What's on Display

The Historical Society’s Museum on the Green tries to illustrate was life was like in Glastonbury, from the time the first settlers came here from Wethersfield, up through present day. We are still working at this. Two years ago, we began arrange our museum in a new layout. We expect to finish it over this coming winter.

New Donation:

The Museum on the Green has a new painting on permanent exhibit, depicting the Gideon Welles House painted by renowned American impressionist artist Russell Cheney. 

Russell Cheney was born in Manchester in 1881.  He was a member of the Cheney Silk Mill family and grandson of painter, John Cheney.  He graduated from Yale in 1904, then studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Academie Julian in Paris.  Although Cheney did most of his painting in the eastern United States, poor health forced him to seek warmer climates.  He painted around Santa Barbara, California, where his sister, Ednah Cheney Underhill, lived. He died in 1945 of mesenteric thrombosis in Kittery, Maine in a cottage he shared with his long-time partner, author F. O. Matthiessen.   

Russell Cheney’s paintings are exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the San Francisco Museum of Art.  A portrait he painted hung in the Paris Salon in 1909.  He was acting president of the Society of Independent Artists in 1909 and 1910 and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

When being shipped, paintings need to be crated with care and skill.  When Russell Cheney needed someone to crate his paintings for him, he called upon Alvah Russell of Glastonbury.  (Alvah Russell also worked with Berdena Hart Ward when she restored her home at 972 Main Street, Glastonbury to its original, 1755 appearance.)  When Mr. Russell married on November 2, 1925, Mr. Cheney asked him to choose a painting that he would like for a wedding present.  Mr. Russell chose the Cheney painting of the Gideon Welles Homestead as it stood on its original foundation on Main Street in Glastonbury. 

Alvah Russell, Jr. has given this painting to the Historical Society of Glastonbury in memory of his parents, Alvah and Marion Russell.  It is hanging over the Civil War exhibit at the Museum on the Green.  It is a privilege to have such a painting in our collection.  Please come to view it.

The exhibit called  “Pigs in Corn” that Joe and Jean Greene have generously loaned the Society is still exhibiting at the Museum. If you haven’t seen this beautiful and historic collection don’t miss your opportunity to come to the Museum.  It is just part of their extensive collection of Early American Pattern Glass Goblets featuring animals, birds, people, historic events, typical colors and more.

Temporary on Loan:

On loan from another private collection are objects from the J.B. Williams Company.  These items, including a “brand-new” 1893 calendar and a little green beanie, will be in the J.B. Williams cabinet.  The display has been completely redone.  Joe Sullivan, who has created several display stands for us, has made an “easel” which holds large soap ladles and paddles, and designed a way to display the aerial view of the J.B. Williams factory so that it can be seen from the floor easily. 

Curatorial Wish List:

v     c. 1850 garden tools (not farm tools)

v     c. 1850 firewood chopping ax and/or maul

v     a buggy harness for a 15 hand horse

v     a photo of Edward Riseley for the Civil War exhibit ( we can scan it and return it to you)

v     an ice box for the ice cutting display

v     photos of the plane spotting towers used in Glastonbury during WWII, Tower Hill, Naubuc School roof, or knowledge/photos of others

Permanent Exhibits:

SHIP BUILDING

From 1614 when Adriaen Block sailed up the Quinnihticut River until 1931 when the steamship, Middletown, last docked across from the coming Community Center, many people first saw Glastonbury from the river.

A model of The Exact (1830) stands in the entrance. She was one of more than 350 ships built in Glastonbury shipyards. Known as the Seattle Mayflower, she was hired at a stop in California by the first group of emigrants to Seattle, Washington.

The Shipyard Diorama gives a sketch of how a ship was built. It is based on Roswell Hollister’s Log Landing Shipyard. Ships built at Glastonbury could not be large, ocean-going vessels because of the sandbar at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Smaller ships, used for trade along the coastlines and to Caribbean Islands, had shallower drafts and could pass over the sandbar.

Shipbuilding required supplies, and many industries grew up in Glastonbury to meet those needs. One of these was the South Glastonbury Anchor Works, later known as Pratt’s Forge. The anchor on the bottom shelf of the display case is an example of a small Pratt’s Forge anchor. The photographs show anchors as heavy as 3,900 pounds, which were also made at the Forge and shipped to New York for use on ocean going vessels.

In the display case are many items used by sailors. The logbook is from the whaler, the Alert, and kept by Hezekiah Hale of Glastonbury. On each day a whale was killed, Hezekiah stamped a picture of a whale. Sailors would occasionally leave their ships when in port, so new sailors would be hired along the way to keep a full crew. When the Alert reached San Francisco, Hezekiah Hale hired a young seaman whose name was Richard Henry Dana. From his travels on the Alert under Hezekiah Hale, Dana wrote the novel, Two Years Before the Mast.

