Cornwall and its related hamlets are as rustic and quaint as Connecticut gets – a touch of Vermont in Southern New England. Hills rise sharply from the Housatonic River, which is known for good canoeing, kayaking and rafting. A covered bridge, leads in to West Cornwall, which has something of the air of a small Wild West mountain town. A panoramic view is offered from an observation tower in Mohawk State Forest atop 1,683-foot Mohawk Mountain, site of Connecticut’s largest ski area.

The Town of Cornwall has many parts, remnants from early settlements. There is Cornwall Bridge and West Cornwall, the two commercial center, Cornwall Village with town hall, the library and an attractive green, Cornwall Plains, North Cornwall, and East Cornwall. While Cornwall’s retail shops are primarily located in West Cornwall and Cornwall Bridge, there are more than 200 businesses operating in the quiet Cornwall countryside. Many shoppers look to Cornwall’s myriad artists, sculptors and craft people to satisfy their artistic appetite, computers and cyber connections enable many other local businesses to ply their trade and provide services all around the world.

There are many special places: hiking trails that lead through Dark Entry to Coltsfoot Cave and Mohawk Mountain, long views of far hills and pastures, mountain tops with great names like Terradiddle, great fishing in trout brooks or the river itself. Cornwall’s history is also interesting. In 1738, lots consisting of about 50 acres, each, were auctioned off by the Connecticut legislature and about 40 men with their families settled in this remote town. The early settlers were faced with the daunting task of clearing the thick forest and removing the multitude of large rocks that littered the landscape and created a hazard for plowing and tilling. This was mainly accomplished by manual labor with only a few oxen to help pull large boulders and felled trees. They soon found that hills and rocky soil made for a beautiful countryside, but poor farming. By 1760 Cornwall had a church, school, town meeting site, roads connecting them to Kent and Litchfield and a population of between 500 to 600 residents.

Between 1760 and 1825 Cornwall continued to grow. Iron forges, potasheries, and sawmills were built. By 1820 the population had reached 1,662 residents (more than the current population!) and farming had become sufficiently productive to yield crops of wheat, rye, corn, flax, wool, tobacco, dairy products and beef.

Despite their physical isolation the residents of Cornwall took an active part in the Revolution and politics; a number of Cornwall men distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War. In 1780 Cornwall experienced a religious crisis. The parishioners of the Congregational Church refused to pay the pastor of 20 years his salary and locked him out of his church. The schism in the congregation which lasted for years and led to the building of a second Congregational Church, attended by the "Strict Congregationalists". Both churches survived. The Second Congregational Church, originally located at the town center, was rebuilt in North Cornwall around 1826. The First Congregational Church was sold into private hands and was purchased about 20 years ago and turned into a home by our Priscilla Miller. On Holloween trick-or-treaters get to ring the old church bell. Also of historical religious significance was the establishment of a Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, which lasted from 1817 to 1826. The school, attended by a number of American Indians and Hawaiian natives, attained celebrity status and brought national attention on Cornwall.

The library, was first founded in 1869 and has known many homes through the ages. A new library was built just a few years ago next to its old home at the head of the green.. The town contains Mohawk Mountain State Park, Housatonic Meadows State Park and parts of Mohawk and Housatonic State Forests. It is also home of the regions major ski area Mohawk Mountain.