USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 39
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THE MASONIC TEMPLE, WALLINGFORD
CHAPTER XXXIV
WALLINGFORD (Concluded)
MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF AN IMPORTANT CENTER OF THE SILVER FABRICATING ART, AND ITS PRESENT-DAY PROGRESS
This structure of two centuries and a half was not achieved without labor, and Wallingford prides itself that it is a community of workers. Whether in the busy central borough, with its driving wheels and smoke-pennanted chim- neys, or in the fringe of communities which industrial plants make about it, or in the setting of prosperous farms which eneloses the whole, Wallingford beats with honest, intelligent industry. It is proud of that. It exults in the fame of what it produces. For whether it be a Wallingford peach or a Wal- lingford spoon or a Wallingford apple, it is a goodly product, in which the user rejoices.
There is little chance for precedence in this dual fame of Wallingford. If the farmers of Wallingford began to get crops in 1670, the wheels of the miller began to turn by the side of Wharton's Brook in 1674. The manufac- turing of the first century and a half, of course, before the days of modern demand or transportation, was of the primitive nature which is shown in other Connecticut towns away from tide-water, but it had a certain steady progress from the beginning. That old grist mill right, first used by the town, transferred by the town to William Tyler in 1707, a century later passed on to Charles Yale, then transferred to Samuel Simpson in 1835, was the beginning of the silver industry of which. Wallingford, in a very true sense, was the origin and center. Yet Wallingford is not at all exclusively a silver town. Of the twenty- one considerable factories found today in the town of Wallingford only seven are devoted to the making of silver, flat ware or white metal. These, to be sure, include the town's most important plants. One of them alone employs almost as many people as all the other factories put together, while the seven of them have a great majority of the workers. An impressive proof, moreover, of the emi- nenee which Wallingford has in the silver industry is the fact that it contains one of the most important silver factories in the country which has remained outside of the International Silver Company combination. That is R. Wallace & Sons Manufacturing Company. It is the descendant of the old mill afore- said, through Samuel Simpson, its purchaser in 1835, through the Humiston Mills, which he purchased in 1847, then through the partnership, formed in
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A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
1855, with Robert Wallace, to the final purchase, in 1871, of the interest of Mr. Simpson by Robert Wallace, and the formation of the present company.
It was the revelation to Robert Wallace, as far back as 1855, of the possi- bilities of the metal known as German silver that started him on his career. He purchased the formula from Dr. Feuchtwanger, a German chemist who had just brought it to this country, and threw himself with the might and the mind of a Yankee into the new manufacture. The firm which bears his name today is the summary of his success. In the largest factory of his native town, in rooms with a floor space of over five acres, employing upward of 1,200 peo- ple-skilled craftsmen, mechanies, artists of all sorts-is made an endless vari- ety of sterling silver flat ware, hollow ware, toilet ware and novelties, silver plated ware of an even greater variety, which goes to almost every country of the world.
When the International Silver Company was organized, there were in Wal- lingford three other important silver making factories. The largest of these was Simpson, Hall, Miller & Company, the outgrowth of the company of his own which Samuel Simpson formed in 1866, after Robert Wallace had purchased his interests. Shortly afterward Mr. Simpson organized the company under its present name. It is Factory L of the trust, and makes an important line of silver sterling and plated ware. Over forty years ago there was in Wallingford a Shaker community of some size, and with thrifty instinet they turned to the making of silver goods. The lake or pond in the upper part of the borough still bears their name-Community Lake. When their diminishing numbers gave up the struggle in Wallingford and went to join forces with a community elsc- where, a Wallingford company, which afterward became the Watrous Manu- facturing Company, purchased their plant. It is now in the trust as Factory P. There remained one firm, established in 1871, the Simpson Nickel Silver Company. That in turn was absorbed as Factory M. The three factories together now employ the greater part of a thousand people.
There are three smaller plants, two of them of Rogers affiliation, which remain independent. The Dowd, Rogers Company makes silver plated ware and novelties. The S. L. & G. H. Rogers Company makes silver plated table ware. This is a $250,000 company, and George M. Hallenbeck is its president. The Wallingford Company, Inc., makes electro plated flat ware, employing about 200 people.