HOW THE WORLD LOOKED - The Keith Hook Map Collection

These maps were printed in England and France between 1775 and 1835. The United States did not have the technology to do fine lithography so surveys were taken and brought back to Europe to have plates engraved and maps printed. One of the surveyors was Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson.

There are seven maps in the collection, which are shown on a revolving basis.

NATIVE AMERICANS

The Native Americans of Glastonbury were members of Algonkian-speaking tribes. They lived in clans of approximately100 individuals, each group ruled by a sachem. Clans took names from features of the land where they were centered. Naubucs lived in the Plains to the East, the flat area at the North End of town. Nayaugs lived near the Noisy Water, at the mouth of Roaring Brook. Wongonks lived at the Bend in the River, where the Connecticut River turned in the 1600’s. The tribes were peaceful and agricultural.

In the summer, clans lived along the river in Longhouses like the model on the table, made of saplings and bark or woven mats. In winter, they moved to the hills and lived in South- or West- facing caves. The artifacts from the Phillips Dig were found in such a cave in East Glastonbury. The cases contain many examples of stone implements and clay pottery created by the tribes, as well as contact material; items which were probably received in trade from colonists who settled in the area.

Note the pottery along the back of the bottom shelf. The oldest piece was made between 1,000 and 1 BC. On the right of the top shelf is a soapstone dish. It is very rare that one is found whole. Dishes carved from soapstone were used before Native Americans learned to make clay pottery.

COLONIAL GLASSENBURY

Glastonbury was purchased from the sachem, Sowheag, and his clan in 1636 for 12 yards of trading cloth. In 1639, surveyors laid out 34 strips of land running 6 miles north to south and 3 miles from the river into the wilderness. Glastonbury’s current Three Mile Road marks the three miles from where the river flowed in 1639. Width of the strips was determined by the amount of useable, fertile land in each strip and adjustments were made to accommodate rocky or swampy land, unsuitable for farming. This was the First Survey in Connecticut. An interpretation of it hangs on the wall over the display case. For 50 years, this land was known as Naubuc Farms and was part of Wethersfield. In 1650, the General Court granted permission to form a militia. In 1673, an additional four miles to the east, known as East Farms, was purchased. The 34 households living in this area built a Meeting House on the site of this Museum and hired Timothy Stevens as a minister. Permission was granted to them in 1690 to form a town, and in 1693, Glassenbury was incorporated.

In the case are examples of colonial currency, household, and building materials. The brick is from the Matthew Miller House (1780). It is imprinted with Spanish Pieces of Eight and is most likely a ballast brick carried on a ship traveling from South America or the West Indies.

The spoon mold, dating from 1710, is one of the oldest known American made spoon molds still in existence.

Also in the case is a photograph of Thomas High Lord Talcott, who lived in the house shown in the photo below his. It stood on Main Street, about where the J.B. Williams Memorial (south wing of Academy School) stands today. A sample of the wallpaper in the photo is beside it. It was the first wallpaper in Glastonbury, imported from England in 1738. The leaded window glass is from the Talcott house and is one of a very few examples of Colonial leaded glass known to exist. Mr. Talcott is shown holding a musket. It hangs on the wall over the display. Above the musket hangs a Colonial Era pike. The blade of this pike is make from the blade of a sword.

On the wall over the case is a 1776 Map of New England from the Keith Hook Collection, a tin lantern made in 1776, and a Paymaster’s Sheet, recording the signatures of men from Glastenbury who received their pay for serving with the Sixth Regiment at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights under General George Washington.

Of note is the Pilgrim Era Chest, made in the 17th century and updated in the 19th century. The original construction is visible on the back of the chest.

EARLY INDUSTRY

The strongest industrial influence in Glastonbury was shipbuilding. Sawmills, forges, blacksmiths, and coopers were needed to supply materials to build the 350 ships that came from three shipyards. Men were needed to do the work of producing raw materials and assembling them. The workers and their families required food, clothing, shoes, and other things.

All of these needs made Glastonbury a busy place. In 1760, one of several gristmills in town was built at Nayaug. This Great Gristmill boasted a bakeshop and an oven, as well. In 1769, Elisha Treat’s “Lineet Mill” produced linseed oil, important for wood finishing. The first sawmill was built in 1667. By 1791, there were 7. In 1801, Oswen Welles was operating his woodenware shop. In 1814, cotton, imported from the Southern states, was woven into fabric in Cotton Hollow, and by 1822, Samuel Welles’ factory was producing woolen goods in Eagleville. In 1826, Azial Goslee was producing hoes and other farm implements.

George Stocking and his sons’ gun powder factory on Roaring Brook in South Glastonbury was one of 4 suppliers in New England bringing ammunition to General Washington’s army during the Revolution. In August 23, 1777, Eunice Cobb Stocking was returning from Boston after delivering a shipment of gunpowder. In Bolton Notch, 15 miles from home, she felt the earth shake and saw a cloud of black smoke to the west. Knowing that only the gunpowder factory could cause such an explosion, Eunice returned home. Her husband and three of her four sons had been killed. With a lot of courage and some help from Howell Woodbridge, Eunice rebuilt the factory and continued to supply Colonial Troops.

