If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

– Henry David Thoreau

Iranistan, P.T. Barnum’s lost palace once located in Bridgeport, CT

P.T. Barnum, most famously known for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus…

Vintage hand-colored map of Connecticut from 1857

This beautiful hand drawn map of Connecticut was created in 1857 by Laura Roys, a student who attended Hartford Female Seminary, an all-female academy in Hartford, Connecticut. The map is beautifully colored, with shades of blue, orange, red, pink, yellow, and violet adorning the border of each city and town.

Beautifully detailed map of Danbury, Connecticut from 1884

Historic bird’s eye view of Danbury, Connecticut from 1884

No life is worth leading if it is always an easy life

Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…

Amazing bird’s eye view of Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1875

This is how Bridgeport looked when only 20,000 people lived there!

Beautiful vintage map of Forestville, CT from 1880

This old map shows the Forestville section of what is now known as Bristol, Connecticut.