Fairfield County

Fairfield County's towns are mostly the children of a few older ones. Fairfield gave up Redding in 1767 and Weston in 1787, which gave up Easton in 1845; Stratford gave up Shelton in 1789 and Trumbull in 1797; Shelton, then Huntington, gave up Monroe in 1823; Norwalk and Stamford together gave up Canaan Parish, which became New Canaan in 1801, and separately Wilton in 1802 and Darien in 1820; Danbury gave up Bethel in 1855 and, with Newtown and New Milford, Brookfield in 1788. The Revolution left marks the towns still point to. British troops under General William Tryon landed at Compo Beach in Westport in April 1777, burned Continental supplies at Danbury, and fought Connecticut's only inland battle of the war at Ridgefield on April 27; Tryon burned more than two hundred buildings at Fairfield on July 8, 1779, and nearly destroyed Norwalk. Hat-making ran through Danbury and Bethel, Candlewood Lake was filled by 1928 along the edges of Brookfield, New Fairfield and Sherman, and Darien joined the shoreline's affluent Gold Coast after the Connecticut Turnpike arrived in 1958.