USA > Connecticut > Windham County > Danielson > Sketches concerning Danielson, Conn > Part 7
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Then anong the smaller varieties of waterwheels constructed of wood, if any other kinds there were, may be mentioned the undershot, the vape and the tab wheel. The undershot differed from the others in ono marked feature, in that the water was projected in a sheet under head pressure beneath the wheel. This variety of waterweel found use in saw. mille and. in tide-mille in localities on the sea coast where the tido ran high and could be impounded in reservoirs.
The vans wheel was also an adjunct of old fashioned www. mills (p. 79) and were also used in small power establishmento such as shingle-mille. They had 1.
Ta# #INLY . AUF. AND MILLE 9
apright wooden shafts with iron pinions. Pieces of plank about three feet in length and as much as eight inches in width were mortised into the shaft near its lower end radiating from it edgewise like spoken from the hub of a wagon wheel. The water was directed against the vanes under a head pressure, causing this form of wheel to rotate rapidly.
The tub wheel also had a vertical sbaft, it might be of iron. It was not open to view but revolved withia a tub-like casing. The water care to it in a tight trougb, under a head pressure, and to one side of the wheel, passing out beneath it. Wheels of this kind sometimesfurnished power for small establishments.
In 1850 the reign of the wooden wheel was drawing toward an end, the beginning of which was, as yet, merely in sight. No other wooden wheels were con- itructed in Danielsonville after the year 1852. Nor were there any iron wheels in the village until a little later than that date. Then & time set in which lasted until after the Civil war when both the wooden and the iron wheel were in use in the place conjointly on the principle that the introduction of the new gener. ally does not cause any sudden cessation of the use of the old. In the Danieleonville of 1580 there were seven breast- wheels, ( wo overshots, one undershot and a vane-wheel in existence. The breast. wheels were distributed as follows: Batting-mill, whetstone chop, blacksmithing works, Whitmore cotton mill, grist- mill, Cundall woolen.mill and Tiffany cotton-mill. As before indicated in previous pages, the overshots were located in the basements of the Danielson mills and the undershot and the vare wheel in the wheel- pit of the village saw mill.
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At the close of 1860 the record for the shop and mill wheels of the village stood essentially as follows: Of breast. wheels four were still in use, to wit, the one under the batting-mill, and one each at the stone-built ; "hop, Whitmore mill and Quinebaug mill. The two overshot wheels continued their revolutions at the. Danielson mills and so also did the two diverse ones at the saw-mill. A tub-wheel was also in use under the Fyler whetstone shop located on the river bank, . Brooklyn side, a dozen rods south of the gate house. As this wheel was cased in, we are not sure whether it was a wooden wheel or some kind of iron one.
Of various kinds of iron wheels, all with vertical shafts, five had been introduced at the date mentioned, possibly six. When the first-to-be-built portion of the Quinebang mill, that ie. the bell-tower part, was being erected, a large breast- wheel was placed in the pit where the modern wheels are in present times; then when the main part extending east and west was in process of erection, two iron wheels of the Upham patent were installed in funes built against & rock clif at a point near the west end of a foot bridge that crosses the river there. The upright shafts of the early iron wheels came up through the water in the flumes, and had large miter gears at their tope by which their turbine motion was changed to the bori- sontal. In the fifties the wooden wheels at the grist- till and Tiffany mill were replaced by iron ones. In 1860 Elisha Chamberlin built a wood working estab- lishment across Main street from the stone-built shop operated by some kind of an iron wheel. Therefore, when the Civil war began, Danielson had fourteen water wheels of the several different kinds in use. . :
CHAPTER V. IN THEIR DAY AND GENERATION
T HIS chapter will concern the busincre men of the middle fifties, the limitatione of the newly'created borough an existing in these years, the characteristic life of the time and many other particulsre. When a village attains a population of a thruFfic or fifteen hundred inhabitants and has reached something of # state of equilibrium with existing conditions, neither noticeably building up or increasing in population; from various causes the! need bet be specified a for Business changes are apt to occur for each succeeding fear. At the time the "depot village," as it was at first called, began building up around the railroad station during the early forties, there does not appear to have been any thing comparable to a boom or rush on the part of the early occupertr of the depot village to establish themselves there either in different lines of trade, callings or vocations. It is probable that some of these early comers bad previously been in business elsewhere, but thinking that they might do better in the new village were willing to take advan- tage of the opportunity offered. The place built op gradually where fielde had existed not long previously, the land then being owned by various parties and largely by the Danielsen Merufacturing Company. Gradually streets and lanes began to take form, somó of the former under stress of circub starces. Around in the vicinity there were pre-existing roada. In regard to the business men who were present thers
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BEETOHRE COMOEKNING DANIELSOR
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in the decade of the fortice, we find mention of men such as Gideon Segur, Samuel Brown, Geo. W. Pierce, Fred Richmond, Leonard Thompson, James Rothwell, Jesse Ames, and a few others whose namee do not appear in a much larger list of trades and vocations as still in business in the middle fifties. But many of those in business during this later period and even long afterwards, began in the depot village at differ- ent times in the forties.
