The Brooklyn Historical Society Museum - CT

08/04/2026

Our next meeting will be a lot of fun, and for no charge! Please come.

06/11/2026

Check out the Brooklyn Meeting House's new page! Open house June 13th from 11-3!

The Meeting House will be open to visitors on Saturday, June 13, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., for Connecticut Open House Day.

If you live in the area, you have probably driven by this building a hundred times. Come see what it looks like inside, and learn its history.

(Please note: There is no plumbing, and therefore no restroom.)

General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary War fame led the movement to build it. Seriously damaged in the 1938 hurricane, it was mostly restored to its colonial grandeur between 1961 and 2007. The Rev. Samuel May led social reform efforts there from 1821 to 1836. Celia Burleigh became a minister there in 1871, the first woman ordained in Connecticut, and the first woman Unitarian minister in the country.

05/01/2026

May 14th, a great program about Connecticut in the Revolution by Richard Franklin Donohue!

04/02/2026

There are still tables available if you’d like to join us for this event!

02/24/2026

Please note: We have added a Snow Date for our March 12th program which is March 19th just in case the weather is bad on the 12th. We look forward to seeing you there!

02/17/2026

This is our next program in March, part of the 250th celebration. No charge please plan to attend.

01/26/2026

On April 20, 1775, the day after the battles of Lexington and Concord, a post rider carried the news to Brooklyn, Connecticut (among other towns). As part of standard procedure, he stopped to have the message copied and signed acknowledging the town had received it. He also shouted the news and rode by the farm of French and Indian War veteran Israel Putnam. He was working in the fields with his son. He immediately dropped everything and went off to see Governor Jonathan Trumbull to consult with him on a plan of action to assist the militia around Boston. Putnam’s son later recalled, “He loitered not, but left me, the driver of his team, to unyoke it in the furrow.”

Shortly after the port of Boston closed per the Boston Port Act on June 1 and only fuel and critical supplies could get through, Joseph Warren was on a Committee of Ways and Means that asked the other colonies for donations to aid in the suffering of Boston. Warren wrote to Samuel Adams, “The celebrated Colonel Putnam is now in my house having arrived…with a generous donation of sheep.”

Putnam would go on to work with Joseph Warren and the Committee of Safety on plans to man Bunker Hill. He and Colonel William Prescott disagreed on where to build a redoubt on the Charlestown peninsula. During the battle, both men attempted to relinquish their command to General Joseph Warren when he arrived, but he refused.

11/06/2025

Reminder! Thursday, November 6th at 7:30 PM! Free and open to the public! We hope to see you there!

This is our program for Thursday, should be very interesting . . .please come by and enjoy!

10/31/2025

This is our program for Thursday, should be very interesting . . .please come by and enjoy!