I have lived in Connecticut for 17 years and have never been to the Noah Webster House in West Hartford. I would drive by, but it didn’t spark my interest.  Recently, my son’s 4^th grade class went there on a field trip and I decided to tag along and am I glad I did!  They were greeted by guides in period dress.

It’s a sweet surprise to find a vintage 1914 carousel standing in Bushnell Park. There, by the shadow of skyscrapers and a giant Turkey Oak, a 24-sided pavilion houses 48 hand-carved wooden horses and two lovers’ chariots that swirl around a booming Wurlitzer band organ commanding an optimism that contrasts with the city’s often-troubled image.

Long before the first Europeans came to Connecticut in 1614, the land that we now live in wasinhabited by various Algonquain tribes.Our actual state name, Connecticut, is an Algonquian Indian word that means "long river".^[1] The inspiration came from the Connecticut River with a total length of 407 miles long (it begins at the 4th Connecticut Lake in the Town of Pittsburg, New Hampshire and ends in the Long Island Sound in Old Saybrook, CT).^[2]