Darien. 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. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. It has a high rate of marriage, and high average number of children per household. Situated on the Long Island Sound, between the cities of Stamford and Norwalk, the town of Darien is a bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area, as many residents commute to New York via Metro-North. There are two railroad stations in Darien, Noroton Heights and Darien, linking the town to Grand Central Terminal. There are eleven parks, public beaches, and the Noroton Yacht Club.mw-parser-output.hatnote{font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output div.hatnote{padding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output.hatnote i{font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output.hatnote+link+.hatnote{margin-top:-0.5em}@media print{body.ns-0.mw-parser-output.hatnote{display:none!important}} Main article: History of Darien, Connecticut 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 American Revolution; at one point, they took 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. Contentment Island, c. 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, with stress on the last syllable, and has been referred to as such at least as far back as 1913. 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, but by the twenty-first century it had become a multi-ethnic town with residents of many religions and backgrounds. One of seven households report speaking a language other than English at home. The town's exclusive policies in the early 20th century were similar to other segregated suburbs of the 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. 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. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 14.8 square miles, of which 12.9 square miles is land and 2.0 square miles, or 13.41%, is water. Highways include Interstate 95. It also has two Metro-North Railroad stations for commuter trains into New York City, Noroton Heights and Darien. Darien is bordered on the west by Stamford, on the north by New Canaan, and on the east by Norwalk. On the south it faces Long Island Sound and the North Shore of Long Island. It is part of the Connecticut panhandle jutting into New York state. Sections of Darien Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien Downtown Darien.
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