New Haven, Connecticut

City with a estimated population of 124,001 in 2006. Originally the site of Quinnipiac settlements. The site was explored by the Dutch in 1614 and temporary trading posts built. In 1638 five hundred Puritans left Massachusetts and settled here to create a more theocratic, purer religious community, buying land from the Quinnipiac. The settlement was known as Quinnipiac until 1840 when it was laid out on a grid pattern and renamed Newhaven, after its use as a "new haven" for the Puritans. It became the capital of the New Haven Colony. In 1661 New Haven harbored three of the judges who had signed Charles I's death warrant and were under persecution by the regime of Charles II. The colony was merged with Connecticut Colony in 1664 as part of a design to strengthen England's ability to control nearby New Amsterdam. It became a co-capital of the Connecticut Colony in 1701, and remained a co-colony through statehood until 1873. It was formally incorporated as a city in 1784.

The city is the site of Yale University, one of the world's premier institutions of higher learning, founded in 1701. The university includes Yale Law School, Yale Medical School and Yale Divinity School, some of the foremost institutions of their kind in the country and the world. It was the site of the Amistad trial in 1839, an important catalyst for the early anti-slavery movement in America. Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin in New Haven in the late 18th century.

www.cityofnewhaven.com/