The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-02
OLD-TIME LITCHFIELD.
ONCE ALIYE WITH INDUSTRIAL
 ACTIVITK.

IT. Revolutionary Times Army Sup
 piles Were Produced and Stored
 Later There Were Manufactories for
 a Variety of Goods-Its Charm To-
 day.
 Litchfeld. Dec. Lit is common to smile at the local pride of Litchfield .town-born" people, but for a town ship which in its best days probably never contained as many as five thou sand inhabitants, where in all the land can be found place so rich in the ele- ments that go to make up the typical New England community? It's histori- cal associations, it's remarkable success sion of men eminent in theology, law. government, literature and science, it's celebrated initial law school and ladies' seminary-the have all been written up with the fullness and frequency the subject naturally inspires. But of late attention has been drawn to the hardly less interesting fact that Litchield was also at an early period notable for its manufacturing and industrial enter prises.
 In Revolutionary times a great vari- ety of army supplies were produced and gathered here as safe depository from the enemy. This involved large concentration of men, equipments and animals, for which provision had to be made, and the village was alive with activity. From that time onward far into the nineteenth century there were in existence manufactories for stoves and other cast iron wares, split-nails, brass goods, hats, blankets and wooden goods, leather, soap, silverware, clocks and many other goods. In the town ship including Bantam Falls, were pa per, oil and satinet mills, lumber and grist mills, nickle mining and smelt- ing. Excepting the lumber and grain mills, not a single industry now re- mains of those that once made this Connecticut hill country a hive of busy activity. So completely have they dis appeared that the uninformed visitor could hardly imagine that right along these stately shaded streets, lined with ancestral homes and in the adjacent valleys were once located the shops, forges and mills that not only supplied the home demand, but furnished goods for the west and south, and to large extent exports to the Indies and China. Here and there a grass grown embank- ment of stones, the outline of cellar, or race, or roadway perhaps the oal0en timbers of some old house still in use, a few score of quaint implements, fla brics or furnishings-ar all that re- main to indicate the thrift and enter prise of the sturdy race of settlers and their children who made old Litehfeld to hum with genuine Yankee indus- tries.
 With the passing of time and the great changes in economical conditions, the character of this, like all the old hill towns of New England, has in the industrial aspect completely changed, but, unlike many others, owing to causes hinted at above, it has neither suffered decay nor in anywise deterio- rated. It has simply undergone transformation. During the last half century 1t has become place notewor- thy for ample wealth, comfortable dig nity and summer residence. Not even the ubiquitous trolley has yet invaded the sacred hill.
 Tn the winter season Ltchfeld, with it's average of forty dwellings closed, presents the appearance of half-de- serted though not abandoned village. But in the summer months the beauty of it's broad, elm-lined streets, it's Colo 1 a. ~. J. .L -.. ls - .--s=====---=-====--===--