Brooklyn Town

Windham County, Connecticut

Brooklyn Town Hall is located at 4 Wolf Den Road, Brooklyn, CT 06234.
Phone: 860‑779‑3411.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

Part of the area now called Brooklyn was originally granted to Captain John Blackwell, Jr., in 1687. Blackwell was a former treasurer in Oliver Cromwell's army, and named the area Mortlake, after Mortlake in Surrey, England, a favorite resort of Cromwell's followers. The area was not actually settled until 1703, for religious liberty in England had been restored to the dissenters and Blackwell returned home. Until 1757, when Mortlake was annexed to Pomfret, town government and church taxes were divided between Pomfret and Canterbury, to the north and south respectively. Mortlake was included in the district named Brooklyn, (Brook-line, on the banks of the Quinebaug River), in 1752, which then was made up of both Pomfret and Canterbury. Thus, when the Ecclesiastical Society was established in 1731, it was called Mortlake Society. Brooklyn was not incorporated until 1786; therefore, when its first meeting house was built in 1734, it was called the Second Church of Pomfret.

1. Susan Babbitt, Connecticut Historical Commission, Unitarian Meeting House, Brooklyn, CT, nomination document, 1972, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: Canterbury Town • Pomfret Town •