History:
Killingly, CT is located in the northeastern corner of the state, bordering to the east on the state of Rhode Island. Its region is known as the "quiet corner," because of its largely rural nature. (Note added by Dr Brian Donohue-Lynch).

Killingly was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years. One of their trails, which followed sections of Route 101 and Bear Hill Road, became a major colonial path between Providence and Hartford.
Killingly's first known settler was Richard Evans, who came from Rehoboth, Massachusetts in 1693. In the early 1700s other settlers came, mostly from the Boston area. Killingly was incorporated in 1708. At that time its borders extended from Plainfield to Massachusetts and included what is now Thompson and much of Putnam. The town's earliest establishments included taverns, blacksmith shops, grist and saw mills. By 1770, William Danielson, later a Colonel in the militia, had established an iron works on the Five Mile River in present-day Danielson.
In the late 1700's, William Cundall established one of the earliest woolen works in Connecticut. Textile mills were built along the Quinebaug and Five Mile Rivers and Whetstone Brook in the early 1800s. In 1836, Killingly was considered the greatest cotton manufacturing town in Connecticut.

Railroad access in 1840 made the town a commercial center for the region. Immigrants from Quebec, and later eastern and southern Europe, came to work in the mills. In the early 1900s many textile manufacturers moved south, where labor and operating costs were lower.

In the 1920s, the firm of Powdrell and Alexander opened six curtain factories in town, and Killingly became known as "Curtaintown USA."
Residents of Killingly played an important role in advancing the lives of African-Americans. During the 1750s, Israel Proctor deeded and willed his former Negro servants approximately ninety acres in Killingly. According to the Connecticut Historical Commission, this was probably the earliest farm to be owned by free Negroes in Southern New England.

A century later, Henry Hammond, a prominent early abolitionist, moved to Killingly and quickly became an influential political personage. While a teen, he helped to organize the first anti-slavery society in Connecticut in Brooklyn. In 1847 he served as one of two State delegates to the first National Anti-Slavery Convention in Buffalo, N.Y. The Greek Revival residence on Furnace Street in Danielson, which he purchased in 1863, is still standing on a knoll adjacent to the railroad. An earlier home in Pomfret was used as a stop on the "underground railroad." Perhaps the one on Furnace Street was, too.