The story of the explosion is on the gravestone of Thomas Kimberly in the Green Cemetery.

Glassenbury Glass Works was located in the Wassuc section, south of Buck’s Corners on New London Turnpike near the entrance to Route 2. The industry was started in 1816 as a spin-off of the Pitkin Glass Factory in Manchester. It closed in 1830. Examples of its products are in the case.

SAMPLERS

So important was needlework to early American Society that it was taught to all young girls, regardless of social class. They began with simple stitches and marking, or the embroidering of letters. A sampler may have been kept for the remainder of a woman’s life, used as a personal pattern book when marking household items after marriage. A young girl might learn this skill at a “dame school”, or a neighborhood school taught by a woman for young children, approximately 4 to 9 years of age.

Having learned the basics well, older girls sometimes attended a “female academy” where they would have their first chance to live away from home. Painted and silk embroidered pictures were a measure of the young lady’s accomplishment while attending such a school.

Look at the sampler done by Sarah S. Harris. We know this sampler was done at Anna Cornwall’s school in her home at 1200 Main Street. Read the poem and look at the formation of the letters. Now look at Sophia Hill’s work. Do you think she attended Miss Cornwall’s school, too?

THE J.B. WILLIAMS SOAP FACTORY

James B. Williams had a drug business in Manchester in 1840. On the side, he experimented with chemical formulas for shaving soap. When he had produced a formula that satisfied him, he moved his business to Glastonbury. Two years later, he was joined by his brother, William Stuart Williams. They formed what is believed to be the first commercial soap manufacturing business in the world.

Although shaving soap was their first product, they also made ink and shoe blacking. Products made by the J.B. Williams Company included Williams ‘Lectric Shave and Aqua Velva, which were known world wide.

Around 1922, J.B. Williams expanded to Montreal, then later, to England and Argentina. In 1957, the company was sold to Pharmaceuticals, Inc. of Cranston, NJ. The plant was moved to New Jersey in 1960. Ten former employees organized Glastonbury Toiletries and continued operation into the 1970’s. Remaining parts of the complex are currently the Soap Factory Condominiums and the Glastonbury Board of Education office.

THE CIVIL WAR

After the firing on Fort Sumpter by Confederate troops, Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers across the country. James B. Williams, William S. Williams, Isaac W. Plummer, Thaddeus Welles, and Benjamin Taylor signed a promissory note to provide funding for Glastonbury’s volunteers and 10 young men stepped forward. Among them was William S. Abby, who became a captain in the 25th CV Regiment.

Also among the first 10 was Edward Risley, who was captured by the Confederates and was held at Andersonville Prison, where he died.

Robert G. Welles, son of Thaddeus Welles and nephew of Gideon Welles, served as a captain in the 10th Regular Infantry Division. He was severely wounded at Gettysburg and died in Glastonbury in 1866.

Men from Glastonbury served in the 1st Connecticut Cavalry Unit. Connecticut’s only Cavalry unit, it accompanied General Ulysses S. Grant to Appomattox Court House to meet General Robert E. Lee. This unit was chosen to represent the entire Cavalry at the laying of the cornerstone at the Gettysburg Monument. It was the only Cavalry unit present at the ceremony.

Glastonbury’s involvement in the War Between the States was more than military. Before the battles began, 40 women, including Hannah Hickok Smith and her 5 daughters, signed a petition denouncing slavery. It was presented to Congress by the former president, John Quincy Adams, and is believed to be the first anti-slavery petition brought before Congress.

By the time the war began, Glastonbury was becoming an industrial town. At Hopewell Mills, cloth was produced for Union troop uniforms. In Curtisville, the Connecticut Arms & Manufacturing Co. produced pistols and rifles used by the Grand Army of the Potomac.

Gideon Welles, born in the house that currently stands at 17 Hebron Avenue, served as Secretary of the Navy in the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. He is considered the Father of the Modern Navy and is responsible for the development of Iron Clad ships.

Gideon Welles was a Glastonbury Tax Gatherer, editor of the Hartford Times, representative to the State Legislature from Hartford, and Hartford Postmaster. President Abraham Lincoln became aware of Gideon Welles through his newspaper articles. An early supporter of Lincoln, Welles knew he would be asked to serve in Lincoln’s cabinet and hoped to serve as Postmaster General. Because of Welles’ shipbuilding knowledge, Lincoln named him Secretary of the Navy. Gideon Welles served under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson from 1861 until 1869. It is said that he and Admiral Farragut planned the Battle of Mobile Bay on the front porch of the Welles Home on Hebron Avenue. A piece of the boom from Farragut’s ship, the U.S.S. Hartford, is part of the shipbuilding display. The lithograph of Lincoln’s Cabinet includes Gideon Welles. He is the gentleman with the impressive beard. The wooden gate is from the Welles Home on Hebron Avenue.

