USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 29
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In 1800 the population was: Kensington, 764; New Britain, 946; Berlin, 1,003, and the richest man was Barnabas Dunham of Kensington, with a list of $640, followed by Levi Andrews, New Britain, $505, and Roger Riley, Berlin, $425. The town meetings were held in the churches.
Rev. Newton Skinner was the second pastor, installed in 1810, and at a time when the "center" was showing the effects of bud- ding industrialism. He himself was full of energy. He estab- lished the first Sunday School Society in the county and was its president in 1816. Doctor Smalley lived till 1820 and rejoiced to see his successor and the congregation taking prominent part in the great religious revival throughout the state. A new meeting-house was built in 1822.
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New Britain had little interest in the War of 1812 but was well represented. Isaac Maltby, recently graduated at Yale, was a brigadier-general, Ezekiel Andrews a captain, and Salmon Steele an officer in the state troops. On the reorganization of the militia in 1815, the local organizations were in the Sixth and Fifteenth regiments of the Seventh Brigade, the officers includ- ing Majs. Selah Hart and Seth J. North, Cols. Joseph Enright and Francis Hart, and Capts. J. R. King and Walter Gladden.
The tendency from agriculture to industrial pursuits, after the Revolution, had been checked by the Federal Government's incongruous actions at the time of the War of 1812 and was turning back again toward planting and stock raising when the revival in industry came. More substantial business buildings were being erected and again there was an influx of people. No longer was Mr. Skinner's the only church. The Baptist Society and the Methodists were building in 1828, the former at the foot of Dublin Hill and the latter on the site of the present Methodist Church. These buildings were in addition to the post office, the academy and two stores. Dr. Samuel Hart built a tavern near the center, of which Ezekiel Porter was the proprietor. The first brick residence was built by Lorenzo P. Lee in 1832. In 1831, North, Smith & Stanley first used anthracite for melting brass and iron, near the corner of South Main and Pearl streets. The same shop was the first to use horse power. F. T. Stanley and his brother William the next year were the first to employ steam, followed by Alvin North & Company in 1834. The industrial rush was checked by financial depression in 1837, but inventive genius proved superior to governmental peculiarities.
The church circle was widening. St. Mark's Episcopal parish built a church in 1837, and now has one of the most beautiful in the city, on West Main Street; the South Congregational built in 1842, and the Roman Catholics were holding regular services. The first State Normal School was erected in 1849, the New Haven & Northampton road was opened in 1848, and the Hart- ford, Providence & Fishkill from Willimantic to Bristol in 1850. The population had increased to 3,029 in 1850, when the township was incorporated, set off from Farmington.
Following the thread of the First Ecclesiastical Society-Mr. Skinner had died and had been succeeded by Rev. Henry Jones,
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after the removal of the church to the more favorably located site -for which structure, incidentally, Amos R. Eno of New York, then a New Britain boy, had brought the first load of stones with his grandfather's team. The large new church at the corner of Main and Church streets was built in 1855, during the pastorate of Rev. Horace Winslow, who later in Simsbury rounded out his many years of service in Northern Connecticut.
The South Congregational Church (Second in Berlin and now the First in New Britain) was organized July 9, 1842, and its building was dedicated the same year, in the pastorate of Rev. Samuel Rockwell. In 1864 the building was removed to make room for the present stone edifice at the corner of Main and Arch streets. In February, 1928, fire did damage of $120,000 to this structure and its contents, destroying one of the largest organs in New England, the gift in 1895 of the late Philip Corbin. The organ had just been rededicated after having been remodeled. Among the later pastors of this church was Rev. Dr. James W. Cooper, who came from Lockport, N. Y., in 1878. He was a member of the Yale corporation and was one of the foremost clergymen of Connecticut.
