USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Winchester > Annals and family records of Winchester, Conn.: with exercises of the centennial celebration, on the 16th and 17th days of August, 1871 > Part 47
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The funds for renovating the library by purchasing new books were raised by occasional taxes levied on the shareholders, and by competitive bids on drawing out books. This library furnished largely the reading of the community for nearly twenty years; but as the first projectors, one after another, withdrew from its direction, a looseness of management prevailed. Books seldom called for were sold in violation of a funda- mental article of the association. The taxes laid were largely unpaid, and the shares forfeited. Competitive bidding ceased; drawings of books diminished from year to year ; valuable books disappeared ; and finally, about 1860, on investigating the affairs of the concern, it was found that only six shareholders remained who had not forfeited their shares by non- payment of taxes. It was found, also, that the library was reduced to a mere skeleton of such books as no one had considered worth appropriating to private use ; and in this predicament a once valuable and highly valued institution has become the shadow of a shade.
And such is essentially the history of innumerable libraries throughout the state, organized without a liberal fund from the income of which new books, as they are required, may be provided. Most of the cases where valuable libraries have been preserved from one generation to another are
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AND FAMILY RECORDS.
those where some benevolent founder or founders have provided an en- dowment fund for a liberal supply of new works suited to the changing times and tastes of successive readers.
The changed circumstances of modern times render the support of pub- lic libraries far more precarious than it was when family libraries were limited for the most part to a Bible, Hymn book, Catechism, Pilgrim's Progress, a yearly almanac, and one or two devotional or biographical works - when the cost of miscellaneous works exceeded the means of in - dividual readers. In those times a public library was a blessing of price- less value to a community. In these times circumstances are changed. The press teems with thousands of new books every year; the weekly newspaper, of four-fold the size of the old-time papers, is crowded with every variety of miscellaneous reading; and the daily paper, once con- fined to the cities, now finds its way to the remotest sections of the country. Almost every family in comfortable circumstances takes a monthly magazine; and very few of them are so remote or obscure as to escape the visits of canvassers without number seeking subscribers for new and valuable works.
Instead of permanent libraries, the tendency in these days is, to form book clubs of limited membership, each member contributing two, three, or five dollars, as the case may be, for the purchase of approved modern publications, which successively pass through the hands of each member with the privilege of a fortnight's use; each member, at the end of his fortnight, passing his successive books to the next reader on the list, so that each book makes a complete circuit and returns to the librarian. At the end of the year the books are sold to the highest bidding members of the club, and the avails are distributed equally among the members. This process being completed, the club is dissolved or reorganized for another year.
There are now two or more such clubs in our community, the oldest of which has existed for ten or more years. The machinery is very simple, and easily adjusted, and if the directing committee are competent and faithful in their selection of authors, the influence of such associations cannot but be highly beneficial.
Another invaluable substitute for the libraries of olden times, is the system of free Sunday-school libraries of the various religious denomina- tions. Renovated from year to year by careful selections of new vol- umes and by withdrawing those that are found to be unreadable, or of evil tendency, they furnish a supply of pure and instructive reading, not only for the scholars, but for the families to which they belong.
Times are changed, and we are changed with them. Had we at this day a richly endowed library, crowded with all the treasures of ancient theul- ogy, history, science, and poetry, and replenished with modern views of
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doctrinal theology, newly broached emendations of history, rapid advances of science and art, and a poetry that appeals more to the heart than to the ear - we might well be proud of such an institution, but it is very doubtful whether the people, as a mass, would be benefited thereby to the same extent as they are by the unpretentious modern Sunday-school libraries.
CHAPTER XXXV.
RISE AND PROGRESS OF MANUFACTURES.
THE predominating element of growth in all interior New England towns is the introduction and enlargement of machinery in aid of handi- craft operations, inaptly termed manufacturing. The handicraftsman, comprehending the smith, carpenter, shoemaker, and tailor, comes into every new town as an indispensable accessory of the farmer. He com- bines his skilled labor with that of the soil tiller in sustaining the life of a civilized community .· The minister, school-master, doctor, and tradesman follow as essential elements of its existence. These are mutual aids to each other. »They are all primarily dependent on the product of the soil ; and as this is naturally fertile or otherwise, well tilled, or exhausted by bad husbandry, the community grows or declines.
