USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Torrington > History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies > Part 9
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WOLCOTTVILLE.
On the New Haven road there were settlers long before any houses were built in Wolcottville. Paul Peck had his hermit's house near this road some time before 1776. Samuel Brooker owned his hundred acres of land in this vicinity, and built his house near the site of Mr. Charles F. Church's present dwelling, about 1785. Below this dwelling resided a Mr. Elwell and Solomon Morse. Capt. Perkins lived in a house on the site of Mr. Frederick Taylor's present homestead. On the Litchfield road, some distance west from the New Haven road, were the homes of Thomas Coe, Asahel Wilcox, Chester Brooker and others. Some of the land along this New Haven road and near the river has been under cultivation longer than any in the original town of Torrington. It was in this vicinity or up the Litchfield road that Josiah Grant resided in 1734, when he hired four or five acres of land then " broken up on Water- bury river," within the territory of Torrington. A carding and cloth dressing mill was built opposite Wilson's saw mill, on the river at an early period. Joseph Blake dressed cloth at this mill many years, and is said to have come to the town for this purpose. Amos Wilson's account with Mr. Blake begins in 1769, and therefore it is probable that the mill was built before that time. This mill was gone in 1794. It is likely that when it began to decay, Joseph Taylor built the one that stood near the rock on the south side of the river some fifty rods below Wilson's mill, and that Joseph Blake continued to work for Mr. Taylor at this second carding mill, which became a flax mill, then a turning mill, and was finally consumed by fire.
Wilson's new grist mill was built in 1794, below and adjoining the saw mill, where now the Messrs. Hotchkiss planing mill stands ; and the old saw mill continued some years until rebuilt.
Several dwellings were built very early on the road east of Water- bury river, opposite the present Valley Park, and in one of these John Brooker and his wife Jerusha, began house keeping after their marriage in 1783. They afterwards lived a number of years in the house said to have been built by Ambrose Potter, a little east of the foundry, now owned by Turner, Seymour and Company. Mr. John Brooker built a house where Mr. L. W. Coe's dwelling now stands in 1803, which was the first frame raised in Wolcottville. Benoni Leach built a house the same summer opposite Mr. Brooker's, east side of the Waterbury road, there being a strife as to which house should be raised first. Mr. Brooker won the day by about a week.
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
The night after Mr. Brooker's house was raised, a large company of men engaged in raising a high pole ornamented with rams horns and the like, and named the place "Orleans village." This is the name used in most of the deeds for ten or fifteen years afterwards. After Mr. Brooker finished his house, he made it his home for a few years only ; keeping it as a tavern.
Daniel Potter of Johnstown, N. Y., bought in 1804 of Mr. Brooker and his wife, land where the Coe furniture store now stands, and built a store building on it and a dwelling ; which buildings were occupied by his brother Ambrose Potter. When this dwelling was raised, one of the sides fell, killing one man and hurting a number of others, which fact was indelibly fixed upon the mind of a young girl, and hence remembered to the present day. Mr. Potter sold this pro- perty to Ephraim Sanford of Newtown, Ct., who took possession and went on with the store, and also bought the tavern, and about a year after Mr. Sanford was on his way to New Haven with a load of cheese ; the horses ran away and he was killed. His executors sold the store to Russell Bull and Frederick Robbins of Wethersfield, in 1808. Mr. Bull, soon after, bought Mr. Robbins's half and con- tinued the store a number of years. Ambrose Potter built the tavern on the site of the American House, for his brother Daniel and after- wards owned and occupied it several years as a a tavern. Between 1804 and 1812, a number of dwellings were erected in the village, and in 1814 the School house which stood on the east side of Main street where the present Register printing office stands.
