Wethersfield, Connecticut: Onions, Seeds, and Connecticut's Oldest Streets

Wethersfield was settled in 1634, or possibly earlier, and vies with Windsor for the title of Connecticut's first town; the Connecticut River forms its eastern boundary. Early wealth came from shipbuilding, onion growing, and river trade, and by the 1800s Wethersfield had turned to commercial seed production, with the seed firm Johnson, Robbins and Co. among its notable businesses. The town's early colonial history also includes witch trials, part of Connecticut's seventeenth-century witchcraft prosecutions. In 1781, the Webb House hosted George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau as they planned the campaign that led to victory at Yorktown, Virginia — a meeting now interpreted at the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, which anchors the Old Wethersfield Historic District's more than 150 structures built before 1850.

Wethersfield is a driving destination immediately south of Hartford: take I-91 to Exit 26 (Old Wethersfield) and follow Marsh Street to Main Street. There is no rail station in town, so train travelers use Hartford Union Station, about four miles north, for CTrail Hartford Line and Amtrak service; Berlin is the next-closest Hartford Line stop.

The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum's guided tours (11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.) take in the Webb House and its neighbors, while the circa-1711 Buttolph-Williams House, ticketed through the same museum, is the building that inspired The Witch of Blackbird Pond. The Wethersfield Museum at the Keeney Memorial Cultural Center rounds out the historical-society sites with exhibits and a research library. For food, Village Pizza has served Old Wethersfield since 1983 and Main Street Creamery & Cafe scoops ice cream nearby, while Vito's Restaurant and Pizzeria on the Silas Deane Highway has been a local Italian-American fixture since 1978. The Silas W. Robbins House, an 1873 Second Empire mansion on the Broad Street Green, is the town's bed and breakfast.