A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 13

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 930

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The firm of Moriarty and Rafferty has long held an honorable place among Willimantic merchants, also the house of John F. Carr and Company. Patrick Sheehan, like Mayor Dunn, has conducted a news store on Railroad Street for many years.

Michael E. Sullivan is secretary of the Willimantic Chamber of Commerce and a prominent insurance man. Daniel Mulligan was first democratic alder- man from the Third Ward after Willimantic received its charter. George W. Hickey, son of Michael, is now alderman at large.

In later days many young men of Irish descent have become a large factor in the membership of the police and fire departments of our cities, and have proved loyal and fearless in these trying duties. In Willimantic many of Irish descent have been active in city government.

Among those of later days who have held public positions may be mentioned Thomas Ashton, Timothy J. Regan, James Tighe, John Reilly, John F. Carey, James Johnson, John Moran, Michael Sullivan, Anthony Hevrin, Edward Ken- nedy, John J. Keirans, John H. Morrison, James Donahue, P. D. Donahue, Jere Sullivan, Edward Lynch, James Sullivan, James T. Connor, Thomas F. Grady, John S. Sullivan, James Haran, John O'Rourke, Edward P. Leahy, Daniel B. O'Connor, John Collins, John Henry, Thomas Henry, James Moriarty, Patrick F. Hurley, Michael P. Cronin, and Louis J. Flynn.

Information for this article has been furnished by Atty. Thomas J. Kelley, Ex-Alderman James Haggerty and Patrick MeDermott, the South Main Street merchant.

James Haggerty has had a career of particular interest, and is still on the

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active list. He holds record among the youngest, if not actually the youngest, of Civil war veterans, has been prominently identified with the civic life of Willimantic, as alderman, deputy sheriff and public-spirited citizen. During the World war took a position in a munitions plant in Bridgeport, and is still in business in that city, though holding his residence in Willimantic.

Thomas J. Kelley has been a member of the Windham County bar for more than forty years; member of the State Legislature; counsellor for the city government for different mayors, and especially the legal adviser of Mayor Dunn.

Patrick McDermott, whose father, Henry McDermott, was one of the pioneers among the Irish in Willimantic, is a well-known citizen of independent views and a thorough-going American spirit. Loyal to his ancestral traditions and religious training, he yet exercises a broad tolerance for his fellow citizens of whatever nationality or creed, and insists upon integrity of character as the true test of citizenship .- THE EDITOR.

NORTH WINDHAM By M. Eugene Lincoln

In the early '50s North Windham was populated chiefly by Lincolns, and there was talk of calling the village Lincolnville. But the project "died a- borning." The villagers were mostly of the prosperous sort, and as the divid- ing line between Chaplin and Windham ran through the place, part of the inhabitants were Chaplinites and part were Windhamites. However, this fact caused no jealousies. Prominent residents of both towns resided there. One who became quite noted as an educator and lived there nearly all his life. Porter B. Peck was the man, and he left his impress on a great many, much to their benefit. With no regular assistant, he cared for nearly one hundred pupils at times. It even fell to his lot to sharpen pencils and quill pens and to furnish some books to the needy.

About 1860 political questions became prominent, and these and other ques- tions were discussed in the North Windham school house. The field was open to all comers, and among the prominent speakers from the Chaplin section were Hiram Snow, and Joseph Backus, who always opposed each other on general principles ; Manning Hunt, who was a logical debater; Origen Bennett and George Apply, the latter two being teachers in adjoining districts. The audi- ence used to get highly excited at times, when the slavery question was dis- cussed. It took time to vindicate one side of the question, as it was never con- clusively settled by Hiram Snow and Joseph Backus. The war finally was on, and some of the flower of the village paid the supreme sacrifice. Among them were Stowell Burnham and Dwight P. Peck, both with a bright future before them.

Time has wrought wondrous changes in the dwellers of the little village. Hardly a Lincoln or their descendants remain. Most of the other prominent families have ceased to be represented. The cemetery will attest the fact that the grim reaper has done his work, and the family names in the village are mostly dissimilar to the ones of old.

