Once Wintonbury Parish, pieced together from Windsor, Farmington and Simsbury, Bloomfield grew fruit, hay and tobacco below Talcott Mountain, took its name from the abolitionist farmer Francis Gillette, and later became home to Cigna's landmark headquarters.

Hartford County · Record checked October 8, 2026

21,535Population2020 census, the town's highest ever1
1835Became a townfrom Wintonbury Parish in Windsor1
1736Wintonbury Parishnamed for Windsor, Farmington and Simsbury1
192Civil Warmen went, thirteen above the town's quota2
5National Registerplaces, all still standing3

Bloomfield on the map

Click the map to look closer.

Map of Bloomfield, Connecticut in 2026, with Bloomfield Center, Penwood State Park, the Captain Oliver Filley House and 34 numbered landmarks

2026

Bloomfield today

By KNOWOL

Shaded hills from the ridge in the west to Blue Hills in the southeast, every street from Park Avenue to Wadhams Road, Bloomfield Center, North Bloomfield, Spoonville and Case Corner, and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Register sites marked.4

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Bloomfield

Squirrels in the meetinghouse

Wintonbury's first meetinghouse was a plain, unpainted building, forty-five by thirty-five feet, with no steeple at all. Swallows nested in the rafters, and there were so many squirrels that the pulpit cushions had to be kept over at the tavern between Sundays. Small children, often barefoot in summer, sat on a hewn log down the middle aisle. Rev. Hezekiah Bissell served the parish for 45 years, paid three hundred dollars and thirty-eight cords of wood. When the old building began to fall apart, the Simsbury preacher was brought over to warn that clapboards hanging dingle-dangle by one nail meant the love of God was missing. While a new church went up in 1801, services were held under four great oaks. At its dedication there was not a pew empty.5

A road of his own to Hartford

Bloomfield's three slow brooks flooded several times a year and left the fields rich, and an 1837 book said the town was celebrated for the excellence of its fruit. In 1801 the parish sent some hundreds of cords of wood and about two hundred tons of hay to the Hartford market, along with fifteen hundred casks for meat. By 1802 it had 176 houses, four taverns, a sawmill, a gristmill and a new gin distillery. Two brothers named Brown made drums, toy drums too, and Captain Filley's tinware went north to Vermont with peddlers. Later, wagon making became an important trade, and tobacco took over the fields. Roads ran in every direction, and people liked to say every farmer had a road of his own to Hartford.6789

The man who named Bloomfield

Francis Gillette grew up in Wintonbury, the son of the Baptist elder Ashbel Gillet. After Yale, weak lungs ended his study of law, so he came home to farm and built a stone house on the road to Hartford. When the parish became a town in 1835, Gillette suggested the name Bloomfield, and it was adopted at once. He was one of the state's leading abolitionists. More than once his stone house sheltered a person escaping slavery for the night, and the children remembered the stories and songs by the fire. In the legislature he spoke for striking the word white from the State Constitution. Elected to the United States Senate in 1854, he arrived just in time to vote against the Nebraska Bill.1011

Through the years

24 moments from 1660 to today.

  1. 1660A land deed calls this part of Windsor the wilderness.6
  2. 1734Peter Mills and others at Messenger's Farms ask Windsor for the right to worship at home in winter.5
  3. 1736The Parish of Wintonbury is set off from Windsor, Farmington and Simsbury.1
  4. 1738Rev. Hezekiah Bissell is ordained for a parish of sixty-five families.5
  5. 1740Luce Skinner, eighteen, is the first person buried in the old graveyard.5
  6. 1740Saint Andrew's Episcopal church is organized at Scotland, then part of Simsbury.12
  7. 1749Saint Andrew's rector, Rev. William Gibbs, is hauled to Hartford jail after losing a church tax suit.13
  8. 1793The Wintonbury Library Society is formed.8
  9. 1795The brick schoolhouse now called the Old Farm Schoolhouse is built.14
  10. 1801A new meetinghouse is dedicated on December 6, with not a pew empty.5
  11. 1802The parish counts 176 houses, four taverns and a brand new gin distillery.8
  12. 1817A Methodist society forms with three members and later builds on Whirlwind Hill.5
  13. 1830Saint Andrew's church, moved and rebuilt, is finished back at its old site in Scotland.15
  14. 1833Francis Gillette builds his stone house on the road to Hartford.11
  15. 1834Captain Oliver Filley builds a stone house on Mountain Avenue for his son Jay.16
  16. 1835Wintonbury becomes the town of Bloomfield, a name Francis Gillette suggested.10
  17. 1843The Scotland section of Simsbury, with Saint Andrew's church, is added to Bloomfield.17
  18. 1854Francis Gillette goes to the United States Senate.10
  19. 1858David Grant builds the stone Southwest District School on Simsbury Road.18
  20. 1861The Civil War begins. Bloomfield will send 192 men, thirteen more than its quota.2
  21. 1880The census counts 1,346 people in Bloomfield.2
  22. 1922The town closes the last of its district schools.18
  23. 1957Connecticut General's glass headquarters on Cottage Grove Road is completed.19
  24. 2020The census counts 21,535 people, the most ever.1

Places to see

The numbers match the landmark guide printed on the 2026 map.

