Connecticut's "Southwick Jog"

The notch in Connecticut's  northern border, just above Granby, is sometimes called the "Southwick Jog" or the "Granby Wedge."  This is a brief history of how this unusual boundary was established.

Both Springfield and Hartford were settled on the banks of the Connecticut River in 1636. While Massachusetts had a "charter" from England describing its borders, Connecticut did not. Issues began to arise when Connecticut established a trading post in Woronoke (Westfield), which led the Massachusetts General Court to order a survey of  its southerly border line in 1642.

Massachusetts  hired two surveyors, Nathaniel Woodward and Solomon Saffery, to do the boundary between that colony and Connecticut. This type of surveying had never been done before, since most of the population was within 20 miles of the ocean. So with "charter" and instruments in hand, they set out to determine a line that was described as "three miles south of the Charles River and extending to the Pacific Ocean".

Rather than perambulate the territory in question, as would be the normal routine, they figured they could save themselves a considerable amount of work and time by taking a ship around the colony up the Connecticut River and there, at the proper latitude, fix the line and establish the boundary. But due to faulty instruments or erroneous observation, they fixed the line too far to the south. At its widest margin, the line ran seven miles below the true line, and at its narrowest, about four miles, reaching all the way to present day Windsor.

Although Connecticut disputed this finding, it was unable to do anything about it because it did not have a  charter from the Crown. When Connecticut finally received its  charter in 1662, it  hired its own surveyors. When they filed their report in 1695, to no one's surprise, it revealed the 1642 line in error . . .  it was indeed laid too far south. 

In 1713, a compromise was finally agreed between the disputing colonies, calling first of all, for a new line to be drawn. This was done, and it fell north of the original line laid out 71 years before. Obviously, this presented an immediate problem. The new line lay north of the Massachusetts settlements of Suffield, Enfield, and Woodstock. The question now was what should be the disposition of these towns. Should they go to Connecticut, now that the new line clearly revealed they were well within Connecticut's territory, or should they remain under the authority of the colony which first settled them?

To complicate matters, the citizens of Enfield, Somers, Suffield and Woodstock, unhappy with Massachusetts' high taxes, applied for admission into Connecticut in 1724. These towns claimed they were included within Connecticut's original boundaries and were entitled to return to that state.

Naturally, Massachusetts refused to give them up, but in 1749 Connecticut voted to acquire them. A verbal battle raged for years, reaching crisis proportions. Appeals to England were ignored, since that country was embroiled in the Seven Years' War. In 1768, Massachusetts laid formal claim to the four towns; however, Connecticut did nothing about the edict and continued to govern them.

Additionally in 1774, just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, citizens in the area known as the "Southwick Jog" petitioned to become part of Simsbury. When the Salmon Brook Society of Simsbury became the separate town of Granby in 1786, the "Jog" area was included. Following the Revolutionary War, in 1793, both states appointed boundary commissioners to run a straight boundary from Union, Connecticut, to the New York state line. In 1797 the Commissioners recommended that a disputed 2.5 square mile tract be awarded to Massachusetts as compensation for its earlier losses of Suffield, Woodstock, Somers, and Enfield to Connecticut.

However, it was not until 1804 that Connecticut agreed to yet another compromise that partitioned the 2.5-mile area at Congamond Lakes with Massachusetts receiving five-eights of the disputed parcel along the west shore and Connecticut receiving the remainder, along the east shore. 

This amazing conflict took 150 years to settle and it was said by prominent 18th century Southwick resident Roger Moore, who's home was located in that section of the town during all those the boundary changes, that he "lived in two colonies, two states, three counties, and four towns all without ever moving"!