Monday, January 23, 2017

Wolcott History – Town Names and Clocks

 One of the things I really like is exploring the connections between history, geography, and genealogy.

I was recently reading the latest story on the Wolcott History website (1). For those who love Wolcott, Florence Goodman writes a great story each month for this website. Even though the two of us have never met face-to-face, she and I have grown to enjoy each other’s writings on a subject which is loved by both of us.

As I was browsing around this website after reading the monthly posting, I was looking at the “links” on one of the pages. One of those links was to the history of Seth Thomas clocks (2). One of the paragraphs at the beginning of this page was as follows:

“Seth Thomas was born in Wolcott, Connecticut in 1785 [actually it was then called Farmingbury as the name change to Wolcott didn’t happen until 1796], went to work for clockmaker Eli Terry in 1807, bought out Terry’s factory (together with Silas Hoadley) in 1810, and in December 1813 bought out Heman Clark’s clockmaking business in Plymouth Hollow.”

One of the things that came to my mind as I read this sentence/paragraph was the names of the towns around Wolcott and how they were related to my love of history/geography/genealogy. Some towns are named for other historical places, some based on the geography of the town, and some for individuals. Here are examples of each:

History: Connecticut, and the rest of New England as well, was settled by people from England (hence the name New England). So, many of the towns/cities in Connecticut are named after the places in England where some of those early inhabitants came from. In the area around Wolcott, these include: Bristol (which was originally called New Cambridge), Plymouth, New Britain, Avon, Cheshire, Hartford (named after Hertfordshire), etc.

Geography: Towns to the immediate east of Wolcott are down the escarpment which marks the edge of the western Connecticut highlands and are generally level farmlands which are watered by the many streams which flow east from these highlands, so we get such names as Farmington (farming town), Plainville (village on a plain), Southington (split off from Farmington, so south [farm]ing town). Towns in the highlands are named after other geographic features so we have Waterbury, Watertown, and Waterville, Woodbury, and Prospect (so named because it occupied a high point where you could see a long way).

Genealogy: There are not too many towns named after individuals, but from the above paragraph we have the basis for Wolcott (named after Oliver Wolcott (3), but originally called Farmingbury as it straddled the “bound line” between Farmington and Waterbury (4)), Terryville (Terry’s village), and Thomaston (Thomas’ town, originally called Plymouth Hollow as in the above reference).

Clocks

Since the above paragraph is about the Seth Thomas clock business, I’d like to explore that just a little bit more.

First, a little more about the history of the men mentioned and their business (taken from (5)).

Eli Terry made his first clock in 1792, came to Plymouth in 1793.
In 1807, Terry sold his water power to Heman Clark, who had been his apprentice, Clark erected a building in 1809
In 1814, began manufacture in Plymouth Hollow near Terry’s bridge
In 1824, Terry’s son, Terry 2nd built second shop in Pequabuck
Seth Thomas began with Eli Terry and Silas Hoadley in 1809, in 1810 Terry sold out his interest, 1813 moved to Plymouth Hollow in small building which he purchased from Heman Clark.

Second, I found in Wikipedia (6) a list of US clock companies which had all the above.
Seth Thomas, 1807-present
Eli Terry, 1795-1852 [beginning date off by 3 years]
Heman Clark, 1783-1813 (Plymouth Hollow) [1783 is the date he was born, 1813 is when he sold his building in Plymouth Hollow and moved to Salem Bridge which is located in Naugatuck]
Heman Clark, 1738-1838 (Salem Bridge) [1738 is a mistyped age of when he was born, 1838 is the date he died and went out of business]

Bristol has long been called the “clock capital” as there were many such companies there. It is also the home of the American Clock and Watch Museum (7). But there were watch companies in many of the towns in the surrounding area – not only Terryville, Thomaston, and Naugatuck as mentioned here, but Ansonia, Meriden, New Haven, Waterbury, and Winsted (6).

Now, since I usually like to include my own genealogical references in this history blogs, here is my connection to each of the four men mentioned here. (Note that in all of the cousin references I have left off the “5 times removed” which is technically necessary to make up for the difference in ages from the early 1800’s to myself.)

Seth Thomas (1785-1859) – 3rd cousin (see (8))
Silas Hoadley (1786-1860) – 3rd cousin, Silas is also the great*3 uncle of one of my elementary school classmates, Chuck Hoadley, who has lived in Plymouth but now resides in Wolcott (Chuck is my 7th cousin, once removed)
Eli Terry (1772-1852) – husband of 2nd cousin
Heman Clark (1783-1838), 5th cousin

References:

(5)   History of the Town of Plymouth, Connecticut (Francis Atwater)


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