The Cornish parking garage off Governor Winthrop Boulevard in New London is also known as the Governor Winthrop Parking Garage. It strikes me funny that a place to leave your car would be named for a 17th-century Puritan.

Still, parking places can be sites of exciting historical discoveries. Just a few years ago the skeleton of a Scottish knight and the remains of King Richard III were found beneath parking lots in Great Britain. Wow, all that history hidden under people's cars!

New London's founder, John Winthrop Jr., was properly buried in Boston, but his remarkable life underlies much of Connecticut's heritage.

I met John through a letter to his first wife. Although it wasn't a love letter, John signed it with 120 kisses and the wish that "God keepe us and send us a merry meeting." The couple's correspondence, written in code that remained unbroken for nearly three centuries, provides a human view of this legendary man.

John studied law, traveled in Europe, and networked with some of the preeminent scientific men of the age. When he followed his father to Massachusetts, he brought along crates of chemicals, laboratory equipment, boxes of books and a brilliant mind. He would need all these resources to fulfill his dream of creating a city where science and enterprise could flourish to benefit man and glorify God.

In typically energetic fashion John began by establishing a settlement at Ipswich and founding an iron works. In 1635 he was named "governor of the river Connecticut" and was commissioned by Viscount Saye & Sele and Lord Brooke to establish a fort and settlement at Saybrook.

By the 1640s John had a farm on Fishers Island and had been granted land that would become New London. When John first surveyed the area, he thought that establishing a settlement in this beautiful place would be like "starting the world anew." Soon the settlement had a few dirt roads, a grist mill and a watch tower, but more would be needed to make John's dream come true.

The only criticism I've read of John is that he lacked focus; well no wonder, with such wide-ranging interests as mining, water desalinization, chemistry, medicine, agriculture and astronomy. John acted as the colony's physician, seeing as many as 12 patients daily. He developed improved agricultural practices which he shared with the rest of the colony. He sent botanical specimens to Europe, presented papers to the British Royal Society where he was a member, and conducted chemistry experiments in his house on Winthrop Neck. Scanning the sky with his three-foot telescope, he reported spotting a fifth moon of Jupiter; its existence was confirmed 200 years later.

John was chosen governor in 1657, a position he held for nearly 20 years. He faced a crisis when political changes in England left Connecticut vulnerable because the colony didn't have an authorized charter. John's diplomatic skill and network of influential contacts enabled him to negotiate an official charter, setting the colony's borders from the Pawcatuck River to the Pacific Ocean.

While he'd been in England working on the charter, the number of witchcraft cases in Connecticut had escalated. When John returned, he used his popularity and moral authority to subdue this crisis too.

John died in 1676 but Connecticut still venerates his memory.

While John's father wanted Boston to be a spiritual "city upon a hill," John envisioned New London as a center of scientific enterprise that would outshine European cities. The goal was too ambitious for a town doing its best to simply survive. Still, it's good to remember that even when our dreams don't come true the way we hoped, something unforeseen yet positive may result - in this case a small but culturally rich city that makes the world a more vibrant place.

Carol Sommer of Waterford is a self-proclaimed history nut. She writes a monthly history column inspired by local street signs.