The Baptist Society was formed by Jeremiah H. Osgood of Newtown and a council of neighboring churches in 1808. There was no settled pastor till Rev. Seth Higby came in 1828, and the first church was built at the head of Main Street, to be succeeded by a large one in 1842, on the site of the First National Bank of today, and that in turn to be replaced by the third one in 1869. The present edifice, at the corner of West Main and High streets, was built in 1907. Formal Methodist meetings began to be held in 1815, Rev. Henry Bass of North Carolina being the first minister to conduct them. Rev. David Miller formed a class in 1818 and Raphael Gilbert became local preacher in 1823. The site for a church at the corner of Main and Walnut streets was deeded to him in 1828. This was replaced in 1854 by a larger one. That one was sold in 1889 and a new one built on Main Street. Rev. Eli Barnett was the first regular preacher, coming in 1823. Dr. Silas Totten of Trinity College officiated at the first Episcopal service, January 17, 1836, and St. Mark's parish was organized the following December. A small building on East Main Street served the parish till 1848, when a larger building
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was erected on West Main Street, supplemented by a chapel in 1859. Rev. Dr. N. S. Wheaton was the rector in the beginning, succeeded in 1838 by Rev. Dr. John Williams, then assistant bishop and later bishop.
The first to conduct Roman Catholic services here, in 1841, was Rev. Edward Murphy. Rev. John Brady had this in his wide parishes in 1842, and Rev. Luke Daly took over the duties six years later. As St. Mary's, in 1849, a brick church was erected on Myrtle Street, to which additions were built as needs de- manded, till the edifice on Main Street was erected. A school- house was provided in 1862 and the convent on Lafayette Street (now near the church on Main Street) was begun in 1877. The parochial schools became parish schools in 1879, under the direc- tion of Rev. Hugh Carmody, who had begun erecting the fine church on Main Street when he died in 1883. His successor, Rev. Michael Tierney, later bishop, carried the work through. The parish of St. Joseph was created to accommodate those farther south and a church was built at the corner of South Main and Edson streets, with the school next to it. There are now also the parishes of All Saints, Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. John the Evangelist, St. Andrew (Lithuanian), and St. Peter's (German). The parish of St. John the Evangelist, one of the youngest in the city, is now building at the corner of East Street and Newington Avenue what will be one of the handsomest edifices in this locality. The present building will be used as a parochial school.
The Universalists began with meetings in 1842 which were continued at intervals in different halls till Rev. D. L. R. Libby was brought here by the mission board in 1883 and All Souls Church was built in 1883 on Court Street. The Second Advent Church, on Arch Street, was built in 1848; services were con- tinued by the Advent Christian Union. The present Second Advent Church is on Church Street. The People's Church of Christ was organized in 1888 under the Christian Union of New England, with Rev. Hezekiah Davis as pastor, the services being held in Bulkeley's Hall. The church now is on Monroe Street. The German Baptists began in 1871 with the assembling of a few at the First Baptist Church to hear Rev. Mr. Dietz, whom Rev. W. C. Walker of the Baptist Church had asked to come from New Haven. Rev. Charles Schmidt was installed in 1883, the
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church having been established, and a chapel was built on Elm Street. The Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church came into existence in 1877 and was formally organized four years later. The church at the corner of Elm and Chestnut streets was built in 1883. The Swedish Evangelical Bethany Church, on Franklin Square, was incorporated in 1889, with services in Herald Hall, Rev. Torsten Clafford of Stockholm the preacher. Other churches today include the Stanley Memorial (Congregational), one Chris- tian Science, three Greek, two Jewish, four Lutheran, one Negro Methodist, one Russian (Orthodox), one Armenian, and one Assyrian.
The act of incorporation in 1850 was secured on the petition of Kensington and Worthington (Berlin), as they were being out- voted in local affairs. The first town meeting was held July 22. Lucius Woodruff was chosen clerk and treasurer; Joseph Wright, James F. Lewis, Gad Stanley, Noah W. Stanley and Elam Slater selectmen. The town was to be allowed but one representative but protest was successful and two were allowed, one for each party. (The Legislature was divided so near equally that year that no United States senator was elected according to regular order.) These representatives were Elton A. Andrews and George M. Landers. In the next ten years the town's population increased 77 per cent, while that for the state was only 35 per cent. The borough was formed the same year that the town was incorporated, the territory to extend half a mile east and west and 209 rods north and south from the town hall. Frederick T. Stanley was the first warden. In 1857 the Shuttle Meadow (Southington) water supply was incorporated.
