From the Editor's Desk

Welcome to the Spring 2025 issue! As this is my first issue as editor, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and my aims for the journal for the future. When I began teaching at Eastern Connecticut State University in fall 2015, I could hardly imagine that I would one day find myself as editor of Connecticut History Review (CHR). I would like to recognize and thank my colleagues in the History Department, past and present, for their support, direct and indirect, in helping me to reach this post: Dr. Caitlin Carenen, Dr. Stacey Close, Dr. Bradley Camp Davis, Dr. David Frye, Dr. Stefan Kamola, Dr. Anna Kirchmann, Dr. Joan Meznar, Dr. Scott Moore, Dr. Jamel Ostwald, and especially Dr. Barbara Tucker, who served as editor of this journal from 1987 to 1996. I would also like to take a moment to remember Dr. David M. Roth (1935–1985), who helped found the predecessor to this journal, Connecticut History, in 1974 and served as its editor from 1978 until his death. Given its deep roots in Eastern Connecticut State University, I am proud to bring the CHR back home.Numerous other colleagues and organizations have sustained Connecticut History Review through the difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Much credit is due to the officers of the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH)—thank you to Allison Norrie of Fairfield Warde High School and Dr. Jeffrey O'Leary of Mitchell College for leading ASCH this past year. Dr. Peter Baldwin of the University of Connecticut has selflessly and generously served as book review editor since 2018; I wish him the very best as he prepares to retire from his faculty role. I would like to acknowledge especially my immediate predecessor in this role, Dr. Marie McDaniel of Southern Connecticut State University, who did an outstanding job these past three years editing Connecticut History Review.The Editorial Board of Connecticut History Review continues to be another source of enduring strength. I appreciate the ongoing service offered by Daisha Brahbm, Dr. Cecelia Bucki, Dr. Katherine Hermes, Dr. Andy Horowitz, Dr. Eugene Leach, Christina Volpe, and Dr. Walter Woodward, and I welcome new members Dr. Kelly Marino, Dr. Fiona Vernal, and Dr. Jonathan Wharton to the board. Dr. McDaniel has agreed to stay on the Editorial Benefit much to my delight. I also thank outgoing board member Dr. Elizabeth Hohl for her years of service.This issue being my first, it has taken me months to learn the ropes. In addition to the outstanding support offered by those colleagues noted above, I would also like to acknowledge the additional aid offered by the students and staff at the Center for Connecticut Studies, which I have the honor of directing, and Archives and Special Collections, both at Eastern Connecticut State University. Tara Hurt, Librarian and University Archivist, welcomed me into my new role and went out of her way to ensure that the Center for Connecticut Studies found a proper home on the fourth floor of J. Eugene Smith Library. Emma Schafer, a rising senior at Eastern, has worked tirelessly for the past two years as my research assistant at the Center and more recently as an editorial assistant on this issue. Emma also catalogued the entire archive of back issues of Connecticut History Review, which now has a permanent home at the Center. At Eastern, I must also express my gratitude to former provost, Dr. William Salka, and interim provost, Dr. Benjamin Pauley, for the administrative release time that enables me to do this work.Like numerous editors before me, I consider it an honor to edit Connecticut History Review, the only scholarly publication dedicated to the history of the Nutmeg State. Following in the footsteps of my immediate predecessor, this issue contains a mix of full-length research articles, a piece from the archives, and a book review. Without a doubt, Connecticut is a state brimming with historians, librarians, researchers, and students all who care deeply about the past. I echo the sentiments of Dr. McDaniel in the last issue: “There are many more yet untold stories that I hope will grace these pages in the months and years to come. Connecticut has bountiful historical riches, and I hope you have a chance to uncover and share them with us.” I urge you, the readers, to contribute your ideas to me by e-mail ([email protected]).The passion for the local, for the place where you live, continues to motivate our study of the past. Brendan T. Fritch, a recent graduate of the master's program in history at Southern Connecticut State University and a resident of New Hartford, has uncovered a fascinating pattern of municipal development in Barkhamsted. His article, “Barkhamsted's Oligarchy: Exposing Nuance in Early Connecticut Town Development,” examines the town's primary source record from the colonial period through the post-revolutionary period. He traces two generations of the Allyn and Jones family patriarchs in Barkhamsted, from their early settlement in the township through their rise as leading citizens who dominated many of the town's proprietor committees, its military trainband, its religious society, and local and state government institutions. This centralization of power differs from the history of traditional town formation patterns. The available primary sources, which include research from newspapers, the Barkhamsted Proprietors Record books, the Connecticut State Archives, the Public History of the Colony and State of Connecticut, and church records expose these differences. Significantly, Fritch finds that the traditional formation patterns in Barkhamsted differed from historians’ interpretations of the 1960s and 1970s.The second article, “The Price of Service: The March and Retreat of Danbury and Connecticut's Bonuseers of 1932,” by Brian Stevens, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Western Connecticut State University, continues his earlier research, “Price of Service: The Economic and Political Conditions that Compelled Danbury and Connecticut's Bonuseers of 1932,” published in the spring 2024 issue of CHR. This follow-up continues the story of Connecticut's World War I veterans, who, in 1932, marched to Washington, D.C., hoping their presence would prompt the federal government to pay them a promised bonus—thirteen years before it was due to be issued. Despite strong local opposition from political leaders, veterans’ groups, and the press, over two hundred Connecticut veterans, along with some of their families, joined the two-months-long Bonus March. Stevens's latest article details the Bonus March through the lens of largely unknown Connecticut “Bonuseers” and offers another perspective on this pivotal episode in American history.This issue also includes an entry “From the Archives”—pieces often written by Connecticut's multitalented librarians and archivists—from Sarah J. Morin a project archivist at the Connecticut State Librarian. Morin notes that the Connecticut Colony had “some of the most liberal divorce laws in the western world during the eighteenth century,” and the various cases highlighted bear out this point.We will also publish a book review by Allen Horn, an independent scholar working in Connecticut, of Jack Kelly's God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man (2023).Readers and ASCH members should also be sure to check out President Allison Norrie's update that highlights the organizations latest activities and looks forward to the future. The outlook for the study of Connecticut history is indeed bright.In conclusion, I would to reminder readers of the Call for Papers for the Spring 2026 issue of Connecticut History Review “1776 in Connecticut,” the deadline of which has been extended to July 1, 2025. Please consider submitting a proposal.