In 1614, Dutch Explorer Adriaen Block – with hopes of expanding Dutch fur trade — became the first European to sail up the Connecticut River. His northward journey ended before hitting the Enfield rapids. In the area just north of present-day Hartford, now known as South Windsor, he encountered a palisaded fort belonging to the ‘Nowaas’ Tribe. These Native, or Indigenous Peoples, called their village, ‘Nowashe,’ meaning a “Place between Two Rivers.”
The rich, Fertile soil of the flood-prone South Windsor meadows served as the seasonal home of the Nowaas Tribe. Locally, it’s more commonly known as the Podunk Tribe. The archaeological record shows us that the meadows were repeatedly inhabited for thousands of years, and as such, have been the site of not only intensive digs but a local of numerous “surface finds.” Some 20,000 Indigenous Peoples’ artifacts are now displayed, preserved and used for educational purposes by the Friends of Wood Memorial Library & Museum. To this day, the South Windsor Meadows remains a fertile agricultural location.
In the years leading up to the Pequot War (1634-1638), Wahginnacut – the Sachem of the Wangunk Tribe, sought support from English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although this Puritan community expressed little interest, it was Plimoth Colony’s Governor Winslow who decided in 1633 to develop a settlement in present-day Windsor. Within a decade, this settlement had expanded across the Connecticut River to present-day South Windsor, and implemented the use of our nation’s first ferry.
South Windsor’s Main Street runs parallel to the Connecticut River, on a knoll above the meadows. It was laid out some 350 years ago along a well-worn Native American path, known as the Podunk Path, which intersected with other well-worn Native paths across Connecticut and beyond.
