Frederick Bacon and the United States Exploring Expedition

Posted on July 20, 2015 by pvermily

Tucked into a tree in Litchfield’s East Cemetery is a marker commemorating the life of Frederick Asa Bacon, who was born in Litchfield in 1812. His father attended the Litchfield Law School, and he, his mother and two brothers attended the Litchfield Female Academy. A voyage to England in 1829 sparked an interest in a life at sea, and he joined the United States Navy as a midshipman in 1832. In 1838, while serving as a passed midshipman – one who has passed the examination to be a lieutenant but is waiting for a vacancy at that rank – Bacon was one of two officers named to command the U.S.S. Sea Gull, a schooner that was part of the United States Exploring Expedition (known as the US Ex Ex).

The U.S.S. Sea Gull, in distress of Cape Horn. A drawing by Alfred Thomas Agate, a member of the U.S. Ex Ex

The US Ex Ex was one of several 19th century voyages of discovery sponsored by the United States government. Under the command of Charles Wilkes, this expedition was sent circumnavigate the globe in order to search for the magnetic south pole, map the western coast of North America, and explore the islands of the south Pacific. Bacon’s Sea Gull was formerly a New York harbor pilot boat called the New Jersey. Wilkes included two schooners in his six-ship squadron because he believed the agility would be highly prized in the ice around the South Pole.

Deception Island

The ships left Norfolk, Virginia, on August 18, 1838, bound for the tip of South America. There they would survey and collect specimens before making a February (summer in the southern hemisphere) exploration of the Antarctic. Enormous icebergs – some reportedly as big as the United States Capitol – and huge waves caused Wilkes to order the Sea Gull out of danger in search of scientific equipment left behind on Deception Island by an earlier British expedition. The crew did not find the thermometer, but did determine that Deception Island was an active volcano.

Memorial to the men who died during the U.S. Ex Ex in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA. Courtesy of findagrave.com

By mid-April, Wilkes ordered part of the squadron to sail for Valparaiso, Chile, while the Sea Gull and her sister schooner Flying Fish waited for a supply ship. While the latter vessel arrived in Chile by mid-May, there was no sign of the Sea Gull, which was last seen waiting out strong winds at Staten Island off the coast of South America’s Cape Horn. When after a month the Sea Gull still had not arrived, the officers of the Ex Ex assumed that she was lost; Wilkes later speculated that in the gales off Cape Horn, the schooner might have tripped her foremast, which would have ripped up the foredeck and made her unseaworthy. A collection for a monument in memory of the ship’s crew was taken up by the expedition’s officers; the monument still stands in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Smithsonian Institution

The Ex Ex continued on its voyage, achieving the first sighting of the Antarctic continent, making invaluable maps of the South Pacific islands and the currents off the American Pacific coast, and gathering enormous numbers – in excess of 60,000 – specimens of birds, fish, plants, and shells. These specimens would later form the backbone of the Smithsonian Institution. At least five books were published on the scientific and maritime discoveries of the expedition.

Captain Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States Exploring Expedition

Captain Charles Wilkes would become embroiled in controversy for his actions during the expedition, and in fact when Lieutenant Robert Pinkney brought court martial proceedings against Wilkes, the commander criticized his accuser by contrasting “the intelligence, attention to duty, and untiring activity of the lamented Reid and Bacon with all that is opposite in the character of Lieutenant Pinkney.”

Bacon was remembered by Wilkes as “among the most promising young officers in the squadron.” Lieutenant Reynolds of the expedition highlighted the Bacon’s personal tragedy by remembering,“Poor, poor fellows, what a terrible lot. The two officers were young men of my age, one if he indeed be gone, leaving a wife more youthful than himself and a child that he has never seen.”

For more information on the Sea Gull and the U.S. Ex Ex, see Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, Sea of Glory.

The 4th of July: Benjamin Tallmadge’s Grave

Posted on July 5, 2015 by pvermily

Major Benjamin Tallmadge

While associated with Litchfield, Benjamin Tallmadge was born in Setauket, on Long Island, in 1754. A Yale graduate and classmate of Nathan Hale, Tallmadge was serving as superintendent of schools in Wethersfield, Connecticut, when the Revolutionary War broke out. Tallmadge was initially a major in the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons, but gained his fame as the organizer of the famed Culper spy ring, gathering information in the New York City area for relay to George Washington.