THE PRISONER’S PEN

Originally, this structure was in the criminal courtroom of the old Hartford Court House; a square, red brick building with sandstone trim, high arched windows and mansard roof of blue slate, which stood at the southeast corner of Allyn and Trumbull Streets.

Perhaps the most noted criminal to occupy this pen was Gerald Chapman, on trial for the murder of Policeman James Skelly of New Britain, October 12, 1924. Here Chapman stood at 10:35a.m., Saturday, April 4, 1925, to hear the judge call for the verdict, and the foreman of the jury respond, “Guilty”. He stepped from this pen and was led before the judge’s bench to receive the sentence, “that you, Gerald Chapman, forthwith be taken to the State’s prison at Wethersfield and there confined until June 25, 1925 when, before sunrise of that day, you shall be hanged by the neck until dead!”

Gerald Chapman received three reprieves and was not hung until midnight, April 5-6, 1926.

By an act of the General Assembly in 1935, the method of execution was changed from hanging to electrocution. The old courthouse was demolished soon after the new Hartford County building was build on Washington Street in the late twenties, and this pen was brought to Glastonbury and used in the town court which was held in the south room of the second floor of the old Town Office Building, once the Second District School, on the northeast corner of Main and School Streets.

THE ERASTUS SALISBURY FIELD PORTRAITS

The portraits on the wall are the Jedidiah Post and George Merrick Families done by Erastus Salisbury Field in 1831. The two women, Eliza Post and Nancy Merrick are sisters; they are the daughters of shipbuilder Roswell Hollister of South Glastonbury. The three children are the son and daughters of Jedidiah and Eliza. One of the earrings both women are wearing was made into a necklace by one of their descendents. It is in the case near the Bill of Sale for the paintings, showing the cost of these six portraits to be $30.00. The sixth portrait may have been one of the Merrick Children. Its whereabouts is not known.

THE RISE OF FELDSPAR

courtesy of Brian Chiffer

The Tryon Street Bridge in South Glastonbury crosses Roaring Brook at a point approximately one quarter of a mile upstream from its mouth, where High Street, Water Street, and Tryon Street intersect. It used to be known as the Spar Mill Bridge. Records suggest that as many as five different businesses existed on the banks near this bridge. Many artifacts and remains persist to this day for the curious history-minded to explore. Early on, the land in this area was owned by members of the Hollister and Welles families. In 1720, a Welles built a sawmill just upstream from the bridge, and in 1775, a gristmill on the opposite bank, the foundation of which still exists. A red private home adjacent to it may have served as a bakery shop. In 1854, because a flood had weakened the foundation of the gristmill, it was moved downstream below the bridge, to an area where a fulling and carding mill may once have been. This move set the stage for the industry for which the area is best known, the milling of feldspar.

“Spar” is a mineral composed mainly of silica and alumina. It is added to ceramics to decrease its melting point during firing and to lend body to it during shaping. It can be found in everything from bathtubs, to ceramic tiles, to false teeth.

In the 1860s, George Andrews discovered spar on his farm in South Glastonbury near the Portland town line. In 1870, he started to quarry it and built a small mill there. About 10 years later, he sold his operation to Joshua and William Husband who then moved the mill to the site of the old gristmill on Roaring Brook. The old stone wheels that once ground grain proved ideal for grinding feldspar. In 1905, after several other changes in ownership, the mill was bought and expanded by Louis Howe.

The intricate design of this fascinating area is evident from the remains that still exist. The mill was powered by water from behind a wooden dam located just 15 feet upstream from the bridge. When water was required, a gate would be opened, sending water through an underground flume located beneath the bridge on the mill property. The water turned a wheel connected to the grinding stones that sat in concrete cylinders which remain today. Little chase stones, seen scattered about, were added to the spar to make it easier to grind.

The raw spar was mined at the Andrews quarry located diagonally across the street from Old Maids Lane, then carted down this street to Tryon Street, over the bridge and into the entrance to the mill were the wagon was weighed on a scale by the office building (now a private home).

The milled spar was also weighed going out and carted to loading docks where it was ferried to the railroad across the Connecticut River for shipment. Howe operated his mill until well into the 1920s when the mining of spare became unprofitable. Records show that he closed the mill in 1928.

Interestingly, another spar mill existed further upstream from Howe’s mill on Water Street, close to the Main Street Bridge on Roaring Brook’s north bank. Very little is known about this particular mill which, in 1901, was owned and operated by the Glastonbury Flint and Spar Company, with its president, John W. Scanlon of Hartford. Although a law office and a private home now occupy this site, remnants of the mill’s foundations, a few grinding wheels, and bits of feldspar are still there. This mill went bankrupt in 1904.