The New York Insulated Wire Company, with half a million dollars capital, was established in 1884, and is the second oldest concern of its line in the United States. Some twenty years ago there was in Wallingford a Metropolitan Rub- ber Company, and in 1889 the New York Insulated Wire Company, outgrowing its quarters in Reading, Mass., moved to Wallingford and occupied with the rubber company its factory on Cherry Street. The rubber company retired from business about 1903, and since then the wire company has occupied and enlarged the factory. It now employs about 300 workers, and produces annually some millions of feet of rubber covered wires and thousands of pounds of insulating
G SILVER
LACE
SIMSP ATE THAT-
WEAR
R. WALLACE AND SONS' MANUFACTURING COMPANY. WALLINGFORD
ER & CO
FACTORY L OF THE INTERNATIONAL SILVER COMPANY, WALLINGFORD
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tapes and compounds. It has a market for its goods not only all over the coun- try but in the far corners of the earth, supplying leading electrical concerns as far away as Mexieo, South America, South Africa and Japan. Its main offices are in New York city, and it has branches in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Japan. Its president is C. H. Wilcox of New York, and its general manager is William Poole, assisted by Walter ITill and A. C. Brooks.
Wallingford has been making fireworks for over forty years, and its M. Backes' Sons Fireworks Company is one of the old concerns in a business in which this country has taken a lead in the last few decades. Not only that, but it is estimated that it supplies ninety per cent. of the toy cap, torpedo and firecracker trade of the United States, and besides sends quantities of goods 10 Canada, South America and Australia. Its Star Brand is a familiar one to celebrators in a large part of the world. It has withal made every effort to conform its product to the requirements for a saner type of holiday explosive, and everything it makes is combined with such aecuraey as to reduce the liability of aceident to the lowest point. It employs some seventy-five skilled workmen, and all its owners and managers live in and are prominent in Wallingford. Its factory is on Wallace Street, and its officers are: Charles Baekes, president : Miss Kate Baekes, secretary; Henry R. Baekes, treasurer. The company was organized in 1904, with a capital of $50,000. It has always been progressive, and its lines are constantly inereasing and developing novelty in the hands of experts and inventors.
The business of II. L. Judd Company, makers of upholsterers' hardware, bright wire goods, metal fancy goods and such products, was started in the late 'sixties by H. L. Judd. In 1879 John Day, now president, eame in as a partner, and in 1884 the business was incorporated as H. L. Judd & Company, being sixteen years later, on the death of Mr. Judd, changed to its present form. It has grown to a capital of $350,000, and employs over 1,000 hands. Its Walling- ford plant now makes brass goods alone, but it has a wood curtain pole factory in East Chattanooga, Tenn. Its factory in Brooklyn was combined with the Wallingford shops to the enlargement of the latter. It has offiees and show rooms at two points in New York city, but remains, as it was in the beginning, a strietly Wallingford industry. It makes enormous quantities of. high grade goods, which are widely known as a famous Wallingford prodnet.
The W. A. Ives Manufacturing Company, wood boring tools, is another of the substantial firms of Wallingford, established 1830. It has a capital of $50,000 and employs a large foree. Its president is C. J. Dunham.
Other manufacturing eoneerns are less eonspieuous in size, but each has its importanee. Five of them create the village of Yalesville, where the C. I. Yale Manufacturing Company makes chemicals, the William Prisk & Sons Manu- faeturing Company makes coffee percolators, the Charles Parker Company makes hardware, the Connectieut Screen and Cabinet Company makes cabinet work and window screens and Brown & Wileox make cement block and artificial
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A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
stone. The Jennings & Griffin Manufacturing Company makes machinists' tools at Tracy, and incidentally makes the Tracy village.
Several other industries make up the goodly company, among them being the Eastern Woodworking Company, woodwork and handles; W. J. Hodgette Paper Box Manufacturing Company, paper boxes; Paul A. Koletzke, wagons; Malmquist Brothers, die sinkers; Oddy & Son, wagon and auto wheels; Wilbur Company, celluloid.
