Historic Litchfield address delivered at the bi-centennial celebration of the town of Litchfield, August 1, 1920

A resonant voice from August 1920 invites listeners to step back into the bustling birth of a New England community that has shaped state and national history. The speaker sketches how a daring colonial charter, hidden like an acorn beneath a royal oak, sprouted into the town of Litchfield, founded by a cadre of early settlers from neighboring villages. Their careful choice of fertile river‑side land set the stage for a settlement whose layout has scarcely changed in three centuries.

The address then turns to the town’s unexpected legacy as a cradle of moral reform. It recounts how Litchfield’s citizens, driven by Puritan values, organized the nation’s first temperance society in 1789, a movement amplified by the fervent preaching of Dr. Lyman Beecher. Listeners will hear how this small community’s determination to curb intemperance rippled outward, influencing broader American attitudes toward temperance and shaping a spirit of collective responsibility that still echoes today.