The complete article was published in Travel Awaits
in August 2020
This post documents our road trip from New York to Massachusetts through Connecticut, the third
smallest state in the US but also the 29th most populous state, making it the fourth-most densely
populated. In just two
nights of camping, we discovered seven landmarks in its three largest cities:
Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford. Two industries, financial services and maritime, combine to give the state the highest per capita income, human development index, and median household income in the entire U.S. Quite an achievement for such a small piece of land. “Small is beautiful.”
Bridgeport
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Only an hour and 45 minutes from New York City, Bridgeport has a population of almost
150,000, the largest city in Connecticut. Also a coastal city
like New Haven, Bridgeport is at the center of the state’s significant maritime
industry. But it was the Barnum Museum, the main authority on
P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), the showman, businessman, and founder of the Barnum and
Bailey Circus. It has become a national treasure that’s
listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
New Haven
New Haven is
only about 30 minutes from Bridgeport and 40 minutes from Hartford, the state
capital to the northeast. It’s the second-largest city at almost 130,000 in
population.
The Knights
of Columbus Museum was another unique museum on our itinerary. In 1882, when Fr. Michael McGiveny (who is currently up for sainthood at
the Vatican) saw the need for an organization that could partner with parishes
to help poor immigrant families, he founded the Knights of Columbus. It is now the
largest fraternal service organization in the Catholic Church with about two million members.
New Haven is
also home to the beautiful campus of Yale University, an Ivy League school. The Yale University Art
Gallery is, in fact, the oldest university art museum in the Western
Hemisphere. Housed in several buildings on the campus, it emphasizes Italian
paintings, African sculptures, and modern art.
Hartford
The capital
of Connecticut and home to over 120,000 residents, Hartford is known as the
Insurance Capital of the World. It is where the financial services industry
grew to be as important as the state’s maritime industry.
Its most distinctive landmark is the 34-story
Travelers Tower constructed in 1919 as the seventh-tallest building in the world. The headquarters of Travelers Insurance, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world, its 27th-floor observation deck is where you can get the best aerial view of the city.
Hartford is
also a center of excellence in literary works not just in the state but of the
country. Both the lovely Mark Twain House and Museum and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and House sit almost side by side. The landmark novel of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which graphically details the harshest of conditions endured by slaves in America, laying the groundwork for the Civil War. Mark Twain’s (1835-1910) work, on the other hand, was published 20 years after the Civil War. They may have been almost a generation apart, but they were both addressing the same issue that we are still dealing with today.
Lastly, we visited the third unique museum in Hatford. The CRRA — Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority — established the Trash Museum that demonstrated
not only what trash accumulation does to the environment but also advocated
single-stream recycling — leading the way in this industry. Unfortunately, it
closed permanently in June of 2016.
Connecticut was the fifth of the
original 13 states and even led all the
others in the formulation of a constitution. Adopted in 1639, its Fundamental Orders heavily influenced the framing of the US Constitution and
the development of the federal government. If you are
in New York, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts, consider passing through
Connecticut to see for yourself how such a small state is so beautifully
successful.
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