The best known writer from Connecticut, Hank Morgan, was a travel writer, and a good one, or at least a fun one to read. It doesn’t get edgier than when his strong Yankee character clashes with the customs and peculiarities of England. No writer is as arrogantly certain of his own superiority as Morgan, but that’s part of his virtue, and his descriptions are completely trustworthy. He has other shortcomings: I’m still not clear how Morgan got from Connecticut to England.
I’ve been to Connecticut once before, to poke around New Haven, which is best known for its pizza. I didn’t have any, not knowing then what I know now.
This time we’ll be in northwest Connecticut, on the Housatonic River. How do you say that? House-a-tonic? Whose-a-tonic? I don’t know, though even I know that it’s not Conn-ec-ti-cut, but isn’t that “c” dandy to pronounce? Who doesn’t like to? Connect. Connect. Conne-c-ti-cut.
Connect-i-cuters don’t really have a very useful appellation. Nothing rolls off the tongue; not Connecticucator, Connecticutensian, Connecticutan. . . According to Webster (who was from New Haven), Connecticuter is correct, but I figure if I told somebody they were a Connecticuter, I’d have made an enemy for life.
Connecticut Yankees are also known as Nutmeggers, presumably because of the state’s vast fields of native nutmeg.
Demographics and Geography
Connecticut is the third smallest state, with 4,845 square miles. It’s smaller than Hawaii (with 6,423 square miles), but more than four times larger than Rhode Island (1,034 square miles). For all of that paucity of space, it is heavily populated, with 745 people per square mile. Compare that to Wyoming, with 55 people per square mile. In order of density, the states are New Jersey (1,263), Rhode Island (1061), Massachusetts (901), and then, crowding in at fourth, Connecticut.
Population in the state isn’t uniformly distributed. It concentrates along the coast and the Delaware River. Hartford, for instance, population 123,000, has a population density of 7,091 people per square mile.
Connecticut has eight counties, but apparently no county governments, which seems odd given that politicians abhore a vacuum. There is the state, and there are towns. There’s other stuff, but state and towns without the bother of counties seems a notable effort at efficiency. In addition to the towns and the state, Connecticut has more than 300 special taxing districts and school districts, so I guess minimizing counties really doesn’t clear out much space government-wise.
Connecticut is the southern-most New England state, which may seem obvious to most, but to those of us less familiar with the Northeast that’s a revelation. If you asked me most days what states comprise New England, I’d like as not throw in anything northeast of Missouri. Why, for instance, is New Jersey not New England, but Vermont, which was a relative late-comer, included in New England? It’s a mystery, probably tied to Beacon Hill snobbery.
With a population of 3,605,944 based on the 2020 census, Connecticut has a lot of white people, 80%, a surprising number of Hispanics, 17%, and is about 12% African American. Everybody else surely fits in somewhere, but not in any big numbers. It’s a rich state, 6th in median household income at $79,855. More than 90% of its adults have at least a high school degree, and 40% have at least a bachelors degree.
Compare that to West Virginia, just down the map, which is 92% white and only 1.7% Hispanic. About 88% of the of West Virginia adults have a high school degree, but only 21% of adults have a bachelors degree or higher, and the median annual income is $48,037. Wealth begets wealth.
Connecticut isn’t actually on the Atlantic Coast, but on Long Island Sound, sheltered from the Atlantic by the long Long Island peninsula. See United States v. Maine, 469 U.S. 504 (1985) (determining that Long Island is not, in fact, an island, but leaving open the question of length). A coastal plain extends west-east along Long Island Sound, and a river valley that follows the Connecticut River north-south smack dab through the center of the state. At 400 miles the Connecticut is the longest river in the Northeast, and we’ve happily fished it for trout and pike in New Hampshire, almost to Canada. The coastal plain and the river valley are the population centers.
The seashore is at sea level, and the average elevation in Connecticut is 500 feet. The highest point in Connecticut is the south slope of Mount Frisell on the Massachusetts border at 2,379 feet. The peak of Mount Frisell, 2,454 feet, is in Massachusetts. Mount Frisell is part of the Taconic Range, that is part of the Appalachians.
