USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume III > Part 4
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AREA DEVELOPMENT
Establishment of an Area Development Department has made it possible through cooperative efforts with other similar agencies to bring in many new industrial concerns as well as work toward re- taining those it now has.
Like industry, the farmers of the state also benefited by electric power and the continuous supply of the latest information on the use of power for better farming. In the territory served by CL&PC -more than 67% of the state's area-all farms have electric power available. In fact, the state was the first in the nation to complete electrification of its rural areas.
The trend toward suburban living is increasing and it is likely that it will continue to do so as the state's population is growing at a rate well in excess of that for the nation as a whole.
GROWTH CONTINUES
In 1917, the Company served 34,000 gas and electric customers. By the late 1950's more than 400,000 gas and electric users were being served by CL&PC.
To serve the increased number of customers, CL & PC is de- pendent on a staff of loyal, industrious and efficient employees and this group now totals over 3,000. Of this number, more than one quarter have twenty-five years of service with the Company and the average length of service is thirteen years.
More than 65,000 people own common stock in CL& PC and about eighty per cent of these stockholders are Connecticut residents.
One measure of a Company's growth is in the dollar value of its facilities. In 1917, when the Company was formed, the investment in plant and equipment was $7,000,000 and, by the end of the 1950 decade, this had increased to more than $400,000,000-still growing steadily.
The Connecticut Light and Power Company's job is to anticipate the customers' growth and the needs of the future. The Company is
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making the plans to meet these needs as they arise so that CL & PC will continue to grow with the State of Connecticut.
JOHN W. GREEN AND SONS, INC.
Hat body manufacturers for more than a century, and located in Danbury since 1879, John W. Green and Sons, Inc., concentrate mainly on the manufacture of men's and ladies' fur felt hat bodies. Under the direction of second and third generation descendants of the company's founder, it is operated with expert and inherited knowledge and enjoys a conspicuous position among leading manu- facturers of hats.
The business was founded in 1857 in Newark, New Jersey, a felt hat center of the time, when John W. Green quit his job to be- gin the manufacture of derby hats, a style which had just arrived in America from England. His foresight was justified as the fashion swept the country, and he operated the plant in Newark until 1879, when he moved to Danbury.
Mr. Green trained his sons, and in 1884, his eldest son, W. Harry, became associated with the business. The second son, John W., Jr., joined the business in 1890, and it was in 1903 that the firm was incorporated, with John W. Green as president and treasurer, W. Harry Green as vice president, and assistant treasurer, and John W. Green, Jr., as secretary.
As the firm became one of the principal industries in Danbury, Mr. Green interested himself in the city's growth and development, and it was typical of him that he should construct the Hotel Green, to furnish the community with a first-class hotel. He died in 1907, be- fore the completion of the building.
Mr. Green's two sons continued the direction of the business, and in 1908, after completing his college studies, a third son, George F., and the present head of the company, entered the firm. The fourth son of the founder to enter the company was Edwin H., Sr., who joined the firm in 1910 and is today vice president.
W. Harry Green retired from the company in 1918, and John W. Green succeeded him as president, remaining in this post until his death in 1934, when George F. Green became president and Edwin H., Sr., vice president. A grandson of the founder, Arthur B. Leonard, of whom there is more in the biographical section of this history, joined the firm in 1937, has been secretary of the firm since 1942, and is actively engaged in selling the firm's products to jobbers and hat finishers throughout the United States. The present treas-
JOHN W. GREEN
SOUTH MEADOW STATION OF THE HARTFORD ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY
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urer of the firm is Edwin H. Green, Jr., who became associated with the company in 1940, and who assists his father and his uncle in the administration and supervision of the complete back-shop operation ; and of whom there is more in the biographical section of this history.
HISTORY OF THE HARTFORD ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY
Until 1877 about the only Americans to put electricity to work were parlor magicians and scientific quacks. Then, in Newark, New Jersey, Dr. Edward Weston put on the first public demonstration of electric arc lighting, capturing the nation's imagination. Two years later a similar exhibition climaxed the Battle Flag Day celebrations at Hartford, Connecticut.
