CT Explored/Inbox
Winter 25-26: Stories and Storytellers. Happy New Year! Learn about New Haven's famous ghost ship and listen to holiday podcast episodes. A year in review and looking ahead at CT Explored.
From Our Board President
Greetings!
We at Connecticut Explored wish you all a most happy Winter season! There’s much to celebrate from the past year at the magazine and the podcast, with another full year of great stories behind us. Our subscribers and listeners continue to grow. We are approaching America’s 250th with more great stories to tell and new ways to tell them.
Yet as I am sure our readers know, federal support for the humanities, the arts, and history has been cut substantially. Connecticut Humanities, which has been one of our strongest supporters, is faced with budget cuts that greatly limit its granting and partnership abilities.
Connecticut Explored is a small, independent, not-for-profit publication that provides readers of all ages with thoughtful pieces and illustrations on the history of Connecticut. We have been very successful in securing private and public funding over the years to augment subscription and advertising revenue, but state government and private funders are under pressure as non-profits of all types face budget cuts.
We believe in the power of storytelling and the impact our magazine has had on our subscribers and others exploring Connecticut’s history.
We depend on you, our subscribers, foundation partners, and organizational heritage, educational, and arts partners to fund our work and to showcase the fine work our partners are doing.
While the Board had agreed to dip into our reserves if need be to balance the budget and keep the magazine up to our present standards, we will be appealing to you to give what you can so we can keep our reserves strong and maintain the quality publication you have come to expect.
As I was writing this, I realized that if every subscriber got one friend or relative to subscribe, we could balance our budget!
Thank you. And now please enjoy this fascinating issue.
Sincerely,
Kendall F. Wiggin President, Board of Trustees of Connecticut Explored, Inc.
When the Sea Told a Story: New Haven’s Ghost Ship Across the Centuries
On a stormy summer evening in 1647, colonists reported seeing an eerie phantom ship hovering in the New Haven Harbor. According to John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, the ship’s captain stood on deck while smoke enveloped the vessel causing it to vanish into the night. Although the vision disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, the story it left behind would haunt the city for centuries.
Weizel writes, “The legend of the Ghost Ship endures in New Haven, the Elm City. Across centuries, it has helped residents grapple with change. The legend began in the 17th century with colony founder John Davenport, a Puritan minister, and Theophilus Eaton, the colonial governor who handled economic affairs. Davenport, originally a minister in London, left England during the reign of King Charles I and, with his longtime associate Eaton, settled first in Boston. However, they aspired to set up their own community with a harbor ideal for commerce and a colony governed by Mosaic law, with less separation between church and state than Massachusetts or Connecticut had allowed.”
Read the full story in our Winter 25-26 issue.
HOLIDAY EPISODES From Grating the Nutmeg
What better way to spend the holidays than curled up next to the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate and your favorite Grating the Nutmeg episode! To celebrate, we’re spreading history cheer for all to hear.
Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show keeping it free to all listeners.
Our Year in Review: Celebrating a tremendous year with the community and looking ahead.
Thanks to you, 2025 has been a wonderful and busy year for Connecticut Explored! We want to thank all those who subscribed to the magazine, listened to the podcast, recommended us to a friend, wrote us a letter, or made a donation.
A few highlights we'd like to toast:
Our podcast, Grating the Nutmeg, soared in 2025 with over 22,000 streams, 22 new episodes, and played in 57 countries. In our groundbreaking LGBTQ+ series we paired nationally-recognized historians with the stories of landmark places that illustrate queer history. Living up to our of goal of including top-flight historians, podcast episodes included nationally-renown Dr. Marcus Rediker on the new Amistad exhibit at the New Haven Museum; best-selling author and maritime historian Eric Jay Dolan on whaling; and Dr. Elyse Graham on her book Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of the World (reviewed in the New York Times Book Review). Compelling first-person stories were shared by New York Times best-selling author Griffin Dunne (actor and director) from his volume The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir revealing three generations of poignant Irish American history in Connecticut.
