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Welcome to Stratford
Fairfield County
Connecticut
School Information
Detailed Town Statistics
Summary Town Statistics
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639.
The population was 49,976 at the 2000 census. It has a historical legacy in aviation, the military, the arts, and environmentalism. In 1942, Igor Sikorsky with his Sikorsky Aircraft company in Stratford, developed and produced the first successful single-rotor helicopter; every Marine One (the helicopter of the President of the United States) has been manufactured in Stratford from 1957, and projected to at least 2008. The town was also the home of the Stratford Army Engine Plant for the United States military from 1939 to 1998.
In 1955, Stratford, having the same name as Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare's hometown in England, became home to the nationally renowned American Shakespeare Festival, which was housed, until its closure, at its 1,100 seat Stratford Festival Theatre on the Housatonic River. The theatre featured such luminaries as Katherine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Jane Alexander, Hal Holbrook, Roddy McDowall, Nina Foch, and John Houseman.
Stratford is also home to Sikorsky Memorial Airport, and the Great Meadows Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, which neighbors the airport. Today, Stratford has two Superfund sites as designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Stratford, which once included all of what is now Fairfield County, is bordered on the west by Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the north by Trumbull, Connecticut and Shelton, Connecticut, and on the east by Milford, Connecticut (across the Housatonic).
Recently, controversy has arisen due to decades of asbestos waste dumping by the Raybestos corporation, housed in Stratford.
History
Founding and Puritan Era
Stratford was founded in 1639 by Puritan leader Reverend Adam Blakeman (pronounced Blackman) and either 16 families—according to legend—or approximately 35 families—suggested by later research—who had recently arrived in Connecticut from England seeking religious freedom. Stratford is one of many towns in the northeastern US founded as part of the Great Migration in the 1630s when Puritan families fled an increasingly polarized England in the decade before the civil war between Charles I and Parliament (led by Oliver Cromwell). Some of the Stratford settlers were from families who had first moved from England to the Netherlands to seek religious freedom, like their predecessors on the Mayflower, and decided to come to the New World when their children began to adopt the Dutch culture and language.
Like other Puritan or Pilgrim towns founded during this time, early Stratford was a place where church leadership and town leadership were both united under the pastor of the church, in this case Reverend Blakeman. The goal of these communities was to create perfect outposts of religious idealism where the wilderness would separate them from the interference of kings, parliaments, or any other secular authority.
Blakeman ruled Stratford until his death in 1665, but as the second generation of Stratford grew up many of the children rejected what they perceived as the exceptional austerity of the town's founders. This and later generations sought to change the religious dictums of their elders, and the utopian nature of Stratford and similar communities was gradually replaced with more standard colonial administration. By the late 1600s, the Connecticut government had assumed political control over Stratford.
Many descendants of the original founding Puritan families remain in Stratford today after over 350 years; for centuries they often intermarried within the original small group of 17th century Pilgrim families.
Stratford's original name was Cupheag, but was later changed to honor Stratford upon Avon in England. Despite its Puritan origins, Stratford was the site of the first Anglican church in Connecticut, founded in 1707 and ministered by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Settlers from Stratford went on to found other American cities and towns, including Newark, New Jersey, established in 1666 by members of the Stratford founding families who believed the town's religious purity had been compromised by the changes after Blakeman's death. Other towns such as Cambria, New York (now Lockport, New York) were founded or expanded around new churches by Stratford descendants taking part in the westward migration. U.S. President Gerald Ford is a descendant of one of the Stratford founding families, that led by William Judson.
Modern role in aviation and the military
In 1939, one of the world's first successful commercial helicopters was developed in Stratford by Igor Sikorsky and flown at his plant. His company, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is still the town's largest taxpayer. Also in 1939, Lycoming produced Wright radial engines here. After WWII, the plant was converted to produce turbines.
Notable people associated with Stratford
• Andrew Adams (1736–97) born in Stratford, jurist, Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress, state chief justice and signer of the Articles of Confederation.
• Dick Cavett, television talk show host, apprenticed at a Shakespeare festival in town when he was a student at Yale University.
• Joseph Platt Cooke (1730-1816) was a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, state politician, and twice a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, was born in Stratford
• Katherine Hepburn, actress, lived in town.
• William Samuel Johnson, Patriot and early U.S. Senator, president of Columbia College, died in town.
• Stephen King, author, briefly lived in Stratford as a child
• Kenneth H. Olsen engineer and cofounder of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957
• David Plant member of the United States House of Representatives in the 19th century.
• Igor Sikorsky, founder of Sikorsky Aircraft
• Gideon Tomlinson (1780–1854), governor and U.S. Senator representing Connecticut, was born in town.
• John William Sterling, (d. 1918) philanthropist, corporate attorney, and major benefactor of Yale University.
• David Wooster, military leader in the Revolutionary War, born in Stratford.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Stratford, Connecticut”.
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