Increasingly impressed as Edison and others worked out the crude beginnings of a whole new industry, a group of prominent Hartford businessmen petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly for the right to provide electric service within that city. On April 12, 1881, the first five charters for Connecticut electric utilities were issued. One was for The Hartford Electric Light Company. Another was for The Stamford Electric Light Company, which was to become the Hartford company's Stamford Division three-quarters of a century later.
On January 16, 1882 at the office of the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company the books of The Hartford Electric Light Company were opened for capital subscription to the amount of $20,000 (200 shares). Over a year was occupied in trying to obtain permission to erect poles in the streets of Hartford. In September of that year a prominent woolen merchant named Austin C. Dunham was elected to be the company's first president.
The Hartford Electric Light Company put on its first street light- ing exhibit on April 9, 1883, lighting up the old Asylum Street rail- road depot with twenty-one arc lamps powered, through wires strung along buildings, by a dynamo belted to a 50-horsepower steam engine. This primitive generating equipment was installed in a rented shack be- hind the Hartford Steam Company, from which it received steam. The foundation of that company's old smoke stack can still be seen in what is now Hartford Electric Light's Pearl Street garage.
Quick to see the promotional value of the new arc lights, Hart- ford businessmen swamped the company with service applications, and forty lights were in operation before the month was out. Alert to its burgeoning responsibilities, the company promptly adopted the safety measures recommended by the New York Underwriters. By 1886 Hart-
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ford was considered the best-lighted city of its size in America, and two years later the last of the gas street lights was displaced.
For the first year or so of its operations, control of the infant utility was held by Edward Goff, trustee for the American Electric and Illuminating Company of Boston. In exchange, The Hartford Electric Light Company got equipment and the right to use Amer- ican's system of electric lighting. On July 3, 1884, this arrangement was ended, and control of the company has remained firmly in local hands ever since.
In that era of seemingly boundless optimism and vigorous free enterprise, it was not uncommon for two or more rival electric utilities to compete for customers in the same community, even to the financial- ly ruinous extent of building duplicate pole lines along the same streets. Hartford was no exception and in December of 1886 a competitor to A. C. Dunham's thriving little company was organized. It was given a not very original name-The Hartford Electric Light and Power Company.
Financial interest in the Hartford Steam Company caused the incorporators to locate the new utility, too, on that company's property. Feeling crowded, A. C. Dunham removed his company-consisting of several small steam engines, generators, and other equipment-to a site between State Street and Kingsley Street.
In 1890 the Farmington River Power Company was organized to construct a hydro-electric plant at Poquonock, Windsor, and help Hartford Electric Light carry its rapidly growing load. This first hydro station in the east (and second in the United States) became something of a test laboratory as equipment and techniques changed continuously with the rapid advancement in electric generation.
The Hartford Electric Light and Power Company never had a street lighting contract. It encountered considerable financial difficulty. By agreement in 1896 the financially sound Hartford Electric Light Company took over its competitor's property and moved back to 266 Pearl Street. The following year the General Assembly formally authorized the transfer of Hartford Electric Light and Power's fran- chise and property, ending an unfortunate experiment in electric service competition.
This consolidation brought about major changes, including con- version of the Hartford and Farmington River Power systems to 2400 volts, two phase, sixty cycles, and installation in Hartford of an II,000-volt underground cable and an historic 400-kilowatt storage battery.
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In 1899 the company built a dam and a 2,000-kilowatt hydroelec- tric power house on the Farmington River at Tariffville, Simsbury. This plant was connected to Hartford with an 11,000-volt line using the world's first aluminum transmission conductors. The hydro-electric installation was destroyed by the great flood of August 1955, but the aluminum lines are still in service after sixty years of use.
