Old Lyme, Connecticut

Connecticut

A disease known around the world got its name from this small Connecticut shoreline town.

historicalculturepeople

In 1975, children here and in the neighboring town of Lyme started turning up with what looked like juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. There were too many of them, clustered too closely, for that to make sense. The mystery outbreak led to the identification of a new illness, and the illness took the name of the town. Lyme disease. The name itself had traveled a long way before that. Settlers who came here in the sixteen hundreds named the place after Lyme Regis, a small port on the coast of Dorset in England. The name then spread across the region. There is Lyme, East Lyme, South Lyme, Hadlyme, and Old Lyme, which earned the Old because it holds the oldest settled ground of them all. The town sits on the east bank of the Connecticut River where it meets Long Island Sound, about twenty-seven square miles of shoreline, tidal marsh, wetland and wooded hills.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
Lyme disease was named after the town. It was discovered in 1975 after a mysterious outbreak of what appeared to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in children who lived in Lyme and Old Lyme.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nearby, on the same roads

  • Florence Griswold Museum 1.6 mi The boarders at this Old Lyme house paid their keep by painting directly on the walls and doors.
  • Connecticut River 3.5 mi The border between Massachusetts and Connecticut was drawn because of an argument over river tolls that nobody won.
  • Essex, Connecticut 6.5 mi Essex, Connecticut throws an annual parade to celebrate the worst day in its history, when British marines burned its entire fleet.
  • Waterford Speedbowl 8.5 mi Three weeks after opening in 1951, the Waterford Speedbowl shut down because it was choking its own spectators with dust.
  • Downtown New London Historic District 10.9 mi In 1781 Benedict Arnold led British troops into New London and burned most of the city down.
  • Blackledge River Railroad Bridge 19.4 mi A three-and-a-half-mile branch line was leased out for nine hundred and ninety-nine years.