​​Great Nation-State – Tale of ​two ancient Connecticut towns

• CT's Oldest Municipality Birthed Ancient Farmington Valley Town

By Bruce William Deckert

Editor-in-Chief

Today Magazine Online

As the United States celebrates an amazing 250th birthday this Fourth of July, let's play a Did You Know trivia game.

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ESPN's signature SportsCenter news-and-highlight show has featured a segment titled Did You Know — let's convert this popular segment into the Today Magazine version of a Did You Know game connected to Connecticut history.

Here we go: Did you know that Connecticut's oldest municipality and one of its key spin-off towns predate the nation's Independence Day by a collective 249 years?

Connecticut's oldest municipality is Windsor, per CT.gov, the state's official website. The town was settled in 1633 and named in 1637 after the market town in England that is the site of Windsor Castle, a historic residence of the British royal family.

Simsbury, nestled in Connecticut's Farmington Valley, is a spin-off of Windsor — in other words, a direct descendant of the state's oldest town. Simsbury was established 106 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed in July 1776.

Since Windsor was established 143 years before America's Independence Day, the math is straightforward: When we add Windsor's 143 pre-Declaration years and Simsbury's 106 pre-Declaration years, we arrive at the collective 249 years that these two ancient Connecticut towns predate America's birth — just one year shy of the 250th anniversary the U.S. is celebrating this July Fourth.

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• Simsbury – A Brief History

Once upon a time, in a colony called Connecticut, a town was founded. That time was May 12, 1670, and that town was Simmsbury — yes, with a double-m.

If you surmise that this old colonial town has become the Simsbury of today — with a single m — you are precisely right and historically correct. And if you calculate that Simsbury is celebrating its 356th anniversary in 2026, the same year that the United States of America marks anniversary No. 250, you are also mathematically correct.

Joshua Holcomb and John Case, the region's first constable, formally petitioned the colony to establish Simsbury — initially part of Windsor — as an official municipal entity.

Simsbury's original boundaries encompassed the present-day towns of Granby (founded 1786) and Canton (1806), based on research conducted by Today Magazine. So these two Farmington Valley towns are spin-offs and thus direct descendants of Simsbury. In other words, Granby and Canton are the municipal children of Simsbury and therefore the grandchildren of Windsor. This distinctive region is defined by the Farmington River, which enters the Valley in Canton and makes a peculiar left-hand turn north in Farmington.

The fertile area was inhabited by the Massacoe Indians when the first English settlers arrived. Those settlers called the domain the Massacoh Plantation. However, the origin of Simsbury's name isn't exactly known since records of the town's earliest years were lost in a fire in the first decade of the town's existence.

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The nomenclature might be derived from the town of Symondsbury in the county of Dorset, England — some early Simsbury residents came from Dorset — or Simsbury could be the namesake of Simon "Sim" Wolcott, one of the nascent town’s notable men.

In 1831, William Bickford was granted a patent for a safety fuse that revolutionized the use of explosives. In 1836 Bacon, Bickford, Eales & Co. was founded in Simsbury. Thus began the history of Simsbury as a company town that carries through to this day.

The present-day Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense Company on Hopmeadow Street is the descendant of the town-based firm that has changed names over the years while maintaining a reputation for innovation. Ensign-Bickford is the oldest known business in the Farmington Valley. The company has contributed to NASA programs and and the international James Webb Space Telescope project.

A century-plus after Bickford sowed the seeds of a fertile commercial enterprise in town, a teenager from Georgia spent two formative summers working in Simsbury in 1944 and 1947 — and seeds sown here helped shape America's civil-rights movement, for that teenager was Martin Luther King Jr.

For years, stories circulated about MLK's visits to town. In 2010, a group of Simsbury High students produced an award-winning documentary that presented the fruits of their investigative work. They proved beyond any dispute that King's tenure in Simsbury not only occurred but also deeply impacted his view of equality and civil rights.

On his seminary application, he wrote, "My call to the ministry … came about in the summer of 1944 [in Simsbury] when I felt an inescapable urge to serve society."

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Countless town residents have likewise served society and their municipality with distinction and imperfect flair for 350 years — given the talents and imperfections common to human beings in Simsbury and across the nation and planet.

At the entrance to the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, a new display highlights numerous milestones in town history, titled: "356 Years of Simsbury History on 356 Steps" — a subtitle declares: "106 years older than the nation, this freedom walk represents Simsbury's remarkable journey."

The historical banners comprise an informative exhibit offering a cornucopia of dates and intel that doubles as a history walk running north from the SMPAC entrance on Iron Horse Boulevard.

For the record, by general consensus there are five towns in the Farmington Valley. Besides Simsbury, Granby and Canton: Farmington (founded 1645) is the oldest and Avon (1830, a Farmington spin-off) is the youngest. Local residents sometimes include other towns in their view of the Valley, but Today Magazine and various other media outlets define the Farmington Valley as these five towns.

The Valley is just west and northwest of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. As a distinct five-town geographic area, the Farmington Valley is part of the larger Farmington River watershed.

The building that is currently Simsbury Town Hall on Hopmeadow Street was originally the town's first high school

The widespread watershed is comprised of 33 towns covering 600-plus square miles in Connecticut and Massachusetts, according to the Simsbury-based Farmington River Watershed Association — the FRWA is a nonprofit that seeks to safeguard this vital river that serves as a primary source of drinking water for over 600,000 people in Greater Hartford.

The Farmington River has two sources: The origin of the river’s West Branch is in the town of Becket in western Massachusetts, and the origin of the East Branch is the northern tip of the Barkhamsted Reservoir in Hartland, Connecticut. The reservoir was formed via a dam system on the East Branch.

The two branches converge in New Hartford, Connecticut, to become one river. The Farmington River is a major tributary of the Connecticut River and joins the state's namesake waterway in Windsor, the suburb adjacent to and north of Hartford.

Yes, Windsor is not only Connecticut's oldest town but also the anchor municipality in the Farmington River watershed.

The Connecticut River serves as Windsor's eastern border. Windsor's northwestern border is adjacent to Simsbury — specifically, the village of Tariffville, a distinct section of Simsbury. +

• Sources — ​Connecticut​History​.org • CT.gov • FRWA website • Google Maps •​ Simsbury-​CT.gov •​ Simsbury Historical Society website: SimsburyHistory.org • Google search resources

• This article is an updated and enhanced version of a cover story that first appeared in the June 2020 edition of our monthly Today Magazine, in conjunction with coverage of Simsbury's 350th anniversary in May 2020

Today editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert previously worked at ESPN Digital Media, Imprint Newspapers and The Master’s School in West Simsbury — he is a multi-award-winning journalist who believes all people on the planet merit awards daily when they leverage their God-given gifts for good

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