About Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown is a city of 47,717 people on the Connecticut River's west bank, in Middlesex County. Its first name, Mattabesett, came from a Wangunk village that stood here. English settlers from nearby Connecticut towns arrived in 1650 and held Sunday services under a great elm by the river, and the General Court established the town on September 11, 1651. In November 1653 it was renamed Middletown, for its spot roughly midway between Windsor and Saybrook on the Great River.

Shipwrights were at work by the winter of 1669 and 1670, and in the 1700s Middletown grew into Connecticut's largest and richest settlement. By 1816 its merchants owned more shipping than those of any other town in the state. Trade limits in the years before the War of 1812 had already started the port's slide, and it never came back. The city turned to factories instead, making pistols, marine hardware and Royal typewriters. The center became a city in 1784, with Jabez Hamlin as its first mayor, and city and town were joined in 1923.

  • A muffled bell in 1765When the Stamp Act took effect on November 1, 1765, Middletown mourned in public. The town bell rang from morning to night with its tongue muffled, and the ships in the harbor lowered their pennants to half mast. After dark, effigies were set out at every door and later burned, and a newspaper wrote that small children marched through the streets singing "Liberty, Property and no Stamps."
  • Lead for the RevolutionIn May 1775 the colony gave Jabez Hamlin, Matthew Talcott and Titus Hosmer the job of finding lead for the war. They turned to a vein on the Strait Hills' north side, near Butler's Creek. Workers raised seven tons of ore, smelting works opened in September, and the committee had 5,140 pounds on hand in November 1776. The ore lay in granite and sank deeper near the river, so the Assembly closed the mine in 1778.
  • America's largest suspender makerThe Russell Company Upper Mill went up in 1836 and is the city's oldest surviving textile mill building. In 1841 elastic webbing was woven on power looms there for the first time. By 1850 the Russell Manufacturing Company ran three mills with about 200 workers, and in 1884 it bought the Sanseer works and soon built the steam-powered Sanseer Mill. By 1896 it made more suspenders than any company in the nation.
  • A college the town builtThe people of Middletown put up two main buildings to draw a college to the city, and in 1831 Methodists founded Wesleyan University there, on the site of Partridge's military academy, which had moved to Norwich, Vermont. In 1841 the city opened Connecticut's first public high school, which at first took every student from age nine to sixteen.
  • Caring for the town's poorThe town built the Middletown Alms House in 1813 and 1814 to shelter its poor, and no older building made for that purpose survives in Connecticut. From 1853 the old alms house was turned into a factory making tools, stoves and hardware, while the town ran a poor farm in Thomas Griswold Mather's brick farmhouse, built about 1839. The farm served until 1946, and the farmhouse became a restaurant, the Town Farms Inn.

Find your street

Names on the Middletown map

Every name below is printed on this map. Look for your street, your school, the park where you played, or the pond down the road.

Places and landmarks31

  • West Lake
  • Westfield
  • South Farms
  • A&M Industrial Park
  • Bacon Field House
  • Beman Middle School
  • Bretton Heights
  • Broad Street Historic District
  • Connecticut Valley Hospital
  • Crystal Lake Park
  • Hallock Medical Library
  • Harbor Park
Show all 31 places
  • Highland Estates
  • Highland Historic District
  • Lakeridge Heights
  • Long Hill
  • Main Street Historic District
  • Middlesex Hospital
  • Middletown City Hall
  • Middletown High School
  • Middletown Senior Center
  • Middletown South Green Historic District
  • Middletown YMCA
  • Newfield Heights
  • Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater
  • Veterans Memorial Park
  • Wadsworth Falls State Park
  • Washington Street Historic District
  • Wesleyan University
  • William J. Pomfret Baseball Stadium at Palmer Field
  • Woodrow Wilson High School

Streets and roads26

  • York Rd
  • Poplar Rd
  • Footit Dr
  • Congdon St
  • Industrial Park Pl
  • Miner St
  • Azalea Dr
  • Bell St
  • Mile Ln
  • Newfield St
  • Sisk St
  • Westfield St
  • Ballfall Rd
  • Wilcox Dr
  • Bretton Rd
  • Prospect St
  • Eastern Dr
  • Hill Rd
  • River Rd
  • Silver St
  • Saybrook Rd
  • Chauncey Rd
  • Prout Hill Rd
  • Acorn Dr
  • Blue Rd
  • Millbrook Rd

Names are listed as they appear on the printed map. Zoom into the product photos to find them.

The art of mapping a place

How This Map Was Made

Real places. Remarkable detail. Discover the layers that turn geographic data into a map of home.

  1. Aerial imagery of Mendon, Massachusetts, from the USDA NAIP program

    The view from above

    Aerial imagery reveals the character of the land: woodland, open fields, and the patterns of a place.

  2. USGS elevation data rendered as shaded relief of Mendon, Massachusetts

    The shape of the land

    Elevation data brings hills, valleys, and subtle changes in the landscape into view.

  3. Closeup of roads, waterways, and buildings on the Mendon, Massachusetts map

    The details of home

    Roads, waterways, and building footprints come together to make the map feel unmistakably local.

  4. Finished Mendon, Massachusetts map shown in a black frame

    Geography becomes art

    Considered color, shading, and typography bring the layers together in a map made for your wall.

Process illustrated with Mendon, Massachusetts. Aerial imagery: USDA NAIP. Terrain: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Map details and finished artwork: KNOWOL.

The Details

About This Print

Choose an archival matte print, or a black or white Ayous wood frame. The archival matte print is unframed.

Select your size and finish above to see the matching product image and price.

Materials & Craftsmanship

A contemporary map with the character of a classic atlas, printed on archival matte paper. Optional frames are made from Ayous wood.

Your printed map does not include the watermark shown in the full-map preview.

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Nearby

Maps of towns near Middletown

Know someone from one of these towns? Their map makes a great gift.

More maps nearby: Durham, Higganum, Meriden, Haddam and Berlin.

See all 472 Connecticut maps