THE PEACH KING

In 1866, John Howard Hale and his brother, George, planted their first strawberries on a sandy hillside on the family’s 200-year-old farm. They borrowed a push cart from a neighbor, which they later purchased for $1, and had modest success selling their berries from it. When it became apparent that more money was needed to buy more plants and fertilizer, thus increasing their profits, 14-year-old J.H. took a job milking cows twice a day, 7 days a week, for $12.50 a month. He also assisted in selling the milk door to door from the milk wagon. When the dairy farmer’s garden produced an excess of vegetables, they were also sold from the milk wagon. Except for money spent on a good suit of clothes and the first bought overcoat he had ever had, J.H. put all the money he earned back into the business he and his brother were building. When neighbors warned their mother that the boys were ruining her best planting ground with their briar patch, she acknowledged them, but did not stop the boys from planting more strawberries and raspberries. J.H. and George learned that fruits brought larger profits than vegetables, that healthy plants could be sold for a profit, that a catalogue with good pictures and descriptions of the fruit plants could sell more plants, and that fruit packaged in a way that was pleasing to the eye could bring a higher price than the same fruit packaged less carefully.

Commercially growing peaches had been abandoned in New England because disease and heavy frost frequently killed the trees before they reached fruit-bearing age. J.H. and George noticed a small grove of their grandfather’s peach trees. These trees were 70-years-old. They did not suffer from “yellows”. They did produce fruit. From these old trees, J.H. and George developed an orchard. For seven years, the orchard produced nothing and the berries carried the farm. When a May freeze killed the strawberry crop, a church group, comprised mostly of tobacco growers, which held the $2,000 mortgage on the farm, gave the Hales until October to pay. By September, the peach orchards finally produced as the brothers had hoped. The crop brought $9,000.

By 1915, Hale Farms had grown from a borrowed pushcart to 2,000 acres in Glastonbury and Seymour, Connecticut, and 1,000 acres in Georgia. They had cultivated over 350,000 peach trees. A special railway spur picked up peaches at the Hale property every evening and delivered them before dawn to New York City. Hale peaches were shipped all over the country, and J.H. Hale became a pioneer in nationwide produce marketing. He was the first to grade his fruit, so that a crate held the same size peaches all the way to the bottom.

Not only are Hale peaches still available, but they have been used to create some of the modern hybrid fruit available today.

Although John Howard Hale never went beyond grade school, he understood the value of education. His efforts contributed largely to the founding of the Glastonbury Grange and the Connecticut State Grange. He was also important in the establishment of Storrs Agricultural College, which we know today as the University of Connecticut.

HARRIMAN MOTORS

Frank Herbert “Bert” Harriman was born in 1868 in East Orland, Maine. He was an avid reader with a photographic memory and a knack for mechanics. At the age of 19, he left Maine for the industrial town of Brockton, Massachusetts. There, Bert met a man who thought he had possibilities and secured a position for him in Menlo Park, New Jersey with Thomas Edison. By 1898, Bert was working at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut with Dr. Ansel Cook, a pioneer in the development of X-rays. Bert developed an arc light and sold all rights to GE for $10,000. With this money, he opened a marine motor manufactory in Hartford. In 1907, Harriman Motors moved to 1123 Main Street, South Glastonbury. Bert took out mortgages and bought a manufacturing building and a house for himself, his wife, Bertha, and his daughter, Gladys, from the Taylor family.

Bert was fascinated by the work of the Wright Brothers and by 1909, had built and flown his own aero plane. The fuselage and propellers were made at Taylor’s sawmill and cooperage. Doug Taylor, a cabinet maker, carved the propellers from laminated layers of wood. Several fabrics were experimented with for the skin of the aircraft, including rubberized Goodyear cloth and silk which had been doped and varnished. In the end, unbleached linen woven 60-70 threads per inch was used. It was pulled taut over the frame, then shellacked or varnished. The skin was two layers of cloth with wire reinforcement between. Given coats of linseed oil, it had a yellowish appearance. In his foundry, Harriman cast bearings of brass or bronze. His sales slogan read, “Raw Material to Finished Product in one factory”.

When Harriman’s planes would not fly because of overheated bearings, he experimented with coating them in silver. Legend says Bertha canvassed the neighborhood for silver to purchase for her husband’s bearings. Gladys remembered the silver being bought from a company on Elm Street in Hartford. Years later, Pratt & Whitney solved its own overheating difficulties by coating engine bearings with silver.

The first plane crashed and was repaired in the meadows of South Glastonbury. By 1910, Bert was flying in the meadows of South Windsor. By 1915, he flew in air shows at Minneola, New York. He gave flying lessons in the Meadows south of the ferry in Glastonbury.

Around 1910, Bert built the concrete and steel building that still stands at 1123 Main Street, South Glastonbury. This was the first factory built specifically for the manufacture of airplanes in the state of Connecticut, and Harriman Motors was the first organized manufacturer. The original wood frame building was demolished in 1932.