Later day industries include the factory of the Hartson Brothers, makers of silk machinery attachments; the Harris Jewelry Shops, the Sibley wool-extract products, and information concerning all of which may be found in the bio- graphical sketches of the manufacturers.

WIRDHAM COURT HOUSE

WINDHAM COUNTY COURT HOUSE, WILLIMANTIC

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HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY THE HISTORY OF WILLIMANTIC

By A. B. Cunningham

A quarter of a century after the first settlement of Windham, in April, 1717, Samuel Ashley purchased a tract of land of 200 acres from John Fitch and became the first settler of Willimantic. It is probable that one Jonathan Bab- cock, who was the common ancestor of the Coventry and Mansfield families of that name, became the second settler of Willimantic, his house being near where the present cemetery is located.

It was the water power available from the Willimantic River which attracted the settlers and which caused Willimantic to grow and become the chief center instead of the old Town of Windham.

Willimantic Falls, as they were called, having a fall of some ninety-one feet between the Windham Company, now the Quidnick-Windham Company, and the Natchaug River, proved an attraction and early in 1806 a plant for picking and carding wool was established at the falls and shortly other industries fol- lowed.

Perez O. Richmond in 1822 built a cotton spinning mill on the site now occupied by No. 3 Mill of the American Thread Company and not long after the Jillson Brothers built three mills, one being the present spool shop, then a duck mill, and the other two being located close by. The Jillsons in 1824 built the "Stone Row" and from 1823 to 1827 the Windham Company mill was erected by Tingley and Watson of Providence. Deacon Charles Lee of Wind- ham started the foundation for the Smithville Company, now a part of the Quidnick-Windham plant, when he erected a small mill, a row of ten houses and the stone store and boarding house at the corner of Main and Bridge streets. Later A. D. and ex-Governor Smith of Rhode Island took over the property and reorganized the plant which was built up and enlarged by Whiting Hayden and for many years was known as Hayden's mill. The building of these mills brought in many settlers and at this period Stephen Hosmer kept two toll gates, one at Post Hill in Columbia and the other at the corner of Bridge and Pleas- ant streets, but they were done away with when a wooden bridge was built, after a vigorous fight between the citizens and in 1866 the wooden structure was replaced by the present stone bridge.

Willimantic continued its growth and in 1833 the Legislature granted a borough charter and in 1849 the first railroad was built through Willimantic and the real boom commenced. Soon the stage coach, for so many years a familiar sight, disappeared, as did many of the taverns. The New London Northern was built in 1849 and the Providence, Hartford and Fishkill followed in 1853, the Boston, Hartford and Erie about 1872 and the Air Line coming last. The first real depot was built in 1850 of brick and stood between the one track of the Central Vermont and the other of the Hartford and Providence and Fishkill, although it is said that there was a small wooden depot built before the brick one. The present passenger station was built in 1880.

Previous to the coming of the railroads in 1842, the Willimantic Savings Institute had been established at Windham Center. The Old Windham National Bank, organized ten years before, was famous for its frog-adorned bank notes, which portrayed Colonel Dyer at one end and Colonel Elderkin at the other, with the famous frogs rampant and militant in the center.

In 1854 the Windham Bank was robbed of $7,000 in currency and $15,000

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in securities, which was recovered when the thieves were overtaken at Allyn's Point. This circumstance caused a feeling of insecurity, and the old institution was removed to Willimantic in 1879.

Other banks organized in Willimantic were the Merchants Loan and Trust, 1870, merged with First National in 1878, Dime Savings Bank, 1872. Financial trouble caused the winding up of the First National and the Dime Savings Bank in 1905. The Windham National Bank, the Savings Institute, and the later-day Willimantic Trust Company are now the solid, prosperous banking institutions of Willimantic.

