Where the Heck is Haddam Neck?

About a month ago a colleague and I got into a friendly disagreement when I was on the road looking for a street in the section of Haddam known as Haddam Neck. My colleague had a rudimentary map at his home showing the village was on the east side of the Connecticut River, essentially separated by the river from the rest of Haddam.

“That’s impossible,” I told him. After all, I knew that in Connecticut, town borders were set along rivers, not bisected by them.

I bet him lunch he was wrong.

He wasn’t.

Haddam Neck sits on the east side of the Connecticut River from the rest of Haddam. It’s sandwiched between East Haddam and East Hampton. It was settled around 1712, mostly by folks from Haddam, but when other Haddamites also settled, and later created, the town of East Haddam in 1734, Haddam Neck folks decided to remain a part of Haddam.

So there you have it. It is the only town in Connecticut bisected by a major watercourse. Here are some scenes from the village, which, by the way, is a lovely, quiet area that once a year hosts the enormously popular Haddam Neck Fair.