Newington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. Located south of downtown Hartford, Newington is an older, mainly residential suburb located in Greater Hartford. As of 2023, the population is 30,527. The Connecticut Department of Transportation has its headquarters in Newington.
Newington is home to Mill Pond Falls, near the center of town. It is celebrated each fall during the Waterfall Festival.
The American Radio Relay League is headquartered in Newington, with a call sign of W1AW.
History
Newington has a history of nearly 375 years. While not established officially as a separate town until 1871, settlers from nearby Wethersfield took up residence on the western frontier of their riverside town in 1636. “West Society,” as some called it, was an area rich in timber that was used for pipe staves, barrel-sized containers used for colonial trade. Grand pastures also made the land ideal for herding and grazing cattle. Its inhabitants received land grants from Wethersfield leaders. Known as “West Farms,” the area west of the central portion of Wethersfield became settled by those who were almost exclusively the descendants of the earliest Wethersfield settlers. In 1721, the “western” farmers requested that the General Assembly of the Connecticut Colony give their land the name “Newington” to denote “the new town in the meadow.” The Assembly granted the request, even though it took another 150 years before Newington officially became an incorporated town. The town’s name predates its official existence.
Newington’s motto inscribed on its town seal is “growth and progress,” which it began putting into effect at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1798, the precursor to the Berlin Turnpike was authorized and it changed the complexion of the land by dividing the vast farmlands from the commercial center. Originally called the Hartford and New Haven Turnpike, the route attracted a number of businesses from north to south between Hartford and New Haven.
The town came into its own at the start of the nineteenth century. Its location in the center of Connecticut attracted an increasing number of residents and commercial enterprises. Veteran of the War of 1812 Levi Lusk established one of the first businesses on the Turnpike, a tavern that stood as a precursor to the many motels, bars, stores, and restaurants that would come later. Railroads passed through Newington as early as the 1830s, which accelerated residential and commercial expansion. More homes were built and businesses established as the nineteenth century unfolded.
Newington grew in population and area by the second half of the nineteenth century. Wethersfield had done likewise, and two population centers were produced as a result. One centered on Wethersfield’s inner village still closely tied to the Connecticut River; the other in Newington had developed its own identity distinct from its mother town.
An 1869 map of Newington shows that the town was divided into four districts—the North, the Middle, the South, and the South-east—that ran from east to west. From north to south, four main roads traversed the four districts starting from the West Hartford line extending all the way to the Berlin line to the south. Later the roads would be called the Berlin Turnpike, Main Street, Willard Avenue, and Church Street. The town extended four miles in a north-south direction and three miles in an east-west direction.
Incorporation and the Modern Era
In 1871, Newington had a population of 871 people with 132 dwellings, and roughly 130 farms, a substantial increase from the start of the nineteenth century. When Wethersfield town leaders refused to fund highway improvements for better access to the railroads, the town formally declared its independence on July 10.
Newington’s incorporation coincided with the emergence of the modern era. John Fish’s Store, in the center of town off Willard Street (later Willard Avenue), got the town’s first telephone in 1883. The trolley began service in Newington in 1894 and connected Hartford and New Britain. The ride from Newington to the city took 20 minutes and cost five cents. Not only did residents marvel at the invention, but took note of its revolutionizing force; it was now possible to live in Newington and to work in surrounding cities. Farms still comprised the bulk of Newington land, but the road to the world of suburbia was being paved.