Before enumerating the business men of the middle fifties including those of minor vocations, we will take a survoy of the existing status of the town in which they chaneed to have their adult life and being or in individual cases some portion of the same. The main street of the borough extended from the Day street intersection to that of North street or to a point a few rods farther om, (pp. 66 and 69) and was about two miles in length. Nor was the surface as level as it is now. The most marked variations were near the two Main street bridges; a rise in front of the Quinebang Store up to a point opposite the Tiffany street inter- section, and on the other side of the river there was a steeper ascent to the ground in front of the westerly' Danieleon mill. They were sufficiently marked to be spoken of as bills and in winter if the snow became packed down hard and smooth, were used by the boya. and girls for coasting. These risings of the surface wore rendered somewhat pronounced from the fact that the bridge of that time sat confidently lower down than the present one. There was also a awell of the surface just after crossing the bridge over the Five Mile river the summit of which was ab touch as eight feet higher than the level of the pear by bridge.
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At the west end of the bridge the surface for several rode was lower by a few feet than that in front of the Danielson mills. The whole length of Main stroos was by no means closely built up except to & limited extent in the vicinity of the depot. These vacant - spaces were generally utilized by garden plote, par- ticularly so on the Brooklyn side of the river.
Main street extends generally in regard to direction from southwest to northeast turning, more to the north in Westfield village. The built up portion of the borough, if only in & scattering way, did not ex- tand farther south than Franklin street in the middle fifties and in the opposite direction Winter street was approximately its northern limit. To the eastward and south of Westfieid what was called the old stage or Plainfield road was but little built upon, there being at intervals vacant riscer zet utilizea. Some of these scattered dwellingr had originally been built for farm houses, Between Reynolda and Cottage streets there stood on opposite sides of this roadway, but several rods apart. an academy and a mechanical shop that used steam power.
Without taking note of lares and rocdways . with scarcely aby buildings on them price In the Main street corners, the intersecticos for the side of it to- ward the southeast were bemed in those days Summer (now called Broad), Center (originally IrDed Cen- tral), Furnace, Franklin, Tiffany and Elm. And for the side toward the northwest there were : Winter, Davis (now Spring), Railroad, Short and Maple. Then Academy and Water streets formed crenings to Main street and not merely intersection, fica. one side. There were a few otherstreets on the general town
100. BKETCH88 OOAVARNING DANIELSON
site that did not connect directly with the main thor, oughfare that traversed the entire length of the borough. These were Cottage and School streets to one side of Main street, and Mechanic and Oak in the other direction. School street was in an early stage of growth and projected some distance across Cottage street being so named from the factory vil- lage district school house, a two-room building which stood on the east side of the extended part of the street and faced west. Mechanic street started from Rail- road Square and after making a jog around the north- west corper of Rothwell hall, practically terminated for that time at Winter street. On the Brooklyn side a row of six two-family brick tenement houses called Front street was of the class mentioned.
