From the Courant:

William A. O’Neill, the one-time tavern owner and small-town Democrat who became the longest-serving Connecticut governor in nearly 200 years, died Saturday afternoon at his home in East Hampton. He was 77.

After weeks of nursing-home and hospital care for complications from his chronic emphysema, O’Neill returned home Monday under the care of hospice nurses. His wife, Nikki, who married him 45 years ago, notified Gov. M. Jodi Rell of his death.

The death was announced by Rell’s office.

“Bill O’Neill was one of the titans of Connecticut politics,” Rell said. “No description of him would be complete without the words ‘decency’ and ‘fairness,’ and he understood that government must take its lead from the people it serves.”

A frail O’Neill, tethered to an oxygen tank, had insisted on a last visit to the Capitol in January to watch as Rell began her first full term as governor. Like Rell, O’Neill ascended to the office after a predecessor’s dramatic resignation.

O’Neill was lieutenant governor when cancer forced the resignation of a dying Gov. Ella T. Grasso, a formidable politician with a national profile. He was sworn in as governor Dec. 31, 1980.

The new governor was underestimated by Republicans and, even more so, by a younger generation of liberal Democrats. But O’Neill was a tough insider who won fights to become House majority leader, Democratic chairman and lieutenant governor.

“O’Neill never thought he was better than anyone else, except in a political fight,” said David J. McQuade, the governor’s legislative strategist and chief of staff.

Over 10 years and 10 days as the state’s 84th governor, the conservative O’Neill assembled a bright, ideologically diverse administration that poured money into education, health care and the state’s long-neglected infrastructure.