Windsor

Windsor: Oliver Ellsworth Homestead

Windsor, town (township), Hartford county, north-central Connecticut, U.S. It is a northern suburb of the city of Hartford. Windsor was the site of the first English settlement of any kind in Connecticut—a trading post established in 1633 at the junction of the Farmington and Connecticut rivers by a company from the Plymouth colony led by Captain William Holmes. The community was called Matianuck until 1635, when it was permanently settled by Puritans from Dorchester, Massachusetts, who named it Dorchester. In 1637 it was renamed Windsor for the royal English borough. Windsor, never officially incorporated, originally comprised a much larger area, which included the present town sites of Windsor Locks, East Windsor, South Windsor, Simsbury, Bloomfield, and Ellington. Several colonial buildings remain in the town, including the Joseph Loomis House (1639). Tobacco farming (since colonial times) and brickmaking (until the 1960s) were Windsor’s major economic activities. After 1950 the town’s traditional farm economy was augmented by light industrial development. Area 30 square miles (77 square km). Pop. (2000) 28,237; (2010) 29,044.