We have used the names of the borough streets as though the people of that period were in the habit of similarly using them themselves. This was by no means the case. It was but recently that the court of burgesses had applied any names at all to the village roads and ways and people continued to use the earlier local nomenclature to the end of the Civil war and probably much longer into the century in speaking of locations of residents. Thus, such expressions sa "between the rivers" for Maple street; the "factory village road" for Cottage street. "up the Brooklyn road" for the part of Main street above Elm street on the west side of the river; then some residents were referred to as living "on Christian bill." There was a lack of signs at the street corners, the only one the writer ever saw being tacked to the southeast corner of the Reynolds grocery, reading "Mechanic St." We have thought that the roadway starting northward
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IN THEIR DAY AND GENERATION
from Railroad Square and which developed into Mo- chanie street, at one time before the Rothwell hall building had been erected (1851) crossed the ground where it stood and that the sign mentioned was put on the Reynolds building to indicate that the sbort stretch of roadway there was considered to be part of Mechanic street. A more natural starting point, one would suppose, was across from the old hall building where two street corners of Mechanic and Academy streets existed. There is an abrupt termination to Academy street where St. Albans church now stands, owing to the fact that the West Killingly Academy built upon the same site in 1847 prevented a crossing there instead of merely an intersection.
The Danielsonville of the middle fifties was essen- tially a wooden-built town. On the Killingly side of the river the only brick walled buildings were the Arcade on the site of the Exchange block; the Davis block, corner of Main and Center streets, and a brick walled chapel or parish house (p. 60) on the south side of Cottage street and west of the railroad track. In 1855 the building was purchased by the borough for a fire engine house. The basement to the old Metho- dist church bad walls of brick. Originally the build- ing stood upon a rise of ground composed of sand and gravel, but in 1852 this was excavated from under it and a basement constructed. On the Brooklyn side the Quinebaug Company carly ir the middle fifties completed a number of brick buildings, as follows: Six two-family tenement houses forming Front street, the one fartherest west having an ell being used many years for the factory boarding house; one six-family and one ten-family|block on opposite sides of Elm
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BXATOMES COMUNKHIad
street; four two-family houses on the west side of Tiffany street and.a block two stories and attic high for four families on the other side and lastly, the mill office. The buildings then existing on Main street above Elm street were all wooden built.
We do not know what the population of the borough may have been when it was organized in Rothwell ball July 8, 1854, since at that time the population of the villages was marged in with that of the townships. the time of the Civil war the population of the borough was estimated as being in the neighborhood of two thousand inhabitants.
We shall now spoak definitely of the business men in different lines of trade, their locations, and in so far as our memory of records in hand furnish data, we shall include particulars er zoles concerning them. Also the same in regard to men of different minor callings and vocations. So far as convenient these tradesmen of the middle fifties of last century will be presented in groups, first in regard to those: dealing in dry goods, clothing and men's furnishings.
Edwin Ely & Co; dry goods merchant, Franklin street location.
C. C. Chamberlin, clothing marchant, in a wooden balld. ing that stood on the site of Hutchins block.
John D. Bigelow, hats caps, trunks and men's furnishing goods. In same building as that called the Corner Store across Short street from the Jodoin block.
J. E. Short & Co., in same line of goods aa J. D. Bigelow: In the Luther Day building now merged into the Jodoin block and in the part next to Short street.
Martimeus Roderick, merchant tailor; in a house owned! by him that stood on the site of the Savings Bank.
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TEKNIK DAY AND GENERATION
Miss Hannah Bennett, millinery and dressmaking. the old stand, south side of Main street not far from the bridge over Five Mile river. In those times Miss Bennett . appears to have been the only woman in the borough who was following a business calling.
Edwin Ely came from Harwinton, Conn., and began business at his location in 1837. Heprobably boughs out an earlier occupant of the store on the Providence road. His location there before there was any depot village was solely in relation to the factory village and independent of the Danielson mill store. His brother, . josse S. Ely, was present in the early forties and together during that decade they constituted the frmo pf Ely Brothers, but Jesse had removed from D. by the year 1855. Edwin became the leading dry goods merchant the borough despite his location aside from its busthess center. Probably on that account he did not move to Main street and to the site of the Hyde block until 1873. James Perkins who came to D. in the late fifties was his business manager.
Concerning Chauncey C. Chamberlin we bare no notes other than the date of his death in 1902 at the age of 81. In the middle fifties he was at least 46 and was not in evidence as a war time business man.
