This area, then known as Quanneapague, was purchased from the Pohtatuck Indians in 1705. Settled from Stratford and incorporated in 1711, Newtown was a stronghold of Tory settlement during the early Revolutionary War. French General Rochambeau and his troops encamped here in 1781 on their way to the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, which ended the Revolution. An important crossroads throughout its history, the village of Hawleyville briefly emerged as a railroad center and the town's population grew to over 4000 circa 1881. In the following decades the population dwindled to a low of 2635 in 1930 before again growing. Newtown covers an area of 60.38 square miles. Local industry has included the manufacture of furniture, tea bags, combs, fire hose, folding boxes, buttons and hats, as well as farming and mica and feldspar mining. The game of Scrabble was developed here by James Brunot. Among notable residents have been Connecticut Governors Isaac Toucey, Henry Dutton and Luzon Morris as well as Charles Goodyear, inventor of the vulcanization process; Purdy who ministered to and buried smallpox victims during an epidemic at the time of the Civil War; Elizabeth Hawley, Newtown's benefactress; and opera star Grace Moore. Local landmarks are the flag (or liberty) pole first erected in 1876; H.G. Werner's store, in operation by the same family since 1857; The Newtown Bee, a newspaper serving the Newtown area since 1877; and the rooster weathervane atop the Congregational Church, said to have been used as a target by French soldiers encamped here in 1781 during the Revolutionary War.
Erected by the Town of Newtown the Newtown American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and the Connecticut Historical Commission
1977
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