Connecticut

A Puritan offshoot that wrote its own frame of government and then spent two centuries manufacturing things. Settlers from Massachusetts moved into the Connecticut valley from 1636, and the Fundamental Orders adopted at Hartford in 1639 established a government by the consent of the governed with no mention of the Crown - which is the basis of the state's claim to be the Constitution State. New Haven was founded separately in 1638 as a stricter theocracy and was absorbed in 1665. The Pequot War of 1636 and 1637, which ended with the burning of a fortified village and the near destruction of the Pequot as a people, cleared the valley. The 1662 charter was so favourable that the colony hid it in an oak tree rather than surrender it to a royal governor. Poor soil pushed the state towards industry early: clocks, firearms, brass and hats, made with interchangeable parts under contracts from Eli Whitney and Simeon North that helped establish the American system of manufacturing. The Connecticut Compromise of 1787 resolved the constitutional convention's deadlock by giving every state equal representation in the Senate. Insurance became Hartford's business after a series of fires. The state has among the highest incomes and sharpest inequality in the country. Hartford is the capital and Bridgeport the largest city. Yale was founded in 1701 and moved to New Haven in 1716. The state's name comes from an Algonquian word for the long tidal river. It is among the smallest states by area. The first American cookbook and the first telephone exchange both originated there.

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