This is, it might seem, the substance of the borough and town of Walling- ford. But it could not live except for the agriculture which improves the town acres of which the manufacturing plants, large as they are, occupy but a little part. Moreover, Wallingford is almost as widely and altogether as favorably known for its produts of farm and orchard as for its manufactures. And though one might not expect to find it so, the industry of farming. on a large scale is younger in Wallingford than is manufacturing. The pioneer in the raising of peaches dates his first orchard investment only from 1880, when Elijah Hough set out 100 trees. Now, one who rides by train through Wallingford in the season finds its hillsides so glowing with the pink beauty that he wonders if nothing but peaches grows in that region. The facts are more definite. It is estimated that Wallingford raises something over a quarter of a million baskets of peaches annually, and in an especially good year the crop is much larger than that. There are now ten large growers besides Mr. Hough, with some 62,500 bearing trees, and this does not take into account some scores of smaller growers.
In 1904 W. A. Henry, formerly dean of the Agricultural College of Wis- consin, purchased Blue Hills farm, some 300 acres on the western slopes of the Quinnipiac valley, and clearing considerable acres of its abandoned land, planted them with peach, apple, pear, cherry, Japanese plum and quince trees, until about 125 acres are so set. Ten years later of peaches alone 25,000 baskets were harvested. The professor testifies as an expert that Wallingford land, while not notably rich, is peculiarly adapted to the production of these fruits, and urges his neighbors to put more faith in their soil.
There is nearby supply for starting such orchards, for in the town also is the Barnes Brothers Nursery Company, started in 1900 and incorporated four years later. It is the most extensive producer of fruit trees and plants in New England, supplying fruit growers in New England, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. In Fredonia and Dansville, New York, it has branch nurseries for products which cannot be economically grown in Wallingford. Its nurseries produce all manner of fruit, small fruit trees and shrubs and shade trees, occu- pying 125 acres. Barnes Brothers also have 550 acres in farm land and peach orchards.
Faith in the agricultural possibilities of Wallingford is not rare, as hun- dreds of small farms testify. The town is within easy shipping distance of New York and Boston, so that in addition to the local and nearby markets, there is ready means of disposing of the product. The railroads are convenient, and the
H. L. JUDD MANUFACTURING CO., WALLINGFORD
CORNER OF MAIN AND CENTER STREETS, WALLINGFORD
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roads to the nearby towns steadily improve, while the motor truck is coming to be more dependable than the railroad.
The success of Wallingford is a matter of team play rather than of individual distinction. It has contributed its share of men great in the work and counsel of state and nation. But the story of the men who make it today is told mainly in this record of church and education and industry. Names like Frank A. Wallace, C. H. Tibbits, John Day, Charles G. Phelps and Charles Backes II manufacturing; C. W. Leavenworth, F. M. Cowles, Lewis M. Phelps and Henry W. Peck in banking; Rev. J. Burford Parry, Rev. Arthur P. Greenleaf, Rev. Edwin G. Zellers, Rev. John H. Carroll and Henry Stone in the churches ; George Clare St. John and John W. Kratzer in the schools; Dr. David R. Lyman, Dr. Jolin H. Buffum, Dr. Irving E. Brainerd and Dr. William S. Rus- sell in medicine; the late Judge Leverett M. Hubbard, Judge John G. Phelan, Judge Oswin H. D. Fowler, Michael T. Downes and Charles A. Harrison in law ; E. J. Hough and A. T. Henry in agriculture-these indicate to the discerning something of the reason why Wallingford today is the substantial, prosperous community it is.
CHAPTER XXXV
BRANFORD
ORIGINS OF AN IMPORTANT OLD COLONIAL TOWN, AND THE EVOLUTION FROM THEM OF A LIVELY, MODERN MANUFACTURING AND. FARMING COMMUNITY
When, in the spring of 1644, the territory of Totoket was sold by the New Haven proprietors to Mr. Swaine and certain others who had lately come down from Wethersfield, it was deseribed as "a place fit for a small plantation, betwixt New Haven and Guilford." As then bounded, there were some forty-five square miles of it. and it compared well with other plantations except the very large one that Guilford was before Madison was set off from it. And it was a goodly plantation.
Branford, like Guilford, received its original settlement independently of New Haven. The New Haven colonists had land to spare, and wanted neighbors. They seem to have offered inducements to such desirable planters as Mr. Swaine and his associates from Wethersfield, and the Rev. Abraham Pierson and his followers from Southampton, Long Island, proved to be. Samuel, brother of Theophilus Eaton, had obtained a grant of the Totoket part of the second pur- chase from the Indians, representing that he wished it for such friends as he might bring over from England. He sailed away then, and on his return to England seems to have lost his taste for the New World: at least, he did not come baek, and the land remained unoccupied.
