CWTA - Resources - History Of Connecticut's Water Trails



Connecticut Water Trails Association

Chieftains of a vanished race,

In your ancient burial place,

By your father's ashes blest,

Now in peace securely rest.

- Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Written on a brown sandstone monument, erected in Farmington in 1840

Table Of Contents

Connecticut Water Trails

Basic Concepts

History Of Connecticut's Water Trails

Native Americans

Connecticut Water Trails Program

History Of Connecticut's Water Trails

Native Americans

The Tunxis

The Tunxis were a Native American tribe historically linked to the Wappani.

Location

Lived by a sizeable bend on the Farmington River near where Farmington and Southington in Hartford County, Connecticut exist today.

Name Origin

The name Tunxis comes from the Wuttunkshau-sepus word meaning 'the point where the river bends.

Language Spoken

Algonquin. The R-dialect spoken by the Wappinger was almost identical to that of the Mattabesic in western Connecticut and the Metoac tribes of western and central Long Island.

Connecticut Village Locations

Farmington River near where Farmington, Avon, Haddam, Southington, and Windsor

Population

Culture

History

Though they engaged in basket and food trade with the first settlers to what is now Farmington, the tribe was subject to Sequassen, the sachem who sold the English the land that became Hartford, Connecticut. In 1610 they sold the greater part of their territory, and around 1700 still retained a small village in the growing settlement Farmington, but by 1761 they had largely left the area.