One day in 1633, Dutch soldiers and traders posted at the lonely little fort called House of Hope, one hundred miles from New Amsterdam and the center of Dutch North America, were surprised to see an English ship come sailing up the Fresh River. Jacob Van Curler, in command of the fort, called to the ship and asked where she was headed. “Up the river to trade,” came the answer from her captain, William Holmes. The Dutch trained their guns on the ship; Van Curler demanded that it heave to or be fired on. But the gutsy Holmes ignored the threat and kept pushing northward. Van Curler decided not to fire, and the English eventually reached their destination. It was a choice spot ten miles north of the Dutch fort, which they had purchased from the Pequot Indians. There, they put up a single wooden house and a palisade. Soon after, sixty more of their fellow members of a church congregation in the Plymouth colony joined them. They named their town Windsor. It is considered the first permanent European settlement in the state of Connecticut.

Tourism information for the town of Windsor.