Columbia, CT: population, rivers, lakes, mountains, resorts, hotels, motels, inns, and landmarks.

New England > Connecticut > Columbia

Columbia, Connecticut

Tolland county. Taken from Lebanon in 1800. It is 22 miles E. from Hartford and about 14 S. by E. from Tolland. Population, 1830, 962. Columbia is watered by a branch of the Willimantic, and has a satinet factory, and other operations by water. The surface is uneven; the soil hard and gravelly, but excellent for grazing. In this place, about the year 1741, the Rev. Dr. Eleazar Wheelock, the first president of Dartmouth College, opened a school for the instruction of Indian youth. He removed his family and pupils to Hanover, N.H., in the autumn of 1770. The snow was very deep, and Hanover was a wilderness. "Sometimes standing in the open air, at the head of his numerous family, Dr. Wheelock presented to God their morning and evening prayers: the surrounding forests, for the first time, reverberated the solemn sounds of supplication and praise." This good man died in 1779, aged 69.

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