A man walks into Canaan’s town hall to meet with his probation officer — but the probation officer isn’t there.
He didn’t get the time or date wrong, he got the actual town wrong. The man was supposed to meet his probation officer in North Canaan’s town hall, which is, fittingly, just a few miles north.
Johanna Mann, Canaan’s town clerk, wasn’t surprised by the mix-up. Official records meant for North Canaan come across her desk all the time.
“I think at this point, a [name change] would solve the confusion,” Mann said. “But I understand the history.”
North Canaan and Canaan, two Connecticut towns stacked just below the Massachusetts border, are used to being mixed up. That’s because Canaan is locally known as “Falls Village,” and North Canaan, in classic nickname style, prefers a simple “Canaan.” These unofficially official names are used everywhere short of some maps — even some state road signage refers to the towns by their nicknames.
While it may seem trivial, these town names create real problems. Land records, birth records, death records — even the amount of revenue sent to towns from the state tax on nips, the small bottles of alcohol — are confused. And snail-mail is a whole other issue.
“They have Canaan on their post office, and here we’ve got Falls Village on the post office,” Judy Jacobs, a selectman for Canaan and president of the historical society for the two towns, said. “But the government still recognizes us as town of Canaan and them as town of North Canaan. So it’s really, really confusing.”
The source of the confusion
For more than 100 years, the two towns were one united Canaan. But in 1858, they broke up.
“Basically, it stemmed from the convenience of getting to church,” Jacobs said. “People had to travel quite a distance to go to church in both directions, so they ended up dividing.”
The original town of Canaan was settled in 1738. But talks of division, at least informally, began shortly after. There was a religious division — involving two Ecclesiastical Societies — in 1769. Initial proposals to break the sprawling 52.7-square-mile town into two were recorded in 1810.
It took the local government decades to finalize the divide, but when it finally did, one town received the name North Canaan and the other Canaan.
These names stuck for a while, Jacobs said. The church was moved south, to Canaan, and North Canaan residents built their own churches. And nobody had to take a five-mile trek to get to their church.
But the Housatonic Railroad created a stop in Canaan called Falls Village, after the Great Falls located in the town. And from then on, the two towns would be forever confused.
“So, it became Falls Village and North Canaan, and then North Canaan just shortened themselves to Canaan,” Jacobs said. “It got really confusing.”
In 1968, historian Nellie Rodgers attempted to document the history of the split, which has early roots in the history of the state. But even 58 years ago, Rodgers flagged the name debacle in her work.
“Except for the confusion with the names, things seem to be satisfactory,” Rodgers wrote in a July 1968 work titled “A History of The Division of The Town of Canaan.”
“The names, North Canaan and Canaan, confusing even to the State of Connecticut, may some day be resolved. What action will ensue, I cannot predict,” Rodgers continued. “But if change does occur, to eliminate the confusion now taking place, then another chapter will have to be added to the present town division history.”
But Rodgers never added another chapter.
Data collection, death certificates and signs
On the same day of the probation officer mix-up, Mann, attending to her official town clerk duties in Canaan — er, Falls Village — opened a land record. But it was for land located in North Canaan.
These very common mix-ups actually result in increased postage fees for Canaan, Mann said. Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates and firearms paperwork for North Canaan come across her desk all the time.
Every time she receives a record meant for their neighboring town, Mann either sends these records back to the original sender, sends them to the correct town or requests help in correcting digital data.
“If you’re part of anything in the town government, you realize,” Jacobs said. “If you’re a business owner, you realize. If you get your mail messed up, you figure it out. And any newcomer using GPS … they get very confused.”
In order to get ahead of at least some of this confusion, Mann has changed her name tag three times. The first one just listed her town as Canaan, CT. The other two include some variation of the name Falls Village.
People who did not grow up in one of the two towns tend to have the most trouble, Jacobs said.
“When you go to school here, it’s kind of pounded into your brain that you’re the town of Canaan, Falls Village,” Jacobs said. “When you’ve grown up here, you quickly figure it out. But it’s hard for newcomers. They’re just like, ‘What? Where am I?’”
