Early Nineteenth Century
According to the Darien Historical Society, the name Darien was decided upon when the residents of the town could not agree on a name to replace Middlesex Parish, many families wanting it to be named after themselves. A sailor who had traveled to Darién, Panama, then part of Colombia, suggested the name Darien, which was eventually adopted by the people of the town.
Until the advent of the railroad in 1848, Darien remained a small, rural community of about 1,000 farmers, shoemakers, fishermen, and merchants engaged in coastal trading. By the 1790s, Holly Pond was no longer fully open to the Sound, but at Gorham's Landing, where Rings End Road meets the Goodwives River, small sailing vessels from New York, Eastern Connecticut and even the West Indies would pull up during high tide for trade with local merchants.
The area retained some businesses even into the 20th century, but none remain—at least none remain there. Rings End Lumber, now a thriving company on West Avenue which has expanded to other locations in Connecticut, had its start at Gorham's Landing as the Rings End Lumber and Coal Company. A gradual increase in population occurred with the arrival of emigrants from Ireland and later from Italy.
In what is now the Hindley School playing fields, close to the Boston Post Road, a "Union Chapel" was created in the 1830s for religious groups other than the original Congregationalists. St. Luke's Episcopal Church (organized August 30, 1855) and the Darien Methodist Church (organized by the 1860s) grew out of meetings there. Across the street, the Noroton Presbyterian Church was organized on November 4, 1863. Union Chapel was no longer around when Irish Roman Catholics founded St. John Church next door in 1888 (dedicated on December 15, 1889).
Talmage Hill Community Church, a tiny chapel located at the far northern end of town, was organized in 1870.
The Darien train station was opened at about the same time as the one in Rowayton, and was later followed by the establishment of a train station in Noroton Heights and one in the Glenbrook section of Stamford.
Read more about this topic: History Of Darien, Connecticut
Famous quotes containing the words nineteenth century, early, nineteenth and/or century:
“... the nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not. Not.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“... there is no point in being realistic about here and now, no use at all not any, and so it is not the nineteenth but the twentieth century, there is no realism now, life is not real it is not earnest, it is strange which is an entirely different matter.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“You’ve strung your breasts
with a rattling rope of pearls,
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and clinking jewelled anklets
on both your feet.
So, stupid,
if you run off to your lover like this,
banging all these drums,
then why
do you shudder with all this fear
and look up, down;
in every direction?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.?, Kashmirian king, compiler, author of some of the poems in the anthology which bears his name. translated from the Amaruataka by Martha Ann Selby, vs. 31, Motilal Banarsidass (1983)