Tallmadge led several small unit actions during the Revolution, which later generations might term “commando raids.” Perhaps the most famous of these was a raid on Manor St. George on Long Island which was followed by the destruction of a stockpile of hay intended as winter fodder for British horses. This earned Tallmadge a commendation from General Washington, who wrote “I have received with much pleasure the report of your successful enterprise upon fort St. George, and was pleased with the destruction of the hay at Coram, which must be severely felt by the enemy at this time. I beg you to accept my thanks for your spirited execution of this business.” Tallmadge concluded his service as Washington’s chief of intelligence, which earned him the rank of colonel. In this role, Tallmadge was present for Washington’s famed 1783 farewell to his army at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan.

Tallmadge’s home on Litchfield’s North Street.

During the war, Tallmadge and his brother had begun a mercantile business in Litchfield, and it was in this town that the Colonel settled when the war was over. As a businessman, investor, banker and member of Congress and associate of Washington, Tallmadge was certainly among the town’s most respected citizens. Tallmadge’s wife, Mary, was also a prominent resident, and her father William Floyd was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Tallmadge died in Litchfield in 1835 and is buried in the East Cemetery, where a ceremony commemorates his contributions to American independence every July 4th.

Seth Numrich as Benjamin Tallmadge on AMC’s Turn.

Tallmadge has recently come to the public’s attention through the AMC Revolutionary War spy drama “Turn,” which features his exploits. A tip of the hat to reader C.S. Moore for reminding me of this!

Louis Fenn Wadsworth: Litchfield’s Baseball Pioneer

Posted on May 23, 2015 by pvermily

The grave of Amos Wadsworth, father of Louis Fenn Wadsworth, in Litchfield’s East Cemetery.

The man responsible for baseball as we know it today was a Litchfield native.

Louis Fenn Wadsworth was born to Amos and Amanda (Mann) Wadsworth in 1825. Amos and Amanda were both Farmington natives. It seems likely that the extended Wadsworth family (including Amos’s brother James and his family) lived at 94 North Street, property they bought in 1819 after taking out a loan with the Phoenix Bank. Amos and his brother ran a business, J.C. & A. Wadsworth, located “one door west of the court house,” which sold clocks they manufactured in a factory on South Street (where Route 63 intersects with Camp Dutton Road. In fact, one of the few extant references to Amos Wadsworth is a complaint filed against him with the Litchfield Nuisance Committee for putting a fence across what is now Camp Dutton Road). Louis graduated from Hartford’s Washington College (now Trinity College) in 1844, moved to Michigan where his father had land interests (and where Amanda moved after Amos’s 1850 death), and returned to the east coast to practice law in New York City in 1848. Louis is listed as living there in probate records from 1850, when Amos died insolvent in Litchfield, his fortunes fading after a fire destroyed the factory around 1833. While Louis would go on to a career as a judge in New Jersey, it was baseball that was his great passion.

The New York Knickerbockers and Excelsiors, 1859.

In a playing career that lasted from approximately 1850 to 1862, Louis was the first baseman for the New York Gothams, and later the famed New York Knickerbockers. Why he switched playing allegiances remains a mystery, but there is speculation that Wadsworth was paid to do so by the Knickerbockers, an allegation that if true would make Wadsworth one of – if not the – first professional baseball player. Regardless, after four seasons with the Knickerbockers, Wadsworth returned to the Gothams, whom he represented in the Fashion Race Course Games. These were three games played in 1858, pitting the best players from Manhattan against the best of Brooklyn. These games featured many of baseball’s “firsts”: first All-Star game, first games with paid admission, first game played in an enclosed park, and the first time a batter was called out for looking at strike three. (Wadsworth apparently played in the first and third games of the series, which his Manhattan team won, 2 games to 1.)

A baseball player, c. 1860.