It’s not just the town names — within North Canaan is a small village called Canaan. Among the two towns, there are numerous unofficial (and sometimes mostly forgotten) villages: Canaan Valley, East Canaan, South Canaan, Canaan and Falls Village are among the most confusing. And then there’s the village of Sodom, in North Canaan.
To make matters worse, the Canaan and North Canaan share some road names. “Main Street” and “Railroad Street” are fitting for both, but the two towns also have a “Prospect Street.”
Some of the state road signage, which seemingly welcomes folks into multiple towns at once, doesn’t help.
So, it’s no wonder newcomers, and their GPS systems, are easily confused.
Real-world implications
This confusion isn’t limited to just Connecticut newcomers. These nicknames trick state officials, too.
A recent mix-up resulted in some of North Canaan’s money being sent to Canaan from the nip tax. This tax, which charged an extra 5 cents on every nip sold in a liquor store, was supposed to be returned to the municipality where the product was purchased.
Canaan, which is home to just one liquor store, was selling an average of 136,612 nips per year and getting nearly $10,000 in annual revenue, according to state data.
But the town’s lone liquor store — Falls Village Package Store — was definitely not selling more than 136,000 nips each year.
Instead, two other liquor stores, Stateline Wine and Spirits and Canaan Liquors, were incorrectly listed as Canaan establishments by the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Connecticut. These two stores are actually in the town of North Canaan but in the village of Canaan. Since they’re in Canaan village, the address of the two stores shows up on Google maps as Canaan, CT.
The state corrected its error and now is distributing the revenue correctly. But this is just one of many possible issues caused by the names.
“I understand that it causes problems,” Michelle Hansen, the Canaan town treasurer said. “Believe me, it does. Our fire department gets dispatched to calls that are actually in North Canaan, not on Main Street.”
Hansen is also the emergency management director for Canaan. She said that, especially when a dispatcher is unfamiliar with the two towns, emergency services can be sent to the wrong location.
But her department has found ways to combat the issue.
“I have a list that I have at home at work to look it up and see if the address is really ours,” Hanson said. “We’ve found a way to combat it pretty quickly and pretty easily so it doesn’t cause a delay in services.”
Even Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data is likely incorrect. In 2022, the state recorded that 211 Canaan residents, or 19.5% of the population, were enrolled in the program. But 37 North Canaan residents, or 1.18% of its population, were recorded as enrolled in the program.
North Canaan has nearly three times Canaan’s population and has a lower median household income than its southern neighbor — making it unlikely that Canaan has nearly six times more SNAP recipients.
A 2024 Canaan housing profile from the Partnership for Strong Communities recorded that there were 583 federally assisted housing units in Canaan. But Hansen said the town only has three apartment buildings. And with just over 1,000 residents living in the town, some Canaan residents believe the number is likely inflated.
Vaccination numbers during COVID were also inflated — with more than 1,300 Canaan residents recorded as vaccinated as of February 2023 in a town of just over 1,000 residents.
Even with these issues, the proposal to change the name of one or both of the towns is still up for debate.
To change or not to change
Hansen believes renaming Canaan as Falls Village could be even worse.
“I actually think changing it at this point would cause just as much of a nightmare as what it is,” Hanson said. “People know us as the town of Canaan, Falls Village, and if we were just to go to Falls Village, people are still going to call us the town of Canaan.”
Hansen also said the change would be a huge administrative lift. The town would have to change the names on letterheads, checks and stamps.
As for the emergency response side of things, changing the name could create an even bigger headache.
“As emergency management director, all of my emergency plans and everything are for the town of Canaan,” Hansen said. “I can’t imagine changing all that to Falls Village.”
Jacobs said getting the name changed is difficult. Canaan would have to go through the state legislature to approve a name change, and all divisions of state and local government would have to make the administrative changes.
North Canaan has also discussed a name change. When the town of North Canaan put up signs that read “Welcome to Canaan,” Jacobs said they were encouraged to seek an official name change. Officially, though, the town is still named North Canaan.
As for the official town of Canaan — unofficial town of Falls Village — Hansen’s view is popular.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, this is how we are historically. We are the town of Canaan,’” Jacobs said.
But Jacobs herself takes a slightly different stance.
“And I am a diehard historian for the town,” Jacobs said, “but I think we should be called Falls Village. If we could find someone to take this on, this challenge … I think most of the residents would agree with that.”