Norfolk, Connecticut Norfolk, Connecticut Official seal of Norfolk, Connecticut Norfolk (local / n rf rk/) is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States.
Norfolk is perhaps best known as the site of the Yale Summer School of Music Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which hosts an annual chamber music concert series in "the Music Shed," a performance hall positioned on the Ellen Battell Stoeckel estate to the west of the village green.
Norfolk has meaningful examples of county-wide architecture, prominently the Village Hall (now Infinity Hall, a shingled 1880s Arts-and-Crafts confection, with an opera home upstairs and storefronts at street level); the Norfolk Library (a shingle-style structure, designed by George Keller, ca 1888/1889); and over thirty buildings, in a wide range of styles, designed by Alfredo S.
Norfolk was first settled in 1744 and incorporated in 1758, later than most encircling towns because of the dense woods, rocky soil and high elevation.
Originally a farming community, nineteenth-century Norfolk saw the rise of various small factories, many of which fabricated tools and farming implements from small-town iron ore, and mills, which took favor of fast-flowing mountain streams.
By the late 19th century, however, rail connections to New York, Hartford, Pittsburgh and Boston gave visitors ready access to Norfolk's cool summers and clean air, and Norfolk soon evolved into a fashionable resort as its small trade declined.
Like a several other suburbs in the Litchfield Hills, Norfolk has, in more recent years, advanced a sizeable populace of "weekenders" from New York City and environs.
The town of Norfolk jubilated its semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) on August 1 2, 2008.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town has a total region of 46.4 square miles (120 km2), of which, 45.3 square miles (117 km2) of it is territory and 1.1 square miles (2.8 km2) of it (2.37%) is water.
Norfolk's altitude is 1,230 feet above sea level, and the town is sometimes called "the Icebox of Connecticut" for its harsh winters and especially cool summers.
The town is bordered on the west by Canaan, Connecticut and North Canaan, Connecticut; on the north by New Marlborough, Massachusetts and Sandisfield, Massachusetts; on the east by Colebrook, Connecticut and Winchester, Connecticut; and on the south by Goshen, Connecticut.
Norfolk is home to three state parks: Dennis Hill State Park, which includes the remnants of a lavish summer pavilion designed by Alfredo Taylor; Haystack Mountain State Park, with a contemporary fortress at the mountain's summit; and Campbell Falls State Park Reserve, with an approximately 100-foot (30 m) natural waterfall.
Norfolk Public Library (1888-89), George Keller, architect.
Blackberry River Inn - assembled in 1763 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Gould House - listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Haystack Mountain Tower - assembled in 1929 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
Low House - listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Norfolk Library - assembled in 1888-89, a contributing property in Norfolk Historic District.
Rockwell House - listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tom Thumb House - listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Mark Twain was a sometime summer visitor to Norfolk, and a stained glass window at the Church of the Transfiguration (Episcopal) memorializes his wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens.
The town of Norfolk owes much to the benefactions, over the course of a several generations, of the extended Battell family, which made a large fortune in the early 19th century from cheese, trading and speculation in Western lands.
Notable members of this family include Joseph Battell (1774-1841), the merchant who established the fortune and assembled the family's imposing seat (known as "Whitehouse") overlooking the Village Green; Robbins Battell, who was largely responsible for positioning Norfolk as a summer resort; Miss Isabella Eldridge, who assembled and endowed the Norfolk Library; and Ellen Battell Stoeckel, whose charitable trust provides the ground for, and helps underwrite, the Yale Summer School of Music Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
William Henry Welch (1850-1934), the beginning dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was born in Norfolk, scion of a family of Norfolk physicians.
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) presented a book of "Norfolk Poems" in 1962, and these poems mention various Norfolk sites and residents.
In The Lightning Keeper, a 2006 novel by Starling Lawrence, the town of Beecher's Bridge is based on Norfolk, to which the author's family has longstanding ties, and some of the novel's characters echo actual Norfolkians of the late 19th and early 20th century.
According to the Koppen Climate Classification system, Norfolk has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps. Climate Summary for Norfolk, Connecticut, weatherbase.com; accessed January 1, 2015.
Dance, Alfredo Taylor in Norfolk (Norfolk: Norfolk Hist.
Dance, The Magnificent Battells (Norfolk: Norfolk Hist.
Crissey, History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut (Everett, MA: Massachusetts Pub.
Waldecker , Norfolk, Connecticut 1900-1975 (Norfolk: Norfolk Bicen.
The Norfolk Library Norfolk Historical Society Municipalities and communities of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States
Categories:
Norfolk, Connecticut - Towns in Litchfield County, Connecticut - Populated places established in 1744 - Towns in the New York urbane region - Towns in Connecticut - 1744 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies
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