J. D. Bigelow was a native of North Brookfield, Mass., where he was born in 1820. He came to D. in the middle forties and established himself in business in the building that latood on the site of Hatebins block. About 1849 be purchased the Rothwell tailor shop on the opposite side of Main street from his first location and on a corner of Short street. Then or later he remodeled and probably enlarged the store, placing a brick pavement with cut granite curbing
KITCHEN GONORANINA DANIELBON
and bitching posts at its Main street front. During the Civil war Mr. Bigelow was sosont in Providence, but returned to D. and resumed business at his store, the writer thinks, ecmetin e in 1866. While absent the store was rented to other parties in the same line of business. In 1866 he was chosen a deacon of the Wastheld Congregational church, succeeding Elisha Danielson.
Where we possess neither recollection nor printed matter concerning some business men in D. back in the fifties, we shall have to forego making any re- marks in regard to them. Possibly J. E. Short was a brotherof William Short who started the reed business in D). about the year 1855.
Martimeus Roderick was an Englishman who camo dowa from Worcester about the year 1847, and at first was associated with James Rothwell. Altho they were fellow countrymen they did not get along well together and separated, each continuing their business independently. In April, 1848, Roderick advertised his location se being in a now bouse next beyond the Methodist church. He is said to have been a prominent member of the Methodist church and withal, a fine man. The next group will concern the general merchandise tradesmen, the grocery men and druggists.
J. & S. Waldo, general merchandise. Corner of Main and Academy street.
Daniel P. Burlingham, general merchandise, in the middle room of the Arcade which stood where the Exchange block is now located on Main street.
Josiah Bennett, general merchandise; in wbat for some ye ars has been known as the Winkelman building.
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IN THEIR DAY AND QUMERATION
Caleb W. Knight & Co., general merchandise. 'In one of the wooden buildings on the site of the Phoenix block.
Glenn H. Reynolds, general merchandise, on one of the corners at the north end of Railroad square where a cemeat stone block now stands.
Geo. Jepherson, general store. Location in one of the two wooden buildings that occupied the site of Hutchins block on Main street.
Danielson mill store, carried a general stock of goods par- ticularly groceries. In charge of William H. Cbollar. The site of the store is mainly covered by the office of the brich mill. When this mill was built the old store was moved over tò Water street and changed to a tenement house.
Quinebaug mill store, general merchandise. In charge of E. M. Jackson. Located on the site of the present store.
J. K. Green & Son, general store. North side of Main. szeet a few rods above Elm, Brooklyn side.
W. A. Brewster, druggist, opposite the Attawangap Hotel. About the time that the middle fifties was blending with the late fifties, Christopher C. Cist dall cpered a general merchandise store in the building south of the depot. probably bought out Josiah Bennett in the same location. Mr. Crandall had a grown up son named Cranston who rea a drug store in a room of the building on the side toward ibe railroad. As Cranston's business was separate from that of his father he may have been already established there darfog part of the time that Bennett occupied the other roome.
What has been spoken of above as general or gen" oral merchandise stores were the grocery stores of the time. A line of groceries was, perhaps, the main part of the business, but each war apt tospecialise in some other commodities, some one thing, some another such as boots and choce for men and calicoes, orc., for women and children, crockery, band need form
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BKITOH#8 CONORKN DANASLSO
and garden implemento, seeds and other things aside from the strictly grocery line of business. Into the cellars below there went hugsheads of molasses and upon ground floors barrels of flour, sugar and dried fruits to which was added barrels of apples in the fall and early winter. Usually the heavy goods came to the stores in barrela and boxes in those days when shipped in. In the fifties and later, farmers brought in to some of the stores loads of cord- wood which were traded in for groceries and disposed of by the stores on call or order to customers. The use of wood for hesting and cooking purposes was then quite general and there were men, incapacitated, it might be, for any general work who took the jobs of sawing and splitting it. To some extent the atores dealt in farm produce, especially grain and potatoes, but quite generally it was common for families to have their garden plote. The general merchandise stcree aimed to carry any kind of goode in their line for which there was a ready sale and for which they had avail- able space in their buildinge. In proportion to the population of Danielson in those times the place was well supplied with stores of the kind we have just boon discussing. So far as we have the data in hand we shall speak more personally of some of the trades- men of the group last mentioned.
