Place:Darien, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States

Known as the Middlesex Society of the Town of Stamford until incorporated as the Town of Darien in 1820.

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Darien is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any non-college town in Connecticut, a high rate of marriage, and high number of average children per household. Darien is also one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S.

Situated on Long Island Sound between the cities of Stamford and Norwalk, the town has relatively few office buildings. Many residents commute to Manhattan, with two Metro-North railroad stations - Noroton Heights and Darien - linking the town to Grand Central Terminal. For recreation, the town boasts eleven parks, two public beaches, the private Tokeneke beach club, three country clubs including the first organized golf club in Connecticut, a riding & racquet club, the public Darien Boat Club, and Noroton Yacht Club.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

According to early records, the first clearings of land were made by men from the New Haven and Wethersfield colonies and from Norwalk in about 1641. It was not until 1739, however, that the Middlesex Society of the Town of Stamford built the first community church, now the First Congregational Church of Darien (which stands on the original site at the corner of Brookside Road and the Boston Post Road).

Tories raided the town several times during the Revolution, at one point taking 26 men in the parish prisoner for five months, including the Reverend Moses Mather, pastor of the parish. The Loyalist-Patriot conflict in Darien is the setting for the novel Tory Hole, the first book by children's author Louise Hall Tharp. Middlesex Parish was incorporated as the Town of Darien in 1820.

According to the Darien Historical Society, the name Darien was decided upon when the residents of the town could not agree on a name to replace Middlesex Parish, many families wanting it to be named after themselves. Some proposed naming the town "Belleville" in honor of Thaddeus Bell, a veteran of the revolutionary war. He apparently rejected the honor while supporting the Darien option. A sailor who had traveled to Isthmus of Darien, then part of the Spanish Empire, suggested the name Darien, which was eventually adopted by the people of the town. The town name is pronounced (like "Dairy-Ann"), with stress on the last syllable, and has been referred to as such at least as far back as 1913.^[1] Residents say this is still the proper pronunciation. "You can always tell when someone is not from here, because they do pronounce it the way it's spelled," Louise Berry, director of the town library, said in a 2006 interview.

Darien was mostly white Protestant through the middle of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, Darien is a multi-ethnic town with residents of many religions and backgrounds, although still overwhelmingly white. One of seven households report speaking a language other than English at home. Previously, however, Darien had a narrower racial and religious culture. The town's exclusionary policies in the early 20th century were similar to many segregated suburbs at that time, including Beverly Hills, California and Tuxedo Park, New York. There were events involving anti-Black racism and anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s, with Darien being a prototypical sundown town. Laura Hobson's novel Gentleman's Agreement centered on antisemitism in Darien, in neighboring towns, and among the WASP culture of the era.

Pertaining to housing, in 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into Darien for possible violations of the Fair Housing Act. In 2012, they appeared satisfied and closed their investigation. The town also adopted a policy of verifying incomes for people applying for affordable housing units and maintaining a waiting list.^[2]

Darien is one of the few municipalities in Connecticut that comply with the State's mandate to report the racial and ethnic makeup of people stopped by the police. 82% of the people stopped are white, 12% are Black, and 15% are Hispanic.

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