Brookfield, CT
| Brookfield, Connecticut | ||
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| Town | ||
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 Location in Fairfield County and the state of Connecticut. |
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| Coordinates: 41°28′07″N 73°23′31″W / 41.46861°N 73.39194°WCoordinates: 41°28′07″N 73°23′31″W / 41.46861°N 73.39194°W | ||
| Country | United States | |
| State | Connecticut | |
| NECTA | Danbury | |
| Region | Housatonic Valley | |
| Incorporated | 1788 | |
| Government | ||
| • Type | Selectman-town meeting | |
| • First selectman | Stephen C. Dunn (D) | |
| • Selectman | Susan D. Slater (D) | |
| • Selectman | Martin E. Flynn, Jr. (R) | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 20.4 sq mi (52.8 km2) | |
| • Land | 19.8 sq mi (51.3 km2) | |
| • Water | 0.6 sq mi (1.6 km2) | |
| Elevation | 459 ft (140 m) | |
| Population (2010) | ||
| • Total | 16,452 | |
| • Density | 810/sq mi (310/km2) | |
| Time zone | EST (UTC−5) | |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC−4) | |
| ZIP code | 06804 | |
| Area code(s) | 203 | |
| FIPS code | 09-08980 | |
| GNIS feature ID | 0213399 | |
| Website | www |
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Brookfield is a town located in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States in the southern foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. The population was 16,487 at the 2010 census. Brookfield was first settled in 1710 by John Muirwood, as well as other colonial founders including Hawley, Peck and Merwin. They bartered for the land from the Wyantenuck Nation and the Pootatuck nation who were ruled under the Sachem Waramaug and Pocono. The purchase of the south part of town involved the current municipal center where sachem Pocono then had his village and lived in an enormous palisade along the Still River. Eventually, when the town was settled, it was first established as the Parish of Newbury, which incorporated parts of neighboring Newtown and Danbury. The town of Brookfield was established in 1788. It was named after the first minister of the parish's Congregational church, Reverend Thomas Brooks.
Before the English settled the area and before Dutch traders exposed native peoples to Europeans, it was inhabited by the Pootatuck and Wyantenuck Native Americans, members of the Algonquin Federation. The Wyantenuck were a sister tribe of the Paugusset Nation and lived in the northern part of the town of Brookfield, extending from North Mountain and Carmen Hill to the town center region. Their main village was located at Kent Falls in New Milford. The Paugusset, to whom the Wyantinuck are related, lived in present-day Milford and surrounding coast around the upper parts of Norwalk, seasonally making their way up and down the Housatonic river for hunting, fishing and trade. The Pootatuck lived in the southern part of town from the John Northrop house up north to the current police station, and extending into current-day Newtown. The Pootatuck tribe's main village was at the banks of the Still River near present-day Pocono Road, which was named after the Sachem that lived there.
Early people who lived in Brookfield were subsistence farmers, gatherers and hunters. The main food sources were corn, beans, squash and wild foods found in the rocky, heavily forested foot hills of the Berkshire Mountains of Brookfield and New Milford. Such wild foods that were harvested were white oak acorns, American chestnuts, shag bark hickory nuts, may apples, beach nuts and Solomon's seal. The hunted foods that were taken from the forest and rivers were deer, passenger pigeon, turkey, bass, trout, crawfish, squirrel, rabbit and others. In the 18th century the community was called "Newbury", a name that came from the three towns from which its land was taken – New Milford, Newtown, and Danbury.
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