New Britain was advancing rapidly when the Civil war caused preservation of the Union to be first of all interests. On Battle Sunday evening, April 14, 1861, the first war meeting assembled on receipt of the news that Sumter had been evacuated. Rev. Mr. Rockwell of the South Church presided. Valentine B. Chamberlain produced a portrait of Major Anderson, Fort Sumter's commander, set in a laurel wreath which the ladies had woven. Resolutions were adopted, and Frank Stanley, who was to fall at Irish Bend, La., was the first to sign a formal enlist- ment paper. New Britain's record is a part of the county record
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told elsewhere in these volumes. On Monday following Battle Sunday, Company G (Capt. Frederick W. Hart) was one of the first companies to begin recruiting. Capt. John Tracy com- manded Company G of the Sixth Regiment; Henry L. Bidwell, Company A of the Thirteenth. Mr. Chamberlain went as lieu- tenant in Company A of the Seventh. Company F of the Four- teenth was officered by Capt. Jarvis E. Blinn and Lieuts. Samuel A. Moore and Thomas A. Stanley. Lieutenant Moore became captain when Captain Blinn was killed at Antietam and rose to be acting colonel and brigadier-general in command of a provi- sional brigade at Washington during Early's raid. Lieutenant Chamberlain succeeded to the captaincy of his company and was a prisoner for some time, escaping once but being recaptured. After the war he was judge of probate, judge of Police and City Court and state treasurer. Rev. Emmons P. Pond was chaplain in the Fourteenth. Newton W. Perkins went out as private in the Thirteenth and returned as a captain, brevet major. Capt. Eugene Tisdale of Company E of the Thirteenth became lieuten- ant-colonel of the First New Orleans Infantry.
The town furnished 60 three-months men, and 645 three- years men, or 105 more than its quota. It paid for bounties and support of families $45,628, and individuals gave for bounties, substitutes and commutation $49,400. The town's grand list in 1864 was $2,608,418. Eighty of the volunteers died in service.
The development after the war, doubling by 1870 the 5,000 population of 1860, was on such substantial foundations that the great proportions which industry has attained today are in the nature of a natural sequence. The first shops were for meeting the needs of agriculture, to which the territory was devoted. Thomas Richards, in the Stanley quarter, was the first black- smith. Ladwick Hotchkiss and James North learned their trade with him. The story of Pattison and his tinware is told in the Berlin section of this history. The year 1798 marked an epoch, for it was then that sons of James North, Joseph Booth and Samuel Shipman went to Southwick, Mass., to learn how to cast brass. They returned to make cow bells with such success that, following the tendency to individuality, each started his own shop and added other products to the lists. By 1812 Alvin North was making brass buckles and saddlers' hardware. This was the be-
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ginning of the North & Judd Manufacturing Company (the name adopted in 1863), with O. B. North & Company, of New Haven, as a branch in 1855. This concern's contributions for the army requirements in the World war were enormous.
A group of men born in the first quarter of the eighteenth century were to shape New Britain's destinies. Among them were Frederick T. Stanley, Henry E. Russell, George M. Landers, Cornelius B. Erwin and Philip Corbin. Of the pioneer North family, William B. in 1820 introduced the manufacture of jew- elry, formed a partnership with William A. Churchill and later the name became Churchill & Stanley. Oliver B. North made hardware at Judd's mills till burned out in 1863 when he removed that line to New Haven. Henry North and his relatives in 1830 began making plated wire into hooks and eyes, for which Mr. North devised a wonderful machine. North, Stanley & Company continued the business till buttons came in to replace hooks after the war. The brass business was conducted almost exclusively by Seth J. North and Joseph Shipman till 1820, others coming into it after that date. In 1829 Mr. North, William H. Smith and Henry Stanley united and put up the town's largest factory on South Main Street, for the manufacture of hardware, employing horse power and, as another novelty, reducing brass and iron by mineral coal. Mr. North next took water from the brook on Main Street to Elm Street and built there the first brick factory, the firm being North, Stanley & Company. F. A. Hart began making suspenders in 1829. Isaac N. Lee and the Norths and Stanleys found stock-making a profitable enterprise up to 1840. By that time, when the fashion changed, Lee, Churchill and the Cowleses of Farmington were making pins on North Main Street and, that line not proving satisfactory, substituted shirt-making.
