What is the "Borough" of Jewett City??

The following are excerpts from a New York Times article published on March 21, 2004 written by Georgina Gustin.

Boroughs. Wardens. Burgesses. The terms, leftovers from Connecticut's past, are not tossed around regularly these days when discussing state governance. Yet despite their shrinking numbers -- and their irrelevance, some say -- boroughs and the people who run them keep hanging on as little reminders of the state's quirky municipal evolution.

There are nine boroughs left, down from 15 in 1950 and 23 in 1900, according to state records, though the number could dwindle even more. Every now and then, a faction of anti-borough residents will gain momentum and try to dissolve or consolidate their borough status. But for the most part, borough residents are proud of their political distinction and are determined to maintain it.

The state's boroughs were incorporated, with the approval of the State Legislature, between 1800 and 1915; they usually came into being when a group of town residents decided their more densely populated area of town needed municipal services, and therefore taxation, their rural neighbors didn't require.

''I think they felt they needed their own government, because on the outskirts people lived three miles apart,'' said Joan G. Crick, the warden of the Newtown borough, which was incorporated in 1824 as a separate entity within the larger town of Newtown. ''They needed services.'' Boroughs were the heart of sprawling agricultural towns and they had little-city needs: streetlights, sidewalks, night watchmen and fire departments.

Of the states' nine boroughs, eight are within towns, and one, Naugatuck, has gobbled up the whole town. The town of Litchfield has two boroughs within its borders: the boroughs of Litchfield and Bantam. The first borough to form was called Newfield, in present-day Bridgeport, which was set apart from the town of Stratford because residents wanted oil-lamp streetlights and fire protection.

There is also a kind of familiarity that comes with living in a borough that goes beyond the practical: collective pride.

''We have a sense of taking care of our own,'' said Elaine Lippke, president of the borough of Danielson, in the town of Killingly. ''The problems of the borough don't seem to connect with the town. We've become self-protective.''

Though relations between towns and boroughs are generally good, there is a visible distinction between them that sets them apart. Anyone leaving the borough of Newtown, with its preserved historic architecture, will pass into the less stringently zoned town at large, with its newer homes, and notice the striking change.

''When the borough ends and the town begins, there's a difference,'' said Ms. Crick, the Newtown borough warden.