East Hartford is a
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
in
Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 51,045 at the
2020 census. The town is located on the east bank of the
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...
, directly across from
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
.
It is home to
aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...
. It is also home to
Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, a stadium used mainly for soccer and football with a capacity of 40,000 people.
History
When the Connecticut Valley became known to Europeans around 1631, it was inhabited by what were known as the River Tribes—a number of small clans of Native Americans living along the Great River and its tributaries. Of these tribes the
Podunks occupied territory now lying in the towns of East Hartford and
South Windsor, and numbered, by differing estimates, from sixty to two hundred bowmen. They were governed by two
sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
s, Waginacut and Arramamet, and were connected in some way with the Native Americans who lived across the Great River, in what is now
Windsor. The region north of the
Hockanum River was generally called Podunk; that south of the river, Hockanum; but these were no certain designations, and by some all the meadow along the Great River was called Hockanum.
In 1659,
Thomas Burnham (1617–1688) purchased the tract of land now covered by the towns of South Windsor and East Hartford from Tantinomo, chief sachem of the Podunk Indians.
Burnham lived on the land and later willed it to his nine children.
The town of Hartford, founded in 1635, once included the land now occupied by the towns of East Hartford,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Bolton,
Vernon, and
West Hartford. During the
Revolutionary War, French troops under
Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau twice camped in town, before and after aiding General
George Washington's forces in the 1781 defeat of the British during the
Siege of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German battle (from the presence of Germans in all three armies), beginning on September 28, 1781, and ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virgi ...
.
East Hartford was incorporated as a separate town in October 1783. Manchester (then known as Orford Parish, adopting the name of a prominent English factory city) separated from East Hartford in 1823.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, residents began to form tax districts for fire protection, street lighting, sanitation, and other public works improvements. The East Hartford Fire District was granted a charter by the General Assembly in 1889 and organized in June, 1891. The Meadow Fire District existed before the turn of the twentieth century. The Hockanum Sewer District and Hockanum Lighting District were formed in 1915 and 1916 respectively. The Silver Lane Fire and Lighting District was founded in 1925. On June 10, 1929, voters of the town approved a new charter. All of the old districts were abolished and a Town Council would govern the municipality.
Since first being settled, East Hartford's economy was primarily agricultural, with
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
being the main crop. All that changed in 1929, when
Frederick Rentschler
Frederick Brant Rentschler (November 8, 1887 – April 25, 1956) was an American aircraft engine designer, aviation engineer, industrialist, and the founder of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Rentschler created and manufactured many revolution ...
, head of
Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...
, moved production from Hartford to a sprawling 1,100 acre (445 ha) site in East Hartford. The grounds included a small airport called
Rentschler Field
Rentschler Field was an airport in East Hartford, Connecticut in use from 1933 to 1999. Originally a military facility, later a private corporate airport, it was decommissioned in 1999, after which the football stadium of the same name was bui ...
that was in service from 1931 to 1999. It was originally used for test flights and maintenance operations, and later for corporate aviation. The 75-acre (30 ha) site was decommissioned as an airport in the 1990s, and donated to the state of Connecticut by
United Technologies in 1999, and a new Rentschler Field opened as a stadium with capacity of 40,000 people. Pursuant to a lease agreement with the State,
UConn plays all its home football games at Rentschler Field.On July 16, 2015, it was announced that the stadium had been named
Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in a deal between Pratt & Whitney and UConn. The playing surface is still named Rentschler Field.
Geography
The town is located on the east bank of the
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island ...
, directly across from
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
. The town includes the neighborhoods of Burnside Hockanum, and
Mayberry Village
Mayberry Village is an area in east central East Hartford, Connecticut. The neighborhood was originally developed in the 1940s to house the influx of people who worked at Pratt and Whitney and other defense industries in Connecticut. It is roughly ...
. According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 3.93%, is water.
Demographics
As of 2021, there were 50,731 people, 20,206 households, and 12,830 families residing in the town. The
population density
Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...
was 3,200 people per square mile (1,250/km2). There were 21,328 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 32.6% non-Hispanic
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, 24.8%
Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
or
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 0.04%
Native American, 3.7%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 0.00%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
, and 6.9% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
or
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
of any race were 38.2% of the population. The town has seen significant demographic changes in recent decades due to immigration from Hartford, as well as white residents leaving the city to other suburbs.
There were 20,206 households, out of which 29.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were
married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...
living together, 17.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.5% were non-families. 30.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.42 and the average family size was 3.01.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 24.1% under the age of 18, 7.8% from 18 to 24, 30.2% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $59,954 and the median income for a family was $50,540. Males had a median income of $36,823 versus $29,860 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population.
Per capita i ...
for the town was $21,763. About 8.1% of families and 10.3% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...
, including 15.5% of those under age 18 and 7.3% of those age 65 or over.
Government and politics
East Hartford has a
mayor–council government
The mayor–council government system is a system of local government that has a mayor who is directly elected by the voters serve as chief executive, and a separately elected legislative city council. It is one of the two most common forms of loc ...
. Michael P. Walsh was sworn in as Mayor of the Town of East Hartford on November 8, 2021. Walsh replaced Maricia Leclerc who served five terms before deciding not to seek reelection. Both are Democrats.
Economy
East Hartford is home to the headquarters of
Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...
, part of the
Raytheon Technologies conglomerate. The manufacturing plant takes up a significant amount of East Hartford's area, and at its peak, it employed tens of thousands of people;
however, currently, it only employs about 7,621. East Hartford also contains a
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
bottling plant, located on Main Street. The city is dotted with industrial and suburban office parks, and in the early 2000s, urban planners strategically situated a regional stadium,
Rentschler Stadium (construction completed September 2003), and a hunting and camping focused department store,
Cabela's, on the then vacant former Pratt & Whitney company airfield,
Rentschler Field
Rentschler Field was an airport in East Hartford, Connecticut in use from 1933 to 1999. Originally a military facility, later a private corporate airport, it was decommissioned in 1999, after which the football stadium of the same name was bui ...
