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:''This article is about the town. For the borough, see Stonington (borough), Connecticut.'' The town of Stonington is located in New London County, Connecticut, United States, in the state's southeastern corner. It includes the borough of Stonington, the villages of Pawcatuck, Lords Point, and Wequetequock, and the eastern halves of the villages of Mystic and Old Mystic (the other halves being in the town of Groton). The population of the town was 18,545 at the 2010 census. ==History== The first European colonists established a trading house in the Pawcatuck section of town in 1649. The present territory of Stonington was part of lands that had belonged to the Pequot people, who referred to the areas making up Stonington as ''Pawcatuck'' (Stony Brook to the Pawcatuck River) and ''Mistack'' (Mystic River to Stony Brook). It was named "Souther Towne" or Southerton by Massachusetts in 1658, and officially became part of Connecticut in 1662 when Connecticut received its royal charter. Southerton was renamed "Mistick" in 1665 and again renamed Stonington in 1666.〔 Thomas Miner, Walter Palmer, William Chesebrough and Thomas Stanton were the founders. The town of North Stonington was set off as a parish from Stonington in 1724 and incorporated as a town in 1807. Stonington first gained wealth in the 1790s when its harbor was home to a fleet engaged in the profitable sealing trade in which the skins of seals clubbed on islands off the Chilean and Patagonian coasts were sold as fur in China.〔Diana Muir, ''Reflections in Bullough's Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England'', 2000:80.〕 Stonington repulsed two British naval bombardments. One, during the American Revolution, was a desultory bombardment by Sir James Wallace in the frigate HMS ''Rose'' on August 30, 1775. The other was a more damaging three-day affair between August 9 and 12, 1814. During the War of 1812, four British vessels, HMS ''Ramillies'', HMS ''Pactolus'', HMS'' Dispatch'', and HMS ''Terror'', under the command of Sir Thomas Hardy, appeared offshore on August 9, 1814. The British demanded immediate surrender, but Stonington's citizens replied with a note that stated, "We shall defend the place to the last extremity; should it be destroyed, we shall perish in its ruins."〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/stonington )〕 For three days the Royal Navy pounded the town, but the only fatality was that of an elderly woman who was mortally ill. The British, after suffering many dead and wounded, sailed off on 12 August. The American poet Philip Freneau wrote (in part): :''The bombardiers with bomb and ball '' ::''Soon made a farmer's barrack fall, '' :''And did a cow-house badly maul '' ::''That stood a mile from Stonington.'' :''They kill'd a goose, they kill'd a hen '' ::''Three hogs they wounded in a pen— '' :''They dashed away and pray what then? '' ::''This was not taking Stonington.'' :''But some assert, on certain grounds, '' ::''(Beside the damage and the wounds), '' :''It cost the king ten thousand pounds '' ::''To have a dash at Stonington.'' The Stonington Harbor Light is a low stone building erected in 1823, and was the first lighthouse established by the U.S. federal government. In the 19th century, Stonington supported a small fishing, whaling, and sealing fleet, with some direct trade with the West Indies — enough in volume for it to be made a port of entry in 1842. The small granite Customs House faces Main Street just north of Cannon Square. The New London and Stonington Railroad Company was incorporated on July 29, 1852. The Groton and Stonington Street Railway was a trolley line that was created in 1904 to serve the Stonington area. The trolley was dismantled and replaced by buses in 1928.〔Kimball, Carol W. ''Historic Glimpses: Recollections of Days Past in the Mystic River Valley''. Mystic, Connecticut: Flat Hammock Press, 2005.〕 In recent decades, Stonington has experienced a large influx of new home owners using historic borough houses as second homes. The town has undergone a widespread reconditioning of these homes since the mid-1990s, when an altercation over redevelopment rights attracted substantial news coverage about Stonington's revitalization. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stonington, Connecticut」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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