When John Brooker was making plans to build his house which became a public house, Joseph Taylor was arranging to build a tav- ern, where the Allen house now stands. His sudden decease in 1802, delayed the enterprise for a time, but about 1819, Mrs. Taylor and her son Uri Taylor completed the house, and thereafter kept it as a public house for a number of years. In the winter of 1813, Joseph Allyn, Jr., bought the water power and privileges, from Wilson's mill to the flax mill, of the following persons, for two hundred and eighty dollars. Roswell Wilson, Benjamin Phelps, Norman Wilson, Lemuel North, Samuel Beach and his wife Keziah Beach, Joseph Allyn, Jonah Allyn, Roger Wilson and Guy Wolcott. He sold it in the spring for the same price to Frederick Wolcott of Litchfield, and Guy Wolcott of Torrington ; deed dated May 3, 1813. The Wolcotts purchased another plot, below the first, at the same time ; and upon this they erected, that year, the woolen mill. They pur-
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WOI.COTTVILLE.
chased several other pieces of land giving the owners until the next September to remove the timber. On the day of the raising of the woolen mill, the Rev. Alexander Gillet being present as well as a large number of the people of the town, proposed that the name of the place be changed. In response to which a call was made. " What shall we call it ? Name it." He answered, " Wolcott- ville ; " and to this all agreed, and WOLCOTTVILLE it is.
ITS GROWTH TO THE PRESENT TIME.
In 1813, Nathan Gillett, who married a daughter of Dea. Guy Wolcott, was residing in the house north of the bridge on the west side of Main street. This house he built about 1808 or 9, and oc- cupied it until 1817 when he removed west.
There were two or three houses built on the north side of the river, between 1806 and 1810. At the northwest part of the vil- lage, there were probably, but two or three dwellings before 1800, within the territory now regarded as Wolcottville.
In the Gazetteer of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Is- land, printed in 1819, we have the following description of this vil- lage.
" WOLCOTTVILLE, a village of eighteen houses, has been built principally since 1802, and is an active, flourishing place. Its growth has been chiefly owing to the establishment of an extensive woolen factory, which now is owned principally by his Excellency, Oliver Wolcott. It is one of the largest establishments of the kind in the state ; employing about forty workmen, and manufacturing from twenty-five to thirty-five yards of broad cloth daily, of an average value of six dollars per yard. The cloths made have a substantial texture and are manufactured in a style scarcely inferior to the high- est finished English cloths."
Barber's History of Connecticut, published in 1836, says : " Wol- cottville, the principal village in the town of Torrington, is situated in a valley near the southern boundary of the town, at the junction of the two branches of the Waterbury or Naugatuck river, twenty- six miles from Hartford, forty from New Haven, and seventeen from the New Haven and Northampton canal at Avon. The vil- lage consists of about forty dwelling houses, a handsome Congrega- tional church, a three story brick building used as a house of worship by various denominations, and also as an academy ; four mercantile stores, two taverns, a post office, and an extensive woolen factory.
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
" The engraving shows the appearance of the village from the Hartford turnpike, looking westward. The Congregational church stands at the northern extremity of the village, but owing to the limited extent of the engraving, it could not be introduced. The brick building used for a house of worship is on the left, over which is seen the Litchfield turnpike, passing over the heights westward. The woolen factory is the large building with a spire. This factory went into operation in 1813. One of the principal owners was the late Oliver Wolcott Esq., formerly governor of the state ; the village owes its rise principally to this establishment. A short distance westward of the factory, an establishment for the manufacture of brass is now erecting : it is believed to be the only one of the kind at pre- sent in the United States."1
View of Wolcottville, Torrington, from the northeast.
Wolcottville now contains thirty stores of all varieties, two hotels, four churches, a town hall, a town clerk's office, a graded school building, the granite block, containing Wadam's Hall, a large hall for public assemblies ; one bank, two daguerreian galleries, a post office, one printing office, issuing a weekly paper, and eight copartnership
I Barber's Historical Collections. Mr. Dawson, editor of the Historical Magazine, one of the most critical works in the United States, writes to Mr. Barber Sept., 1877 : "Your Historical Collections are not unknown to me; and you may rest assured that they are worthy of you. Their accuracy are very well known, and they will never cease to be re- ferred to.
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WOLCOTTVILLE.
manufacturing companies employing a capital of seven hundred thou- sand dollars.
Its professional men are, four settled pastors, five practicing phy- sicians, and two lawyers. The graded school has a gentleman as principal, and six lady teachers.
It has twenty-two hundred inhabitants ; four hundred children in its graded school, and the dwellings extend further on the streets in every direction than the old pine swamp did when the town was laid into lots for the proprietors. There have been about fifty houses built, yearly for two or three years past, and the enterprise of the community seems to increase rather than diminish in this direction.
