New Britain herald., 1919-06-25
HISTORY OF PLAINVILLE FROM INl
 THOSE OF PRESENT TIME RELATED Al

half million dollars worth of va rious materials were produced here by our sixteen factories during the year preceding and that our nine local stores showed sales amounting to $2o9, ,000. It was found that 1S2,- 5S4 tons Of freight had been received, S2,oo0 tons shipped, and 33,OOo rail- road tickets sold. Our population in 1 that year was 1,50O persons. Our grand list amounted to $s0o,oo0 with 1 q prospective addition of 53o,Oo0 within the year. With these facts in
 evidence, the necessary legislation,
 setting off this village from Farm
 ington was enacted on the 9th of July following, and on July P the l event was celebrated by the towns people in a manner bef1tting the inn l portance of the occasion.
 1 Although Plainville has enjoyed po- l litical independence only since 1869, 1 the history of the territory within our present boundaries antedates that 1 time by more than two centuries. Let 1 us therefore consider in detail not only what has taken place here since l the date of incorporation, but as woll, the less familiar yet perhaps
 more interesting events that tran ] spired prior to the separation from 1 the mother town.
 1 As a matter of fact the history of l Plainville begins with the settlement of Pennington in 1s40.
 NeWtoWn, or Hartford as we know 1 it, was firmly established with the coming of Thomas Hooker and his
 company in 1886. Windsor and ; Wethersfield had also been founded l and for three years thereafter no at l tempt was made to colonize inland ] from the Connecticut river. We may 1 easily ina zine however, that the 1 corners to Connecticut would not long {; remain insensible to the possibilities 1 of other tracts of meadow land be- yond the ranges of hills to the west ward, the suggestion of which would be stimulated by the speculations of ! the settlers at Windsor, as to the
 source of the Tunxis river which en- tered the Connecticut at that village. As the population of the three 1 "Rivcr Towns increased the desire for additional meadow land became , more keenly felt and in 1889 we find the inhabitants of Hartford, Wind sor and Wethersfeld seeking further
 accommodations of the general
 court. A committee was appointed
 to "view the valley of the Tunxis''
 and report their findings on the 1 twentieth of February following but | Windsor then had important business to attend to at home and Wethers- field objected to the wintry weather
 so the court added to it's committee,
 Captain John Mason of Windsor, ] who had but a short while before
 made some six hundred Pequot In-
 dians, desirable neighbors by killing them off and it was he who brought
 the court, on the fifteenth of June
 ensuing, to order the Particular
 Court to conclude the conditions for
 the planting of Tunxis.
 Pennington Settled.
 1 In the fall of 1889 party of men,
 very probably those designated by
 the court to explore this region, were
 the first white men to view the Tunx-
 is river valley or that part of Con-
 necticut now known as Pennington.
 Tn the spring of 1640 the settle
 ment was begun, the first in the state
 away from naviga ble water.
 Of this settlement and it's beginning g
 there is very scanty record, never
 theless, Egbert CoWles, who died in
 Pennington in 1881 at the age of ninety mine years, by means of 1 knowledge derived from his grand
 father, informs us that The first view
 of Tunxis was had from the groups { of rocks just north of the present l pass through the hills to Hartford
 In front lay the open meadow land
 through which flowed the Tunxis . river. There stood the Wigwams of
 the Indians. Tn the distance, bound , ing the western side of the valley
 rose the lines of wooded hills where , the Mohawk Indians were wont to , appear as they came to hunt, wage war or levy tribute upon the Tunxis , and other tribes dwelling hereabout.' Although the site selected for set ! tlement was included in a grant o1 i land to the men of Hartford by the x Indian Sunckquassen several years , l before, it was now repurchased from 7 1 the Tunxis Indians.
 , Upon arriving at what we know a.
 Pennington Center, these first com s CTS stopped at a place near the pres ent Congregational meeting house anc , 1 after resting, journeyed on to the f l great plain beyond, thus becoming | the first white men to view and stand . upon what they then termed ths s Great Plain what we know as Plain
 1 vile. They passed the night here bu ' having observed the heavy growth p 1 of white birch and scrub oak, ant I sandy soil and the lack of suitabl , l meadow land, they retraced thei . steps on the day following, to tn f east bank of the Tunxis river ant ] there began their settlement
 $ The town as originally laid out GOV
 cred that portion of land extendin, I from the pass through the hills t. t Hartford, to the original meetin
 house lot Lots of five acres in ex tent were plotted for dwellings, thos a along the present Main street bein;
 bounded by the river on the west, ol 1 the east by the mountain and divide