The Willimantic Linen Company was organized in 1854, and this gave Wil- limantic another boom. This concern first made crash towels and fish lines, but during the Crimean war, from 1853 to 1856, they were deprived of flax and then began the manufacture of spool cotton. Previous to this time colored thread had been put on the market in skeins, but the new method of spooling attracted the buyers and the business started with a rush. The so-called No. 1 mill was built in 1857 by Dunham and Ives, who just before the Civil war bought up a quantity of cotton and made a fortune out of it and this resulted in the increasing of the plant, and in 1864 they purchased the land where the old stone school-house stood and erected their No. 2 mill and a row of tene- ments, which was named "The New Village." The stone for this mill came chiefly from the ledges on which it stands.

The Jillson and Capen mill was purchased in 1876 which is No. 3 mill. In- 1880 No. 4 mill was built which at that time was the largest single-story mill in the country and it was thus advertised. It was about this time that the first electric-lighting plant in the state was established by this company and it was taken to Hartford and the Capitol was illuminated as a demonstration.

The Linen Company continued to grow year after year and established a world-wide reputation for the manufacture of thread which won numerous awards at expositions and it was called the best thread in the world. In 1900 the plant was sold to the American Thread Company and this concern has erected the No. 5 and No. 6 mills, with numerous other smaller mills and a large bleach and dye house. It took over the old fair grounds at the junction of the Nat- chaug and Willimantic rivers and established Recreation Park as a playground for its employes and for the community. It was on this old fair ground that horse racing was conducted under electric lights, the current being generated from the thread company plant from the first electric machine installed in the state.

The Holland Manufacturing Company was the first silk industry locating in Willimantic and was established in 1836 by J. Goodrich and James H. Hol- land, who built the brick mills on the opposite corners of Church and Valley streets, still used by the company. Each member of the firm built a beautiful home, that of James Holland on Maple Avenue being at present the home of the sisters connected with St. Mary's Church, and the home of Goodrich Hol- land being the residence of the late Dr. T. R. Parker. These Hollands were brothers of the famous American author and poet, J. G. Holland. Samuel L. Burlingham, now retired, was for many years the resident agent. Charles W. Alpaugh is the present treasurer and local manager of the plant, which still manufactures sewing silk and twist. The yearly output of the business is rated at approximately half a million.

On the death of Colonel Elderkin his silk industry was transferred to Mans-

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field, where it was developed until again brought back to the Town of Wind- ham by the O. S. Chaffee & Son Company, who were established in the old Paisley mill at the corner of Church and Valley streeets in 1874. This com- pany was later organized, in 1877, as the Natchaug Silk Company, and located on North Street and manufactures silk dress goods, and later succeeded by the Windham Silk Company, which has developed a large and prosperous business. The J. Dwight Chaffee Manufacturing Company now occupies the old site at the corner of Church and Valley streets, in the manufacture of fish lines prin- cipally.

Among later-day industries are the Rossié Velvet Company, a comparatively new but most successful concern; the Vanderman Manufacturing Company, which maintains the old iron foundry which has been rebuilt and remodeled ; the Willimantic Machine Company, which has erected a new mill on Milk Street. All of these companies have contributed much to the development and growth of Willimantic and the census of 1910 gave the population of the city as 11,230 and the Town of Windham, 12,604. Today the population is estimated at 14,000.

The borough continued its rapid growth and in 1862 the town polling place was removed from Windham to Willimantic and numerous improvements in the streets were made and new streets were built. In 1885 the public water works were established and a sewerage system quickly followed. In 1893 a city charter was obtained and the borough passed out of existence and for a time Willimantic was the only city in the county. Improvements continued, elec- tric street lights and modern fire fighting apparatus with new buildings to house it. Then came the trolley between Willimantic and Baltic connecting with Norwich, and a few years later the trolley to South Coventry was built.

Many of these most important changes have taken place in a little more than fifty years and no one would recognize from old pictures the present Willimantic.

In 1809 the first four-wheeled wagon, owned by Roger Huntington of Wind- ham, was driven to Leicester, Mass., by young George Webb and Thomas Gray, and created a wave of excitement and wonder throughout the countryside. What would be the state of mind of these simple folk if they could witness the myriad automobiles and auto trucks and the developing airplanes of today.

