A Forgotten Connecticut Town Is Still Beneath Candlewood Lake

According to Connecticut History and the Candlewood Lake Authority, there is an entire former Connecticut community sitting beneath Candlewood Lake, and its name was Jerusalem.

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No, I'm not talking about Jerusalem in the Middle East. This was a small farming village in the Rocky River Valley, in what is now the New Milford portion of Candlewood Lake. Jerusalem had farms, homes and mills, and people were living their lives there long before anyone was thinking about turning the valley into one of Connecticut's most popular summer destinations.

That changed in the 1920s.

Connecticut Light & Power wanted to build a massive pumped-storage facility that could be used to generate electricity. The plan called for creating a reservoir by flooding thousands of acres of the valley. Construction began in 1926, and the project ultimately covered about 5,400 acres across parts of Danbury, Brookfield, New Fairfield, New Milford and Sherman.

Jerusalem was right in the middle of it.

About 35 families owned property in the area that was going to be flooded. Most eventually sold their land to the power company, although there were some holdouts. More than 100 buildings throughout the future lake basin were demolished or moved, and the entire village of Jerusalem eventually disappeared beneath the water.

And here's where the story gets a little creepy.

There really were cemeteries in the area that would become the lake, but the dead weren't simply left underwater. Graves were relocated before the valley was flooded. So if you've ever heard the old Candlewood Lake story about an entire forgotten graveyard sitting beneath your boat, that's not quite accurate.

Water began being pumped into the valley in February 1928, and by later that year Candlewood Lake was essentially complete.

So, the next time you're cruising around Candlewood, remember that you're not just floating over rocks and fish. Somewhere underneath that water is the former village of Jerusalem, a little piece of Connecticut history that quite literally disappeared beneath the lake.