Who Knew? Connecticut's First Railroad
Two small markers tucked away in the borough are the lone reminders of a time when a rail line turned the borough into a bustling hub of hotels, bars, and shops of all kinds serving passengers traveling between New York and Boston via train and steamboat.
The first, a weathered copper tablet affixed to a stone base, sits just off Main Street next to the Union Baptist Church.
It states that it marks the right of way for the first railroad in Connecticut, operating between Providence and Stonington and beginning service in 1837.
Looking past the marker to the east and then west and across Main Street, one can see the route of the old railway bed. To the west, it traveled between two homes as trains headed to what is now the Town Dock and what was then a major transportation hub.
The second more ornate marker, with gold lettering and a depiction of a train engine, is affixed to the stone wall in La Grua Park on Denison Avenue. The narrow strip of grass that makes up the park follows the route of the rail line. The plaque states that it is the site of the first railroad in Connecticut chartered in May 1832.
The rail line entered the borough through what is now known as Salt Acres, ran along the south side of Denison Avenue, headed west crossing Cliff Street and Main Street and then continued between Grand and Pearl streets to Water and Gold streets. It ended at a sprawling transportation center with wharves, and railroad tracks on the site of the current Town Dock.
For much of the 19th-century, trains chugged through the middle of the borough bringing passengers and cargo to the huge steamboats and paddle wheelers that brought them to and from New York. At the time, rail had not yet spanned the Connecticut and Thames rivers.
The trains and steamboats, belching smoke, brought large numbers of passengers along with train and steamboat employees into the village around the clock. It was a noisy, smoky place. It was also occasionally dangerous as embers from the train engines were occasionally know to catch homes and businesses on fire as they passed just a few feet away.
Dodson’s Boatyard in the borough describes the scene this way on the history section of its website.
“The Borough was a busy, busy place, with bars, hotels, churches, and a host of small businesses. Imagine what it must have been like with three — or more — steam engines belching smoke, shuttling passenger and freight cars around, arriving from or leaving for Providence. Coupled with the coal fired steamboats, their comings and goings, with the stevedores, boat crews and trainmen roaming the streets, Stonington was not the small, quiet, farming and fishing village it had been before the advent of the railroad.”
By 1890 the rivers had been spanned which allowed for direct rail service along the shoreline eliminating the need for the steamboat connection.
Those of us who live in southeastern Connecticut drive the local roads day
in and day out, passing by landmarks but not really seeing them. So, we've
gathered a few spots in our towns that we think you might want to know more
about.
What: Tablets marking an old railroad line
Where: Main Street and Denison Avenue, Stonington Borough
Why: Commemortive markers show were the railroad once transported hundreds of people into a bustling seaside village.
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