The first newspaper was the Phoenix or Windham Herald, which was first published in 1791 at Windham and was distributed to more than twelve hundred readers by post riders. It flourished until the old town commenced to decline in population. The first newspaper in this city was the Public Medium, pub- lished by John Evans in 1847, which later became the Willimantic Journal, which was conducted for many years, but a few years ago was suspended by the Hall & Bill Printing Company to make room for their growing job printing business, which is one of the largest in Eastern Connecticut. In 1877 the Wil- limantic Enterprise came out, the office being in the basement of the Franklin Hall Block. N. W. Leavitt was the publisher and Fayette Safford followed Mr. Leavitt as publisher and continued with the Chronicle until his death. In 1880 J. A. McDonald, for many years editor of the Chronicle, purchased an interest in the Enterprise from Fayette Safford and the plant was moved to Union Street and the name of the paper was changed to the Willimantic Chron- icle. This was continued for many years and twenty-nine years ago the Wil- limantic Daily Chronicle was started and it is the only daily paper published in the county. At various times other daily and weekly papers were started

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but they were all short lived. The Weekly Chronicle is still published from the office of the Chronicle Printing Company on Church Street and a job print- ing plant is connected with the publishing of the two papers.

There are still in business in the city three men who have been engaged in mercantile business more than forty years, William N. Potter, the shoe man, has recently rounded out fifty years of commercial service; John C. Lincoln, the furniture man, has a record of forty-six years; H. E. Remington, the clothier, forty-four years ; Dr. Frederick Rogers, the druggist, who died about two years ago, had a record of over fifty years; and H. C. Murray, the dry goods man and builder of Murray Block, who died June 17, 1919, had a record of forty-one years.

Many changes have taken place in Willimantic during the past few years. Besides the various new school buildings two new churches have been built, St. Mary's Catholic and St. Paul's Episcopal churches. Then there is the com- paratively new and modern town building, the new postoffice and the new Y. M. C. A. Building and Gem Theater, buildings that occupy plots of ground on Main Street that for years were vacant lots or were occupied by dilapidated wooden buildings. There have been several new mills and many houses erected in all parts of the city and the visitors who have not been in Willimantic for several years are surprised to see how it has grown. Many other buildings have been rebuilt, the old National House, later Young's Hotel, now the Johnson House, is one, while a portion of the old European House has been replaced by a brick building. Then there is the new state armory on Pleasant Street and the new Willimantic Machine Company Building on Milk Street and many others. All have helped improve the City of Willimantic, and add to its effi- ciency.

Most notable among the new commercial buildings is the modern concrete structure of the Jordan Hardware Company, with its ample equipment for their business, and its offices for professional men on the second story, and its fraternity hall on the third floor. The Windham National Bank is remodeling (1920) the United Bank Building.

WILLIMANTIC AS A FACTORY VILLAGE

By Rev. Dwight A. Jordan

Willimantic owes its existence, as well as its name, to its river. This stream flowing from the south slope of Bolton Mountains flows bank full by the way of the Shetucket and the Thames into the waters of Long Island Sound. In its course through the settlement, the fall is so considerable as to furnish water power which attracted manufacturers early to this spot.

The natural flow of the river, increased by the waters of Hop River and Ten Mile River, has been duly augmented by two huge reservoirs, one in the Town of Bolton and the other in Columbia, thus making the stream one of the most steady and reliable water power streams in the entire state. There are seven dams within the limits of the city, with a total fall of ninety-one feet.

Not only do these facts have bearing on the location of the settlement, but not a little to do also with its development, for as the railroads began to run north from the Sound shore towards Massachusetts, they naturally followed the easy grades furnished by the river valleys, and so the river was responsible

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not only for the settlement but for the incoming of the three lines of railroads, which have made this one of the railroad centers of New England.

Besides this the river also determined the shape of the original settlement, which was really a long straggling line of homes following the line of the river on its one principal street, from end to end thereof. There was never any principal business center in the old days of this straggling community.

Each manufacturing corporation had a store of its own, where its employees were supposed to furnish themselves with the necessaries of life, and so each of the four corporations which, from sixty to sixty-five years ago, were doing business here, were nuclei around which were grouped the residences of their employees, and these four centers of population were connected by straggling, detached houses, so as to give some sort of continuity to the long, narrow set- tlement, which was the old Willimantic.

