Welcome to your bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from our partners to see/watch this month, and more!
Winter 2021-2022 / In Their Own Words
Voices from the past—an aspiring gold miner, a 6-year-old girl at sea, a fugitive from slavery, a Patriot at war, a Pequot son, a New Woman artist—all are featured in our Winter 2021-2022 issue. They speak their truth and will transport you back in time!
Noah Porter and the Spotted Fever Epidemic of 1808 – 1809
The history of epidemics fascinated Dr. Charles Leach of Farmington. One of those was a spotted fever epidemic that ravaged Connecticut from 1806 to 1809. “Perhaps the best-known survivor,” Leach writes in his story in the Winter 2021-2022 issue, “was two-year-old Alice Cogswell. She became deaf in 1807 as a result of the disease, leading her father, Dr. Mason Cogswell, a leading physician of Hartford, to found what is today known as the American School for the Deaf.”
“Physicians in the early 1800s,” Leach explains, “had no understanding of the germ theory of infectious disease.” Rev. Noah Porter, then a young, newly-minted minister of Farmington’s First Congregational Church, reflected back 50 years later on what befell his congregation:
“In March, 1808, the spotted fever was commissioned to visit us and others around us, a dreadful scourge, and raged till June, 1809, …. . Persons of all ages and conditions fell before it. Many died suddenly; many from the first attack were deranged in mind; and some fell asleep not to be awaked. The distress, the grief, the consternation, were not to be described. Sometimes there were hardly enough that were well to take care of the sick, and the watchers, as they passed the streets homeward at day-dawn, saw but here and there a house in which lights were not burning.”
“All in all,” Leach concludes, “this was the most intense of the many epidemics that affected New England, including the lethal smallpox and yellow fever.”
Read the full story in the Winter 2021-2022 issue with your print subscription, or receive full texts of stories with a CTExplored/Inbox PREMIUM subscription, just $30 a year. The spring issue comes out March 1!
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William Apes, a Son of Colchester
Phyllip Thomas, Youth Council Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, bring us the poignant story of William Apes. “Three things to know about Apes,” Thomas begins: “he is the first-ever published Pequot, he is a public example of forced cultural assimilation, and one of his descendants is a court officer in The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court system today. Apes was born in 1798 in Colrain, Massachusetts, and as an adult became an itinerant Methodist minister and activist for Native American rights.”
But Apes’s story is a difficult one, and Thomas does not flinch from sharing what Apes reveals about his childhood:
“… I was born—January 31st, 1798. Our next remove was to Colchester, Conn., near the sea board; …[We] then lived with my grand-father and his family, in which dwelt my uncle. … My father and mother made baskets which they would sell to the whites, or exchange for those articles only, which were absolutely necessary to keep soul and body in a state of unity. Our fare was of the poorest kind, and even of this we had not enough, and our clothing also was of the poorest description, literally speaking we were clothed with rags, so far as rags would suffice to cover our nakedness. …”
In Thomas’s selection from Apes’s autobiography, Apes goes on to tell how this extreme poverty led to physical abuse at the hands of his grandmother. How did Apes survive? This story goes deep—and Thomas skillfully guides readers to understanding and insight about intergenerational trauma, Pequot spirituality, and cultural resilience.
Read the full story in the Winter 2021-2022 issue with your print subscription, or receive full texts of stories with a CTExplored/Inbox PREMIUM subscription, just $30 a year.
Subscribe to the print magazine at CTExplored.org or try us out with our First One Free offer.
The Latest from Grating the Nutmeg
135. Zinc Gravestones - Bridgeport’s Monumental Bronze Company
Assistant Publisher Mary Donohue explores the history of an unusual and unique Connecticut company that made highly popular grave markers after the Civil War out of zinc. Affectionately known by cemetery buffs as “Zinkies,” these bluish-grey metal markers were infinitely customizable, affordable, made in Bridgeport, and shipped across the country. The company’s slogan was “As enduring as the pyramids,” but was that true or just boosterism? Find out with author and Bridgeport historian Carolyn Ivanoff whose story about the Monumental Bronze Company comes out in the forthcoming Spring 2022 issue. You can find her Bridgeport history blog at https://bportlibrary.org/hc/business-and-commerce/monuments-everlasting-bridgeports-monumental-bronze-company/#more-14000
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Month
History and Mental Health
Common Struggle, Individual Experience: An Exhibition About Mental Health presented by Hartford Healthcare Institute of Living, on view at the Connecticut Historical Society Museum through October 15, 2022, explores how society has sought and continues to seek care for the mind and mental health. Letters, photographs, and other artifacts will illuminate the experiences of Connecticans from the past.
Connecticut Historical Society Museum & Library, chs.org
Twain Tours and Talks
The Mark Twain House & Museum is open for guided tours year round. Due to COVID safety precautions, tour sizes are limited and tours often sell out ahead of time, so it’s best to reserve your spot in advance online. The museum offers a general tour and living history tours. Every week the museum hosts best-selling authors, many in partnership with Harper’s Magazine. Visit MarkTwainHouse.org/Events.
The Mark Twain House & Museum, MarkTwainHouse.org
Small Cemeteries Need Stewardship
Laurel Hill Cemetery, a state historic site, and Central Cemetery, both in Brookfield, have retained the services of Cohen and Wolf P.C. and Rob Creamer P.C. to facilitate a transition of fiduciary oversight and operation of the two small cemeteries. Discussions are underway with the Diocese of Bridgeport which has expressed interest in expanding its role in the region to provide an institutional and sustainable solution to community needs for burial, internment, and sepulture.
Laurel Hill Cemetery, Centralcemetery.net
Deep Study of Connecticut History
Membership in the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH) includes a subscription to the semi-annual Connecticut History Review, the only academic, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the history of Connecticut. Find out about the ASCH conferences and become a member at asch-cthistory.org.
Frederic Palmer’s Diaries
From 1942 to 1971 Frederic Palmer wrote in his diary every day. These diaries, in the collection of Connecticut Landmarks, along with Palmer’s architectural papers and drawings, personal photographs, and a trove of letters, strengthen our understanding of how Palmer and his partner built a life together as a gay couple in a rural town in Connecticut during an evolving gay rights movement. For more information, or to book a special behind-the-scenes tour of the Palmer-Warner House before it is open to the public, visit ctlandmarks.org.
Editors’ Picks
Stories we love from back issues to read now.
Read all of our stories about Connecticut’s Native American history on our Topics page.
“Fighting Smallpox at Hospital Rock,” Feb/Mar/Apr 2004
“Spanish Flu: Ninety Days That Sickened Connecticut,” Spring 2007
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