Last Great Days of West Indies Trade: Middletown's 'Vanished Port'

Editor's note: Wesleyan Magazine offers a glimpse of the lost port of Middletown in its recent issue, which features an article by journalist and Connecticut River historian Erik Hesselberg.

"Vanished Port" brings to life the great days of West Indies trade, when the harbor was a forest of masts, big, square merchants' houses lined the waterfront, the docks were thick with of the scents of exotic island commerce, and every respectable family had a slave or two, and sometimes a dozen.        

"Middletown lies at a great bend in the Connecticut River, 26 miles up from where it flows into Long Island Sound. A four-lane highway by the river at Middletown separates the city from the waterfront.

Between the highway and Main Street are acres and acres of asphalt—more surface parking than this city of 48,000 could hope to fill on its busiest days. Standing on the upper deck of a two-story parking garage, you see the wide gray river sweeping eastward toward a narrowing between low green hills in the distance."

Read more of A Vanished Port: Middletown and the Great Era of West Indies Trade

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