Andover, Connecticut: A Man-Made Lake and Rochambeau's Route

Andover is a car-trip town: take I-384 east from I-84 in East Hartford to its eastern terminus at the US 6/US 44 junction in Bolton, then continue on US Route 6 (Jonathan Trumbull Highway) about five miles into Andover. CT Route 316 branches south from US 6 in Andover toward Hebron, and CT Route 87 begins on the town's east side and runs southeast toward Norwich. There is no passenger rail station in Andover or anywhere in Tolland County; the nearest CTrail Hartford Line station is Hartford Union Station, about 18 miles west.

Andover's early economy centered on a small flaxseed oil mill and traffic along the Hartford-Norwich Turnpike, dating to its years as an ecclesiastical parish after 1748. The Andover Creamery Corporation, founded in 1886, exemplified the cooperative dairy enterprises common in town at the time. Andover Lake, the town's defining feature today, is entirely man-made: investors formed the Andover Lake Corporation in 1926 to flood a swampy area called Cheney Hollow, and by the 1940s several hundred cottages ringed the shore. White's Tavern, built in 1773 by Daniel White on US Route 6, hosted French officers under the Comte de Rochambeau — including the Marquis de Chastellux — in 1781; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places but is now a private residence, viewable from the road only.