A Knickerbocker teammate remembered Wadsworth this way:

I had almost forgotten the most most important man on the team and that is Lew Wadsworth. He was the life of the club. Part of his club suit consisted of a white shirt on the back of which was stamped a black devil. It makes me laugh still when I recall how he used to go after a ball. His hands were very large and when he went for a ball they looked like the tongs of an oyster rake. He got there all the same and but few balls passed him.

The game that Wadsworth played in 1850 bore only slight resemblance to today’s National Pastime. The distance between the bases had not yet been set to 90 feet, nor was there an officially established distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. A rules committee meeting was held on February 25, 1857 to decide these and other provisions for the game. Popular opinion held that games should be seven innings, with teams’ fielding seven players. Wadsworth was something of a lone wolf, arguing that both the number of innings and players be set at nine.

Abner Doubleday

In 1905, a commission was established nominally to establish the origins of the game of baseball, but with the unstated goal of demonstrating that baseball was a uniquely American invention, not a descendant of the English games of cricket or rounders. The commission, the brainchild of sporting goods magnate Albert G. Spalding, was chaired by Abraham G. Mills, a Civil War veteran, attorney, and president of the National League. In 1907, Mills (who was pressured by Spalding into naming Abner Doubleday the inventor of the game), wrote that a Knickerbocker player by the name of Curry made a statement that “a diagram, showing the ball field laid out substantially as it is today, was brought to the field one day by a Mr. Wadsworth.” (There is a discrepancy here, for the Mills Commission states that Wadsworth did this in 1845, a time when Wadsworth was likely living in Michigan. Did they mean 1854?)

The 1908 Spalding Guide, which contained the report of the Mills Commission on the origins of baseball.

The Mills Commission’s conclusions were first published in Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide, on March 20, 1908. Wadsworth died eight days later. His last years were unhappy ones. Alcohol led to his professional life falling into disarray, and he squandered a $300,000 fortune (the equivalent of roughly $8,000,000 in today’s money). Wadsworth ultimately committed himself to a New Jersey poorhouse. His obituary in the Hartford Times stated that “in the summer he was particularly interested in following the scores of the ballgames of the big leagues, and of later years, the game was of great object interest to him.”

Many thanks to my friend and colleague Mike DeMazza for his contributions to the research for this post. For more information on Wadsworth and early baseball, see John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden, (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

Hidden Nearby: Sheffield’s Shays’ Rebellion Monument

Posted on April 14, 2015 by pvermily

The United States’s first national government, the Articles of Confederation, was approved by the states beginning in 1777. In Connecticut, this was done through town meetings. Despite this support, the Articles did not solve all the young nation’s problems. Many farmers returning from war found themselves in debt and unable to pay their taxes in the gold or silver that Massachusetts required. When, in 1786, courts in that state began seizing the farms of delinquent taxpayers, angry farmers in western Massachusetts took up arms in an attempt to shut down these courthouses. The leader of the this movement, Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, gave his name to the rebellion.

Daniel Shays (left) and supporter Jacob Shattuck

Shays and his men marched on courthouses throughout the central part of the state, while other Shaysites closed the court in Great Barrington. In January 1787, Shays led a force in an attempt to seize the federal armory in Springfield. There they were met and routed by Massachusetts militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln. Shays’s force dispersed, with many men making their way to New York and Vermont. Many of those attempting to reach the Empire State were cut off by militia on February 27, 1787, on the road between Sheffield and Egremont. In the ensuing battle, the last organized part of Shays’s forces was defeated.

Roger Sherman, a one-time resident of New Milford, played a prominent role at the Constitutional Convention.

Several of Shays’s men – as well as the spirit of the rebellion – crossed the border into Litchfield County. In the spring of 1787, Dr. John Hurlbert of Alford, Massachusetts, a supporter of Shays, arrived in Sharon to awaken “a similar spirit.” Hurlbert organized a number of men under William Mitchell, who as captain trained his company in secret. Hurlbert, Mitchell, and three others were arrested, but when Shays’ Rebellion collapsed, the prosecutions were discontinued. The alarm raised by Shays’ Rebellion – and the inability of the federal government to act to stop it – resulted later that year in the Constitutional Convention that would meet in Philadelphia.