Entering the town from the west, the first manufacturing plant was that of the Windham Company, whose employees were housed in what was called the Yellow Row, named from the color of the houses, a row of six or eight four- family houses, beginning with the Windham Company store, and running in a southwesterly direction until the row abutted on the railroad.

Directly across Main Street from the eastern terminus of the Yellow Row began what was known as the White Row, a group of perhaps six or eight four- family houses, the westerly one of which was the company boarding house.

This serves as a type of the other three centers of the settlement.

The second manufacturing plant was that of the Smithville Company, not a gunshot away from the Windham Company. It too had its white row, sev- eral of its houses still standing along Main Street opposite the present Town Building and postoffice, and later added what was known as the Stone Row, named from the material of which it was builded, which was situate on the level of the railroad and parallel with it-several of the houses still standing and not now occupied as dwellings.

Perhaps a half mile or more further down was the Old Duck Mill, which had its stone row and its group of houses, while still further down at the very eastern extremity of the settlement was another manufacturing company with its group of houses.

A little to the west of it was a paper mill and gristmill. These were all the users of the waterpower of the Willimantic River sixty-five years ago.

The river was crossed by wooden bridges at the two points where the pres- ent stone arch bridges are standing. Just one street marked that portion of the settlement which was called by the dwellers on the north side "Over the River," perhaps a dozen to twenty houses, a road beginning with the Card Road, so called, and running easterly till it entered and became a part of the highway leading to Windham and South Windham, just as it does today. These two streets running east and west were about all the streets in the set- tlement. Then as now, at the eastern end of the town a road ran up the steep hill, which is now, as it was then, High Street, and led on to Mansfield and the country lying north; while perhaps a mile further east, another road led indi- rectly into the same general direction and was then as now known as Jackson Street.

There was one railroad, the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill, to which was added between sixty and sixty-five years ago the New London Northern. Until the advent of this last named road, the cotton which was manufactured

POSTOFFICE, WILLIMANTIC

STATE ARMORY, WILLIMANTIC

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in all these plants was hauled from the steamboat wharf in Norwich by a four or six horse team to the various places of manufacture, the team returning with the finished product.

About this time the company stores began to decline. A number of men who had been overseers in the various manufacturing companies, having received larger wages than the ordinary employees, and with characteristic New Eng- land thrift, having saved their wages, began to open stores, which competed with and were of great disadvantage to the company stores, and possibly a corresponding advantage to those who traded with them.

A notable instance, perhaps the most notable of this class, was the drug and grocery store established and managed for many years by Mr. Horace Hall. Cortland Babcock was the name of another man who came from the machine shop of the Windham Company to open a grocery store at the west end of the town, where he traded 'for a number of years, and finally moved to the east end of the town opposite the first large thread mill.

Harry Wilson is the name of another man who came from the overseeing of one of the rooms in the cotton mill to the grocery store, where for some years he did a thriving and successful business.

Thomas Turner was the name of another man who came from the mill to the dry goods store, which was one of the features of the town. He built the Turner Block, so-called, which then stood on the present site of Hotel Com- mercial Block, but removed to its present site opposite the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Turner also built the Commercial Block next east of the hotel building.

Mr. Robert Hooper, afterwards joined by George Alpaugh from New Jersey, did business under the firm name of Alpaugh and Hooper, which name was known as well for miles around as John Wanamaker is in New York and Phila- delphia. They occupied the old Franklin Hall Building, then a large three- . story frame building opposite the present Windham National Bank, but destroyed by fire in 1868, and succeeded by the present brick structure.

There were three meat markets, each of which ran its white canvas-covered butcher carts through the village and out into the regions beyond. Bigelow and Buell and Edward Harris, and later Chauncey Turner, were the three firms in this business, each of whom slaughtered all the meat they sold, not only in the markets but from their carts.

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A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I, Part 13

Author: Lincoln, Allen B Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co. Number of Pages: 930

Author: Lincoln, Allen B
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke publ. co.
Number of Pages: 930