Books About Ridgefield  

Here is an alphabetical list of more than two dozen, non-fiction books that have been published about Ridgefield, mostly from a historical point of view. 

Many of these titles are available at the Ridgefield Historical Society, including some out-of-print editions. Books on the Common has most in-print titles. Amazon can supply almost all of them. 

For used or reprint editions, check abe.com or amazon.com. Amazon offers many print-on-demand reprints of books that are considered “out of print.” Many of these titles are also available in electronic versions for Kindle, etc. — some older ones free of charge; try Googling the title. Some, like Rockwell’s history, can be read online.

About Ridgefield: 
What We Were - What We Are

A comprehensive, lavishly illustrated report on many facets of Ridgefield, including architecture, neighborhoods, history, landmarks, natural resources, cultural and religious centers, open spaces, cemeteries, and more; produced in 2002 by the Ridgefield Design Council, soft-cover, extensive index.

Account of the Battle of Ridgefield 
and Tryon’s Raid, An

First detailed history of the 1777 battle, published on the 150th  anniversary; by James R. Case, 56 pages, with map;  privately printed, 1927; later reprints were done.

Barbour Collection: Vol. 36
The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Records, Volume 36 in a statewide series, reproduces the valuable Barbour index to Ridgefield births, marriages and deaths from 1709 to 1850. 167 pages devoted to Ridgefield. A must for any serious Ridgefield researcher. Also includes Redding vitals.  Published in 2000 by Genealogical Publishing Company. 

Brief Historical Notice 
of the Town of Ridgefield, A

Published by the Village Improvement Society in 1906, this 60-page small-form book contains many photographs of the town, its houses, gardens and points of interest, all taken by Joseph Hartmann.  It includes a brief history of the town and of the society. Out of print, but available.

Farmers Against the Crown
Keith Marshall Jones wrote this comprehensive account of the Battle of Ridgefield during the Revolutionary War, revealing much new information and correcting many old mistakes in previous accounts. “This telling will remain the standard account of the battle for a long, long time,” said Christopher Collier, former Connecticut state historian.162 pages, paperback, extensively illustrated. Published 2002. Out of print.

Farms of Farmingville, The
While Keith Marshall Jones calls this book "a two-century history of 23 Ridgefield, Connecticut farmhouses and the people who gave them life," it is really a history of a good part of the town. He has extensively researched a section on Ridgefield that contains a significant cross-section of the community from the 1700s into the 20th Century, and  gives a picture of what life here was like during that period. Published 2001. Hardcover. 509 pages, indexed. Many maps, house plans, photos. Available at Ridgefield Historical Society.

Five Village Walks
Self-guided tours of Ridgefield village history, with more than 50 pictures from the past, by Jack Sanders. 56 pages, indexed, map. Last updated in 2008. $5 price benefits Ridgefield Historical Society.  

Glimpses of Ridgefield

An unnumbered, album-style book of dozens pictures of Ridgefield from the 1890s by a pioneering woman photographer in Connecticut, Marie H. Kendall. Copies rarely appear on the market. Published in 1900.

Hidden History of Ridgefield
A look at Ridgefield’s often unheralded people, places and things,  a sort of sequel to Ridgefield Chronicles, relating little-known pieces of what make Ridgefield a remarkable place in which to live, work, visit—or write history; by Jack Sanders. 160 pages. Dozens of pictures and maps.  Published in 2015 by The History Press.

Historical Sketch of Ridgefield, An

While small of size and only 48 pages, this well-done paperbound book, published around 1920, contains a history of the town and a description of what it was like a century ago, made all the more remarkable by the fact that it was written by Allen Nevins, who went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes for history writing. Published by The Elms Inn.  Out of print. 

History of Ridgefield
George L. Rockwell's 583-page classic has been long out of print, but copies become available. Particularly strong on 19th and early 20th Century history, and containing many early birth, marriage and death records. The book has many photos taken by Joseph Hartmann. Cloth and leather editions were printed. Also, in the 1980s, a reprinted edition was published. Out of print.

History of Ridgefield, Connecticut, The
In 1878, the Rev. Daniel Teller of the First Congregational Church published this 251-page book, the first comprehensive history of the town. While much of the content is covered in later histories, the engravings of various Ridgefield buildings and scenes, all based on very early photographs, are both wonderful and valuable. Not indexed. Published in cloth and leather versions. Out of print.

Images of America: Ridgefield
127 pages of finely reproduced pictures of Ridgefield past, published in 1999. People, houses, businesses, scenes of town life, etc. from 1890s to 1950s, produced by Ridgefield Archives Committee, now the Ridgefield Historical Society. Arcadia Publishing. 