CHAPTER X.
WOLCOTTVILLE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.
THE WOOLEN MILL.
T is said that James Wolcott, son of Guy Wolcott, having worked in a woolen mill in Middletown, and learned much of the business, persuaded his uncle Frederick Wolcott to build the woolen mill in Wolcottville, and he was the overseer in the construction of the building. At the time this mill was built, just before the close of the war of 1813, American cloths were high and the prospect of this mill as a money making enterprise was good, but the war closing so soon, opened the markets to importations, and all manufactories suffered, because they could not produce as cheap articles as foreign establishments could do. This mill began its work in the autumn of 1813, the work comprising spinning, weaving, and cloth dressing, and produced from the first, as fine quality of goods as were made in the United States.
Dr. Christopher Wolcott, brother of Frederick, was superintend- ent, or general manager of the mill. He was a very honorable, upright, faithful man; an earnest Methodist; and he brought a number of men of the same faith with him, such as Mr. North, the dyer in the mill, afterwards justice of the peace; Thomas Sparks, who became a Methodist minister after leaving the place ; Alfred French, also a man of influence ; and a Mr. Stillman, who afterwards became a Methodist minister. These all, with others, were valuable men in the community, and the place began, not only to have the appearance of a village, but to give promise of good character in morality and religion. The success of the mill in producing goods of desirable quality and quantity appears to have been satisfactory, but the sale of the cloths was slow and at moderate prices because of the influx of foreign productions. The prices at which these broad cloths were sold ranged from four to eight dollars, as charged to the proprietors and their special friends.
In 1816 the mill property was mortgaged to Gov. Oliver Wolcott of Litchfield, for twenty thousand dollars, presuming, and believing, doubtless, that better times would be realized after a few years.
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WOLCOTTVILLE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.
In 1821 the property was mortgaged to secure a note of forty thousand dollars made to the Phoenix Bank of Hartford, or its branch at Litchfield.
In 1825 William E. Russell was in charge of the mill as general manager, aided by Joshua Clapp, a capitalist of Boston, which limited partnership was continued three years.
In 1829, the bank took the property, and sold it on June 30th, 1830, to James Wolcott and Samuel Groves for six thousand dollars, and took a mortgage for five thousand in security. Soon after this Aaron J. W. Goodwin became interested and engaged in the mill.
In 1833, John Hungerford and George D. Wadhams became stock owners in this mill property, and the enterprise was known after that as the Wolcottville manufacturing company. In 1836 a two story brick building was erected as a finishing house, on the site of the old dye house, or where the Union Manufacturing Company are now located. About 1839, Benjamin H. Morse of Litchfield, became a stock owner, and superintendent of the mill. Thus the woolen mill continued through various changes and disadvantages, to produce goods of value, and marketable quality until the autumn of 1844, when the old mill, which had been in use thirty-one years, was consumed by fire. The dignity and honor which this first mill in Wolcottville conferred on the place in 1836, is most faithfully portrayed in an illustration in the Historical Collections of Connecticut, by John W. Barber of New Haven.
After the burning of the mill a division of the property was ef- fected and a new company formed which took the finishing house above the site of the mill, and the others remained and put up a new building on the site of the old mill, Mr. Morse remaining in charge and being an owner of stock.
This new mill was fitted as a cotton mill, and to superintend the weaving, Allen G. Brady of East Haddam was employed, and under his directions the looms were made and the machinery placed in the mill ready for work. He went to Litchfield station the next year, 1846, and fitted and superintended a mill for the Matatuck Manufac- turing company, at that place. Benjamin H. Morse was agent for both of these mills, having been employed by the special desire of William Young, who was a large owner of stock in these mills. From 1847 to 1853, the mill was rented to Mr. Brady much of the time. In 1851, the company name was changed from the Wolcott- ville Manufacturing Company, to the Torrington Manufacturing
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
Company, and the owners were Herman Powers of Boston, Wm. H. Richardson, George Odiorne, Allen G. Brady, and others. After a short time the company sold to Mr. Brady and he in 1853, sold to Elizur and David Prichard of Waterbury, who established the Wolcottville Knitting Company for making drawers, and a variety of woolen and worsted goods. In 1854, Ostrom and Welton became owners of much of this mill property. After the knitting company had run the mill a few years, it stood idle until it was sold to the Waterbury Hook and Eye Company.