The manufacturer who utilizes the water-fall by making it the motive power of ingenious machinery, brings in a new element of growth and prosperity, without which most of our sterile towns decline with the ex- haustion of their virgin soil, and with which they are sustained and en- riched.
Winchester, without its factories, would have culminated in 1800 and have declined in productiveness and population every succeeding year ; and Winsted would have remained through all time a "Hard Scrabble " region.
We propose very briefly to trace the rise and progress of manufacturing in the town, beginning with
WOODEN WARE.
The saw-mill was, of course, the first utilization of water power in this, as in most other primitive communities. The location of the earliest of these has already been noted. Besides supplying the home demand for lumber, they early turned out a limited supply of white-wood boards and clap-boards, which were sledded over winter snows to Hartford and other distant towns. White-ash sweeps, oars, and materials for ship-blocks were also got out and carried to Hartford and Wethersfield for up and down river navigation of the Connecticut.
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Dish mills for making wooden bowls, trenchers, and mortars, followed as accessories to the saw mills. They used up the slabs from the saw- mill logs, by cutting them into disks which were centered and turned in coarse lathes to the convex surface of the outer dish. With a curved turning tool, the outer dish was separated from the disk, and then smaller ones were turned off successively until the disk was exhausted. The slabs from which these disks were made were wider and thicker than were taken from logs when lumber increased in value. The frenchers and mortars were turned by a similar process. The maker or peddler of these articles packed them into a strong bed tick, in which they were carried on the back of a horse, along the narrow bridle-paths to the earlier settled towns, where they were bartered for " store pay." At least four of these mills were located along the lake stream, and as many others in various parts of the town in the last century, two of which -one at the Meadow Street crossing of the lake stream, and the other opposite the old Ican-to mill house on Lake street, were in operation as late as 1805.
CHEESE BOXES, SCALE BOARDS.
Early in this century, John McAlpine erected and carried on a shop on the stream at the foot of the burying ground hill in Old Winchester for making scale-boards used for separating cheeses from each other, when packed in casks for distant markets. As he enjoyed a monopoly of the manufacture in the centre of the dairy region of Connecticut, the demand for his article was extensive until the practice of packing each cheese in a separate box was adopted. This change necessitated the manufacture of round boxes, with covers, of sizes fitted to the various diameters and thicknesses of the cheese. This mode of packing went into vogue between 1820 and 1830 and was universally adopted as early as the latter year. One of the earliest manufacturers of this article in Winchester was Silas H. McAlpine, whose shop on the Naugatuck Branch is believed to be still in operation. Another establishment on Hall Meadow, now owned by the Ford Brothers, has been and is still in operation. Another establishment was carried on in Winsted by Cook & Bacon, from 1842 to about 1846, in a shop adjoining the lake stream saw-mill.
GRIST MILLS.
The two early grist mills of the town have been already noted. The first, built by David Austin in 1771, near the Lake outlet, is described on page 42 ; the second, supposed to have been originally built by Elias Bal- comb about 1776 (see page 266), stood on the west side of Still river, immediately south of the stone bridge. It was owned and operated for many years by Ensign Jesse Doolittle, and was carried off by a flood about 1800; and was rebuilt by Samuel and Luther Hoadley about 1844 (see page 383).
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Bothı these mills had three run of stones and were carried by per- manent water power. The Austin mill was rebuilt by the Rockwell Brothers about 1810, and was finally burned down and abandoned in 1835. The Hoadley mill was abandoned by Riley Whiting about 1825 and the Brick eloek factory (burned down in 1870) was erected on its site.
The Clifton mill was erected by Case, Gilbert & Co., about 1836, and was operated as a grist mill until about 1869.
Three or more feed mills have come into existence within a few years; one owned by Eugene Munson, opposite the Clarke house, another owned by Persons & Hewitt. on the Lake stream, adjoining the Connecticut Western Depot grounds, and a third, owned by Frederiek Woodruff on North Main street, all of which are now in operation.
SCYTHE WORKS.