In 1914, a four-ox team hauled a seaplane, its wings detached, down Water Street to Log Landing for a test flight. It crashed on the breakwater near Red Hill but still drew attention to Harriman Motors. A U.S. Government Inspector came to Glastonbury to keep an eye on the developing hydroplane. This aircraft had a wingspan of 32 feet. Harriman claimed it could lift 2,000 pounds which included fuel, operator, a small machine gun, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition. It had two seats, was dual-controlled and armored. Bert Harriman believed he had a firm commitment from the U.S. Navy for 20 seaplanes.

Harriman Motors built aero planes and aero plane engines in 30, 50, and 100 horsepower models. They continued to build marine engines. Anticipating orders from the U.S. Navy for engines for use in torpedo boats, Bert Harriman increased the size of his plant and his work force. Mr. Huen Chi from China came to observe the factory and the hydroplane experiments. He stayed in the Harriman home during his visit to the United States. Prices and specifications for the 100hp aero plane engine were requested by Russia and sent. Mr. D.A.Thomas, a purchasing agent for European countries, met with Harriman to negotiate a $500,000 contract which included 125 planes for England and 30 for France. None of these orders ever materialized.

Harriman Motors logo includes a winged gear with the letters “HF” on it. The “F” is J.F. Fitzpatrick, a company officer who lived with the Harrimans for a time and may have helped with design. He was believed to have stolen equipment worth $3,000 from Harriman Motors. Bert Harriman hired a watchman to guard planes and equipment left overnight in the cove south of the coal docks.

Bert Harriman held one patent, dated 1920, for a fuel economizer for automobiles. It was manufactured in Essex, Connecticut.

The Wright Brothers owned all the patents on aero planes and actively pursued large licensing fees from anyone attempting to sell planes or plane engines for profit. Enlarging his plant and his workforce had overextended Harriman. Claiming Harriman’s motors to be useless, Albert Oulette of Sanford, ME sued him for $1,000. There were other lawsuits, including one for $37.50 due on the company typewriter. Heavily in dept, Harriman re-formed his company with Joe Pratt of Hartford. Mr. Pratt was to manage the business, leaving Bert free to develop engines. Bert tried to convince the superintendent of Cheshire Correctional Institute to have the inmates produce his planes as part of a machinist’s training program, but the plan didn’t come to be. Lacking capitol, Bert Harriman filed for bankruptcy on May 13, 1921 in Hartford Superior Court and left Connecticut for Long Island. There, he sold his ideas to a company that put them into profitable practice.

By the time he left Glastonbury, Bert Harriman had built and flown a bi-plane, a tri-plane, and a hydroplane. His were the first aero planes built in the State of Connecticut. Frank “Bert” Harriman is acknowledged as a forerunner of modern aviation.

ROSER’S PIGSKIN TANNERY

In 1695, just about the time Glastonbury became a town, Kasper Roser left his home in Strasburg, France, seeking religious freedom. He moved his family and his tanning business to Stuttgart, Germany. Seven generations later, in 1883, the Roser family was still known for quality leather tanning.

Herman, the seventh son of that seventh generation saw no future for himself in Stuttgart. There were too many brothers ahead of him and traditionally, the oldest inherited the family business. A cousin, who had traveled in England and Scotland selling leather, said Scotland thought the best quality pigskin came from America. After much discussion, Herman’s father allowed him to cross the ocean to the land “over run with Indians and gun-toting criminals”. In 1883, Herman traveled to the United States. Each Roser had learned every job in the family tannery from the most menial to the most skilled, then had worked in other tanneries across Europe. Herman came with solid experience and had little trouble finding work in American tanneries but he wanted to run his own tannery. He looked for an established tannery with a good source of pure water, a good source of oak bark for the tannin it provided, and a good source of pigs.

Isaac Broadhead and Edward Hubbard had established a tannery in Glastonbury in 1854. Edward Hubbard died in 1872 and by 1886 Isaac Broadhead was ready to sell his tannery. It used the water from nearby Neipsic pools. Oak trees grew well on Glastonbury’s hillsides. Glastonbury was a farm town: there were a lot of pigs. Herman Roser bought the tannery in Glastonbury.

When Herman first took over the Tannery, the only machinery used was a water-powered bark grinder. As time passed, technology developed and power went from water to steam to electricity. New machines were assessed and added to the process. Herman’s sons, John and Martin, joined him in the business. Other industries were progressing toward modern methods, too, and industrial wastes were dumped into the brooks and ponds. Because tanning requires pure water, Roser’s developed its own research department. In 1942, the Tannery received one of the first awards from the Connecticut Riverside Council for water purification research. By 1949, Roser’s had one of the most complete plants for disposal of tannery wastes in America. Its capacity was 100,000 gallons per day.

Leather tanned at Roser’s was used to make saddles for the U.S. Cavalry, upholstery for Pierce Arrow limousines, watch bands, book binding, luggage, belts, briefcases, wallets, and fine shoes. When the tannery was sold to Allied Kid Corporation in 1965, Herman Roser was considered one of the founders of pigskin processing in the United States.

