Browse Items (44 total)

The firm of Looby and Fargo, manufactures of cylindrical brushes, goblet and gun brushes, also dish mops was founded in 1888. The factory building had been put up in 1858 by Edwin Kelsey for the production of ivory goods. It provided excellent…

The Essex Boat Works fire started at about 6:15 P.M. on Saturday, January 20th, 1968. Mr. Stuart Ingersoll, owner of the Works, had just left the premises, at 6, and later reported that he had not noticed anything amiss. However, in about 15…

A rope was was a very important industry of any town which engaged in shipbuilding. When Essex people speak of the old rope walk, they usually mean the one which extended from North Main Street near the Bushnell street corner down to a point near…

The site of the old Grist Mill is at the mouth of the Falls River, east of the present River Road, just off what is now called Mill Road.

The accounts and dates of the various mills in this area are not completely clear. However, the following…

Steamboating on the Connecticut River lasted nearly 140 years, ending in 1931 when the large propeller-driven steamers Middletown and Hartford took their last runs. The nineteenth century was the heyday of the side-wheeler steamboats such as that…

The Pratt House at 20 West Avenue in Essex, a two-story, white clapboard structure, takes its name from William Pratt who emigrated from England in 1633 with his brother and sister to Newtowne, today known as Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then in 1636,…

The Connecticut River, main artery for the Indians in their canoes, and later for the explores to penetrate the mainland of the country, has, in the last 200 years, undergone several changes in the types of craft and commerce upon its waters. The…

On the first day of May, 1833, the Connecticut General Assembly passed an act authorizing Ebenezer Hayden, Ezra Mather and Elias Readfield, Esq., "all of the Borough of Essex in the Town of Saybrook" to meet at the home of John Hayden in Essex on…

The Ivoryton Playhouse was built in 1908 by Comstock-Cheney and Company, to provide entertainment for the community. Touring stock and vaudeville companies performed here.

In 1915 silent movies moved in. The small theatre was used as a silent…

On July 10, 1970, "the long held dream of residents of southern Middlesex Country became a reality" as the Shoreline Clinic began operations as a satellite emergency facility of the Middlesex Memorial Hospital in Middletown. It was located in rented…