Windham

Variant name of place

Windom

Geographic position

41.4300° N, 72.1000° W

Sources

”A Brief History.” Windham, Connecticut. http://www.windhamct.com/about_history.htmde Sherbinin, Alex. “Eleazar Wheelock: The Man and His Legacy.” Columbia University, 2011. http://www.columbia.edu/~amd155/Wheelock_Biography.pdf. Web Larned, Ellen Douglas. History of Windham County, Connecticut: 1600-1760. Worcester, MA: Ellen Douglas Larned, 1874. Web Geo coordinates at https://www.google.com/#q=geographic+coordinates+of+windham+ct.

General note

Windham is a town in Windham County in the northeastern corner of Connecticut. Historically, the area was home to the Nipmuck Indians, but when the English began to settle Connecticut in 1634, possession of what would become Windham passed to the Pequots. In 1637, following the Pequot War, the English-allied Mohegans took possession of the area and eventually sold what would become Windham County to John Winthrop Jr. in 1652. The town of Windham, named for Wyndham in England, is at the southwest corner of this land purchase and was incorporated in 1692. Eleazar Wheelock was born in Windham in 1711, the son of a prominent farming family. He lived on his family’s 300-acre farm until leaving for Yale in 1729. After graduating and moving to to Lebanon, CT–-a mere 6 miles from Windham-–Wheelock often returned to his hometown to preach and do other business. When Wheelock needed support to advance his “great design,” he turned to his friends in Windham, many of whom were members of the Windham Association, a group of Congregationalist ministers who examined and ordained area ministers. The Windham Association examined Occom in preparation for his ordination in 1757 at Wheelock’s Lebanon home. Like Wheelock, Occom also travelled through and preached in Windham throughout his life. After a period of growth due to mills and textile factories, Windham was incorporated as a city in 1893. A village within the modern-day city of Windham still keeps its Algonquin name, Willimantic or “land of the swift running water.”