PEQUOT SODA WATER

The third family business was begun in 1916 on today’s Spring Street Extension. It used the pure spring water in its soda. Local Native Americans had believed these springs to have magical properties. In the 1960’s, trucks delivered cases of soda to homes in and around the Glastonbury area. In the case are original ads and bottles.

THE FATHER OF THE MODERN POULTRY INDUSTRY

About 1900, Frank Saglio arrived in Glastonbury from Italy. He took a job with J.H.Hale and worked his way up to foreman, supervising other Italian immigrants. By 1917, he had earned enough money to buy a farm on John Tom Hill. He raised vegetables and fruit for market and, in two discarded piano crates, chickens for his family’s use. As his sons matured to an age where they could take on some of the responsibilities of the farm, each son developed a specialty. Frank’s oldest son took on the vegetables. His second son took on the fruits. When his third son reached 8th grade, the chickens were all that was left. Henry earned his electrician’s license and built the first real coop the farm had had. The flock grew. When the vegetables and fruits went to market, eggs went with them. Henry also worked on breeding a white bird because the black pinfeathers were difficult to get out of a bird headed for a meal.

Prior to World War II, broiler chickens were a by-product of the egg industry. Female chickens produced eggs. Males did not so they became broilers. Broilers were called Spring Chickens because most hatching was done in the early part of the year. The war caused meat shortages. Because chickens reached eating size more quickly than beef or pork, poultry became an important source of food. To stimulate interest in production, the poultry industry, the government, and food distributors held a competition, sponsored by A&P, to find the Chicken of Tomorrow. State and local officials urged Henry to enter. Reluctantly, he agreed. Arbor Acres was already the largest cauliflower producer in Connecticut.

In 1948, Henry Saglio’s Arbor Acre White Rocks came in second, the highest ranked purebred chicken. The 3-year competition was held a second time and the farms who had achieved a high rank in the first competition did so again. Henry hired the marketing agent of the competition for his birds. White birds were unpopular as food poultry because the color was associated with Leghorns, a good egg-producing bird but a poor eating hen. Henry and his marketer went to the processors and convinced them of all the benefits of a white eating hen. The processors demanded white hens from the producers. There was only one source from which the producers could buy a good white eating hen: Arbor Acres.

By 1950, Arbor Acres was marketing breeding hens coast to coast, both as day-old chicks and as fertile eggs to be incubated by chicken farmers. Because of the difficulty in shipping fragile goods, branches of Arbor Acres were established across the United States. By 1958, Arbor Acres had gone world-wide with its headquarters still in Glastonbury. Approximately half of the chickens being consumed around the world were from Arbor Acres breeding stock.

Arbor Acres was one of the first to use genetic engineering to develop chickens that were meatier, matured more quickly, and laid more eggs. In 1977, Henry Saglio was inducted into the Poultry Hall of Fame.

CURTISVILLE (Established 1846)

The Naubuc section of town was the early town center. At Pratt’s Landing near the end of Pratt Street, a ferry operated from 1673 until 1829.

Salmon Brook provided the waterpower for early mills. A gristmill and Glastonbury’s first sawmill were located in this area. These early sawmills produced clapboards for local building and pipe staves (barrel staves) for export down the river to New York and other colonies, and the West Indies. These products, as well as tar distilled from pinewood, proved saleable cargoes. Shipbuilding was a major industry between 1650 and 1820. The Welles family first operated a shipyard at Naubuc, then later, the Welles Lumber Company. Gideon Welles was a member of this family. Shipping was Glastonbury’s first industry. It provided employment through forges, sail-making, and needs for seaman. Until 1846, there was a woodenware business at Naubuc.

In 1846, Frederick and Joseph Curtis built the first factory for making Britanniaware or “German Silver” in the United States. This is a white metal which is+ an alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel

The factory made Victorian silverware including ladles, pie, cake and ice cream knives, tea sets, tureens, spectacles, and tobacco boxes. At the time of the Civil War, the factory was purchased by the Connecticut Arms Manufacturing Company, which made rifles and derringer-style handguns until 1869. In 1880, James B. and William Williams founded the Williams Brothers Silver Company and produced silver plate. The company stayed in business until 1946, providing work for residents of Naubuc, as well as an auditorium for meetings and entertainment.

The village of Curtisville had a post office, little shops, and homes. Among the items of interest in the display case, in addition to the silver plate and the handgun, are a pair of Glastonbury runners (skates), and surgical splints used to join broken bones during the time of World War I. The factory buildings are currently occupied by several businesses, including Nap Brothers and Maurer and Shepard. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

GLASTENBURY KNITTING COMPANY

In 1822, Fraray Hale and Samuel Welles organized a clothing and fulling mill known as Eagle Manufacturing Company. They built a mill on Salmon Brook near Hebron Avenue at the location of Mill Street and Addison Road for the production of woolen goods.