John and Simon S. Waldo came from Canterbury in the late forties and held positions as clerks in. the scores of 1). In 1851 they united their capital in partnershipunder the name of J. & S. Waldo, opening August 22 in the grocery lire to which was added coal and wood, lime and cement, salt, grain ? id a variety of other things such as constituted a well-stocked.
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&& THEIR DAY. ANNAKNEKATION
general merchandise store. They had become well established in their business in the middle afties. Early in 1861 they temporarily moved to one of the 100ms under the new Urion Hall and during the summer following they erected a brick building on the site of the wooden one in which they had been conducting .business nearly ten Jegre. The old build- ing, which had become inadequate, was moved bodily JAstward on Academy street and altered to a dwelling house. Later the brick building was enlarged.
1). P. Burlingham was from South Killingly and teok up his residence in 1). March 25, 1850 beginning business in the village the game year. In 1852 be moved hig place of business to the Arcade, where he dealt in groceries, boots and shoes, crockery, etc. He retired from the mercantile businest in 1865 and in time to avoid being burned out in the Arcade fre early on the morning of November 23 of the year mentioned. Himself and wife lived into the first decade of the present century.
Glenn H. Reynolds wat born in Mansfield, Conn., Nov. 25, 1823, and having relatives in the eastern part of the state he passed much of bis life in D. He was a nephew of Capt. Samuel Reynolds, who, besides being the first station agent at the depot village, built as early as any who put op stores, one for repting on what is now one of the corners of Railroad Equare and Mechanic street, of which lerrend Thompson appears to bave beer in Bretreatment. After clerk. Ing in several places in Rhode Island, Glenn H. Rey- nolds came back to 1)- and with a partner opened a grocerystore in his uncle's building in 1852. To that time the building had had several ocoupapte, Capt. ..
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SKETCHSU CONCERNING DAGINLCON
Reynolds himself keeping store in it along in the middle forties. In the spring of 1864 G. H. Reynolds sold out his business to Clinter L. Young, heretoforo. a school teacher by vocation.
William H. Ckollar was born in Danielson in . 1831, he was not certain whether on the Killingly or Brooklyn wide, but if the latter his birthplace was the' Tiffany mill villageand in the house, still standing. rest of, and above the Quinebaug store. In 1848 be entered the service of Jeseph J). Bates who was in charge of the Danielson mill store and succeeded him in that position in 1851. He remained with the Dan- ielson Manufacturing Company until they sold to a Providence association in 1865, after which for the next ten years he was in charge of the Quinebaug millstore. He married Mary R. Danielson, a daugh- ter ot Elisha Danielson, Nov. 29, 1855, and united with the Congregational church the same year and was* choben a deacon of that church in 1862. He was & nephew of the John Chollar who operated an axe shop in D. back in the thirties.
Of the personality of E. M. Jackson, the writer merely remembers that be bad charge of the old Q. store in 1856-57 and was next succeeded by a frm mamed Potter & Grant. Jackson mainly belonged to a time when he conducted business on the Killingy side of the river and in 1855 be resided in one of the fow houses then on Winter street, at that time con- ducting a store in a building between the old M. E. church and Roderick's. He appears to have been a tradesman of the fifties disappearing from D). after .. leaving the Quinebang store. Several other trades- men of that time were gone before the war began.
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IS THEIRDRY AND GEIRBATION
Joseph K. Green was born in 1810 and early in life was associated with Albert G. Walker in carpen- tering and building. Both resided on the south side of the "Brooklyn road" not far above where Elm streetis located. The association mentioned began in the late thirties, Green putting up a shop on theother side of the road from his residence. Probably Groen & Walker built some of the early houses along the roadway on the Brooklyn side and two of its school houses and likely also helped in building the depot village. By the year 1855 Green was becoming in capacitated in regard to climbing about buildings and accordingly enlarged his shop into a grocery store, with a tenament above, being associated in the. business with bie pon, Bons: H. Green. His former partner, A. G. Walker, sold bis residence to Jeremiah Young, a bridge and mill builder, in 1857, thereafter disappearing from the Brooklyn side village.
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