Impact: The Historical Account 
of the Italian Immigrants of Ridgefield, CT:  

Extensive history of Italian community of Ridgefield, with many biographies, photos, and interviews; by Aldo Biagiotti; 345 pages, indexed; privately printed, 1990.

Notable Ridgefielders
An 88-page, tabloid-newspaper-sized collection of brief biographies of more than 400 people who made news in Ridgefield during the 20th Century, published by The Ridgefield Press on its 125th anniversary. Also contains extensive timeline. Illustrated, indexed. Published in 2000. Available from The Ridgefield Press, 16 Bailey Avenue.

Proprietors of Ridgefield, The
Glenna M. Welsh's history tells of the early settlement of the town, with particular focus on those who lived on Main Street. Not indexed. Many illustrations. Published in 1976 in paper and cloth editions, the clothbound version is still available at the Keeler Tavern or from the Ridgefield Historical Society.

Recollections of A Lifetime
This is the two-volume autobiography of Samuel G. Goodrich, who wrote more than 100 books, mostly for young people, under the name of Peter Parley. The first 300 or so pages are devoted to his growing up in Ridgefield in the late 1700s and early 1800s and provide a fascinating and rare look at life in the town two centuries ago. Published in 1856 by Miller, Orton and Mulligan. 1,100+ pages, many illustrations, indexed. Used copies available but often damaged and expensive; available in reprint — some reprint publishers will sell only volume one, containing the Ridgefield information, but no index, which is in volume two (note that an abridged edition was also published in 1800s; this should be avoided by anyone wanting his complete account of Ridgefield). 

Remember the Ladies: 
Notable Women of Ridgefield

Profiles of 14 noteworthy women in Ridgefield’s history; also covers organizations they founded or led; 100 pages, illustrated, published by Ridgefield Historical Society, 2008.

Ridgefield 1900-1950
More than 215 views of what Ridgefield looked like during the first half of the 20th Century. Postcard images of homes, estates, inns, street scenes, stores, churches, and more. Over 20,000 words of accompanying history and lore about the locales pictured, by Jack Sanders. 126 pages, bibliography and index.  Arcadia Publishing, 2003. 

 
Ridgefield at 300
Lavishly illustrated, coffee-table book about the town’s celebration of its 300th birthday in 2008, produced by Ridgefield Magazine.  

Ridgefield Chronicles
Offers glimpses into aspects of Ridgefield’s history including interesting people, the things they accomplished, and the way they lived, as well as the town’s varied geography and place names,  by Jack Sanders. More than 60 pictures. 160 pages.The History Press, 2014.

Ridgefield, Conn. 1708-1908 
Bi-Centennial Celebration

Collection of history, recollections, speeches, and photographs in connection with the town’s 200th birthday celebration. 96 pages, hardbound. Published by the Bi-Centennial Committee, 1908. Out of print.

Ridgefield in Review
Published in 1958, the most modern complete history of the town, with many illustrations, old maps, and military records; written by Smithsonian Institution historian Silvio A. Bedini. 396 pages, indexed. Out of print.

St. Stephen's Church, 
Its History for 250 Years 1725 to 1975
Written by Robert S. Haight, this book tells the story of the church and its place in the community. 220 pages, indexed and illustrated, published 1975. A supplement by Dirk Bollenback, Saint Stephen's Church Reaches the Millennium, 114 pages, indexed and illustrated, covers 1975 to 2000. Sold by the church, 351 Main Street.

We Gather Together… Making the Good News Happen: 1712-2012

This is an extensively illustrated survey history of the First Congregational Church, by its then pastor, the Rev. Charles Hambrick-Stowe. 68 pages. 2011.

Where is Ridgefield Heading?

This 26-page, large format booklet was published in 1950 by the League of Women Voters and suggested possibilities for Ridgefield’s dealing with future growth, including bypasses for the village, and complete reconstruction of commercial blocks in the village.

Wicked Ridgefield
A historical assortment of bad guys and bad times including thievery, bigotry, murders, missing persons, arson, book-banning, and other assorted man-made misery. “This look at the darker side of Ridgefield history points out some heroes, offers some lessons, and provides even a little humor,” says author Jack Sanders in introduction.  160 pages, many pictures, indexed. The History Press, 2016.

Daniel W. Teller: 

The First Historian

“There are those who love Ridgefield,” wrote Daniel Teller. “No other word fully expresses their regard for this old town. Every thing done in it is of consequence. Every thing written about it is on interest.”