There was an incident between this grant and the time of the actual settle- ment whose elose approach to conditions changing the whole face of southern New Haven County seem to have been overlooked. The Dutch explorers were always prospecting, and within two or three years after Samuel Eaton sailed away, they entered the mouth of Branford River. There they set up stakes. and established a trading post. Then they too sailed away, and virtually they did not come back. We are likely never to get the whole story of "Dutch Ilouse Wharf" at Branford; perhaps there is nothing to tell. But something seems to be lacking of explanation why the Dutch failed to retain their sense of the natural advantages of the Branford location.
Totoket, "the tidal river," was the poetie Indian name. It still remains as a place name, still is applied to that commanding eliff which stands near the hounds between what was upper Branford and what still is upper Guilford. Brenford or Brainford, a town on the Brent close to London, was the place of
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OLDEST HOUSE IN BRANFORD
Built in 1666. Originally a fort. Made into a house by a Mr. Plumb. Daniel Averill owner in the Revolutionary War. Been in the Averill Family 115 years.
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origin of some of the immigrants. So, with eventual changes, Branford it became. The settlers found their Indian associates good neighbors, the latter appreciated the white man's protection, and together they prospered.
There is a fairly good record of the names of those who came down from Wethersfield, and of those who came out from New Haven to join them. The personnel of the party that came with Rev. Abraham Pierson has not been preserved. The reason for that is, no doubt, that the stay of the latter was comparatively brief. They had come from Southampton because they preferred the New Haven style of government. But when, in 1664, by the recklessness of Charles Il in bounding New Netherlands on the east by the Connecticut River, they found themselves ostensibly in Dutch territory, while the others protested but remained, the Rev. Abraham Pierson and his followers folded their tents like the Arabs, and quietly stole away to Newark.
The real leader of the Wethersfield party, who was pastor in the beginnings of the Branford church, was Rev. John Sherman. He removed to Watertown on the coming of Mr. Pierson. William Swaine, or Swain, and his sons Samuel and Daniel, Richard Harrison, Robert Rose, Thomas Whitehead, Edward Fris- bie, John Hill, John Norton, Samuel Nettleton and Edward Treadwell, were among the other members from Wethersfield. Thomas Morris, Thomas Lup- ton, George and Lawrence Ward and John Crane came out from New Haven. There were two other early settlers whose status is of interest. The comers in 1644 found Thomas Mulliner and Thomas Whitway on the ground. The former was something of an adventurer, described as "a restless and independent spirit." He had made his purchase from the Indians, had settled near the sea and naturally regarded the later arrivals somewhat as usurpers. They never got along with hin, but when he died in 1690, they made a bargain with his wife and son to trade their land at what had come to be known as "Mulliner's Neck" for a tract of 200 aeres in the northwestern section of the town. From then the Mulliner name is identified with North Branford. So with the name of Thomas Whit- way, who made no trouble for the early party because his place was in Foxon. But he also was independent, though some effort has been made to show that he was with the Wethersfield immigrants.
There are, in the early story of Branford's ancient church features that reveal mneh of the human nature of the planters and their descendants, and appeal to us today with some little humor. They do not eoneern the pastorate of Rev. Samnel Russell, who came to the pulpit of Abraham Pierson the first in 1686, and remained until his death in 1731. His was truly one of the great pastorates of Connectieut, and his descendants are among the noblest of Bran- ford and North Branford. It was in his house in Branford, the most authentic records prove, that the foundations of Yale were morally and spiritually, and probably legally laid. He was no small part of the force which brought Yale eventually to New Haven. He was a man of power and vision, and built as wisely for all Branford.
But before Pastor Russell there was a church period which reveals some-
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thing of the unformed nature of the community from 1666 to 1686. We are told by one authority that Pastor Pierson provided a successor in the person of Rev. John Bowers, a graduate of Harvard who had been brought to New Haven as a teacher, but the further records of his work in Branford are somewhat indistinct. In faet, it appears that the twenty years between the notable pas- torates was one in which the people indulged in a practice which formerly delighted New England churches, that of candidating. There were thirteen or fourteen men in that period, one authority says.