In 1830 William B. Stanley, H. W. Clark and Lora Waters engaged in the machine industry on Main Street. Frederick T. Stanley turned this into a hardware shop, with William B., his brother, and in 1832 Westell Russell, as said, was running the first steam engine here. Cornelius B. Erwin, who had come here as a drover in 1832 and stayed to work, George Lewis and W. H. Smith made small hardware. O. R. Burnham, about the time of the 1837 panic, began with silk hats but gave way to hardware as an industry, Peck & Walter establishing a business which later
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was removed to New Haven by J. B. Sargent. The plant was then used for bed-screws and plumbing, which business also went to New Haven, as Peck Brothers. In all the many enterprises the two most prominent men were Seth J. North and Thomas Lee, both born during the Revolution, but after 1835 a number of new men, of this and other towns, were attracted and following the panic there was a pronounced revival.
Frederick T. Stanley had been the founder, in 1831, of the business of making builders' hardware. The firm of Stanley, Woodruff & Company in 1835 erected what long was to be one of the most notable buildings of the Russell & Erwin Manufacturing Company, in which they made locks. Before the name of Russell & Erwin was adopted the titles had been Stanley, Russell & Com- pany, Matteson, Russell & Company and the New Britain Lock Company. Cornelius B. Erwin, who was taken into partnership, was president till his death in 1885 at which time he was suc- ceeded by Treasurer Henry E. Russell who was born in Litchfield in 1815, had succeeded his father in the concern, was to be inter- ested in various organizations, the builder of the Russwin Block and active in all public affairs, retiring in his later years to live in New London. Stephen Bucknall of Watertown, the first maker of cabinet locks in America, came here and made a contract with North & Stanley in 1840, which concern with one in Albany and some smaller ones in New Britain was bought by Russell & Erwin in 1850, after which the increase in business continued without interruption. The corporate title in 1846 was Russell & Erwin, and in 1851, after several other consolidations with it, the Russell & Erwin Manufacturing Company, capital $125,000. A screw plant was established in Dayton, Ohio, in 1885 and warehouses in London and elsewhere.
Mr. Stanley in 1852 put $30,000 into his hardware concern and incorporated the Stanley Works. William H. Hart, who came there to work as a lad, proved to be a wonderful organizer. Cold- rolled steel, which was to effect a change in the hardware indus- try, was utilized by this company ahead of any other, and con- tinuously since then science and ingenuity have kept the company in the lead in a world-wide market. Plants have been established in Canada and Japan and the employees have become large stock- holders. The Stanley Rule and Level Company, absorbed by the
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Stanley Works in recent times, originated with the hand-work of Thomas S. Hall and Frederick Knapp in a shop on Elm Street. A level factory run by Augustus and Gad Stanley and T. A. Caulkin bought out their plant in 1854 and likewise a rule com- pany in Middletown and foundations were laid for the new com- pany in the North & Stanley factory. In 1857 the Stanley Rule & Level Company was organized and a new plant begun on Elm and Church streets. Other acquisitions included the concern of C. L. Mead of Brattleboro, Vt., which eventually was brought to New Britain. Henry Stanley was president till his death in 1884. He was succeeded by Charles L. Mead. Before iron took the place of wood in the manufacture of planes, and during the roller- skating craze, the company imported more rosewood than all other concerns together, along with mahogany and boxwood. In 1904 the Plantsville screw-driver concern of the George E. Wood Com- pany was added as a branch, then the Fay branch in Bridgeport and the Atha Tool Company of Newark, N. J., a celebrated tool company in Quebec and the Eagle Company of Vermont, largest makers of steel squares in the country.
Philip Corbin (1824-1896) came as a lad from a farm in Willington to learn of Stephen Bucknall how to make plate locks and was with Matteson, Russell & Company and North & Stanley. Before he was twenty he had secured an independent contract for plate locks, to which in 1849 he added brass hardware and bought a small building on Whiting Street. Two years later he and his brothers Frank and Andrew established the firm of P. & F. Corbin, the name by which the great concern is still known. Brass tips for the horns of cattle was their product at the outset, the idea being to devote themselves to what others did not make, and soon they had a long list of general novelties. Space was taken in North & Stanley's factory in 1852, title to the property was acquired in 1864 and the plant continued to grow till today it has over twenty acres of floor space and an annex in the north part of the city. It also has a water supply of its own and a fire department. It became a division of the American Hardware Corporation in 1902. President Corbin served as warden of the borough and in both branches of the Legislature.