Litchfield Then and Now: The 150th Anniversary of the End of the Civil War

Posted on April 5, 2015 by pvermily

April 9th, the anniversary of the Lee’s surrender to Grant, marks the culmination of the Civil War sesquicentennial. Litchfield County soldiers served with the 29th Connecticut Infantry, an African American unit that was the first Union regiment to enter the Confederate capital of Richmond, and the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery that pursued Lee’s army to the surrender at Appomattox Court House. While the war ended in the early spring, it was not until August 1865 that many of Litchfield County’s veterans returned home. That month a great celebration in Litchfield honored returning veterans from the county. The village was decorated with enormous national flags while the smaller flags of a dozen army corps flew from the giant pole on the Green. A triumphal arch, made of papier-mâché, was erected on East Street, near where the Litchfield Historical Society now stands. It had the Sixth Corps flag in the center and two divisional flags on the side, commemorating the army units to which Litchfield’s soldiers belonged. Below those flags were the names of the battles in which the 2^nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery fought.

The returning veterans – 300 to 400 strong – arrived in East Litchfield by rail, marched to the town, and paraded through the arch – soldiers on one side, civilians once again on the other.

Colonel Elisha Kellogg of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery

The local newspaper reported that “The reception of the 19^th in this town on Tuesday was a most gratifying success.” Residents of neighboring towns began arriving in the early morning. Reverend Richards gave a benediction, and Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Smith of Woodbury gave a welcoming speech:

I will not recount the list of your battles – they are known to all present – from that first bloody day to the last unparalleled march of over 100 miles in 22 marching hours – ending in Lee’s surrender. These things – memories to you – are glorious wonders to us! We look upon you with emotion! With joy and gratitude, and bid you welcome!

Congressman Hubbard, who lived on South Street and was a favorite of Lincoln’s who referred to the representative as “Old Connecticut, also spoke:

Your hard fare, your toilsome marches and constant exposure to wounds and death have been crowned by the highest reward ever gained by men at arms. The conspirators against a people’s government are in the dust and freedom is triumphant.

Major General John Sedgwick

Thousands of people attended the festivities, which consisted of bands, food and drink, and performances. An exhibit hall was set up with relics from the war, including the coat with the bullet hole that killed General John Sedgwick of Cornwall, captured swords, battlefield artifacts, paintings and photos of Henry Dutton (killed at Cedar Mountain, John Hubbard (the Congressman’s son), the three Wadhams brothers (killed at Fort Darling, the North Anna, and Cold Harbor), and Colonel Elisha Kellogg (killed at Cold Harbor).

At dark, an illumination allowed the festivities to continue until the lights went out at 10 p.m., when the crowd dispersed.

Hidden Nearby: New Milford’s Underground Railroad Monument

Posted on March 21, 2015 by pvermily

Two leading figures of the abolitionist movement, John Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe, were natives of Litchfield County. As such, they would likely have been pleased by the county’s role in the Underground Railroad. While much of the history of this secret route by which fugitive slaves were ushered to Canada is clouded in myth and legend, there is substantial documentation for a route that passed from the coast to Waterbury, then to New Milford, Washington, Torrington, Winchester and Winsted before crossing into Massachusetts.

New Milford’s Quaker Meetinghouse, at 300 Danbury Road (Rt. 7).

Quakers took the lead in operations in New Milford, and the Old Friends’ Meetinghouse, which still stands on Route 7 south of town, was a prominent center of activity. Two Centuries of New Milford, an early 20th century history, documented the role of other locations in town in the Underground Railroad:

In the later days of slavery in the South there were several stations of the Underground Railroad in this vicinity. Mr. Charles Sabin’s house in Lanesville was one, and the house of Mr. Augustine Thayer on Grove Street in this village was another. Mr. Thayer and his good wife devoted their lives to the Abolition cause. They helped many poor slaves on their way, rising from their beds in the night to feed and minister to them, and secreting them till they could be taken under cover of darkness to Deacon Gerardus Roberts’ house on Second Hill, from there to Mr. Daniel Platt’s in Washington, and so on, by short stages, all the way until the Canadian border was reached.