  • 4Prosser Public LibraryBloomfield Center. The town library by the green.Visit their website
  • 8Bloomfield Town GreenBloomfield Center. The heart of the town center.
  • 10Southwest District SchoolSimsbury Road. Stone schoolhouse of 1858.Visit their website
  • 11Captain Oliver Filley HouseMountain Avenue. Stone farmhouse of 1834 on 145 acres.
  • 20Penwood State ParkThe ridge on the west. Trails along the Metacomet Ridge.Visit their website
  • 24Francis Gillette HouseBloomfield Avenue. The abolitionist's stone house.
  • 25Old Farm SchoolhousePark Avenue and School Street. Brick district school of 1795.Visit their website
  • 27First Congregational ChurchBloomfield Center. Congregational church in the center.Visit their website
  • 32Old Saint Andrew's Episcopal ChurchNear North Bloomfield. The old Scotland parish church.
  • 34Connecticut General Life Insurance Company HeadquartersCottage Grove Road. Cigna's 1957 glass headquarters.

On the National Register

All 5 places in Bloomfield on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.3

  • Old Farm Schoolhouse

    Built 1795 · Listed 1972 · Junction of Park Avenue and School Street

    Also called the Brick School, it is the oldest surviving public building in Bloomfield and one of seven district schools built in Wintonbury Parish in the late 1700s. It was a school until 1922, housed an American Legion post from 1931 to 1971, and is now a museum of the historical society, moved a short way in 1976 when the intersection was realigned.14

    Visit their website

  • Francis Gillette House

    Built 1833 · Listed 1982 · 545 Bloomfield Avenue

    A fieldstone house built for Francis Gillette, one of the state's leading abolitionists and founder of the Hartford Press. The claim that he sheltered people escaping slavery here dates from at least 1886 and has been accepted by scholars.11

  • Capt. Oliver Filley House

    Built 1834 · Listed 2007 · 130 Mountain Avenue

    Oliver Filley, a tinsmith and War of 1812 militia captain, built this Greek Revival house of rubblestone and many-colored traprock for his son Jay. It was the third stone house in Bloomfield and is now owned by the town.16

  • Southwest District School

    Built 1858 · Listed 1992 · 430 Simsbury Road

    A one-room schoolhouse of locally quarried stone, built by the farmer David Grant for the farm families of southwest Bloomfield. It served until 1922 or 1923, when the town closed the last of its district schools, and is owned by the Wintonbury Historical Society.18

    Visit their website

  • Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters

    Built 1954 to 1957 · Listed 2010 · 900 Cottage Grove Road

    Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed this long glass building, with grounds by Isamu Noguchi and interiors by Florence Knoll. It was the first campus of its kind for a large corporate office and is still Cigna's headquarters.19

In their words

“every farmer had a road of his own to Hartford”

The Memorial History of Hartford County, 1886, repeating a Bloomfield saying6

“This place is celebrated for the excellence of its fruit”

Connecticut Historical Collections, 18377

“not a pew empty, above or below”

Rev. William Miller at the dedication of the new church, 1801, quoted in The Memorial History of Hartford County, 18865

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Bloomfield, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Bloomfield's leading men and soldiers, Internet Archive
  3. National Register of Historic Places listings in Hartford County, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  4. Map of Bloomfield, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  5. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Wintonbury's churches, Internet Archive
  6. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Bloomfield's land and farms, Internet Archive
  7. Connecticut historical collections (1837), on Bloomfield, Internet Archive
  8. History of ancient Windsor, Connecticut (1859), on Wintonbury Parish in 1802, Internet Archive
  9. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Bloomfield's trades, Internet Archive
  10. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Francis Gillette, Internet Archive
  11. Francis Gillette House, Wikipedia
  12. The Connecticut quarterly (1896), on Saint Andrew's Church of Scotland, Internet Archive
  13. The story of a country parish: a history of Saint Andrew's, North Bloomfield, Connecticut (1924), on Rev. William Gibbs, Internet Archive
  14. Old Farm Schoolhouse, Wikipedia
  15. The story of a country parish: a history of Saint Andrew's, North Bloomfield, Connecticut (1924), on moving the church, Internet Archive
  16. Oliver Filley House, Wikipedia
  17. Records of Rev. Ransom Warner, 1823-1854, rector of Saint Andrew's, Simsbury and Bloomfield (1923), Internet Archive
  18. Southwest District School (Bloomfield, Connecticut), Wikipedia
  19. Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters, Wikipedia