Soon after Mr. Russell's death began, in 1733, the interesting pastorate of Rev. Philemon Robbins. He was a man of power and character, we may judge, but rather advanced, in some respects, for his people and times. For about 1741 arose as nearby as Wallingford certain of a strange sect known as Baptists. There had come to Mr. Robbins's congregation from Wallingford a lady who held to that faith, and she brought it about that he was invited to go up and preach, one Sunday in the following January, to the people with whom she had worshipped. In the fraternity of his spirit, he went. and preached two ser- mons. The act came near to being his destruction, as far as Branford was eon- cerned. It appeals strongly to our sense of the ridiculous that the people of the Branford Church actually called a solemn council and haled Mr. Robbins before it on serions charges of having "in a disorderly manner" preached to the Bap- tists of Wallingford. The act he cheerfully admitted; the disorder they did not prove. And instead of easting Mr. Robbins out, the result was a firmer establishment of him in the hearts of those of his people who remained loyal to him. These were not all, however. A substantial number regarded his rec- ognition of the Baptists as a mortal sin, and went away and formed an Episcopal church.
Mr. Robbins's death in 178I closed another remarkably long pastorate. In the next century he has had some able successors, among them Rev. Lynde Huntington in the early period and Rev. C. W. Hill, Rev. Cyrus P. Osborne and Rev. Henry Pearson Bake in the later. Rev. Thomas Bickford was with the church from 1889 to 1892, and Rey. T. S. Devitt from 1893 to 1909. Ile was followed by Rev. Seelve K. Tompkins, who also was found a wanderer from the path of conservatism, and not all of the people followed him fully. There was not so deeided a split as at the earlier time, but some who failed to approve of Mr. Tompkins's ways as to church management rather than as to belief felt for a time constrained to worship elsewhere. But he had a loyal following, and his ability seems to have been recognized in his eall in 1916 to a large church in Cincinnati. He was succeeded by Rev. Theodore B. Lathrop, who has proved a most acceptable leader.
The number, it seems, of those dissenters from the liberal Rev. Philemon Robbins was not large. Probably before that there were those inelined to the Church of England form of worship, and these and the dissenters joined to form what has become Trinity parish. The date given is 1748, but it was 1784 before there was anything but a missionary church, or a church building was
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. BRANFORD
THE OLD ACADEMY, BRANFORD
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erected. After that was provided in 1786 there was a long succession of rectors, few of whom remained as much as ten years. In the present period the church has had Rev. Melville K. Bailey, from 1885 to 1891 ; Rev. F. B. Whiteome, 1891 to 1894; Rev. George 1. Brown, from 1895 to 1898; Rev. Henry W. Winkley, 1899 to 1906, and since then Rev. George Weed Barhydt, whose present place of influence in the Branford community is a commanding one. Its first houses of worship were, like their neighbors of the time, crude pieces of architecture. Its present dignified and advantageously situated edifice was built in 1852, and its parish house was added in 1880.
Some embers of a former strife blazed up again when in 1838 some Baptists from Wallingford proposed to establish a church of that faith in Branford. There was opposition as soon as they sought a site for a building. For a time they worshipped in private houses. Their first publie baptism was held in the river near Neck Bridge in 1838, and naturally attracted a crowd. Finally the town fathers kindly consented to let the new brethren build on the site of the old whipping post on the green, and there they did in 1840. The building was improved in 1866, and still serves the people. Rev. D. T. Shailer was the first pastor. There were twenty pastors from him to Rev. P. H. Wightman, who was there for several years following 1886. The pastor at present is Rev. Walter V. Gray.
The Congregational Church at Stony Creek was started in 1865, when Rev. Elijah C. Baldwin was pastor of the mother church. He assisted by preaching occasionally in the schoolhouse in that district, and a church building was erected in 1866. The church was formally organized in 1877, and Rev. C. W. Hill was the first pastor. It has done half a century of constructive work for the village, and been served by earnest and able men. The present pastor is Rev. A. G. Heyhoe.
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church was organized in 1855, though Branford was not a parish by itself until 1887. In 1876 Rev. Edward Martin was the first resident priest. The church has grown steadily from the first, and is today one of the strong congregations of its faith outside of the cities. Rev. T. J. Murray is the present pastor.
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