THE TURNER AND SEYMOUR MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
This company occupy the mill privileges of the first woolen mill in the place. Before 1863, this property stood idle for a time, which fact being known to the Waterbury Hook and Eye Company, they began to consider the feasibility of removing their business to Wol- cottville. At the same time the Wadhams Manufacturing Company had stopped work, and the buildings were standing idle. This latter was a company of more than twenty years' standing. In 1838, it was first organized under the title of Wadhams, Webster and Company, " for the purpose of manufacturing gilt and other buttons, or any articles composed of brass, copper or other metals," and the officers were, Russell C. Abernethy, president, and George D. Wadhams, Martin Webster and Laurin Wetmore, directors ; the capital stock being fourteen thousand dollars. In 1851, after apparently a success- ful term of twelve years, a new organization was effected under the name of the Wadhams Manufacturing Company, taking the property of the old company and adding stock so as to make twenty thousand dollars. The stock owners were, George D. Wadhams, Phineas North, Demas Coe, Samuel T. Seelye, H. P. Ostrum, J. F. Cal- houn, Albert A. Mason, Samuel J. Stocking, William S. Steele, Ebenezer Wilson and William DeForest. The building of the old company was called the button shop, and it stood east of Main street on the old road to Torringford, on the east branch, at what is now called the iron foundery. After 1851, it took the name of the papier machie shop, which indicated the character of an additional part of the business of the firm ; the making of daguerreotype cases, work boxes, writing desks, and other articles made in part or wholly of paper. In the beginning of the war this company closed its business.
Some of the members of the Hook and Eye company at Water-
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WOLCOTTVILLE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.
bury, formed a company in 1863, called the Seymour Manufacturing Company, to be located at Wolcottville ; and these persons were, F. J. Seymour, E. Turner, L. W. Coe, S. L. Clark, and J. S. Elton. They, with a capital stock of twenty thousand dollars, purchased the Wadhams property, or papier machie shop, and continued some of the kinds of work which had been done there and added others. They made a specialty of brass window trimmings, including a variety of articles for hanging window curtains and ornamenting windows.
In 1864, the Turner and Seymour Manufacturing Company pur- chased the knitting mill, or the old cotton mill property ; the build- ing standing on the site of the old, or first woolen mill, and trans- ferred their hook and eye business from Waterbury to this mill.
In 1866, these two firms consolidated under the name of Turner and Seymour manufacturing company, retaining possession and con- tinuing work, in both mills. After a short time an iron foundery was erected adjoining the papier machie building where they have con- tinued to cast a variety of articles, mostly for household use, includ- ing American scissors, of several classes or sizes, ends or fixtures for window curtains, and many other items, varying their work accord- ing to public demand or invention and use. Their illustrated catalogue covers one hundred and twenty pages ; many of which pages are a condensed schedule of articles of the same name but varying in size or style or adaptability.
The capital stock is one hundred thousand dollars ; and their sales run from two to three hundred thousand dollars a year. They are now selling goods at half the price they sold the same article seven years ago.
The wholesale store of this company is at 81 Reade street, New York city.
The present officers are Elisha Turner, president, L. W. Coe, treasurer, L. G. Turner, secretary.
Some description of this firm and the articles they manufactured was given in The American Commercial Times, in 1873, from which the following extracts are taken :
" The company has two manufactories, one in the very center of the village, the other some half a mile distant, but both within a short distance of the rail road. The first named is devoted to the manufacture of cast and sheet brass goods ; the other to the produc- tion of a variety of articles in iron and bronze. About one hundred and fifty hands are employed in the two establishments, and both
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
steam and water are used ; the combined force aggregating one hun- dred and twenty-five horse power. The iron foundery requires the daily melting of about three tons of the best American iron, which is cast into a multiplicity of forms, some being of such delicate shapes as to require the services of the most experienced moulders who can be obtained.
