Gurdon Bill Store, Ledyard – Jerry Dougherty
The town of Ledyard, located New London County, sits along the Thames River in the southeastern corner of the state. Incorporated in 1836, the town of Ledyard was named after Colonel William Ledyard, a Revolutionary War soldier killed at the Battle of Groton Heights. Predominately a farming community in the 19th century, Ledyard in the 20th century became a bedroom community, with many of its residents commuting to Groton and New London to work. In 1992, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation opened the Foxwoods Resort Casino in the northeastern section of town. Tremendously successful, the complex is a popular Connecticut tourist destination.
Breaking the Myth of the Unmanaged Landscape
Evidence of early Native land use is etched into the landscape and preserved in oral tradition as well as the historical and archaeological records. This is in direct contradiction to a persistent myth of colonialism: that European settlers encountered a virgin landscape free of human intervention and ripe for development. …[more]
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"Ledyard Historical Society: Digital Collections," 2015. Link.
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Ledyard Historic District Commission. Historic Ledyard. Edited by Janice Bell and Carolyn E. Smith. Ledyard, CT: Ledyard Historic District Commission, 1976.
Ledyard Historical Society. Historic Ledyard: Gales Ferry Revisited. Ledyard, CT: Ledyard Historical Society, 2000.
Avery, John. History of the Town of Ledyard, 1650-1900. Norwich, CT: Noyes & Davis, 1901. Link.
Ledyard Historical Society, and Kit Foster. Ledyard and Gales Ferry. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004.
Bell, Janice Wightman. The Bluff: Gales Ferry Village. Ledyard, CT: Ledyard Historical Society, 1994.
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