Until the closing part of the last century, the scythe was, in this country, strictly a hand-made tool, wrought out in smiths' shops by sledge and hammer, and ground on a stone turned by a hand crank, or hung on the shaft of a flutter wheel, without gearing or other appliances. The Harris family of Pine Plains and Salisbury learned the trade of a negro slave purchased by their immediate progenitor from a former master who had taught him the trade.
The first establishment in the country for welding, drawing, and plating the scythe under trip-hammers by water power and grinding it on a geared stone, was erected by Robert Orr, of Bridgewater, Mass., during or after the Revolution. The second establishment of this nature was erected by Col. Robert Boyd, near the west bank of the Hudson, between New Windsor Landing and Newburg before 1790. Benjamin Jenkins, from Bridgewater, was foreman, and James Boyd, of New Windsor, was an apprentice in these works. They became brothers-in law, and in 1792 eame to Winsted and erected the third establishment in the country on the site of the Winsted Manufacturing Company's present works on Still river. In 1802 they built another establishment on the site of the Winsted Hoe Company's plating shop on Lake street, and soon after separated, Mr. Jenkins taking the original works on Still river-from whom they have passed by successive conveyances to the present owners-and Mr. Boyd taking the Lake Street works and earrying them on, individually or with partners, until near the elose of his life in 1849.
Merritt Bull, an early apprentice of Jenkins & Boyd, erected a scythe shop in 1802 or 1803, on the site of the present stone shop, at the cross- ing of the Lake stream by Meadow street, which he managed until his death in 1824, when the works went into the hands of S. & M. Rock- well, and formed the starting point of the large and prosperous establish-
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ment built up and managed by the successive firms of Rockwell & Hins- dale, Hinsdale & Beardsley, Elliot Beardsley, and the Beardsley Scythe Company.
Halsey Burr, an apprentice of Mr. Jenkins, built a scythe shop in 1814, near the site of Woodruff's feed mill, on North Main street, which he carried on in a small way until a few years before his death.
In 1831, Wheelock Thayer, previously a partner and acting manager in the scythe business of James Boyd & Son, erected the scythe works on Mad River, now owned by his daughter, and carried on by the Thayer Scythe Company.
The process of manufacturing scythes has been from time to time greatly improved by the invention of new machinery. The first of these in date and importance, was a spring die with attachments to the trip- hammer for holding the back and setting down and smoothing the web of the scythe, - a very slow and laborious process when performed with the hand-hammer. The next improvement was, by a series of light tilt- hammers to shape and finish the point : - the next was a machine for turn- ing and finishing the heel : - another was for spinning the straw rope for binding up the scythes in dozen packages, by a machine similar to the Dutch wheel and flyer for spinning linen. Most of these improvements have originated in Winsted.
Scythe making was - with the exception of wooden ware-the earliest factory work carried on in Winsted; and has been uninterruptedly pros- ecuted to the present day, little impeded or accelerated by protective tar- iffs. The three establishments now in operation, have a capacity for making 250,000 scythes per annum, and rarely fail of turning out that number. Within a few years, fears have been entertained that the newly invented mowers and reapers would entirely supersede the use of the primitive implements. The same fears were not many years ago enter- tained, that the iron horse would so far supersede the much abused do- mestic animal, as to diminish his value and the demand for his services. Experience proves that these fears in both cases are equally groundless.
BAR IRON AND BLISTERED STEEL.
Bar iron had been made directly from the Brown Hematite ores of Salisbury, Kent, and Amenia, from time immemorial. In Litchfield county bloomary forges stood on most of the available water courses in nearly all the western towns. They furnished iron for three rolling and slitting mills, one in Canaan, another in Litchfield, and the third in Washing- ton, where the iron was rolled and slit into rods for nail making. These mills worked up only a small portion of the iron manufactured. Besides domestic uses of all kinds, it was largely made into anchors, which were sent to the seaboard.
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MANUFACTURES.
Nearly all of these bloomaries, and all of the slitting mills, have long since disappeared ; and their sites would mostly be forgotten, did not the cinder heaps and imperishable charcoal brays indicate their location.
