The Meat Cleaver State?
By Dan Shine
Voice Columnist
Of all the United States, the two that are easiest to draw of course, are Wyoming and Colorado: all you need are a pencil, a ruler and about thirty seconds.
Connecticut, however, is a bit more difficult—bordered on its southern edge by a tidal estuary, and otherwise oddly shaped, it has been compared to a rusty-edged meat cleaver. But how exactly did it acquire that unique shape, and what are the notch and the panhandle all about, and why are they there at all? Well, it’s like this:
The first European settlements in what we now call Connecticut were in what is now called Hartford (1636), and New Haven (1637); the settlers were Puritans, who were seeking places to settle, prosper and worship in their own way. And as was the European custom, they sought clearly defined territorial borders.
Creating such man-made boundaries generally leads to a tug-of-war, while natural borders are much less debatable. It appears that by 1642, the first efforts to set such boundaries took place. What followed were a series of claims, disagreements and compromises, resulting in Connecticut at times extending as far east as Narragansett Bay and as far west as the “South Sea,” or what we now call the Pacific Ocean. Eventually, Connecticut took on a nearly rectangular shape, but years of squabbles and endless surveys still lay ahead.
Now, it needs to be understood that in those days, a surveying team was sent off into the wilderness with a transit and a surveyor’s chain, and they did their best to map and mark the boundaries that would be most pleasing to their employer (usually at the expense of the other guy). Naturally, such tactics were sure to bring trouble.
For example, Connecticut’s northern edge was first surveyed in 1642. It was quickly disputed since it was found to be eight miles too far south on the New York end. Years later, I n 1724 the citizens of Enfield, Somers, Suffield and Woodstock, who were unhappy with Massachusetts’ high taxes applied for admission into Connecticut. Of course, Massachusetts refused to give them up, but in 1749, Connecticut voted to acquire them anyway. At long last, the northern border was finally set in 1804, 162 years after the first land survey. Along what was otherwise a straight line, there was established what is called the “Southwick Jog.” This is the notch that we see on our map today; it was part of a compromise that was designed to satisfy both colonies, once and for all. And so it remains, at least for now.
The “Panhandle” is evidence of another attempt to settle a dispute that went back to 1650, 1662 and 1664, between the Connecticut Yankees, their Dutch neighbors, and later on, their New York neighbors. In 1683, the boundary between Connecticut and New York was generally recognized as a line running parallel to and twenty miles east of the Hudson River, all the way north to the Massachusetts line. At that time, New York, acknowledging most of Connecticut’s settlements in Fairfield County, gave up claims to a 61,660 acre rectangle east of the Byram River, which became the area referred to as Connecticut’s “panhandle,” or “the handle of the cleaver.”
The end result of all this was the odd shape that we Nutmeggers today recognize as our home state.
Or maybe a rusty piece of cutlery.