Nichols, Connecticut

Nichols, a historic village in southwestern Trumbull in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, is named after the family who maintained a large farm in its center for almost 300 years.

Originally home to the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation, the area was colonized by the English during the Great Migration of the 1630s as a part of the coastal settlement of Stratford.

Aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky lived in three separate homes in Nichols during his active years between 1928 and 1951, when he designed, built and flew fixed-wing aircraft and put the helicopter into mass production for the first time.

In 1661, the Stratford selectmen voted to allow all inhabitants the liberty of taking up a whole division of land anywhere they could find fit planting ground, as long as it was not within two miles (3 km) of the town meeting house.

Elder Phillip Groves, Captain William Curtiss and Lt. Joseph Judson, early landowners in Nichols, were named to a committee to lay out the land as they saw fit.

The common land in Nichols Farms was divided and granted to individuals beginning in 1670 as a part of the three-mile or woods division and continued up to 1800.

It was the first area within Trumbull to be settled due to its already cleared planting fields, fertile soil, spring-fed ponds, meadows and its close proximity to the main village, only three miles away.

[12] In 1688, John Curtiss removed to Woodbury, giving his entire farm on Mischa Hill to his son Benjamin, who had married Joseph Judson's daughter.

Then called Pine Brook Country Club, Pinewood Lake is notable for having served as the summer rehearsal headquarters of the Group Theatre from New York City.

[19] Formed in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, the Group Theatre and had a vision of doing socially responsible works that would raise community consciousness.

The large 5' by 6' natural stepping stone was the only item saved from the old Nichols Store and was relocated to the front of the Ephraim Hawley House.

When the original 1940 overpass was demolished, the cast-iron grills that resembled a trellis with a grapevine were salvaged restored and placed as decorative items on the replacement Huntington Turnpike Underpass.