This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own. Now, as happens eventually with all haphazardly done filing, they have accumulated to a point where something must be done about them. Many names on the list, as one would expect, are those of politicians. In addition to up-and-coming orator , New London has been host to Presidents James Madison who stayed at a house, no longer extant, on Church Street and Andrew Jackson.
Jackson stayed at the City Hotel on State Street in Presumably it was far less exciting than his visit to another City Hotel, in Nashville, when at the culmination of a convoluted and long-simmering conflict, he was shot by the brother of Thomas Hart Benton, who Jackson had promised to horse-whip. Martin Van Buren also stayed at the City Hotel before becoming president, though the main connection between him and the city is that the Amistad incident took place during his administration.
Chester A. Arthur spent the last summer of his life here, the year after his presidency ended. After arriving in New London, Sedgwick characteristically missed the ferry.
In the old days what I would have done was spend the night at the Walker fretted, but Sedgwick made it across the Thames in style, on a yacht belonging to multi-millionaire businessman, ambassador, sportsman, publisher - I could go on -Jock Whitney. But perhaps my favorite tidbit is the following.
New York police searched everywhere, but turned up nothing, and six months later it was assumed Hibbard had died. He signed the wrong name, but the letter reached his family nonetheless. Reading about George Hibbard, I thought: with the possible exception of those descended from native Indian tribes or early Puritan settlers to the area, does anyone really know how they got here? I know some came for jobs or other identifiable reasons. They only require that you land, however briefly, on your way to somewhere else.
