The Housatonic River is a river, approximately long, in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United States. It flows south to southeast, and drains about 1950sqmi of southwestern Connecticut into Long Island Sound. Its watershed is just to the west of the watershed of the lower Connecticut River. Birds and fish who live in and around the river contain significant levels of PCBs and present health risks.HistoryIndigenous historyIndigenous people began using the river area for fishing and hunting at least 6,000 years ago. By 1600, the inhabitants were mostly Mohicans and may have numbered 30,000.The river's name is derived from the Mohican phrase "usi-a-di-en-uk", translated as "beyond the mountain place" or "river of the mountain place". It is referred to in the deed by which a group of twelve colonists called "The Proprietors" captured the land now called Sherman and New Fairfield as "Ousetonack". It was referred to by Samuel Orcutt as "more properly the Howsatunnuck" and an early name of "Oweantinock" is also mentioned. The river was also known as the Potatuck or the "river of the falls" until the 18th century.The river passes through land that was formerly occupied primarily by native people of Algonquian lineage, typically living in villages of two to three hundred families housed in hide wigwams. These native inhabitants burned the forests along the Housatonic Valley in the autumn to keep the underbrush down, a practice which was customary throughout Connecticut prior to European settlement.