In 1901 Hartford Electric Light scored another "first" by instal- ling the world's first central station steam turbine (rated at 1,500 kilowatts). As the company's load continued its rapid growth the Pearl Street Station became inadequate; condensing water cooling towers had to be used for the Westinghouse-Parsons giant, and coal and ashes had to be carted in and out by wagon.
Accordingly a new power station was built (in the incredible time of three months) on Hartford's Dutch Point, where there was an abundance of condensing water and transportation and seemingly room for expansion for an indefinite period. Such was the electric industry's growth that a mere fifteen years passed before the site had reached the limit of its expansion.
To the company's Hartford franchise the General Assembly in 1883 added permission to serve the towns of Windsor Locks, Man- chester, Simsbury and Windsor. Six more communities-East Granby, Bloomfield, West Hartford, East Hartford, Wethersfield and New- ington-were added in 1899.
A. C. Dunham was a pioneer with a rare combination of imagina- tion, courage and business acumen. Popularly regarded as a dreamer, his first step in turning his dreams into reality had been to establish the company on a sound financial basis. Then he set about building the load. His leadership in this has been followed to the present time.
Dunham was full of original ideas. Dissatisfied with the poor load factor resulting from use of the electric system almost exclusive- ly for lighting, he contracted in 1900 to sell to the Billings and Spencer Company sufficient electric power, at competitive rates, to replace all of that manufacturer's industrial steam power. The first such contract in this country, it started an era of industrial electrification which is still accelerating.
The company's first president was an inventor as well. He devel- oped one of the first electric ranges and gave the rights to anyone in- terested in manufacturing it. By 1904 he was staging exhibitions of electric cooking and heating with equipment he had designed. He also had a hand in improving electric lighting in this country by sending a consultant to Europe to investigate the tungsten lamp, and then
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inducing the General Electric Company to produce it. In 1912 A. C. Dunham retired and was succeeded in the presidency by his brother, S. G. Dunham.
In 1913 Stone & Webster brought together a number of small power companies to form the Connecticut Power Company. Two years later three of the community systems-Canaan, Thomaston and Bris- tol-were linked to Hartford by a pair of 66,000-volt transmission circuits from a hydro-electric station at Falls Village, Canaan; in 1918 Middletown was tied in also. From that time until 1958, when The Connecticut Power Company was merged with and into The Hartford Electric Light Company, the latter took care of all load increases on this interconnected system.
In 1916 this interconnection was extended to the greater part of Connecticut with the completion of a tie-line with the Connecticut Light and Power Company at Berlin. The value of this and other inter- connections as added insurance against service interruptions was to be demonstrated during floods and hurricanes and when; on several occasions, plant accidents resulted in temporary loss of generating capacity.
By the end of World War I it was obvious that Hartford Electric Light would soon need an additional large, new source of power to keep pace with steadily increasing loads. Hartford's South Meadow was determined to be the logical location, a site there was acquired in 1919, and on October 26, 1921 South Meadow Station's initial, 20,000-kilowatt unit was placed in service. This was more generating capacity than Hartford needed to install at that time for its own use, but The Connecticut Light and Power Company contracted to purchase 5,000 kilowatts of that capacity. Accordingly that utility was able to postpone construction of its planned Devon Station, and South Mead- ow became the first such joint-use station in Connecticut.
For a number of years the General Electric Company had been experimenting with a mercury boiler. In 1923 Hartford Electric Light joined in the project and an experimental mercury boiler was installed at Dutch Point. After several years of painstaking experimentation a 10,000-kilowatt unit was ordered. It went into service at South Meadow in 1928, the world's first commercial installation of that type.
As the load gradually increased, it became apparent that addi- tional interconnections would be both practicable and desirable. In 1924 a double-circuit 66,000-volt line was constructed from Hartford to Agawan, Massachusetts, forming a strong link between intercon- nected systems in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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In March of 1925 a pioneering power pool called the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange was organized by the presidents of three utilities-Samuel Ferguson, Sr., of Hartford, G. W. Lawrence of Turners Falls (Mass.) Power and Light Company, and R. W. Day of United Electric Company (Springfield, Mass.). This organization coordinated both the generation of its member companies and their operation with that of other interconnected companies. It was the world's first power pool to coordinate financially independent utilities on the basis of actual cost of power delivered to the pool and the actual value of power received.