A second prominent stop in Washington was at the home of Frederick Gunn, who established the Gunnery School in 1849.

As fugitive slaves reached Torrington, they likely sought refuge at the home of Isaiah Tuttle and his son, Uriel, who lived in the Torringford section of town. Uriel was president of the Litchfield County and the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Societies. Of his anti-slavery activities, Deacon Thomas Miller wrote, “His efforts and undying zeal in the cause of emancipation are too well known to the public in this state to need a delineation… His house was literally a place of refuge for the panting fugitive, and his purse and team were often employed to help him forward to a place of safety.”

Isaiah Tuttle House, on Torringford Street, Torrington. Courtesy of Connecticut Freedom Trail

Other reported stops on the Underground Railroad include the home of Joshua Bird, a deacon at the Bethlehem Congregational Church who lived on the town Green. Henry Terry, grandson of the clockmaker, lived on North Street in Plymouth. An ardent abolitionist, he allegedly had tunnels running from his cellar to an outbuilding to whisk slaves to safety. The presence of tunnels like these fed Southern fears about Northern complicity in helping slaves escape, and the belief that the election of Lincoln in 1860 would lead to legalization of the Underground Railroad were major factors in the decision of southern states to secede from the Union in the winter of 1860-61. Interestingly, when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued almost two years into the war, the number of fugitive slaves making their way to the north dropped precipitously, as they only needed to reach Union lines, not Canada, to achieve freedom.

Looking to commemorate her town’s role in the Underground Railroad, New Milford resident Frances Smith conceived the idea of a monument at the head of the town green, in the shadow of the Civil War monument. Sculptor Ray Crawford provided the design, which depicts a broken chain, symbolizing the end of slavery. The monument was dedicated on November 17, 2013.

East Cemetery: Floral Symbolism

Posted on March 7, 2015 by pvermily

Photojournalist Douglas Keister has written that “Plants, especially flowers, remind us of the beauty and brevity of life.” As such, they have been used to remember the dead since the time of the Egyptians. Aristotle even went so far as to state that plants had a soul. The use of the language of flowers as symbolism on gravestones peaked during the Victorian Era, which also marked the heyday of the use of cemeteries as gardens. Vestiges of this era of floral symbolism are common in Litchfield’s East Cemetery.

Elizabeth Phelps died at only twelve years of age in 1859. Her gravestone included a rose, a flower rich in symbolism to the Victorians. Since Elizabeth was so young, we are led to believe that this depicts a white rose, a symbol of purity. The fragrance and beauty of a rose was a reminder to visitors to the cemetery of the Paradise that awaited good Christians.

Zebulon Colmer, who lived to be 90, had his gravestone marked with a palm tree. The story of Christ’s procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is, of course, well known to Christians. In the Roman era, the palm was a symbol of victory, and Christians adapted this imagery to symbolize Christ’s victory over death, and thus, by extension, the afterlife achieved by good Christians.

Julia Henrietta Jones, who died in 1851 at the age of 46, was commemorated with a lily. Lilies were symbols of chastity, but were also strongly associated with funerals, as their strong scent covered the foul smells associated with death.

The gravestone of Luna Norton depicts a broken willow tree, incorporating two Victorian symbols of death. Weeping willows are symbolic of grief, but also of immortality, as the tree will continue to live despite having its branches cut off. This was an exceedingly popular cemetery image in the early 1800s, and several willow trees can be found on graves in the East Cemetery. Norton’s grave, however, depicts a broken willow, which seems to counteract the notion of immortality. Broken trees symbolized lives that were cut short.

For more information on the symbolism of gravestones, see Stories in Stone by Douglas Keister.

For additional posts on the East Cemetery, see here, here and here.

The Blizzard of 1888

Posted on February 22, 2015 by pvermily

With Litchfield stuck in a weather pattern that seems to bring more snow every day, perhaps a look back at the great Blizzard of 1888 is in order.

