formed in January, 1889, by N. N. Hill. The average number of hands employed is 125. The bells made by them cannot be excelled for general excellence of workmanship and clearness and resonance of tone, the greatest care being exercised in all departments of their manufacture. A water power about 1,600 feet below the factory generates the electricity by which it is operated and lighted. On the site of this power house previously, Barton & Clark had a bell shop. Of this firm, now living, is Mr. Orlando Clark, of Cote St. Paul, Montreal, who engaged in the same business there. Mr. Barton was grandson of William Barton, of whom we will speak later Below this is Skinner's Mills, where that family founded a little settlement and carried on business in preparing lumber for the ship yards of Middle Haddam. All the above-named factories are within less than two miles of the only outlet of Lake Pocotopaug, which is mentioned in Connecticut Land Records, Vol. I, p. 456, as Niuppaquashneag Brook. This word, says M. L. Roberts, the his SWEDISH LUTHERAN CHURCH. They received a silver medal for these concave hoes at the fair of the American Institute. The writer well remembers when these came into use. They were so high in price that farmers did not have more than one, and himself, like many another boy of those days, had to keep on using the old fashioned ones, with an eye and the handle wedged on, while the hired man, or the father, used the "concave." The next plant, one of the best appointed on the stream, is the N. N. Hill Brass Company which makes bells and toys by the millions, and for the millions. This was the former site of Niles, Parmalee & Co's shop. The N. N. Hill Brass Co. was PRESENT GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 310 PHILO BEVIN. means torian of this section, is a corruption of For many years nearly all the sleigh bells in use in the United States and the Dominion of Canada were made in East Hampton and Middle Haddam. They also made house bells, hand bells, tea bells, cow bells and sheep bells for the whole country, and to-day are making their fair share of the bicycle bells which are used in such enormous quantities all over the civilized world. The manufacturing enterprise of this place and its general prosperity are traceable to no one man more than to William Barton, a very much respected citizen who was born in Wintonbury, a society in Windsor, now the town of Bloomfield, Nov. 26, 1762. He worked with his father whose name was William Barton, Sr. He was an armorer at Springfield during the Revolutionary War. At the close of the war he returned to Wintonbury and made pistols and other fire arms, until 1790, when he went to New York and engaged in the making of andirons and other brass goods. He came to East Hampton in 1808 and commenced the making of hand bells and sleigh bells. Others learned the trade with him, and afterwards engaged in the same business. WILLIAM GLOVER BUELL. The first bell that he made, and so the first bell that was made in East Hampton, was deposited with other relics in a box under the corner stone of the present Congregational Church in East Hampton, when it was laid in 1852. The largest bell ever made in this place was cast in the foundry now owned by Starr Brothers, which was at that time owned by Veazey & White. This bell is now in the belfry of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford. It is one of the strongest in tone of the bells in Hartford. Mr. Barton was a very liberal minded man, and was happiest when benefiting others. From this small beginning of his, when he made bells by hand, has arisen the various foundries and shops which make the thrifty busy place of to-day. After living some twenty years at Cicero, N. Y. Mr. Barton returned to spend the remainder of his days with his children and friends in East Hampton, where he DAN B. NILES. SAMUEL SKINNER. died July 15, 1849, universally respected and lamented. East Hampton was settled more rapidly than any other part of Middletown, east of the Connecticut River. There was a large increase of inhabitants soon after the erection of the forge at the outlet of the lake about 1743. The names of the inhabitants and amount of their lists, as stated in the Colony Record for that year, were as follows: Azariah Andrews, £30, Jonathan Bailey, 48.16, David Bailey, 27, William Bevin, 20, John Bevin, Jr., 34.06, John Bosworth. 18, Jabez Clark, 39, Ebenezar 312 RESIDENCE OF N. N. HILL.. Clark, 42.13, John Clark, 143.10, Josiah tor. He had been settled before this, over a church in Falltown, Mass. The latter place is now called Bernardston In 1745, when the old French and InIdian War was on, and disturbing the people, he resigned his pastorate and went as chaplain, being at Fort Massachusetts, at stationed Adams, Mass., and was there when it was attacked Aug. 20, 1746, by nearly one thousand French and Indians under General De Vaudruil. Col. Hawks, Commandant of the Fort, had only twentytwo effective men, and all told, men, women and children, thirty-three persons. RESIDENCE OF JOEL W. SMITH. |