The Connecticut Valley Power Exchange made feasible the in- stallation of much larger units than its member companies could have justified individually ; the capacity of units installed thereafter at South Meadow doubled, to 40,000 and 45,000 kilowatts. In 1927 another 66,000-volt tie-line enabled Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corpora- tion to deliver surplus hydro power from New York State to the Con- necticut Power territory, and to provide emergency capacity.
Over the years the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange has saved its member companies and their customers more than $18,000,000 in the form of operating economies. Capital investment savings have probably been as great.
From the first years of The Hartford Electric Light Company's operation its customers' use of electricity increased steadily, doubling on an average of about once every ten years. Although this rate of increase has come to apply to the electric utility industry as a whole, its accomplishment was not automatic. Over the years the company vigorously promoted better wiring, helped to develop new electrical appliances and then promoted their use by such means as trial rental offers and direct merchandising, and by maintaining appliance service and repair departments.
In 1922 the company introduced this country's first promotional residential rates (progressively lower rates for increased use of elec- tricity), which had the desired effect of inducing people to use more electricity- and changed the course of rate-making history. The chief architect of the new rates was Samuel Ferguson, Sr., a former General Electric engineer who had joined Hartford Electric Light as a vice president in 1912 and was to become the company's third president in 1924.
In 1920 the company purchased all the Connecticut Power com- mon stock from Stone & Webster. Over the years thereafter the Hart- ford company turned over its Connecticut Power rights to its stock-
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holders. By 1958, when the two companies merged, Hartford Electric Light's proportionate ownership of Connecticut Power common stock had been reduced from 100% to 9%.
In 1925, the company introduced another unique policy in the utility business-the so-called "Customer Dividend." In years when earnings were more than was deemed necessary to meet the financial commitments of the business, any excess was distributed to customers, stockholder and employees in the form of a reduction in bills, increased dividends and increased wages, with the largest share going to cus- tomers. This practice was repeated in thirteen of the next twenty-one years with some $5,900,000 being distributed.
Holding companies were buying up all the independent utility companies they could obtain and The Hartford Electric Light Com- pany, with its long record of expansion, financial soundness, and regu- lar dividends (paid every year except for 1887 through 1893), was as tempting a target as any. In 1927 the company urged its stock- holders to help prevent control of the company from falling into the hands of outsiders by depositing their stock with three independent trustees. Some twenty-five percent of the stock was so deposited and in 1930, when the threat was clearly past, the trusteeship was ter- minated.
Along with the rapid rise of the electric load on the Hartford Electric Light-Connecticut Power interconnected system in the '20S, the company also sold power at wholesale to the companies serving Manchester and Unionville. These combined loads made necessary an almost continuous program of plant expansion.
In the depression-ridden '30s all utilities found themselves with abundant surplus capacity. But during World War II that capacity, plus giant power pools patterned after the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange, helped make production miracles possible. After the war government officials stated repeatedly that "power was never too little or too late."
Through the years since the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange was established in 1925, the capacity additions and operations of The Hartford Electric Light Company and The Western Massachusetts Electric Company and its predecessors have been closely coordinated. The latter company contracted for part of the output of the final two units at South Meadow, installed in 1942 and 1950, and Hartford took part of the latest, the 110,000-kilowatt unit at West Springfield.
At the end of World War II Samuel Ferguson, Sr., became chair- man of the board of directors. He was succeeded in the presidency by
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Austin Dunham Barney, grandson of A. C. Dunham, who had served the company since 1924 as counsel, general counsel, and vice president. Samuel Ferguson died in 1950. The following year A. D. Barney moved up to the chairmanship and Kenneth P. Applegate, executive vice president and general manager, became president.
