Redding is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. At the time colonials began receiving grants for land within the boundaries of present-day Redding, Native American trails crossed through portions of the area, including the Berkshire Path running north–south. In 1639, Roger Ludlow (also referenced as Roger Ludlowe in many accounts) purchased land from local Native Americans to establish Fairfield, and in 1668 Fairfield purchased another tract of land then called Northfield, which comprised land that is now part of Redding.

For settlement purposes, Fairfield authorities divided the newly available land into parcels dubbed “long lots” at the time, which north–south measured no more than a third of a mile wide but extended east–west as long as 15 miles. Immediately north of the long lots was a similar-sized parcel of land known as The Oblong.

There are varying accounts as to the first colonial landholder in the Redding area; multiple citations suggest a Fairfield man named Richard Osborn obtained land there in 1671, while differing on how many acres he secured. Nathan Gold, a Fairfield man who would serve as deputy governor of Connecticut from 1708 to 1723, received a land grant for 800 acres in 1681.

The first colonials to settle in the area of present-day Redding lived near a Native American village led by Chickens Warrups (also referenced as Chicken Warrups or Sam Mohawk in some accounts), whose name is included on multiple land deeds secured by settlers throughout the area.

According to Fairfield County and state records from the time Redding was formed, the original name of the town was Reading, after the town in Berkshire, England. Probably more accurately, however, town history attributes the name to John Read, an early major landholder who was a prominent lawyer in Boston as well as a former Congregationalist preacher who converted to Anglicanism. Read helped in demarcating the boundaries of the town and in getting it recognized as a parish of Fairfield in 1729. In 1767, soon after incorporation, the name was changed to its current spelling of Redding to better reflect its pronunciation. In 1809, Congress granted Redding its first U.S. Post Office, which made official in 1844 the spelling of the town’s name.