Palmer, Luther, House

About this property

North Stonington is a town in New London County, Connecticut. The town was split off from Stonington in 1724. The town is part of the Southeastern Connecticut Planning Region. The population was 5,149 at the 2020 census. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 55.0 square miles (142 km2), of which 54.3 square miles (141 km2) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2), or 1.20%, is water. The town is bordered by Voluntown and Griswold to the north, Preston to the northwest, Ledyard to the southwest, Stonington to the south, Westerly, Rhode Island to the southeast, and Hopkinton, Rhode Island to the east. John Randall House – southeast of North Stonington on Route 2 (added 1978) North Stonington Village Historic District – Route 2, Main Street, Wyassup, Babcock, Caswell, and Rocky Hollow Roads (added April 17, 1983) Samuel Miner House – north of North Stonington off Route 2 on Hewitt Road (added July 18, 1976) The land of North Stonington is located at the southeast corner of the state of Connecticut. Until the 17th century, the Pequots, the Niantics, and the Narragansetts were the residents in this area of southeastern Connecticut and adjacent parts of Rhode Island. Little is known about Native American activities in North Stonington prior to English colonization in the area. The Pequots' imprint remained in the town, however. The first white settlers kept a number of their names for the town's main geological features, including the town's main water course of Shunock Brook, as well as Assekonk Swamp and Wintechog and Cossaduck hills. Colonial authorities eventually allotted two reservations to the Pequot tribe, including a plot of land on the eastern bank of Long Pond adjacent to Lantern Hill in the southwestern corner of the town, established in 1683. === Colonial era and Revolutionary War: 1670s–1770s === For much of the 17th century, North Stonington was thinly populated by the Pequots and European settlers. Starting in the 1630s and 1640s, the English established coastline settlements in Wequetequock, which is now Old Mystic, and Pawcatuck. However, the pressure of a growing population and continued immigration in succeeding decades caused homesteading to steadily push northward. The end of hostilities following King Philip's War of 1676 and a partial resolution of border disputes among Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts colonies also encouraged enterprising pioneers to move inland to stake claims. The first settlers to North Stonington were Ezekiel Main and Jeremiah Burch in 1667, who established settlements in the areas which became the village of North Stonington and Clark's Falls, respectively. Main was formerly of Massachusetts; he had served in King Philip's War and received a land grant in return for his military service. Burch had been a blacksmith in England before making the crossing to America and establishing a land stake. Other pioneers soon followed; families arrived during the 1670s and 1680s who formed the backbone of the town. They were the Mains, Miners, Wheelers, Browns, Palmers, Hewitts, and Averys, to name a few. Among those were John Swan and his family in 1707, for whom Swantown Road is named.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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