Interpretation of New London's Place in Colonial Conflict

Every interpretation project must begin with a theme. My group decided we are going to tell the story of how the people of New London stood strong through the trials of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Like all themes, ours was the result of a process of refinement. Our project initially focused completely on the arsenal that was present in New London before, during, and after the American Revolution. While it is a fascinating topic, our group decided that we needed to expand upon it.

After some discussion we chose colonial conflict in New London as our new topic. Our main focus was still the arsenal, but this  allowed us to talk about the town’s involvement in the French and Indian War, the Tory conspiracy, and the John Hook trial that took place in the New London courthouse. Unfortunately, this theme had the opposite problem of trying to include too many stories in one project. In the end, we decided that the Hook trial did not fit with our theme well enough to justify focusing on it, and that the lack of available information on the Tory conspiracy made it impossible to adequately cover in our project. This leaves us with the arsenal and the French and Indian War. Fortunately, interpretation is an ongoing process. Hopefully future historians will have adequate information to properly interpret these topics.

The courthouse at New London was the site

of the famous Robert Hook trial. This story

unfortunately had to be cut from the project.

All projects need some kind of plan in order to ensure timely completion. There are some slight differences among our group’s deadlines, but the major dates are the same. All initial research is ideally to be completed by October 1^st. Unfortunately, the late omission of the Tory conspiracy from our project has required that date to be adjusted to later this week. After the initial research is completed, the next step is to summarize information into easy to read, interpretive text to be put on posters. This will hopefully be completed by October 7^th or at least as close as possible. The final text and the finished posters will be completed by October 10^th and ready for display on New London Day.

There are many sources that have been invaluable to this project. Some of the more helpful sources are “New London: The Forgotten History” by Claude A. Thompson, Public History: A Textbook of Practice by Thomas Cauvin, and Nearby History by Kyvig and Marty. The Thompson work has been helpful in identifying key events and people in New London’s history, giving us a starting point in our research. The other books deal specifically with public history and interpretation, and give us invaluable guidance on how to interpret a project like this.