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Manchester History
THE AREA NOW KNOWN AS MANCHESTER
began its recorded history as the camping grounds
of a small band of peaceful Indians – the Podunk tribe. English
settlement began about 1673, some 40 years after Thomas Hooker led a
group of Puritans from Massachusetts Bay Colony to found Hartford. This
area was part of Hartford and was called “Five Mile Tract.” Later the
area came to be called Orford Parish, and was part of East Hartford,
which had separated from Hartford in 1783.
BY 1790, ORFORD PARISH
had about 1,000 residents, clustered in small
settlements such as Buckland on Tolland Turnpike, “the Center,” and “the
Green” located on Middle Turnpike. There was a Congregational Church
and a Methodist Church, 5 schools, 4 taverns, 5 saw and grist mills, an
unsuccessful copper mine, woolen and cotton factories, and 3 paper mills. Some 70
men of Orford Parish had fought in the Revolution. Captain Richard
Pitkin and his sons had produced gun powder for supply to the
Continental Army. As a reward for this vital service, the new State of
Connecticut granted to the Pitkins in 1783 a 25 year monopoly for the
manufacture of glass. The Pitkin Glass Works manufactured bottles,
flasks, and inkwells until about 1830. Residents of Orford Parish began
agitating for incorporation as a separate town as early as 1812. Their
petitions were not successful until 1823, when Orford Parish was
incorporated as the town of Manchester.
THE HOCKANUM RIVER
and 6 brooks ran through Manchester in the early 1800s – providing a
ready source of water power for manufacturing. Woolen mills were in
operation on Hilliard St. from 1780 until the mid 20th
century. When it closed in the 1940s, the Hilliard Company was the
oldest family-owned, continuously operated factory in the U.S. The
first successful cotton mill in Connecticut (begun in 1794) was taken
over by the Union Manufacturing Co. in 1819. By 1850 cotton ginghams
were made at the Union Company mills in North Manchester by nearly 200
women and men, including many Irish immigrants. The first Catholic
Church in town, St. Bridget’s, was built in 1858 to serve this new
population. A railroad line linking Manchester to Hartford was
completed in 1849, making Depot Square a hub of commercial activity.
CHENEY BROTHERS,
founded in South Manchester in 1838, gradually
became world famous for premium quality silk thread and fabrics – as
well as for the invention of innovative silk processing techniques.
While an employee of Cheney Brothers, young Christopher Spencer
(inventor of the Spencer repeating rifle) won early fame as a mechanical
genius by inventing a silk spooling machine. Cheney Brothers were
renowned as well for their generosity and public spiritedness – building
over the course of 50 years a “model community” of workers’ housing and
contributing assets such as schools, Cheney Hall, a public library, the
Hall of Records, public utilities, and land for churches and parks.
MOST CHILDREN
attended one- or two-room schools in town but left formal
schooling after learning how to read and write in order to marry, work
on family farms, in factories, or at a trade. In the mid 1800s,
Manchester had 2 short-lived private academies for older children whose
parents could afford to pay tuition. There was no public high school.
THE CIVIL WAR
disrupted many lives, taking 268 young men from
Manchester; 48 never returned. After the war, a time Mark Twain called
“The Gilded Age,” people in town launched many new commercial
enterprises such as the stores of Watkins Bros., J.W. Hale Co. and C.E.
House & Son, Inc (later known as House and Hale). Manchester had been
called “Silktown” because of the immense influence that the Cheney
Brothers Silk Manufacturing Co. had on South Manchester. In the 19th
century the town could just as well have had the nickname “Papertown,”
since there were 5 successful paper mills in operation: the Rogers Co.
in several locations; Case Bros. at Highland Park; Adams Paper Mill in
Buckland; Lydall & Foulds at Parker Village, and Oakland Paper Co. near
the border of South Windsor. Everything from specialty carts and plow
moldboards to needles to melodeons was made in Manchester.
MANCHESTER WAS A “BOOMTOWN”
by 1900. Cheney Brothers employed about 25 per
cent of the residents – still actively recruited new European immigrants
to work in the mills – and continued its corporate generosity to include
the cost of construction of “Educational Square” (now occupied by Bennet
Middle School). The first public high school was built in 1904 (now the
Bennet Apartments). Many former farms were sold and turned into housing
tracts. Manchester’s first banks were incorporated. Utilities such as
electricity, telephones, piped water, sewer lines; and services such as
extensive trolley lines, volunteer fire departments, and 2 town
newspapers improved life for all residents. Citizens enjoyed music and
other entertainments at Apel’s Opera House and Cheney Hall; there were a
dozen social and fraternal clubs for men and a half dozen for women; and
sports such as baseball and harness racing. Until 1907 the town was
governed in the old New England tradition of “town meeting.” In that
year the town adopted a new charter, creating a more efficient method of
governing, with a Board of Selectmen charged with the responsibility of
running the town.
MANCHESTER CELEBRATED ITS
CENTENNIAL
in 1923 with a huge parade and weeks of special
activities. The town could pride itself on a century of progress in
education and public benefit, and could applaud such commercial advances
as the innovative Hale’s Store – one of the first self-serve grocery
stores in the United States. “Made in Manchester” was one of the mottos
of the Centennial; products in that category ranged from precision
industrial gauges through fine silk fabrics to Bon Ami cleansing soap –
a familiar household name, worldwide, for many years.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
of the 1930s hit Manchester hard, especially with the decline and
eventual failure of Cheney Brothers. There was a modest upswing in
house building as workers in Hartford moved to Manchester to live. An
offshoot of Cheney Brothers, Pioneer Parachute, helped in the defense
efforts in World War II.
MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY
The post WWII era was a time of house building
again, as many people commuted to work at places like Pratt & Whitney
Aircraft and Hamilton Standard and insurance companies in Hartford. An 85-unit housing project, Vet Haven, was built on East Middle Turnpike. The Historical Society published a booklet about Vet Haven, available for sale, and you can read most of it online at: Vet Haven Story.
Manchester adopted a new
charter providing for the council-manager type of government. The
period from 1950 through the 1970s saw commercial growth in town,
improvements to the highways for the commuting public, the construction
of many public and parochial schools, the first Jewish synagogue, and an industrial park. New nonprofit organizations formed to preserve the charm of Manchester: The Manchester Historical Society in 1965 and The Manchester Land Conservation Trust in 1972.
SINCE THE 1990s, the biggest change has been the construction and
development of the Buckland Hills Mall and surrounding retail outlets in
the northernmost part of town.
BOOKS ABOUT MANCHESTER HISTORY - Two comprehensive books have been published about Manchester: the 1923 "History of Manchester, Connecticut" by Spiess and Bidwell; and the 1973 "A New England Pattern, The History of Manchester, Connecticut" by William E. Buckley. Although these books are out of print, copies are available at the public libraries and the historical society. In addition, copies can be purchased online. The Historical Society has published several books, listed at Books at Museum Shop.
THE TOWN'S MOTTO, "A CITY OF VILLAGE CHARM" has a history of its own. Find out more:
Motto of Manchester
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