A metal 'Town of Weston' sign featuring a silhouette of an Algonquian figure and a rising sun, credited to the Weston Historical Society.

Research & Archives

Tracing a Weston house, a family name, or a piece of local history? Start here — the archive, oral histories, and long-form town history all live under one roof.

The Archive

Through the generous donation of the Bliss family of Weston, the Prue Bliss Education Center and Archive was opened in November 2014. The archive houses our objects, records, photos, deeds, textiles, newspaper clippings, catalogs, and other ephemera in a climate-controlled vault. Its holdings also include material documenting Weston's experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, collected from residents, businesses, and first responders (Covid-19 Stories).

To schedule an appointment with a member of our archive team, please email director@westoncthistory.org or call 203-226-1804 for more information.

Rows of labeled archival storage boxes and folders on white shelving inside the climate-controlled archive.
A scanned front page of The Chronicle, the Center's quarterly newsletter, from Winter 2014.

The Chronicle

Our quarterly newsletter kept members and friends informed and entertained for 34 years. Founded in 1982 by Herb Day and edited by him until 1993, he was succeeded by Kathy Failla in 1993 and then Karin Giannitti in 1994, who in turn served until 2014. The Chronicle provides an incomparable record of Weston history: stories going back to Weston's earliest days, memories of people and key events, entertaining tales and compelling reminiscences, historic photos, diary excerpts, and much more. A complete set of issues is stored in our archive; digitized versions are available via the Weston Public Library's website.

A black-and-white historic photograph from the archive collection showing a family in an antique automobile.

Connecticut Collections

Our dedicated archive team and interns have been working diligently on adding our extensive collection to the new Connecticut Collections database, which will help manage the collection and allow us to share selected items with the public digitally. Coming soon.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Weston History & Culture Center.

How the Prue Bliss Education Center came to be

The climate-controlled archive and education center is the final piece in the Center's years-long campaign to build the museum on the Coley Homestead. The project broke ground in 2008; Mr. Bliss's original $25,000 donation in 2006 helped renovate the kitchen in the existing Coley House and kicked off construction of the new building.

"Prue Bliss loved gardening and history and teaching and math. She loved her family and she loved Weston."
"In this season of Thanksgiving, my brother Dave, my sister Barb and I want to give thanks to the Weston community, and we are especially grateful to the Weston History & Culture Center for dedicating this education center in the name of our mother, Prudence Amanda Anderson Bliss."
— Susan Bliss, excerpted from the Weston Forum, by Patricia Gay, December 4, 2014

Oral History — Weston Voices

Oral history has benefits that no other historical source can provide. It lends depth, texture, flavor, and color to history and yields details of time and place that are generally not available in the formal written record.

Judy Albin — commercial artist, longtime teacher's aide at Hurlbutt Elementary, and Coley Homestead tour guide — shares her own story alongside readings from two family diaries in her collection: Ebenezer Morehouse's Gold Rush diary and Rufus Rowland's Civil War diary.

The "First Selectman Series" collects interviews with Weston's past town leaders, including Gayle Weinstein, who served three terms as First Selectman from 2009–2015 after moving to town in 1995. Other entries include Hal Shupak, George C. Guidera, and John W. Troxell.

Browse the full Weston Voices collection →

Century Plaque Program

Do you often wonder about the history of your old home? Who walked those rooms before you? When was it constructed and by whom? What do the architectural details reveal about the style of your home? The Weston History & Culture Center can help answer these questions.

Program status: paused. If you’d like a plaque for your house when it reopens, email info@westoncthistory.org and we’ll keep your name on the list.

A Weston Historical Society Century Plaque reading 'Bradley Tool Co. Tenement House, c. 1860.'

History of Weston

Weston's story starts with the Paugussett people, Algonquian-speaking farmers who moved seasonally between the coast and this inland area. English settlement traces to Roger Ludlow's 1639 land claim, out of which Fairfield — and eventually Weston — was carved. Early Weston was distributed via "long lots," narrow mile-plus-long parcels that gave the town its distinctive early geography. Weston (then including Easton) was formally incorporated in October 1787; the two towns split in 1845.

"By the 1930's Fairfield residents were pressing for a parallel road to the Post Road, thus the Merritt Parkway was built. Weston was able to take advantage of being close to the Merritt, yet not too close. The town remained quiet and bucolic, enticing people away from the noise and din of New York City to establish roots in this quiet town."

That quiet-but-close-to-the-city character is part of why an unusually large number of notable people have called Weston home over the decades — actors, authors, and artists including Alan Arkin, Bette Davis, Eartha Kitt, Rodney Dangerfield, and Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II, among many others.

On December 14, 1807, a meteorite fell over Weston — one of the best-documented early meteorite falls anywhere in the world, investigated on the ground by Yale's Benjamin Silliman within days. It became the founding specimen of what's now the oldest meteorite collection in the United States, at Yale's Peabody Museum.

Read the full History of Weston →

Found what you were looking for?

The archive runs on member support and volunteer hours.

Become a Member Volunteer on the Archive Team