DARIEN

town (township), Fairfield county, southwestern Connecticut, U.S., on Long Island Sound. Originally part of Stamford, the area was settled by colonists from Wethersfield about 1641, and a separate community life began in 1737 when the newly named Middlesex Parish was separated from Stamford. It was incorporated as a town in 1820 (including the village of Noroton) and renamed by Thaddeus Bell, who supposedly likened its location to the Darin region in Panama, an area in which local shipowners and merchants had traded. The capture of the town (1781) and of Moses Mather, a strong colonist advocate, by British soldiers and local Tories is depicted in a mural at the Town Hall. Darien's oldest house, Weed Homestead, dates from 1680. Today the town is largely a bedroom community for New York City commuters. Area 13 square miles (33 square km). Pop. (1990) 18,196; (1996 est.) 18,135. city, seat (1818) of McIntosh county, southeastern Georgia, U.S. It is situated near the mouth of the Altamaha River on the Atlantic coast. The site, near Fort King George, was settled in 1736 by Scottish Highlanders under John McIntosh Mohr, who called the place New Inverness and established Fort Darien (named for the location of a former Scottish colony in Panama). After the War of 1812, the demand for lumber from surrounding forest lands caused an economic boom. The Bank of Darien, opened in 1818, became one of the state's largest banks. During the American Civil War, the Reverend Mansfield French, known as the White Jesus, formed a Gospel Army of black crusaders who burned the city on July 11, 1863. The city's economy is now centred on fishing, canning, and pulpwood milling. Inc. town, 1816; city, 1818. Pop. (1990) 1,783.