The Willimantic Journal

ALONG THE WILLIMANTIC RIVER.

[Lyon in the New England Grocer]

Our starting point this time is in the borough of that name, and a few words about this embryo city may not be amiss.

Twenty years ago it was called a smart little village, but—it was always added—business is overdone there.

The Willimantic Linen company had just completed their No. 2 mill and laid out a village of their own near the junction of the Natchaug and Willimantic rivers.

They immediately entered on an era of prosperity which has benefited the borough exceedingly, and which has continued until the "Thread City" is known all over the civilized world. They now operate four mills, one of which bears the distinction of being the largest building in the world.

Here are also the Windham and Smithville cotton mills, the Holland and Chaffee silk mills, the Morrison Machine Co., and several smaller manufactories, all of which, with its superior railway facilities, help on the perpetual boom which seems to have struck the town.

They now claim nearly 10,000 population, and are growing at the rate of a thousand a year. A system of water works has recently been completed, and contracts are out for electric lighting; surveys have been made for sewerage, two new buildings for fire purposes have been erected, and the question of a high school is being agitated.

Among the leading grocers we find Julius Pinney, Purinton & Reade, H. C. Hall, Wales & Hyde, Perkins & Blish, O. D. Brown, etc. In hotels, the Hooker house stands pre-eminent, and if any one can make a drummer skip a customer, when there is little time to catch the last train coming this way, "Pa" Hooker is the man.

It is one of the finest hotels in New England, and he has devised a novel way of making a man at home, from whatever state he comes. The rooms bear the names of the states, and a man can spend the night in Florida or Montana, as he prefers.

A drive of six miles brings us to South Coventry, passing on the way the home of genial "Frank" Bennett, for 40 years a general trader in this neighborhood, as well known by his stories as his business acumen. Frank has some original ideas as to the eternal fitness of things, and frequently puts them in practice, as witness a large sign fastened in front of his house, which invites the passer by to "Hunt and fish all you please. Grub furnished, if necessary." Some day we're going to stop and test the quality.

South Coventry is best known as the birthplace of Nathan Hale, and the cemetery contains a monument erected in his honor.

Business has been quiet for the past few years, the village having suffered from several fires, in which two large factories were burned, which have not been rebuilt. J. F. Young and J. B. Carmen are the merchants longest established here.

A mile and a half northeast over a good road gives a view of Eagleville, a small, well kept manufacturing village, where S. O. Vinton has the busiest country store on the route.

He is also interested in real estate and lumbering, which occupies more of his time than merchandise, possibly to better advantage.

Mansfield Depot is the next stopping point, and a very pleasant village, with not a sound except bird songs and the occasional whistle of a school boy, to indicate the presence of animal life. The only store is fastened up, and everybody seems to have departed, to enjoy the pleasure of our first real May day perhaps.

Just above here lies Spring Manor, where signs of life are abundant. In 1880, Mr. George Reynolds, president of the Delaware Iron works, purchased a farm here for the purpose of making an ideal country place in the town of his birth. He has since added more land, and has continually improved the tract until it begins to show the effects. Probably a more uninviting stony, barren tract could not have been selected for the purposes of experiment than was this eight years ago. Miles upon miles of wall have been laid, from two to six feet in width, with numbers of cones from 10 to 20 feet in height, and still the stones crop out in nearly every lot.

Several buildings have been erected, groves cleared up, driveways laid out and land brought under cultivation. He now owns nearly all the land between Mansfield Depot and Merrow from the road to the river, besides a good sized farm above the road.

Trees have been planted by the roadside for the distance of two miles, which in future years will serve as a monument to the energy of a Mansfield boy.

At Merrow the proprietor of the only store is away, but opportunity is given to look about the old store, where as "boy" the writer was inducted into the mysteries of general storekeeping a dozen years ago.

Here is the same cellar where his first job was "hanging" beef hams, and he feels an involuntary shiver as recollections of the wiping and blowing of fingers before each successive dip into the ice-cold brine.

Fingers were made before hooks in that store.

The back room, where a carload of grain was placed in piles clear to the ceiling every three weeks, and barrels of flour rolled up four tiers high, is now nearly empty.

The $8,000 stock has dwindled to about one-fourth that amount, and the "help" has dropped in number from three to one.

But in those days a prosperous knitting mill kept business humming, which after being burned out three times, has been removed to Norwich, and now pays better dividends to Yankee energy than the old store ever did.