The basic companies of the American Hardware Corporation were to develop greatly before the incorporation. As to screws first: It is difficult for people today to realize that till 1875 metal
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screws could not be used in carpentry because of their great expense. In that year Russell & Erwin introduced machinery for making wooden screws and the next year the Corbins did likewise, for the market for wooden screws was large. The inven- tions of C. M. Spencer of Hartford had made metal screws more possible. To the Corbins came Charles Glover of Hartford whose improvements in the machinery gave the industry such impetus that much extra space had to be provided. In forming the American Hardware, the screw departments of the two con- cerns mentioned were combined as the Corbin Screw Corporation with Mr. Glover president. Another large plant at Dayton was built, and appliances for automobiles and bicycles and various specialties have been added. Now there are plants in Germany and Canada as well as in the states named. Manufacture of locks increased to such extent as to necessitate the forming of the Corbin Cabinet Lock Company under the management of George W. Corbin. A factory was built at the corner of Park and Orchard streets which, by its frequent enlargements, has become the greatest of its kind in America. Carlisle H. Baldwin was president when the American Hardware Corporation was formed. Thus this, the foremost hardware corporation in the world, embraced the Russell & Erwin and the P. & F. Corbin divisions in 1902 and later the Corbin Cabinet Lock and Corbin screw divisions. Originally a holding company, it was changed into an operating company in 1911, under one set of officers with a general manager for each division. In the World war, 75 per cent of the works were devoted to supplying material, including much not hitherto in the company's lines.
How New Britain came to have the world's largest table-cut- lery concern is still another story of modest beginning, genius and foresight. Trade started in 1842 with cupboard catches made by George M. Landers, a native of Lenox, Mass., who at the age of sixteen had come to New Britain in the carpentry trade. For a few years Josiah Dewey was with him. In 1847 he added brass hooks and sundry novelties, built a foundry and in 1853 incorporated the Landers & Smith Manufacturing Com- pany, to be known in 1862 as Landers, Frary & Clark after absorbing a Meriden company, Frary, Cary & Company, of which James D. Frary succeeded Mr. Smith. Table cutlery was
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OFFICE OF AMERICAN HARDWARE COMPANY, NEW BRITAIN
MAIN STREET, NEW BRITAIN, LOOKING NORTH
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taken up and the Aetna Works established. Large business is done now in electric cooking utensils. Mr. Landers was conspic- uous in all work for public welfare. He was sent to both houses of the Legislature and to Congress and was bank director, bank commissioner, president of the gas company and director in the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. He resigned the presidency of Landers, Frary & Clark in 1870 and was succeeded by Mr. Frary.
The New Britain Knitting Company, which was organized in 1847 by Seth J. North, Henry Stanley and Orson H. Seymour, Mr. North the president, was reorganized in 1868 by John B. Talcott, who was born in Thompsonville in 1824, had graduated at Yale in 1846, had taught in the Hartford Female Seminary and in Middlebury College, had been admitted to the bar in Hartford and had been tutor in Greek at Yale before his health failed. Giving up his books for business he became associated with S. F. North in the manufacture of hooks and eyes and later was manager of the New Britain Knitting Company, of which he became president. In 1868 he founded the American Hosiery Company of which also he was president. He succeeded the late Valentine B. Chamberlain in 1894 as president of the Mechanics National Bank, was president of the New Britain Institute and in 1880 was mayor.
Speaking of genius playing such important part in New Brit- ain's progress-when in 1902 America was leading the world in number of patents and Connecticut leading America, New Brit- ain was leading Connecticut and Justus A. Traut led New Brit- ain. Moreover not a patent of his failed to prove workable. The Traut & Hine Company, makers of metal trimmings and safety razors, was incorporated in 1887, and there are few people in civilized lands today who do not have about their person at least one item of this concern's modern products. Steel lockers and office furnishings were among the output of Hart & Cooley con- sisting of Howard S. and George P. Hart (sons of William H. Hart of the Stanley organizations) and Norman P. Cooley and L. H. Pease. This part of the business was transferred to Hart & Hutchinson while the original concern turned to ball bearings with such reward that quickly the celebrated Fafnir Bearing Company came into existence in 1911, revolutionizing the indus-
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try and helping to bring to America trade that Europe had held. Hart & Cooley control the stock of both of these younger com- panies.
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