The remainder of the state is north-south hills and valleys created by plate tectonics, almost reminding one (if one is so inclined) of the Nevada basin and range system. Tectonic plates took land that measured more than 500 miles across (with estimates up to 3000 miles across), and scrunched it into 100 miles. I’m pretty certain that the technical geologic term for the cause of all those ups and downs is scrunching.
Its lakes, the Connecticut River Valley, the seashore, and its streams and riverswere formed by glaciers, the same Wisconsinite Glaciers that formed the Great Lakes about 10,000+ years ago. Wisconsinite Glaciers did’t do things in moderation. They dumped about 10 feet of junk over the hills of New England, and glacial drift covers about 99% of Connecticut bedrock.
Settlement, History
Massachusetts Puritans psuedopodded into the Hartford area in 1636. There followed various Puritan settlements, which were finally combined into a colony by royal charter in 1662. Connecticut later repaid the King’s generosity by joining in the American Revolution. The first major New England Indian/Colonial war, the Pequot War, centered in Massachusetts and Connecticut from 1636-38. The Pequots were actually interlopers themselves, and the Naragansetts and Mohegans joined with the English to drive out the Pequots. The Pequots lost, but then so ultimately did the Naragansets and Mohegans.
Pequot prisoners were exchanged in the West Indies for African slaves, so black slavery has an early start in Connecticut, and slavery was not ended until 1848. As of 1790, there were 2,764 slaves in Connecticut, out of a total population of 237,946. By 1830, the total population of Connecticut was 297,675, but the slave population had decreased to 25.
Into the 20th century, Connecticut was a leader in seafaring and ship building. During the Civil War, Connecticut was a manufacturing center for the Union, and the defense industry remains one of its important crops. Also insurance. Don’t forget insurance. Connecticut produced two famous insurance agents, Wallace Stevens and Charles Ives.
Connecticut also produced two presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
Hank Morgan typified the 19th century Yankee from Connecticut: industrious, capable, innovative, maybe a bit too sure of his virtue, but something in the national perception of the Connecticuter changed by the late 20th century. Connecticut became in the popular mind a New York bedroom community. Think of films from Connecticut, with their dark undercurrent of suburban angst: The Swimmer, The Stepford Wives, The Gilmore Girls . . .
I’ve watched The Gilmore Girls. It’s creepy that anyone can talk that much.
Politics
Connecticut is a Democratic state, with about 50% of its population Democratic or leaning Democratic. That’s consistent with the trends of urban areas and wealthier states tending to vote Democratic. All of Connecticut’s major state offices are held by Democrats, along with both US Senators and its five Representatives. There are some Republicans in the state assembly, 12 of the 36 senators and 54 of the 151 Representatives.
In 2016 Connecticut voted 54.57% for Hillary Clinton, with two counties, Litchfield (where we’re going) and Windham voting 54% and 50% respectively for Donald Trump. In 2020, Joe Biden carried 59% of the state’s votes; Donald Trump again carried Litchfield and Windham by 51%.
Rivers and Fish
Fly fishing in Connecticut is all about trout. Connecticut would have been a brook trout state, but stocking programs favor rainbows and browns. I’m sure along the coast there are fly anglers who fly fish in saltwater, but search online and most of what you see is trout. Like a lot of stuff in Connecticut, I figure its angling is heavily subsidized with folk from New York City.
The big river through Connecticut is the Connecticut, which seems appropriate. As mentioned, we’ve fished for trout in the Connecticut River, but we fished way north, long before the Connecticut leaves New Hampshire. By the time the river reaches Connecticut it’s too warm for trout.
The best known trout river in Connecticut is the Farmington, which, including its West Branch, is 80 miles long, and which is part of the Connecticut River Basin. We’re not fishing the Farmington. No reason, but there you are.
We’re fishing the Housatonic (HOOS-ə-TON-ik), which runs 149 miles and drains a chunk of Western Connecticut and Massachusetts into Long Island Sound. It’s also a trout river, at least in the northwest portion of the state where we’ll fish. We’ll fish in Litchfield County, where 51% of the fish voted for Donald Trump in 2020. I figure it was the brown trout. Brown trout always seemed to me to tend Republican.
