (1720–1789), a tutor at Yale College and later an entrepreneur in New Haven, moved to town in 1774. His home is now the Darling House Museum, operated by the Amity & Woodbridge Historical Association Notable Residents, past and present

Guido Calabresi, Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Yale Law School professor.

David Gelernter, Yale University professor, noted author, painter and computer scientist.

Boone Guyton, business man, author and WWII test who flew the F4U Corsair and Vought V-173.

John Hollander, literary critic, lives in town.

David Aaron Kessler, former FDA Commissioner, university medical dean

Jeremy Leven, Hollywood screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist.

Jonathan Mostow, director of Terminator 3.

Louise Shaffer, actress, script writer, and author was born in Woodbridge.

Maury Yeston, Tony Award-winning Broadway composer and lyricist. His works include "Titanic", "Grand Hotel", and "Nine". Nine was adapted and released as a musical film starring Daniel Day-Lewis in December 2009. Yeston wrote and composed several new songs for the project

Woodbury

Notable People

Poet and critic Hayden Carruth grew up in the town.

It was also the residence of surrealist painters Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy from 1946 until each one's death.

The composer Leroy Anderson also lived in Woodbury on Grassy Hill Road from 1953 until he died in 1975, his wife Eleanor Anderson still lives in Woodbury today.

Jazz guitarist Joe Beck also lived in Woodbury until his death in 2008.

Musician and Movie Director Rob Zombie also recently moved to the town in January 2009 and resides in a residence off Route 317.

Henry Shelton Sanford (1823–1891), was born in Woodbury. He was an American Diplomat, and the founder of Sanford, Florida.

Reverend Alexander Hamilton was the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.