Drifted snow at Dr. Buel’s house on North Street, Litchfield, 1888. Courtesy of Litchfield Historical Society.

With little in the way of accurate meteorological predictions, the blizzard came as a surprise to the Northeast on Sunday, March 11, 1888. It had been an unusually warm winter, and that day dawned with rain. It soon turned to hail, then sleet, then ultimately snow. Bitter cold and high winds set in, and the snow continued for three days. When it all stopped, between 20 and 50 inches of snow had fallen in Connecticut, with drifts of 12 feet not uncommon. (One drift in New Haven reached 40 feet high!) The storm resulted in more than 400 deaths and an estimated $20 million worth of damage.

Dr. Buel’s house after the snow had melted. One source says the snow was melted within ten days; another says the last of the drifts didn’t melt until June! Courtesy of Litchfield Historical Society.

The following are excerpts about the blizzard from the Litchfield Enquirer:

March 12th – “The wind blew a perfect blizzard all day and the drifting and falling snow made even main streets almost impassable Monday night the storm continued with increasing fury and buildings rocked as though in a storm at sea.”

A modern view of Dr. Buel’s house.

March 13th – “On Tuesday morning the wind had lessened though still blowing a gale with the thermometer at or near zero. The most remarkable drifts are at Dr. [H. W.] Buel‘s. One, a little west of the house, about 20 feet, to a level with the eaves. There is an addition on the west of Dr. Buel‘s house, reaching- about to the eaves, which is almost completely covered by the snow, so that our reporter, walking- along the top of the drift, passed completely over the roof of this part of the house, and down on the northern side. There is a drift on the east which is even higher, shutting up one of the library windows completely, and reaching nearly to the top of one of the large firs which form a hedge on that side of the house.

March 14th – “The wind is northeast and considerable snow is still falling. People are about on snow shoes skees (sic) and snow shoes extemporized out of boards some carrying groceries to those in great want. Little business is doing. Most of the stores are closed. A few are open with people standing about comparing notes about tunneling to their woodsheds drifts over second story windows and other marvels of the great storm.”

The Lake Station, Bantam. Courtesy of White Memorial Foundation.

The Shepaug Railroad was out of service until March 16th. A railroad cut near the Lake Station (today the Cove in Bantam) was filled with a drift 22 feet deep!

And all this snow needed to be removed from the transportation network without the benefit of modern plows!

Topsmead State Forest

Posted on February 9, 2015 by pvermily

A modern visitor to the Topsmead State Forest may think he or she has stepped into a Harry Potter novel. The English cottage at the hilltop – the name means “top of the meadow” – is reminiscent of the Weasley clan’s home in J.K. Rowling’s novels. The home and grounds, however, are reminders of an important era of the region’s history. Topsmead was the summer home of Edith Morton Chase and her companions, Mary and Lucy Burrall.

The former headquarters of Chase Brass and Copper, designed by Cass Gilbert who also designed the Woolworth Building in New York and the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC.

Ms. Chase was the daughter of Henry Sabin Chase, the first president of Chase Brass and Copper Company, founded in Waterbury in 1876. The company became one of the most profitable businesses in the city, and Chase hired the noted architect Cass Gilbert to design the corporate headquarters across the street from Waterbury’s City Hall. Shortly before his death in 1917, Chase purchased 16 acres on East Litchfield’s Jefferson Hill as a gift for his daughter, who built a small cottage on the grounds. Over the next 55 years, Edith Chase made twenty-four additional land purchases, enlarging the estate to 511 acres. Ms. Chase hired architect Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (who designed the main building of St. Margaret McTernan’s school, established by Henry Chase and now called Chase Collegiate) to create a grander house. Dana designed a structure in the English Tudor style, with brick and stucco walls, and a slate roof. The interior walls are oak and stucco, and the house was decorated with 17^th century antiques.

Property map of Topsmead, displayed at the site.

Edith Chase was a lover of the outdoors and she paid great attention to the landscaping. Formal gardens surround the house, apple trees line the driveway, and holly and lilac grow against the house. In 1927, Ms. Chase purchased the adjoining Buell Farm, which was used to produce the estate’s food, with vegetable gardens, dairy operations, and beef, hogs, sheep, and poultry.