With the installation of South Meadow's final unit in 1950 it became necessary for the company to find a location for yet another steam-electric generating plant. A site on the Connecticut River a few miles below Middletown was selected and in 1954 the first unit, with a rated capacity of 66,000 kilowatts, went into service at the com- pany's new Middletown Station. In 1958 the second, 116,000-kilowatt unit was installed.
In 1954 the company's frequently-revised wholesale power con- tract with Connecticut Power was changed to put calculation of energy costs on a pool basis. The Hartford company continued responsible for the combined load on their interconnected system and Connecticut Power assumed responsibility for all transmission.
In 1954 an agreement was reached with The Connecticut Light and Power Company and The United Illuminating Company to co- ordinate the future installation of generating capacity within Con- necticut and also to coordinate the operation so as to obtain maximum economies of production. This agreement assures the installation of the most economical size of units at the best locations for the state as a whole. The excess capacity of each unit above the needs of the in- stalling company is contracted for by the other companies on the basis of reserve margin.
With the increase in capacity, more widespread coordination, and the increasing complexity of operations, it was found advisable to change the scope and the operating responsibility of the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange. Originally the Connecticut Valley Power Exchange only advised the individual companies as to the most econom- ical load to carry on the various machines in the various power houses, and it dealt with transmission line operation only in a limited advisory capacity.
Now the Exchange has full responsibility and authority for power plant loading and transmission operations for The Hartford Electric Light Company and The Western Massachusetts Electric Company. It also has the responsibility for the transfer of power to and from adjacent companies. The regulation of the loads is taken care of by automatic equipment.
The increase in the Hartford Electric Light load from 10,000
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kilowatts in 1910 to 329,000 kilowatts in 1957 (the last year of opera- tion before consolidation with the Connecticut Power Company), neces- sitated vast increases in the capacity of the power houses and also increases in distribution facilities, service buildings and so forth. The company's investment in all these increased from $3,600,000 in 1910 to $116,800,000 in 1957. The consolidated peak load for 1959 was 440,400 kilowatts. Total assets came to $231,061,000.
For nearly three-quarters of a century the company's rates dropped despite the equally steady upward climb of prices (coal, for example, cost $2.15 per net ton in 1904 and about $11.00 today). This was accomplished in part by the customers' increasing use of electricity and in part by the company's adoption of numerous economies (such as power pooling and capacity coordination) ; a small fuel adjustment charge helps ease the burden of rising fuel costs.
However, by 1952 all costs had increased so greatly that a general rate increase was unavoidable. Following a program of explaining to the public why the increase was needed, a hearing was held by the Public Utilities Commission. No one from the company's territory spoke in opposition, and the increase was granted. All this seemed to indicate that the company enjoys good relations with the public.
With the growth and increasing interdependence of The Hart- ford Electric Light Company and The Connecticut Power Company, it became evident by 1952 that the two companies should consolidate completely or become entirely separate entities. The two companies were of about the same size, served territories which tended to com- plement one another, and had enjoyed excellent relationships over the years.
There followed years of painstaking study by outside consultants and more years of detailed planning. During this period, in 1956, K. P. Applegate retired after nearly forty-five years of dedicated service. Succeeding him as president was Raymond A. Gibson, executive vice president, who had joined the company as a sales engineer thirty-three years earlier.
On January 1, 1958 The Connecticut Power Company was merged with and into The Hartford Electric Light Company, and the main office was transferred from 266 Pearl Street in Hartford to the modern Connecticut Power offices at 176 Cumberland Avenue, Wethersfield.
Today The Hartford Electric Light Company provides electric service for over 222,000 customers in thirty-seven Connecticut com- munities. In addition, the three gas divisions formerly operated by Connecticut Power furnish natural gas service to some 32,600 cus-
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tomers in New London, Stamford, and Torrington. The combined franchise territories total 986 square miles, including a high concen- tration of insurance companies and manufacturing (including aircraft and nuclear) industries in the Hartford area. The company and its employees traditionally take part in organizations and activities in- tended to improve the region and keep it up to date.
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