The old Salisbury, or Lakeville Blast Furnace, was erected in 1762. In 1768 it became the property of Richard Smith, an Englishman, who initiated the process of making refined iron of the best quality, not from the ore, but from pig metal. For some inscrutable reason he erected his first refining forge at Robertsville, in the southeast corner of Colebrook, at a distance of nearly thirty miles from his furnace, in a region then nearly destitute of settlers .* Mr. Smith went back to Eng- land on the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and the forge was continued in operation successively by Jacob Ogden, Theodore Burr, Elisha Beeman, and David Squire ; and was abandoned as an iron works by the latter person before 1810.
Two other refining forges were erected at Colebrook Center, by the Rockwell family, during, or soon after the Revolution, one of which was removed to Winsted in 1802, and the other abandoned the same or fol- lowing year, for causes detailed on page 363.
In 1795, Jenkins & Boyd, in company with Thomas Spencer, Jr., erected the first forge in Winsted, on the water power of the Lake street grinding works of the Winsted Mfg. Co. (See page 311.)
In 1803, the Rockwell Brothers removed and put up their Colebrook forge on the site of Timothy Hulbert's present iron works on the Lake stream.
. In 1808, James Boyd erected another forge on Mad River, immedi- ately opposite the Clarke House ; and on that or the following year the Rockwell Brothers built another forge on the Lake stream, below and adjoining the Conn. Western Depot grounds.
In 1811, Reuben Cook, in company with Russell Bunce and Charles Seymour of Hartford, built the old Cook forge, on Still River, where the Axle works of Charles and James. R. Cook now stand.
All of these forges manufactured refined bar iron from the best quality of Old Salisbury Ore Hill pig iron, for the supply of the U. S. Armory at Springfield, which required the best iron the country could produce. If there was the slightest defect in the quality, the finished gunbarrel
* One reason traditionally assigned for this location was, that he apprehended a scarcity of charcoal in the Salisbury region for the furnace, in the event of his enlarg- ing the consumption by running additional iron works there.
There is another vague tradition that this forge was first erected on the Farming- ton River at Collinsville : and that not being able to sustain his dam, he removed the establishment to Colebrook. There was in ancient times a forge where the first of the Collins Company buildings was afterwards erected, known as the "Humphrey Forge," but its existence seems to have continued later than the erection of the " Old Forge " at Colebrook.
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would reveal it by defective polish or failure to stand the proof of a double test charge. Only a limited portion of the iron made could be brought up to these crucial tests by the best skilled workmen. Iron of a slightly infe- rior grade was required for scythes, wire rods, and fine machinery. A still lower grade answered for the ordinary uses of country blacksmiths.
In the process of refining, the cinders drawn off through the tent plate retained a percentage of iron nearly equal to the ordinary hematite ores. This was worked over in a' chafery or bloomary fire, and produced a strong coarse iron, which was worked into tires, axle and crow-bar pat- terns, and plow molds, or into heavy shafting, saw-mill cranks, &c. Each forge had in connection with it a drafting shop with lighter hammers to draw down the bars into rods and shapes of all kinds in demand, and es- pecially to work up the refuse iron by welding to each piece an equal layer of blistered steel, and drawing the united masses into sleigh-shoes.
The iron and scythe business constituted the staple manufacturing busi- ness of Winsted until near 1840, when the Government had settled its policy of importing its gun iron from Norway ; the English had introduced better and cheaper iron of every form and size than theretofore ; when the pudding process of iron making had grown up in more favored localities ; when wood and charcoal had advanced in price, while transportation of raw material and manufactured articles-always a heavy burden- could no longer be endured. Under all these discouragements the iron manufacture rapidly died out. The lower Rockwell forge on the Lake stream was converted into a scythe shop about 1845. The Boyd forge opposite the Clarke house breathed its last about the same time. The upper forge on the lake stream lingered on until about 1850. The mid- dle forge on the Lake stream was sold by Elliot Beardsley to Timothy Hulbert in 1853, and was changed into a forge for puddling scrap iron, and is still in successful operation. The Cook forge, on Still river, about 1850 confined its operations to working serap iron into axle drafts for finishing in the Cook Axle Company's works, of which the forge became a component part.