A minister, a physician and the first true historian of Ridgefield, Teller offered those words in the introduction to the first book ever written about this town. His “History of Ridgefield” offers 251 pages that describe the community’s past from its purchase from the Indians in 1708 through what were then modern times: the year 1878.

     But probably most interesting about Teller’s history are its 18 illustrations of buildings and places nearly a century and a half ago — the earliest collection of what the town looked like. All are line engravings, created from photographs, and include buildings that no longer exist as well as many that are still standing and well-known.

     It is said that Teller was inspired to write his history by his love for the town and as an escape from sadness over the death of his wife, Emily, in 1876.  In an excuse for the book’s brevity, he says that “my personal friends will … consider that I have written in the immediate shadow of a great sorrow. In the quiet shade of our cemetery is a grave whose making has left my house unto me desolate.”

     Unlike the authors of the other two histories of Ridgefield — George L. Rockwell and Silvio Bedini — Daniel Teller was not a native. He was, in fact, rather a newcomer, having spent only six years in town when the book was published.

Daniel Webster Teller was born in 1838 in nearby Yorktown, N.Y. In 1865, he graduated from New York University School of Medicine with a medical degree and for a while practiced as a physician in Brooklyn, N.Y. However, according to The Press in 1894, “he felt impressed with a sense of duty to preach the gospel and, after deliberate consideration, determined to give up medicine, which he did, pursuing a theological course.”

He studied at the Theological Institute of Connecticut, now the Hartford Seminary, and in 1870 was ordained a pastor at Hadlyme on the Connecticut River. However, he was soon called to serve the 198 members of the First Congregational Church in Ridgefield. He settled here in 1872 and eventually had a house on Prospect Street.

According to the Rev. Charles Hambrick-Stowe in his 2011 church history, “We Gather

Together,” Teller arrived at a time when “the church languished in a number of ways.” But under Teller, “the church’s condition recovered markedly.”

 Muriel R. Hanson in a 1962 history of the First Congregational Church said that Teller “became one of the most beloved pastors in the church’s history.” 

His obituary in The Press said that “for nearly a decade, he ministered to the spiritual welfare of this denomination, winning for himself many friends and admirers for his scholarly pulpit utterances and his genial, generous personality.”

During his tenure here, the Ladies Foreign Missionary Auxiliary was established at the church to raise money for overseas missions. The auxiliary sponsored many speakers who described the work of missions in far corners of the world. For a small town like Ridgefield in the days before radio and television, such speakers were major sources of education, entertainment and world news.

 Also during his tenure a battle flared over which area society the Ridgefield congregation should align itself with. Rather than take sides in a hotly debated issue (that would not be resolved for

a quarter century), Teller avoided the conflict by maintaining a status of “acting pastor” throughout his years here.

In 1880 Teller accepted a call to the Howard Avenue Church in New Haven. Although it was a larger congregation, he may have been more interested in change than in greater responsibility. At age 42, he had entered a new chapter in his life by marrying 21-year-old Leonora Gyles, who was the niece of several Ridgefielders.

But his love of the town remained. He continued to own land on Prospect Street until 1887. He visited Ridgefield periodically during his tenures in New Haven, Sherburne, N.Y., and Oswego, N.Y. After he died on March 23, 1894, in Fredonia, N.Y., his body was shipped to Ridgefield and his remains placed next to his first wife’s grave in Titicus Cemetery. (Leonora, who died in 1948, is also buried there.)

While a Ridgefielder, Teller “became thoroughly imbued with the local historical and picturesque features of the town, and wrote a concise, terse history of Ridgefield which has since been a valuable book of reference,” he obituary said.

Few towns the size of Ridgefield had a local history written that early; it wasn’t until the 1890s through the 1920s that most small towns got their first official histories. The book comments little on the events that it records and instead, as the author puts it, “deals largely with the simple statement of fact, the ‘unvarnished truth.’ ”  Aside from the engravings and Teller’s restrained but pleasantly old-fashioned writing style,  the book is noteworthy because it contains some information gathered from first-hand sources not available to subsequent historians. 

Ridgefield history was not ignored by earlier writers — there were two men, a father and son, also connected with the First Congregational Church, who compiled historical accounts of the town and who Teller used as sources. The Rev. Samuel G. Goodrich, third past of the church, wrote an 1800 sketch of Ridgefield, containing some history and contemporary information valuable to

historians today; it was an assignment given to many Congregational ministers in the state to mark 1800, the first year of the new century.

