East Hampton Town

Middlesex County, Connecticut

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East Hampton Town Hall is located at 20 East High Street, East Hampton CT 06424.
Phone: 860‑267‑2519.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

The first large group of settlers emigrated by sea in 1739 from Eastham, Massachusetts along Cape Cod, into Long Island Sound and up the Connecticut River to Middle Haddam Parish. The name Middle Haddam was derived from the two adjacent towns, Middletown and Haddam. Led by Isaac Smith some of the early settlers from Eastham left Middle Haddam to push on to the seven hills near Lake Pocotopaug on which the town of East Hampton now stands. It is believed that James Wright was the first settler of the town when he built a house and barn during the first quarter of the eighteenth century on property his father had bought from Chief Terramaugus in 1675. John Clark is believed to have been the second settler, building his home on Clark Hill in about 1737.

In 1746 the settlers named their growing community Easthampton parish in honor of their original home in Eastham, Mass. In 1767 the new township of Chatham was incorporated by the General Assembly and separated from Middletown of which it had been a part. At the time of its incorporation, the township of Chatham was named, from the importance of its shipbuilding industry, in allusion to Chatham, England. Included in its bounds were the parishes of Middle Haddam, Easthampton, East Middletown, and Cobalt. In 1841 the East Middletown parish was set off from Chatham to become a new township named Conway and later named Portland.

Long usage decreed the divided name of East Hampton to which the title of the whole township of Chatham was altered in 1915.

  1. East Hampton Economic Development Commission, Visitor Guide & Community Directory, 2007, www.easthamptonct.org, accessed May, 2010.

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