.
Top employers
Top employers in East Hartford according to the town's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report:
Infrastructure
Utilities
* Electricity:
Eversource Energy
Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to appro ...
* Water:
Metropolitan District Commission
* Natural gas:
Connecticut Natural Gas
* Telephone, ADSL/Fiber internet, IPTV television:
Frontier Communications
* Cable television/Cable internet:
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
Education
East Hartford Public Schools
East Hartford is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 51,045 at the 2020 census. The town is located on the east bank of the Connecticut River, directly across from Hartford, Connecticut. It is home to aerosp ...
*
Connecticut River Academy
The Connecticut River Academy (CTRA) is a magnet high school for grades 9 – 12, located in East Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut.
It is co-located with Goodwin University, a small 4-year college which moved to the site in 2005. Connecticu ...
*
Goodwin University
Goodwin University is a private university in East Hartford, Connecticut.
History
Goodwin University began as Data Institute Business School in 1962. In 2004, the college transitioned to not-for-profit status and was granted accreditation by t ...
*
East Hartford High School
East Hartford High School is a public high school of the East Hartford, Connecticut Public Schools. East Hartford High Schools shares its campus and many of its programs with the Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy (CIBA), an honors co ...
*
Stone Academy
*
Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy
Connecticut IB Academy (CIBA) is an interdistrict magnet school located in East Hartford, Connecticut. It is next door to East Hartford High School; the two are connected by a bridge.
The Connecticut IB Academy is an International Baccalaureate ...
*
East Hartford Middle School
Attractions
The
Great River Park is located on the banks of the Connecticut River in East Hartford, providing riverside activities for the town.
Wickham Park, located in East Hartford and
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, features Oriental gardens, fountains, open fields, woodlands, ponds, picnic areas, softball fields, and an
aviary. The west side of the park offers a scenic view of East Hartford and the skyline of Hartford across the Connecticut River and is a popular site for weddings. It also has a very popular sledding hill in the winter.
Nearby,
Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field is home of the
Huskies football team.
Notable people
*
Milton Avery
Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husband ...
, artist
*
Lawrence Brainerd
Lawrence Brainerd (March 16, 1794May 9, 1870) was an American businessman, abolitionist and United States Senator from Vermont. A longtime anti-slavery activist, after leaving the Jacksonian democracy, Jacksonians in the 1830s, Brainerd was act ...
, businessman, abolitionist and United States senator from Vermont
*
Mary Cadorette
Mary Therese Cadorette (born March 31, 1957) is an American actress best known for playing Jack Tripper's live-in girlfriend, flight attendant Vicky Bradford, on the short-lived 1984 ''Three's Company'' spin-off ''Three's a Crowd''.
Education ...
, actress
*
Howard Ensign Evans
Howard Ensign Evans (February 23, 1919 – July 18, 2002) was an American entomologist who was a specialist on wasps. He was also the author of several popular works on entomology including ''Life on a Little-known Planet'' (1978), ''The Pleasures ...
, noted entomologist
*
Francis Patrick Garvan, lawyer and longtime president of the Chemical Foundation
*
John A. Gurley
John Addison Gurley (December 9, 1813 – August 19, 1863) was a U.S. Congressman from Ohio during the early part of the American Civil War, serving two terms from 1859 to 1863. He was appointed as the first Governor of the Arizona Territory, ...
, U.S. Representative from Ohio during the early part of the American Civil War
*
John Larson, current U.S. Representative from
*
Hiram N. Moulton
Hiram N. Moulton (August 14, 1818 – August 28, 1899) was mayor of Madison, Wisconsin.
Biography
Moulton was born on August 14, 1818, in East Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest of twelve children. Moulton moved to Madison in 1854. He married Elle ...
, mayor of
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
*
Aaron Olmsted
Captain Aaron Olmsted (May 19, 1753 – September 9, 1806), erroneously spelled Olmstead, was a wealthy sea captain in the China trade out of New England, and one of 49 investors who formed the Connecticut Land Company in 1795 to purchase a maj ...
, sea captain, namesake of several cities in Ohio
*
Denison Olmsted
Denison Olmsted (June 18, 1791May 13, 1859) was an American physicist and astronomer. Professor Olmsted is credited with giving birth to meteor science after the 1833 Leonid meteor shower over North America spurred him to study this phenomenon.
...
, physicist and astronomer
*
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...
, renowned urban and suburban planner famous for many of the New York City parks and Stanford University's campus lived and studied for much of his youth between his primary residence in Hartford and his father's childhood home in East Hartford
*
Gérard Ouellet
Gérard Ouellet (17 February 1913 – 3 April 1975) was a member of the House of Commons of Canada. He was a farmer by career.
Ouellet was born in East Hartford, Connecticut, United States, the son of Emile Ouellet and Celina-Rose Berub ...
, member of the Canadian House of Commons
*
Charles Phelps, first Connecticut Attorney General
*
Diane Venora
Diane Venora is an American stage, television and film actress. She graduated from the Juilliard School in 1977 and made her film debut in 1981 opposite Albert Finney in '' Wolfen''. She won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Support ...
, actress
References
External links
Town of East Hartford official websiteHistorical Society of East Hartford
{{authority control
Towns in Hartford County, Connecticut
Connecticut populated places on the Connecticut River
Towns in Connecticut
Greater Hartford