Natural Setting and Town Origins Bridgewater, originally "The Neck" of southern New Milford, due to its peninsular location in the hills above the confluence of the Housatonic and Shepaug Rivers, appears to have received its first settler about 1734. The natural resources of the area had attracted much earlier interest, however, for a trading post had been built at Goodyear's Island, in the Housatonic along Bridgewater's northwest boundary, in 1644 and at least 22 families had settled at New Milford center by 1710. The land comprising the town's 11,187 acre area is exceptionally hilly. High ridges in the central, northwestern and eastern sections descend abruptly to Lake Lillinonah (formed by a hydroelectric dam on the Housatonic River) along the town's southwest and southeast borders, to the Clatter Valley on the northwest, and tower above the Shepaug Valley along the eastern border.

A number of small, swift flowing streams drain from this upland terrain in various directions, principally Second Hill, Hop, Wewaka, Hitchcock Mill, and Clapboard Oak Brooks. Typical upland soils, derived from glacial till, dominate throughout the Town and therefore there are only minor aquifers, related to glacial deposits. (see glacial deposits map). (See also early research on glaciers and drainage development in Greater Danbury). Many upland ridges are still open, but forest land predominates.

TOPOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF BRIDGEWATER, CT
The highest elevation in Bridgewater is about 940 feet atop Second Hill at the
very north end of the Town. Then the low point of just under 200 feet on the
shore of Lake Lillinonah at the south end. See the full context for
Bridgewater's terrain on the regional topographic map.

Of interest will be the 1973 report Navigation of the Housatonic River in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Fertile upland soils attracted a farming population in the mid-eighteenth century. A small village developed at the present town center, located at a central crossroads on the middle ridge. By 1803 there was a sufficient population to form an ecclesiastical society separate from New Milford, and this privilege was conferred by the General Assembly along with the descriptive name Bridgewater. Incorporation as a separate town was granted by the Assembly in 1856, at which time the population was about 1,000 persons.



Bridgewater Development:
Beginning to 1950
Despite the hilly terrain, farms were well established in all sections of the town before 1800. Early roads followed paths and later evolved into the irregular topography-dominated network which exists today.

A bridge across the Housatonic at Southville (now under Lake Lillinonah) and several nearby turnpike roads brought an era of agricultural prosperity in the first half of the nineteenth century. Small industries which flourished included shoe and hat shops, saw mills, furniture and blacksmith shops, and tobacco warehouses. Population peaked at 1,048 persons in 1860.

Despite the construction of railroads through neighboring valleys, along the Still River in New Milford in the 1850's and in the Shepaug Valley in the 1870's, Bridgewater, in common with other bypassed hill towns began a long population decline in the 1860's. Steam powered factories were being built along the rail lines, and low-cost agricultural produce from the west began to flood nearby markets; small hill farms and waterpower sites were no longer economic. 


As marginal farmland was abandoned, forests returned to many of the hillsides and the out-migration continued to about 1930, when the town's population stood at 432 persons, a mere 41% of its level 70 years previous. A table of census population by decade for Bridgewater in this period is available. Fortunately some of Bridgewater's scenic road character from this earlier era has been formally preserved for the future.

During the early 1920's, however, paved State roads reached central Newtown, Brookfield and New Milford, and within a decade Route 25 (now Route 133) and 67 had been built through Bridgewater.

Although little new building took place during the 1930's, the town's beautiful countryside began to attract new residents and many old homes began to be restored. A 1935 statewide guide for tourists describes the scenery of Bridgewater at that time.

What did Bridgewater's rural landscape look like in 1934? Check them out on this highly detailed aerial photograph.

By 1950, with the era of postwar prosperity in full advance, the town's population had rebounded to 639 and Bridgewater was home to noted artists, writers and other illustrious persons.




Bridgewater Development:
1950 to 2000
In 1950 Bridgewater was still a predominantly agricultural town although beginning to attract new home construction. Excluding farms, no more than 250 acres of land, less than 3% of the town's area, had been developed. Except for the Consolidated School, the firehouse, and the library, the village remained much the same as it had been a hundred years before.

However, concern was growing among town residents for protection of the town's unique character in the face of inevitable change. Lake Lillinonah, a hydroelectric impoundment which created a large lake in the Housatonic and Shepaug valleys, was completed in 1955 along with a new Route 133 bridge into the town from the south. Route 67, crossing the town from west to east, was widened and relocated shortly after.

For an overview of the extent of land development in Bridgewater, CT near 1950, a review of 1949-55 USGS Topographic Maps for Bridgewater will be of interest (sample above).

The Bridgewater Fair began, and while preserving an aspect of the town's rural heritage, introduced more activity in the center. In 1967-68 the Town adopted a Town Plan and new zoning regulations which provided for special protection of the "Town Green" area and for two and four acre residential lot sizes throughout the balance of the town.

The Town also grew slightly in area during the 1960's as it annexed 483 acres of land isolated from Southbury by the new Lake Lillinonah. When in the seventies the Town's stratified drift aquifers were mapped for the first time, the documented scarcity of this water supply resource provided yet another reason why the community should remain rural. By 1985 a strong local sewer avoidance policy had emerged.

It had always been intuitive to shape Bridgewater's development to natural features of the underlying landscape. These are "constraints on development" due to soil, slope and flood plain.

But as planning and zoning modernized, consideration of these limiting natural features became more formalized in local land use regulations, this trend due in part to newly available federal and state natural resource maps.

See the four basic categories above
displayed on a townwide map of Bridgewater.
Examine components of the four categories.

HVCEO as the regional planning agency for Bridgewater was formed in 1968, the word "Housatonic" in its title having its source in an old indian name.

After the arrival of Connecticut's 1973 wetlands protection, development potential in Bridgewater was significantly reduced as the approximately 8% of municipal land area defined as wetland was largely excluded from development.

By 1980 the population of the town had reached 1,563 persons and Bridgewater was now a community in which 35.8% of the employed residents were executives, managers or professionals and only 2.8% were employed in farming. Still, the town's rural character survived, total developed land was about 910 acres, 8% of the town's area.