We shared our stories to over 5.5k subscribers of our biweekly newsletter, and hit over 376K+ combined views on our CT Explored / GTN social media platforms which grew to over 11,000+ followers combined on Facebook and Instagram.
Additionally, Connecticut Explored attended 18 community events across the state, connecting with cultural and community organizations who are doing amazing work. We are grateful for the opportunity to talk to current subscribers, community members, history enthusiasts, students, and educators to share the work we do and chat about all-things history.
We co-hosted “Present from the Start: People of Color in Connecticut’s Revolutionary Era, 1765-1836” along with The Center for Connecticut Studies, the Department of History at Eastern Connecticut State University, and the Association for the Study of Connecticut History. Over 150 people attended with panels ranging in topics from Maritime Connections to Indigenous Communities in the Revolutionary Era.
Lastly, our annual Grating the Nutmeg Online Auction was a massive success, raising over $5,000!
Folks can stay tuned to our social media and website to connect with us at community events, conferences, and festivals next year!
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Season:
Photography and the Painted Image
Photography and the Painted Image (Jan. 17 – Mar. 15, 2026) explores the intersection between photography and painting, highlighting the ways in which the two mediums have overlapped and complemented each other. The first section showcases the painted backdrop, a hallmark of 19th- and early 20th-century portrait studios, where elaborate hand-painted backgrounds framed sitters within idealized worlds. The second section turns to the painted foreground, focusing on carnival and arcade photographs in which participants posed within humorous or fantastical cutouts that transformed their identities through caricatures and other painted figures. The final section explores the painted photograph itself – images enhanced, tinted, or entirely transformed by the application of pigment, from subtle hand-coloring to bold overpainting. Together, these works brought together in the exhibition reveal how painting not only shaped the settings and surfaces of photography but also extended its capacity for imagination, spectacle, and self-representation, offering new ways of seeing and being seen.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street, New London. Lymanallyn.org; 860-443-2545
Four Presentations at Stowe
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism presents Salons at Stowe: Stowe Prize Series, an exploration of James: A Novel by Percival Everett and the Rev. Dr. William Phillips Manuscript. This series juxtaposes the 2025 Stowe Prize winner with a newly recovered, unpublished freedom narrative from the Stowe Center archives. Both Everett and Phillips use words to open minds to lived experiences that shape American understanding of our history and our future. Join scholars, community activists, public historians, and friends and neighbors for four presentations that will give you much to think about, talk about, celebrate, and take action to rectify. The Stowe Center offers also Reading for Change, a book discussion group; immersive history tours set in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fully restored and historically accurate home; writing and art workshops, and special programs such as Spirits at Stowe and the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism. Our vision is a world in which engagement leads to empathy, empowerment, and change for good. www.StoweCenter.org
Stowe Center for Literary Activism, 77 Forest Street, Hartford. StoweCenter.org; 860-522-9258
Over Sixty Videos!
The Litchfield Historical Society’s museums may be closed for the winter, but you can find hours of Litchfield history on YouTube! Find popular videos such as “Know My Name: How Schoolgirl Samplers Created a Remarkable History” with Guest Curator and Collector Alexandra Peters. Interested in the Connecticut Western Reserve? Find a playlist about Connecticut’s claim to land in present-day Ohio. Try a new craft on a dreary winter day with a “Crafternoon”! Don’t have much time? Enjoy a ‘Collections Minute’ for a quick look inside our collection. Tune into over sixty videos at www.youtube.com/@litchfieldhistoricalsociety
Litchfield Historical Society, 7 South Street, Litchfield. Litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org; 860-567-4501
Editor’s Picks:
Walter Woodward, “What’s a Puritan, and Why Didn’t They Stay in Massachusetts?” Connecticut Explored, Summer 2005.
Brian Jones and Kevin McBride, “Connecticut’s Contested 17th Century Landscape” Connecticut Explored, Summer 2019.
Thomas M. Truxes, “Connecticut in the Golden Age of Smuggling” Connecticut Explored, Spring 2010.