Goodrich’s son, Samuel, went on to become a famous 19th Century writer of history, geography and other books under the name of Peter Parley. To Ridgefielders, however, his most important work was his autobiographical “Recollections of A Lifetime,” published in 1857. In it he spends more than 200 of its 1,100 pages describing his childhood in Ridgefield in the early 1800s. He recalls many of the people and places well known to him and to townspeople then.

 It is not known how many copies of Teller’s history were printed by T. Donovan in Danbury, but the number was probably not more than a few hundred. Both leather and cloth-bound versions were published.  Today, perhaps no more than a few dozen original copies  exist in town, many of them owned by the Ridgefield Library or the the Historical Society. However, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, several “print on demand” companies offer new paperback and hardcover editions for as low as $16; a “super deluxe” version bound in antique-looking leather can be ordered for $75 (an original Teller clothbound edition runs from $125 to $200 and rare leather versions have been offered for $400).

Teller, of course, was not interested in whether his book would be collectible. He wanted to record the story of a town so that the people then and later would know and could appreciate Ridgefield’s history.  And he wanted to write that record before it was too late.

“The necessity for collecting as speedily as possible all items of history must be apparent to everyone who for a moment considers the rapidity with which the opportunities for information are diminished,” he wrote. “Records grow old and fade out. Men grow old and die. Every year reduces the ranks of those who have received directly from their parents and grandparents the recollections and traditions which help so much to explain incidents of history.”

George L. Rockwell:

Mr. History

For George Rockwell, a man of several careers, history was a hobby. But it is not for his vocations, but for his “History of Ridgefield” that Rockwell is remembered today. Its 583 pages, published in 1927, provide a comprehensive look at the town’s first two centuries.

“That history is a reflection of the man, his interests, his family, his devotion to his beloved community,” Press Editor Karl S. Nash once wrote. 

A descendant of Jonathan Rockwell, one of the founders of the town, George Lounsbury Rockwell was born in 1869 in New Haven, but came to Farmingville as a boy. He lived with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. George E. Lounsbury — George was to become a Connecticut governor. The Lounsbury house and farm, The Hickories, later became Rockwell’s own home and is today still a working farm.

In 1888, Rockwell went to work for his uncle’s shoe factory in South Norwalk, remaining there 21 years and serving as a partner the last 16 years. 

By the turn of the 20th Century, he was active in town and state politics. He served as state representative in 1904 and in 1937, as town treasurer,  as a member of the first Board of Finance in 1921, and as a justice of the peace. In 1904, he was a Connecticut delegate to the Republican National Convention that nominated Theodore Roosevelt. 

His work for the GOP won him appointments as Ridgefield postmaster from 1912 to 1916 and again from 1924 to 1935 (his son, George L. Jr., was postmaster from 1949 to 1953). 

President Taft named him U.S. deputy consulate general at Montreal in 1910 and he served there two years. 

In 1938, he made an unsuccessful bid to be Fourth District congressman on the Republican ticket. 

His “History of Ridgefield” was published in 1927, the same year the town marked the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Ridgefield. The book contains much information on the early settlement of the town, the Revolution, the community’s churches, schools, industries, and notable people. Some sections of the book had originally appeared as features by Rockwell in The Ridgefield Press over the first quarter of the century. 

“He left no avenue unexplored, and considerable effort went into correspondence, personal interviews, examination of old records, and the study of countless tombstones,” wrote Smithsonian historian Silvio A. Bedini, author of “Ridgefield in Review.”

Rockwell’s history is also known for its extensive and detailed listings of Ridgefield veterans of all the wars from the French and Indian through World War I. Rockwell also provides many early

1700s birth, marriage and death records, as well as listings of town officials from Ridgefield’s founding onward.

The volume is extensively illustrated with photos, mostly taken by Joseph Hartmann.

Rockwell had 1,500 copies of his book printed, some bound in leather, but most in cloth. Original copies today are rare, and can cost hundreds of dollars. A 1979 hardbound reprint of the book can be found used for anywhere from $25 to $175.

Rockwell died in 1947 at the age of 78. His first wife, Grace Frances Greaves Rockwell, died in 1903 at the age of 26, and his second wife, Anna D. Ryan Rockwell, was an aunt of Pat Ryan Nixon, wife of the president. She died in 1943.

Though history was an avocation,  George Rockwell was well-known and respected for his knowledge of Connecticut’s past, so much so that Duquesne University in Pittsburgh invited him to speak on the Western Reserve, originally part of Connecticut, at its 1938 commencement. Though he had never gone to college, the university awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree.