SUFFIELD, CT (WGGB/WSHM) -- Suffield, CT has a long and well documented history, but while it was originally settled back in 17th century, it’s exact location remained unsettled for more than 100 years.
A small and picturesque town originally called Southfield, Suffield is now home to almost 16,000 people, as well as the Suffield Historical Society at the King House Museum, which is a classic Georgian-style house. “It has seven fireplaces, which you’d want on a cold New England night and it almost completely retains its original configuration,” said curator Christine Ritok.
Now filled with early Connecticut Valley furniture and artifacts, it was originally built for Dr. Alexander King in 1764…in Suffield, MA. “No…yes [Reporter: it was Suffield, Massachusetts?] It depended on the current legislative whims,” Ritok added.
That’s because from its very beginning in 1670, Suffield had close ties to the Bay State. In fact, it was founded by a group of men from Springfield. “It’s purpose was to be a community that was to the southwest of Springfield and kind of almost a stopping point on the way to Hartford and points south,” said Tim Casey with the Suffield Historical Society.
That’s where the first point of confusion and contention was born because, as Casey explained, an initial survey conducted back in 1642 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony placed the border with Connecticut further south than it actually was. “They got it wrong by seven miles. They were seven miles south of where they should have been…and Connecticut thought they got it wrong, protested, but never did a fact check,” he explained.
That meant not only was the newly settled town of Suffield firmly located in Massachusetts, so too were present day Enfield, Somers, and Woodstock. A map from 1753 clearly showed the chunks of land cut out of northern Connecticut, land that would prove contentious to the point of armed conflict. “Violence had started to break out because people didn’t know where the line was. If you purchased land and you thought that you were in Massachusetts and somebody else said, ‘No, you’re in Connecticut. You don’t have a right to be here. You don’t have a valid deed’ or you found resources, like you started tapping a pine tree to make turpentine, all of a sudden, that, at times, get violent,” Casey noted.
As Casey called it, ‘The Suffield Border Wars’ began. They were sporadic and heated clashes that would last nearly three decades, finally ending 1713 when both colonies came to an agreement. Massachusetts admitted its southern border was wrong and paid Connecticut for the four towns. In turn, Connecticut relinquished its claims to the land.
However, while that does end the violence, it didn’t end the dispute because, as it turns out, no one bothered to ask the people who lived in those towns what they wanted and what they wanted was more freedom and less taxes. “Connecticut had a lot more political freedom. Connecticut was one of the few colonies that could elect its own governor. In Massachusetts, the king appointed the governor, so there was more political freedom and, additionally, Connecticut taxes were lower,” Casey explained.
For more than 50 years before the American Revolution, there was a much smaller, but still concerted, effort to make a split, in this case, from the colony of Massachusetts. It was a long, drawn-out effort that eventually took hold in 1797, taking the better part of a century to finally succeed and secede. Of course, though, even then, it wasn’t easy.
“The way that it gets done is we have this weird little notch that, I think, everybody knows about or jog, whatever you want to call it, in Southwick...in between, Southwick, Granby, and Suffield. That jog is there mainly as kind of a peace offering,” Casey said. “You know what? We’ll give you this area because it’s by the Congamond Lakes...Those lakes have value, right? We’ll give you the land around there as a peace offering for us to kind of end this.”
Indeed, the Suffield saga did end there with the town now definitively located in Connecticut. It’s a forgotten footnote in history that is now indelibly marked on the map.