Connecticut western news., 1908-04-09
SOME BITS OF
 CANAAN HISTORY
INDUSTRIES PAST AND PRESENT

INDUS KIES PASI RND rhEoCNI Notable Achievements of Canaan Men
 The Manufacture of Pig Iron and
 Lime-Canaan Descendants of Rev.
 oIutionary Heroes-The Douglass
 House. E-..-
 We herewith continue the reproduc- tion of the New York Herald write up of Canaan, a portion of which we pre- sented last week.
 Speaking of hotel accommodations in Canaan, the Herald says: The hotel facilities of Canaan are par excellence and the equal of those of many an up to date city or summer resort. The Can field Inn is a large hotel, near the Union station, owned by MT. William Garfield, who has just spent $35, ,OOo in equipping it with modern appointments Mr. Baker, the enterprising manager, has been in that capacity since last fall, coming here from the Hotel Garde, Hartford. MT Garfield has recently built large busl- ness block and garage here and has done much to benefit the town. tt .
 Canaan's telephone serv1ce IS the most efficient-possible, this being the central office for this part of Connecticut of the Southern New England Telephone Com pany.
 The manufacture of pig iron and lime and the quarrying of marble have given to Canaan sterling business enterprises from it's earliest history. Iron and lime are local assets as inexhaustible as the salubrious air and healthful climate whereby the death rate is kept down almost to the irreduclble minimum. Here Samuel Forbes, the first of the country's iron kings, established forges which have been blazing for a century and half, and which, passing through a long succession of various manage ments. are now under the control of the Barnum & Richardson O., of Salisbury. Here Squire Forbes built the third slitting mill in the country, and utilized the secret of nail rod sitting, which his in- trepid wife, with whom he had eloped' learned from clandestine visit to 8 competitors mill in Boston, whlther and whence she rode on horse back. Squire Forbes had also paper mill here. The Forbes home is now occupied by Mrs Mary Geikie Adam, a local historian of wide repute.
 Canaan is the headquarters of the New England Lime Company, whose chain of lime kilns extends from Vermont to Long Island Sound. This great corpora tion, which controls the lime output of the country, has works at North Pownal, in Vermont; at Adams, New Lenox and West Stockbridge, in Massachusetts, and at Canaan, East Canaan, New Milford, Brookfield and Bedding, in Connecticut. Its most extensive works and general of fees are here, and several hundred men find the industry profitable field for employment. The officers of the com pany are:- President, c. E. Griffing, of Danbury; Secretary, N. Watson Harden bergh, of Canaan; Treasurer, David Follett, of North Adams, Mass, and General Superintendent, Wallace Can field, of Canaan. MT. Hardenbergh is Warden of the Canaan Fire District. The Connecticut Western, Connecticut, Hadsell and Canf1eld lime companies operate the local kilns. '.+'
 The vast quantities of marble that went into Connecticut's State Capitol at Hart ford were quarried east of the village. and the lime also for that magnificent building came from here. Litigation has caused @ temporary suspension of opera ton at great Allyndale quarries. , It was welcome intelligence when the announcement was made that the Ashley Fall Marble Company, had received orders which would keep the plant in full operation for eight months.
 Descendants of many old families of renown still reside in the two towns, and, while local society is not exclusive or cold, intellectually and refinement are the requisites for entrance thereto.
 Canaan has produced many well known men and is the home of them to- day. Canaan gave to the American cause in the Revolution Captain Gershom Hewitt, who got into Fort Ticonderoga asa spy, but ostensibly as simple Yankee seeking his 'aunt from Varmount, and obtained the information which enabled Ethan Allen, resident of Canaan for a time, to capture the frowning fortress.
 Major John F. Webb was another Ca- naan hero of the Revolution, organizing, arming and equipping at his own expense a company of one hundred men and lead ing them through the long struggle. The Major was one of the heads of the South Canaan Church, but once when he was