Hartford in the 1730s

Work

Fields, river, public business

Most daily labor turns on mixed farming, livestock, meadow hay, river trade, crafts, tavern-keeping, and services connected to courts and colonial government. The town’s location at the Connecticut River and the Little River¹ matters as much as any street.

Faith

One church dominates

Congregationalism remained Connecticut’s established church⁶, and taxes could still sustain it. In this decade, revival religion begins to unsettle that order as the Great Awakening divided Connecticut Congregationalists⁶.

Law & power

Court, colony, freemen

Power is visible in the yard where worship, court proceedings, stocks, pillory, whipping post, signpost, and market stalls³ cluster. Hartford is also a capital town: one of Connecticut’s two capitals after 1701³.

In the air

Revival versus order

The sharp argument of the decade is religious: revival supporters and opponents later called New Lights and Old Lights⁶ divide families, ministers, and political loyalties. Older civic pride rests on freemen, deputies, and the General Court^2,5.

What people feared

Punishment in public

The law is bodily and public: the central yard includes stocks, pillory, whipping post³ as well as court business. Death is close enough to civic life that the Ancient Burying Ground³ stands behind the church ground.

Home & table

Homelots and unknown interiors

The settlement pattern runs from Main Street and the meeting-house yard³ outward to fields and meadows. But no detailed online description found fixes the exact look of ordinary Hartford house interiors in the 1730s.

Money

Taxes, not price lists

Church support matters because taxes could still support the established church⁶. For everyday buying power, no reliable Hartford-specific wage or price table for the 1730s turned up in this quick search.

Roads & news

No local newspaper yet

Hartford has no newspaper in the 1730s: the Connecticut Gazette began at New Haven in 1755, and Hartford’s Connecticut Courant began only in 1764⁷. News moves by travelers, letters, post roads, imported papers, tavern talk, and church pulpits⁷.

Year by year

1. 1730The First State House stood in Hartford’s central public core. here³
2. 1732The South Carolina Gazette began at Charleston, another sign that colonial newspapers were spreading while Connecticut still had none. the country⁷
3. 1735John Peter Zenger was acquitted of seditious libel in New York, a press-freedom case that politically minded colonists could hear about through papers and travelers. the country⁷
4. 1736The Virginia Gazette began at Williamsburg, while Connecticut still waited almost twenty years for its first newspaper. the country⁷
5. 1739The First Church of Christ built its third meetinghouse on the present Center Church site. here²
6. 1739George Whitefield’s Atlantic preaching tour helped carry the Great Awakening into British North America. the world⁶
7. 1740Revival controversy intensified across Connecticut as New Light and Old Light divisions took clearer form. nearby⁶
8. 1742Connecticut expelled the revivalist James Davenport after his attacks on ministers and book burnings at New London. nearby⁶

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• Hartford stood where the Connecticut River met the Little River, later called the Park River, on fertile river-valley land that drew English settlement. from the sources¹
• The English town had been founded in 1636 by Thomas Hooker’s congregation after an overland move from Cambridge, Massachusetts. inferred^2,3
• The central public space lay around Main Street and the old meeting-house yard, near the site of the later Old State House. inferred³
• The meeting-house yard was remembered as the center of religious, military, and civil life, with worship, court proceedings, stocks, pillory, whipping post, signpost, and market stalls. inferred³
• A First State House is identified at Hartford in 1730, in the same public core as Main Street and the town meetinghouse. inferred³
• The First Church of Christ built its third meetinghouse in 1739 on the present Center Church site; the first two meetinghouses had stood where the Old State House stands today. inferred²
• The Ancient Burying Ground was set apart in 1640, and from then until the early 1800s it received Hartford’s dead across age, gender, race, ethnic background, economic status, and religious faith. inferred³
• Hartford was one of Connecticut’s two capitals after 1701, sharing that role with New Haven until the nineteenth century. inferred³
• Connecticut’s General Assembly continued to meet at Hartford as well as New Haven, so colonial lawmaking and officeholding periodically brought officials and petitioners into town. from the sources⁴
• Connecticut’s 1639 Fundamental Orders had been adopted in Hartford by representatives of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, and the colony still valued rule through freemen, deputies, and the General Court. from the sources^2,5
• Congregationalism remained Connecticut’s established church in the 1730s, and dissenters had to register while taxes could still support the established church. from the sources⁶
• The Great Awakening began dividing Connecticut Congregationalists in the 1730s into revival supporters and opponents later called New Lights and Old Lights. from the sources⁶
• No newspaper was printed in Connecticut in the 1730s; the colony’s first newspaper, the Connecticut Gazette, began at New Haven in 1755, and Hartford’s Connecticut Courant began only in 1764. from the sources⁷
• Before Connecticut newspapers, news in the colony moved chiefly by travelers, letters, post roads, imported papers, tavern talk, and church pulpits. from the sources⁷
• Mail service between Boston and New York over post roads had existed since 1672, and Parliament created a wider colonial post-office system in 1711. from the sources⁷
• Hartford’s 1756 population was 3,027, so the 1730s town was probably a few thousand people rather than a city-sized place. from the sources⁸
• Hartford County had been created in 1666 and in the 1730s covered a much larger inland jurisdiction than modern Hartford County. from the sources⁹
• Ordinary work in and around Hartford centered on mixed farming, livestock, meadow hay, river trade, crafts, tavern-keeping, and services connected to courts and colonial government. inferred
• Enslaved Black people and Native people lived in colonial Hartford, but an online count specific to Hartford in the 1730s is not readily available. not known
• No detailed online description found in this quick search gives the exact appearance, materials, or room arrangements of ordinary Hartford houses in the 1730s. not known
• No reliable Hartford-specific wage or price table for the 1730s was found in this quick search. not known

Sources

1. The “Four Builds” – The History of Hartford, Connecticut. Connecticut Historical Society, 2014
2. History – Center Church. First Church of Christ in Hartford / Center Church
3. Historic Sites in Hartford, CT. Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford
4. Historical Notes on Connecticut Public Officials and General Assembly Meetings. Connecticut General Assembly
5. The Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut. Connecticut General Assembly / Historical publications
6. The Importance of Being Puritan: Church and State in Colonial Connecticut. ConnecticutHistory.org / Connecticut Humanities, 2021
7. 1755 The Connecticut Gazette. Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut
8. Population of Connecticut Towns 1756–1820. Connecticut Secretary of the State
9. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633–1884. Connecticut General Assembly historical collection, 1886

Hartford in other decades

Nearby, about the same time