Terms of Office of Governor and Lieutenant Governor

The principal sources for determining the terms of office of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut are the proceedings of the May sessions of the General Court or Assembly and the journals of the two Houses sitting in plenary sessions. The election date—the second Thursday in May—was prescribed by the Charter of 1662, which remained in effect until 1818.

The Assembly journals dating back to the 17th century describe in detail the process of counting votes and the oath-taking ceremony. However, a peculiar method of recordkeeping provides no reliable means for verifying the actual dates of these key events. In their daily work, the secretaries of the Connecticut Assembly did not follow the common practice of inserting dates at the start of each daily session. Although such dating was standard in many other American states, the records of the Connecticut General Court typically bear only the initial date of the session, usually as part of the following formula: "At a General Assembly of the Governor and Company of His Majesty's English Colony of Connecticut, in New-England, in America, holden at Hartford in said colony, on the second Thursday of May…"

The events following the opening of the session were recorded as continuous text, without daily entries. This tradition also affects the dating of laws passed prior to 1818. As a rule, laws were dated by the May or October session only, without reference to the actual date of passage by either House.

As noted in the introduction, the counting of votes cast in the General Election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in Connecticut occurred on the date prescribed by the Charter. However, if the candidates failed to attain a popular majority, the election devolved upon the Houses of the General Assembly, voting separately. In such cases, the process of counting popular votes, proclaiming the results, and conducting balloting in the Houses delayed the final election and oath-taking by a day or two. These differences are mentioned in the proceedings of the General Court, though generally without reference to specific dates. In a few instances, the editors of the Connecticut Colonial Records and Connecticut State Records supplemented the published material with additional information from unpublished House journals preserved in the state archives.