" In the main factory, situated on the bank of the Naugatuck river, is a great deal of curious and costly machinery for special purposes, besides a large number of power presses and drops, with an immense and valuable stock of steel dies. At the distance of one hundred and fifty feet from the principal factory buildings stands a generator for gas, which is forced through the entire establishment by an in- genious arrangement of pipes in which water by its natural gravitation regulates the pressure and flow of the gas.
" Among the goods struck from sheet brass we noticed numerous patterns of window cornices, curtain bands and loops, and furniture ornaments. These goods are very tasteful in design and perfect in finish, some being burnished and lacquered, others gilt, silvered or bronzed. The cost of dies for this class of goods is very heavy.
" In the brass foundery are a number of furnaces and a great variety of moulds for the manufacture of such goods as curtain fixtures, draw pulls, coat and hat hooks, brackets, sash lifts, and fasteners, cornice hooks and eyes, etc. Much artistic taste is displayed in the ornament- ation of these articles, which are finished in many different shades of color, by processes which prevent tarnishing by handling or from atmospheric exposure.
" Many of the above named articles, and a host of others, are cast in iron, which seems to be quite extensively used in lieu of brass, such have been the improvements in moulding and finishing, and if it were not for their liability to break, delicate castings in iron would even more largely take the place of the more costly metal.
" Another specialty with this concern is what might be termed upholstery hardware, embracing furniture nails and ornaments, tassel hooks, curtain-rings, picture hooks, and some two hundred different styles of nails with ornamental heads, for suspending mirrors, picture frames and the like ; porcelain and glass, in all colors, are the materials chiefly used in the manufacture of these nail heads, and many of them are extremely beautiful.
" The list of goods made from brass wire is very extensive. There are some twenty-three machines for making hooks and eyes, of which
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UNION MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
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WOLCOTTVILLE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.
highly useful articles this concern produces the quarter of all that are manufactured in the country. Millions of curtain rings are made at the factory, not, as might be supposed, of wire bent and soldered, but from sheet metal ; circular disks or rings being stamped out and then by ingenious dies rolled into hollow circular tubes, perfectly re- sembling a solid ring.
" There are many other special machines ; among them one which makes zinc sockets for sash bolts at the rate of 150 gross per day, by a single operative. Escutcheon pins, or wire rivets, vest button rings, screw rings for picture frames, and a host of other useful articles made from wire are among the manufactures of this establishment.
" In addition to goods of their own production this company are large importers of articles of a similar description, and are agents for the sale of many prominent hardware items."
THE UNION MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
This company was organized February 18, 1845, with a capital of ten thousand dollars, and the same day purchased the brick build- ing and water privileges, which had been used as a finishing house, by the old woolen mill company, and entered upon preparations for the manufacture of woolen goods ; the stock holders being John Hungerford, president, William R. Slade, superintendent, and secre- tary ; and from this time forward, this mill appears to have been moderately successful. In 1849 this mill was burned and a building much larger than the former was erected, and the business conducted by F. N. Holly and William R. Slade as the stock owners, and suc- cess rewarded the efforts and skill with which they conducted it. In 1856, this building was burned and all that was in it, leaving a mass of ruins unseemly and discouraging. Another one was soon erected and fitted for the same business, and the work started anew. The business was prosperous and in 1859, Jesse B. Rose, Samuel Workman and Ransom Holly became stock owners, and the owners thus continued until 1873, when the Messrs. Holly retired and others became members of the company, in 1867.
The present owners are Jesse B. Rose, Samuel Workman, George D. Workman, Albert Tuttle and James Iredale. Mr. Rose came from Plymouth in 1850, and engaged with this company as foreman of the carding room, and continued in that relation nearly
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
fifteen years, when he became a stock owner, and superintendent of the manufacturing work.
Mr. Samuel Workman came to New York, and thence in 1836, to this place, having been employed to work in the wool-sorting apartment in Wolcottville Manufacturing Company, and has contin- ued in the same work to the present time. When the Union com- pany started, he engaged with them, and has become. largely inte- rested in the business.
Mr. George D. Workman, son of Samuel, is the secretary, treasurer and agent of the company, and became stock owner in 1867.
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