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"... A Nursery of Men"

For the earliest European settlers in New England, the "howling wilderness" of North America seemed a bleak prospect indeed. In the words (and spelling) of William Bradford in 1620, " ... what could they see but a hidious and desolate wildernes, full of wild beasts and willd men? and what multituds ther might be of them they knew not ... the whole countrie, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hiew [hue]."¹

Fortunately for the Puritans and those who followed, the area that came to be called Connecticut proved to be a little more hospitable than Bradford's disheartening portrayal portended. Connecticut is graced with a temperate, well-watered, forgiving climate. Geologic and biologic forces combined over eons to create soils that, although stoney in some places, were generally fertile and rich. Lush forests sheltered the ground and abundant streams provided water for drink and for power.

Settlers wasted little time in exploiting these resources. The transformation of Connecticut from wilderness was so rapid and so complete that in 1804, just 180 years after Bradford, Jedidiah Morse could write:

The state is checkered with innumerable roads or highways crossing each other in every direction. A traveller in any of these roads, even in the most unsettled parts of the state, will seldom pass more than half a mile or a mile without finding a house, and a farm under such

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