LITCH'FIELD. A borough and one of the county-seats of Litchfield County, Conn., 30 miles west of Hartford; near Bantam Lake, the largest lake in the State, and on the Shepaug, Litch field and Northern Railroad (Map: Connecticut, C 2). It has beautiful parks, and many places of historic and scenic interest. The borough is the centre of large dairying interests, and there are some manufactories, supplied with water power from the outlet of Bantam Lake, and nickel-smelting works, the vicinity having val uable deposits of nickel ore. Population, in 1890, 1058; in 1900, 1120.
Litchfield was settled as 'Bantam' in 1719, and several years later its present name was adopted. During the Revolution it was used for a time as a depot of supplies. and in 1776 the statue of George III., which on July 9 was torn down on Bowling Green, New York, was sent here, And was melted and cast into bullets by the women of Litchfield. The first law school in the United States was founded here in 1784 by Judge 'lopping Reeve, who conducted it until his death in 1823. Many of the most eminent jurists and
statesmen of the country, including five Cabinet ministers—Calhoun, Woodbury, Mason, Clayton, and Hubbard—were trained here. In 1792 Miss Sarah Pierce opened in Litchfield the first institu tion in America for the higher education of women. Lyman Beecher was pastor of the Con gregational church from 1810 to 1826, and it was in Litehfield that both Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe were born. Litchfield was also the birthplace of Ethan Allen, and the home for many generations of the distinguished Wolcott family. Consult; Kilbourne, sketches and Chronicles of the Toiciv of Litchfield (Hart ford, 1859) ; the Litchfield Book of Days field, 1900) ; and an article by Kilbourne, in the Connecticut Quarterly, vol. ii. (Hartford, 1896).