The consumption of bar iron in Winsted, instead of decreasing with the decadence of its home manufacture, has steadily increased. The new brands of Norway iron were found cheaper and better for scythes, hoes, and other articles than the costly home-made refined iron, and came into general use in our, hardware manufactures. The scythe manufacture in- creased. The hoe manufacture was introduced and soon consumed more iron than the whole scythe interest had required in 1830; and other new hardware manufactures took the place of the iron forge.
BLISTERED STEEL.
The first cementing steel furnace in Western Connecticut was erected before 1800 in Colebrook by the Rockwell Brothers, under the supervision
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of Mr. Jeneks, an ingenious iron and steel worker from Taunton, Mass., which has been perpetuated to the present time, though rarely operated of late years. It was found that the Salisbury iron was deficient in the ingredient, whatever it is, that produces an edge-tool quality in steel. The steel produced has an elastic quality fitting it for carriage springs, hay and manure forks and similar articles, and before 1850 was largely used for these manufactures, and likewise for sleigh shoes and for general blacksmith work. Since 1850 the steels made from Swedish and Russian irons have nearly superseded the domestic irons except those recently made from Spathic ores.
The second steel furnace in this region was put up carly in this century by Col. Abram Burt, in Canaan, Conn., and continued in operation but a few years. The third was erected in Winsted by James Boyd & Son, in 1832, on the site of Thompson's Bakery. south side of Monroe Street, adjoining the bridge. It was designed for converting their own iron into steel, which they were then largely supplying to fork manufacturers ; but was soon abandoned by reason of inducements held out by the Colebrook concern, making it more advantageous to have their iron converted there than to do it themselves.
CUT NAILS.
Shingle nails were cut from old hoops and headed by hand for the First Congregational Meeting House in 1800. The cutting machine is supposed to have been worked by hand. Another machine for cutting shingle nails from hammered strips of iron, by water power, was started by James Boyd about 1808, and soon abandoned.
In 1810 Jesse Byington rented water power from the old Jenkins seythe shop proprietors, and erected a nail factory a little south of the Winsted Manufacturing Company's scythe works, in which he used a newly invented machine for cutting nails more accurate and uniform in size than by the old hand machines, but without heading them. Before and during the war of 1812 he employed more men as cutters and headers than were employed in any other branch of business in the place. After the return of peace in 1815, and the introduction of the combined cutting and heading machine, Mr. Byington's business broke down, and has never since been resumed in any form.
AXES.
Axe-making as a trade, distinct from other smith work, was introduced here by Elizur Hinsdale in 1804 or 1805. He first had his shop on Lake street, near the lake outlet, and in 1806 erected a shop on the site of the Foundry and Machine Company's works, which he subsequently enlarged to a trip hammer and grinding works adapted specially to his business,
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which he prosecuted until near the close of 1819, when he failed, and the business was abandoned.
About 1828, after the Collins axe factory went into operation at Col- linsville, Nathaniel B. Gaylord, then owner of the old Jenkins scythe works, entered into the business of axe-making under the supervision of Marcus Morgan, an original worker in the Collins establishment. Mr. Morgan soon after purchased the works and prosecuted the business until 1832, when he sold out to Reuben Cook, Luman Wakefield, John Camp, and others, who, with a view to continuing and enlarging the business, tore down the old building and built a stone dam and commodious factory building, before the completion of which they decided to change the busi- ness to scythe making ; and in 1835 obtained a corporate charter, under the name of the Winsted Manufacturing Company, which has for thirty- seven years had a prosperous career, with good promise of long continuance.
IRON WIRE.
In 1812 Samuel and Luther Hoadley and James Boyd erected a wire factory on the west wing of the clock factory dam ; the first, or one of the first, erected in the country for breaking down iron wire from the rod and drawing it down to any size from a half inch to a hair's diameter. The rods, of the very best Salisbury iron, were hammered down to a half inch square, and then rounded by trip-hammer swaging dies, and then, after successive annealings were drawn down by " rippers," as they were called, to a size whence they could be further reduced by a continuous drawing around an upright block. It was the ripping operation, by self-acting pincers seizing the point of the wire at the plate, drawing it about eighteen inches, then letting go and sliding back and taking a new hold at the plate, and drawing another length, which was then new in this country. At that period there were few, if any, rolling mills in the country that rolled out round rods suitable for wire drawing.
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