Windsor Locks Canal


Book Description

In 1824, a group of prominent Hartford businessmen formed the Connecticut River Company to construct a canal that would bypass the treacherous rapids of Enfield Falls and extend navigation along the Connecticut River. Soon boats were a frequent sight in the village of Windsor Locks, named after the locks of the canal that ran alongside Main Street. Mills also sprang up in the area, utilizing the canals water to power their manufacturing operations. Today the canal has taken on a more historical, ecological, and recreational significance. Home to diverse plant and animal species, it is an excellent place to enjoy sweeping views of the Connecticut River and to see the factories that played a big part in the regions history.




Windsor Locks


Book Description

Transportation has always played an important role in Windsor Locks, a Connecticut River town in the north central part of the state named for the canal locks built here in 1829. Expansion continued after the arrival of the railroad in the late 1860s; today, the town is an aviation center with an international airport and an important air museum. Windsor Locks explores the one-hundred-fifty-year-old town through vintage images and lively narrative, into which are woven stories of the past drawn from interviews with longtime residents. Interesting historical details include New England's first Christmas tree, created on a local farm when, in the German custom, a Hessian soldier decorated a tree; and the first female governor to be elected in her own right, Ella Grasso, born and raised here.




Understanding Windsor Locks History


Book Description

This is the fourth book in a four-volume set on the history of WIndsor Locks, CT. The first two volumes contain chapters on the important people, places and events of the town's history, which started in the mid 1600s. This third volume has a number of collections of photographs of the town that were taken in various years from 1880 to 1960, as well as chapters on specific people places and events. This fourth volume in the series is about the overall structure of the history of the town. It divides the 350 year history into four phases: Settlers, Main Street Commerce, Bradley Field Area Commerce, and Residential Community. This volume has 31 chapters, 277 pages and approximately 500 old photos of WIndsor Locks.







Windsor Locks History


Book Description

This is the first of a series of four books on the history of Windsor Locks, Connecticut. It contains 38 chapters about important people, places and events in the history of Windsor Locks. Windsor Locks history goes from 1663, when the first settlers reached the Pine Meadow section of the town of Windsor, CT. In 1854, the Pine Meadow section of WIndsor was incorporated into the separate town of Windsor Locks. So the history of WIndsor Locks goes from 1663 to the current time (2022), which is about three and a half centuries. The first two books of this series present chapters on important people, places and events in that history. Windsor Locks History: Volume III presents a number of sets of photo of the town taken from about 1880 to 1960, and as well as more descriptive chapters. The fourth book in the series is "Understanding Windsor Locks History", which focusses on the overeall structure of that history, dividing the three and a half centuries into four distinct phases that the town's evolution that the tow has gone through. It presents "chronological historiies" of the town by three different people, and ties together the stories of the first three books to the chronological history of the town. Descriptive histories give detailed accounts of the people, places and events, while the chronological histories list the events in the order in which they occurred. You can read either approach first, but tying the two together results in a deeper understanding of the town's history.




A New History of Old Windsor, Connecticut


Book Description

This meticulously researched history tells the story of one of America's oldest and most intriguing towns. From its early colonial origins to its crucial role in the Revolutionary War and beyond, Old Windsor has been a center of industry and innovation in New England for centuries. With vivid detail and engaging storytelling, Howard brings the town's rich history to life. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.




Who Will You Be?


Book Description

For fans of I Am Enough, The Day You Begin, and The Wonderful Things You Will Be, here is a poignant picture book about how family and community help shape the wonderful people our children become. My child, my little one, Who will you be when you are grown? There's loving kindness in your eyes, like your daddy's and boldness in your heart, like your grandma's. Will you be like them? So begins this loving picture book about a mama who wonders who her child will grow up to be. Will her little one be curious like Grandpa and adventurous like Auntie Amina? Compassionate like Amy and joyful like cousin Curlena? Moving from family members to the wider community, she muses about which attributes her child will possess. A perfect gift for a baby shower, birthday, or graduation. Who Will You Be? features gorgeous artwork and gentle words that celebrate childhood and is an ode to the power of our village--and a reminder that every child is uniquely wonderful.




Historical Sketches


Book Description




Secret Connecticut: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure


Book Description

Did you know that there’s a Connecticut hotel room with a real helicopter inside? Can you guess who inspired the character of Indiana Jones, who was president before George Washington, and who flew before the Wright Brothers? Find the state’s most interesting and offbeat stories in Secret Connecticut: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Are you interested in taking a safari or racing a chariot? Had you ever heard that Martin Luther King Jr. spent two summers in Connecticut? Included are more than eighty engaging stories that provide insight into one of America’s oldest states. Inside are tales of pirates, an underground prison, and a possessed doll. Aren’t you curious about the spectacular stained glass church that was unknowingly built in the shape of a fish by a famous architect? From the world’s smallest Native American reservation to professionally coiffed cows and a replica of Marie Antoinette’s palace, you’ll find intrigue around every corner of this small but surprising state. Author Anastasia Mills Healy brings to life the long history of intriguing people, places, and events that will fascinate even life long residents of Connecticut.




One of Windsor


Book Description

Alice, a young woman prone to intuitive insights and loyalty to the only family she has ever known, leaves England for the rigid colony of the Massachusetts Bay in 1635 in hopes of reuniting with them again. Finally settling in Windsor, Connecticut, she encounters the rich American wilderness and its inhabitants, her own healing abilities, and the blinding fears of Puritan leaders which collide and set the stage for America's first witch hanging, her own, on May 26, 1647. This event and Alice's ties to her beloved family are catalysts that influence Connecticut's Governor John Winthrop Jr. to halt witchcraft hangings in much later years. Paradoxically, these same ties and the memory of the incidents that led to her accusation become a secret and destructive force behind Cotton Mather's written commentary on the Salem witch trials of 1692, provoking further witchcraft hysteria in Massachusetts forty-five years after her death. The author uses extensive historical research combined with literary inventions, to bring forth a shocking and passionate narrative theory explaining this tragic and important episode in American history.