New Haven County CT

Following the process of unification of New Haven Colony with Connecticut Colony in 1664-65, cohesion could be improved. New Haven County was constituted by an act of the Connecticut General Court on May 10, 1666, along with Hartford County, Fairfield County, and New London County. The act establishing the county states:

     This Court orders that from the east bounds of Guilford
     vnto y^e west bounds of Milford shalbe for future one County
     w^ch shalbe called the County of N: Hauen. And it is
     ordered that the County Court shalbe held at N: Hauen on
     the second Wednesday in March and on the second Wednesday
     in Nouember yearely.[2]

As established in 1666, New Haven County consisted of the towns of Milford, New Haven, and Guilford. The town of Wallingford was established in 1670 in unincorporated area north of New Haven and formally added to New Haven County in 1671. In 1675, the town of Derby was established north of Milford. In 1686, the town of Waterbury was established, but was assigned as part of Hartford County. Waterbury was transferred to New Haven County in 1728. In 1722, most of northwestern Connecticut (except for the town of Litchfield) was placed under the jurisdiction of New Haven County. Eight years later, in 1730, the eastern half of northwestern Connecticut was transferred to the jurisdiction of Hartford County. By mid-1738, with the exception of the towns of New Milford, Sharon, and Salisbury, the entire territory of northwestern Connecticut was under Hartford County. In 1751, Litchfield County was constituted consisting of all the towns in northwestern Connecticut. Between 1780 and 1807, several more towns were established along the northern boundary of New Haven County, resulting in the alteration of the limits of the county. The final boundary alteration leading to the modern boundary resulted from the establishment of the town of Middlebury on October 8, 1807.

County governments were abolished in Connecticut in 1960. Thus, as is the case with all eight of Connecticut's counties, there is no county government, and no county seat. Until 1960, the city of New Haven was the county seat. In Connecticut, towns are responsible for all local government activities, including fire and rescue, snow removal and schools. In some cases, neighboring towns will share certain activities, e.g. schools, health, etc. New Haven County is merely a group of towns on a map, and has no specific government authority. The county Sheriff system was abolished by voters and replaced by State Judicial Marshals in 2000. As a result, the state judicial system in New Haven County has three judicial districts: New Haven, Ansonia-Milford, and Waterbury.

Source: Wikipedia

More history can be found on the Cities & Towns page.

Off-Site Resources

New Haven Colony, Jane Devlin's website: