History
First settled in 1699 by Guilford resident Caleb Seward, Durham was originally called Coginchaug by the Native Americans who lived near the swampy area.
Durham has one of the first public libraries in the United States. It was founded in 1733, two years after Benjamin Franklin started the Philadelphia library.
In the 1830s Durham came to prominence as the birthplace of Richard P. Robinson, who was tried for and acquitted of the infamous murder of Helen Jewett.
Read more about this topic: Durham, Connecticut
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)