The Topsmead meadow in winter, a wonderful spot for snowshoeing or cross-country skiing.

Edith Morton Chase died in 1972 and willed her estate to the people of Connecticut. It was renamed Topsmead State Forest, and thanks to an endowment left by Chase it preserves much of the estate as it appeared at her death. Particularly significant is the meadow, which preserves a landscape that has been lost in much of Connecticut.

Hidden Nearby: Seth Thomas Clock Factory

Posted on January 24, 2015 by pvermily

Seth Thomas was born in Wolcott, Connecticut, in 1785. His education reportedly consisted of only a few weeks in grammar school before he began work on the family farm. When Seth was 12, his father died and his mother sent him off to be an apprentice to Daniel Tuttle, a neighboring carpenter. Tuttle taught Thomas arithmetic, the use of tools, and the principles of running a business. At the age of 21, Seth Thomas struck out on his own to be a carpenter.

This Connecticut tercentenary sign on Main Street in Thomaston commemorates the region’s clockmaking history.

Around 1806, Thomas went to work for Eli Terry, the nation’s leading clockmaker. Using his carpenter skills, Thomas outfitted Terry’s Plymouth factory with stools and benches, then made the various gears in the internal mechanism of Terry’s clocks. In 1810, Terry sold his business to Thomas and Silas Hoadley, who formed the Thomas and Hoadley Mechanics and Company and continued making the grandfather clocks that Terry had popularized. The partnership was short-lived however, and by 1813, Thomas had struck out on his own.

A Seth Thomas shelf clock, c. 1820. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In looking for a location for his own factory, Thomas found a site on the Naugatuck River in what was then known as Plymouth Hollow, which would be renamed Thomaston. (This is the site where the Seth Thomas Clock Factory still stands.) Plymouth Hollow was a community of only 20 houses at the time, but Thomas’s factory would soon bring excitement to the town. Operations began early in the morning, and workers put in twelve hour days for a daily wage of between 75 cents and $1.25. Thomas ran a company store for his employees and occasionally sponsored dances. Initially his factory produced the same type of grandfather clock he made with Hoadley. However, when Thomas’s mentor Eli Terry developed a cheaper shelf clock, the market for the “tall clock” nearly dried up. Fortunately for Seth Thomas, Terry was overwhelmed with orders and sold the rights to the patent to Thomas for $1000. Clocks were sent by ox cart to New Haven for shipment to New York. Business was so brisk that by 1825, both Terry and Thomas had made $100,000 in profit, and Thomas spawned cottage industries across the town in making cases and transporting supplies and products.

Seth Thomas

In later years, Thomas diversified his business holdings, opening a cotton mill in town, sponsoring railroads, and dabbling in real estate development. In 1853, he incorporated his business as the Seth Thomas Clock Company, so that operations could continue after his death, which came in 1859, when Thomas was 74. His clocks lived on, incorporating new brass parts, expanding into watch, alarm clock, and marine clock production, and made the famous tower clock in Grand Central Station. The Seth Thomas Clock Factory building that stands on Main Street in Thomaston was built around 1915, and was severely damaged in the Flood of 1955. Eventually the company was bought by the General Time Corporation, which itself was bought by a series of other corporations. Operations ceased around 1980, but the name Seth Thomas lives on in the quality of his clocks, and in the name of the community, which separated from Plymouth in 1875.

Hidden in Plain Sight

The public history of one Connecticut town.

Category Archives: History

Frederick Bacon and the United States Exploring Expedition

The 4th of July: Benjamin Tallmadge’s Grave

Louis Fenn Wadsworth: Litchfield’s Baseball Pioneer

Hidden Nearby: Sheffield’s Shays’ Rebellion Monument

Litchfield Then and Now: The 150th Anniversary of the End of the Civil War

Hidden Nearby: New Milford’s Underground Railroad Monument

East Cemetery: Floral Symbolism

The Blizzard of 1888

Topsmead State Forest

Hidden Nearby: Seth Thomas Clock Factory

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