Bridgeport City Hall when Bridgeport City Hall proved insufficient for both the growing needs of city and county, the Fairfield County Courthouse was built nearby. On Saturday, March 10, 1860, Abraham Lincoln spoke in Washington Hall at Bridgeport City Hall. Not only was the largest room in the city packed, but a crowd formed outside as well. Lincoln received a standing ovation before taking the 9:07 p.m. train that night back to Manhattan. A plaque marks the site where Lincoln spoke. Bridgeport City Hall The old Bridgeport City Hall is located in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut. The building was built in 1854 as both
History of Bridgeport, Connecticut of deindustrialization and declining population, though it overtook Hartford as the state's most populous city by 1980. Much of the land that became Bridgeport was originally occupied by the Pequonnock Indians of the Paugussett nation. One village consisted of about five or six hundred inhabitants in approximately 150 lodgings. Other than Black Rock and Parts of Brooklawn which were originally part of the township of Fairfield, Bridgeport was originally a part of the township of Stratford. The first English settlement on the west bank of the mouth of the Pequonnock River was made in about 1665 and was called Pequonnock.