In 1855, the plant was bought by the Glastenbury Knitting Company. Eagleville become known as Addison, named for Addison L. Clark, president of the new company. The village had its own post office. The factory made men’s shirts and good, warm underwear that didn’t shrink. Notice the spelling of Glastonbury on the underwear box.

After the knitting company closed, velvet was finished at Addison Mills. A picture of the mill is on the wall above the Smith Sisters display.

HOPEWELL MILLS was located on Roaring Brook in South Glastonbury. The woolen blanket in the case was made there.

In 1814,the Hartford Manufacturing Company built a dam and a five-story factory to make cotton sheeting in the area. They built a community with a school, a post office, shops, and workers’ homes, which became known as Cotton Hollow. Later, the building was sold to Jedidiah Post, (the Post family pictures are on the back wall of the museum) who operated the Post-Purtill Paper Mill. The building burned after a boiler explosion in 1920.

THE SMITH SISTERS

The Smiths owned the largest parcel of the 34 original tracts. Zephaniah Hollister Smith (1759-1836) was a graduate of Yale. He had been a minister. When theological problems arose, he became a merchant and studied law. He was quite successful as a lawyer. His wife, Hannah Hickok Smith (1767-1850), was an intelligent and determined woman. She was educated by her father who was a Yale graduate. She was an abolitionist. She and her daughters circulated an anti-slavery petition in Glastonbury. About 40 Glastonbury women signed the petition, which was presented to Congress by former President John Quincy Adams. This is believed to be the first petition against slavery.

The sisters were:

Hancy Zephina (1787-1871), very mechanical. She built things like a keyboard made of wood and a boat which she sailed on the river. She also invented a device for shoeing cattle that was used by local blacksmiths. Her name was probably a combination of Hannah and Zephiniah. She was called Zephina and signed her name H. Zephina Smith.

Cyrinthia Sacretia (1788-1864), a skilled needle woman and a botanist. She had a greenhouse behind the Smith home on Main Street.

Laurilla Aleroyia (1785-1857), artist. The Victorian cottage across the street from the Smith home was built as her art studio. Her watercolor sketches are in the book in the display case. It is because of her drawings that we know how the houses on Main Street appear in her lifetime.

Julia Evelina (1792-1886), classics scholar. She taught at the Emma Willard School at Troy, New York. She belonged to a religious order that believed the world was coming to an end. When it did not, Julia wrote 5 literal translations of the Bible from Hebrew, Latin, and Greek to find out why.

Julia was the only sister to marry. At age 87, she married Judge Amos Parker from New Hampshire with whom she had corresponded, but had never met. It was not a happy marriage. When Julia died 7 years later, she left a note asking to be buried next to her sisters with only her maiden name on the headstone.

Abby Hadassah (1797-1878), speaker for women’s suffrage.

A problem began in 1869 when Julia was 77 and Abby was 72. The town increased the property tax of several widows and unmarried women, but not of any men. Julia and Abby objected to the discrimination, but got nowhere with the town. They turned to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Abby had attended the first Women’s Congress in New York in 1873 and come home inspired to take on the Town of Glastonbury. On Election Day, Abby and Julia went to the Town House (this museum). Although women had not yet gained the right to vote, Abby and Julia asked the moderator for permission to speak. He refused and they left. Outside, Abby climbed onto an oxcart and gave a speech on Taxation without Representation. From that day, they refused to pay their taxes. The town took their 7 Alderny cows named Jesse, Daisy, Proxy, Minnie, Bessie, and Lily. The Smiths managed to buy back the cows at auction. The following year, the Tax Collector put the Smith land up for auction instead of the cows. This was illegal. The Smiths sued the town and won. Reporters from as far away as Boston came to Glastonbury to cover the story of the two old ladies and their cows. As a memoir, Julia wrote Abby Smith and Her Cows, a book published in 1877.

SCHOOLS

In 1700, Glastonbury’s Town Men (the elected governing body) voted to purchase nails to build a schoolhouse “eighteen feet square beside the chimney”. The walls of this schoolroom are 9 feet long, as a size comparison. Because of disagreements among the Town Men, the first school was actually built eleven years later.

In 1855, Glastonbury was divided into 18 School Districts. Note the pictures on the poster. Early schools were in session a minimum of 4 months a year by state law. The children were needed at home the rest of the time for farm work and to help with spinning, weaving, candle making, and other chores. In 1865, it became mandatory to keep schools open for 6 months. Students were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and later, geography was added.

There was no free high school until 1893, although there was Glastonbury Academy on the Green in 1798, Glastonbury Seminary from 1792 to 1845 located next to the Welles-Shipman-Ward House, Academy Hall from 1862 to 1864 near Stockade Road, and Glastonbury Academy, founded 1870 and re-organized in 1893 as Glastonbury Free Academy, on the site of the present Academy School. These were private academies and students paid tuition to attend.

TREAT TAVERN SIGN

This Tavern is now a private home. It is located on Hebron Avenue.