July 7, 2023

The Connecticut River

This week's Musings from Main explores the history of Connecticut River through the lens of its varied monikers.  Learn more about the Connecticut River during our
Nowashe Waterways Program
July 8th from 11am -4pm.

Quinnehtukqut

Indigenous Peoples have called this area home since the retreat of the glaciers around 11,000 years ago. The Algonquin speaking people of the area called the large, long river that they traveled on and made their homes near, Quinnehtukqut meaning “along the long tidal river” or "place of the long water." (Munkittrick, p. 9, Woodward, p.1.)  The over 400 mile long Quinnehtukqut, was used by Indigenous peoples for thousands of year as a means of travel, as a trade route, and for its abundance of fish. Its banks and meadows were recognized as fertile areas for hunting, growing crops, and gathering native plants.

Due to the fact that Indigenous Peoples did not use a written language, the Dutch, French and English people who encountered them, attempted to spell place-names as they heard them or in other words, phonetically. “Connecticut,” for example was originally spelled: Quinetucquet, 1636 (Cambridge Records), Quinnihticut, 1643 (Roger Williams), and the most popular spelling, Quinnehtukqut.  These variations resulted from who had heard the word spoken and how they had heard it pronounced.

The Great River

In 1614 Dutch explorer Adriaen Block navigated up the river and came upon a fortified Native American Village at a place called Nowashe, between the Podunk and Scantic River.  As a result of Block's travels the Dutch, established the trading post, Huys de Hoop (House of Hope), at what ultimately became Hartford. Just four months later, the English decided that they also needed a trading post on the river, and sent Plimoth trader, William Holmes to settle in what is now Windsor.

More European followed.  "...settlers from New England's east coast Bay Colony and Long Island Sound's villages relocated to the valley. They usually came to farm the rich alluvial soils deposited along its banks, as well as along the banks of its 38 main tributaries...These settlers came to call the Connecticut, into which all others flowed, 'the Great River.'" (Munkittrick, p. 9)

Beautiful River

"This stream may perhaps with more propriety than any other in the world be named the Beautiful River" - Timothy Dwight President of Yale College

In Travels in New England and New York, which is based on voyages Yale President Timothy Dwight made in 1795 and 1815, he wrote glowingly about the Connecticut River and about "the purity salubrity, and sweetness of its waters."  He went on to write about the river, "This stream may perhaps with more propriety than any other in the world be named the Beautiful River" (Hill p.32)

Most Beautifully Landscaped Cesspool

“Sometimes when its flow is low and it cannot properly dilute the waste man dumps into it, its attraction to the eyes is overbalanced by its repulsiveness to the nose,” UCONN Professor Evan Hill 1969

In 1965, Katharine Hepburn narrated a half-hour television documentary called The Long Tidal River. It was produced by her brother-in-law, Ellsworth Grant, and documented the toll pollution had taken on the Connecticut River which emptied into the Long Island Sound near her house in Fenwick. The documentary aired on WTIC and was shown around New England's high schools and service clubs.

In the film, Hepburn makes the memorable statement that the river was America’s “most beautifully landscaped cesspool” This helped draw attention to the plight of the Connecticut River and the resulting outcry from the public found receptive ears with then governor, John Dempsey.  "Within 60 days he assembled a Clean Water Task Force charged with developing an action plan to clean up the state’s waterways. Their work led to a state Clean Water Bill in 1967, passed five years before the U.S.Congress’s first Clean Water Act." (Woodward, Spring 2019)

An American Heritage River
According to the CT Humanities website, ConnecticutHistory.org, several pieces of legislation have targeted the cleanup of the river. "In 1973, public pressure helped bring about the creation of the Connecticut River Gateway Commission, which monitors standards for development of riverfront land...in 1995, the entire Connecticut River watershed became the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. Three years later, the Connecticut River received a designation as an American Heritage River, and it remains protected as just one of 14 rivers in the country to be recognized as such."

All of this effort has yielded positive results, as schools of shad and herring have slowly returned to the river along with nesting bald eagles, which had been absent for over a century.

If you don't receive the Musings From Main directly to your email inbox, please visit www.WoodMemorialLibrary.org to subscribe.

Sources used for this Musing are listed below.

- Donahue, Ceil and Bottomley, Jessica, Images of America: East Windsor, Arcadia Publishing, 2017.

- Hill, Evan, The Connecticut: Can the River Be Saved From Its Own Beauty? The New York Times, January 12, 1969.

- Lobdell, Claire, Images of America: South Windsor, Arcadia Publishing, 2017.

- Munkittrick, Alain, Images of America:  Historic Houses of the Connecticut River Valley, Arcadia Publishing, 2023

- The Connecticut River, Connecticut Humanities website, April 28, 2020,  Retrieved July 7, 2023

- Woodward, Walter W., Creating Connecticut: Critical Moments That Shaped a Great State, Globe Pequot, Guilford, CT, 2020.

- Woodward, Walter W., One Governor, Two Rivers, an Irish Fish, and a Movie Star, Connecticut Explored, Spring 2019.