Yantic Woolen Mill (1865)

The village of Yantic developed as an industrial area in Norwich in the first half of the nineteenth century. Textile manufacturing began in 1818 with the construction of cotton mills. These were acquired in 1824 by sea captain Ersastus Williams, who installed machinery to produce woolens. In 1865, his son, E. Winslow Williams, took charge of the mills, which would become known as the Yantic Woolen Company. That same year, a fire destroyed the original mills and Williams replaced them with the present stone mill building. The company was placed in receivership in 1913 and the mill would continue to operate under a number of successive owners until 1988. The building is often called the Hale Mill because the last company to use it was the Hale Manufacturing Company, which produced yarn for automobile upholstery fabric. Since 1995, plans to convert the former mill into a hotel were long delayed by financial difficulties and foreclosure. Last year, the building was acquired by a new developer, who received permission to proceed with the project from the Historic District Commission.

Ponemah Mills Commercial Block (1871)

The community of Taftville in Norwich grew in the nineteenth century as a mill village next to Ponemah Mills, which was once the largest textile mill in the world under one roof. At the corner of North Second Avenue and Providence Street in Taftville is a commercial building erected by the company. It was probably built about the same time as Ponemah Mill #1 (1871), as it shares that structure’s French Second Empire style architecture. It features a Mansard roof with dormer windows. The building once housed the Ponemah Mills offices, which later moved to another building, erected in 1929. The building also had a post office, a fire station and a general store, operated by the company. On the second floor was a community hall.

Ponemah Mills Office Building (1929)

Ponemah Mills, in operation from the 1870s to the 1970s, was a cotton textile manufacturer with a massive mill complex in the village of Taftville in Norwich. Along Norwich Avenue can be found Mill #1, built in 1871, and Mill #2, built in 1884. In 1929, the company erected a building for its offices, attached to Mill #2, directly in front of that structure’s north tower. The building is now home to Amazing Furniture. The former mill buildings are now being converted into luxury apartments.

Edmund Gookin House (1724)

The colonial saltbox house at 199 West Town Street in Norwich, adjacent to Bean Hill Green, is listed in assessor’s records as dating to 1724. A sign on the house gives a date of 1723 and the name John Waterman, Jr. This is presumably the John Waterman (1694-1742), who was called junior to distinguish him from his uncle of the same name. John Waterman, Jr. was one of the neighboring proprietors who re-set the green’s boundaries at a Town Meeting in 1729.

The sign next lists “Edmund Quincy Gookin, 1726.” According to Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895), by Mary Elizabeth Perkins, Edmund Gookin, or Goodkin, (1688-1740), of Sherborn, Mass., bought the Norwichtown house of Sarah Knight (who operated a tavern) in 1722 and resided there until 1733, later purchasing a house in the Bean Hill district. Gookin was a follower of the Church of England and the first Episcopalian services in town were held at his house in 1738. According to Frances Manwaring Caulkins’ History of Norwich (1866):

The Gookin House was on the central plat of Bean Hill, “bounded southerly on the main road and easterly on the Green:” (now belonging to C. C. Williams.) The last of the Gookin family in Norwich was an ancient spinster, Miss Anna Gookin, who held a life interest in tho house for more than thirty years, and died in 1810, aged about eighty.

The last listing on the sign is “Lt. Jacob Witter’s Tavern, 1774.” Lieutenant of a militia company, Jacob Witter (1737-1798) kept a tavern/public house at Bean Hill. He was the son-in-law of Capt. Ebenezer Baldwin, who sold Witter his Bean Hill house in 1778. Witter then used that house as a tavern. An intriguing reference in the Genealogy of the Allen and Witter Families (1872), by Asa W. Allen, reads:

Jacob Witter, son of Ebenezer, married and lived on Bean Hill. He had no children and was insane.

Today the house is used as offices. (more…)

Allis House (1850)

Built c. 1850, the building at 305 Broadway in Norwich was originally the home of Amos Wylie Prentice (1816-1894). Born in Griswold, Prentice settled in Norwich in 1823. As described in Representative Men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 (1894):

His first business experience was as clerk for W. A. Buckingham, subsequently the war governor of the state. In 1831 Mr. Prentice entered the employ of Mr. John Breed, a hardware merchant, in the store which proved to be his business home for the larger part of his life. Such was his faithfulness and zeal that in 1840 he was made a member of the firm, the name becoming John Breed & Co. In 1856 Mr. Breed went into a different line of business, and, with Mr. Amos C. Williams, Mr. Prentice continued the sale of hardware specialties under the old name. Six years later Mr. Williams died, and Mr. Prentice formed a new partnership with Messrs. William A. Williams and Francis A. Dorrance, taking the name of A. W. Prentice & Co. This connection lasted till 1888, when Mr. Prentice sold out his interest to his clerks who had been with him for a long series of years. The firm name now is Eaton, Chase & Co., the latter being Mr. Prentice’s son-in-law, and they carry on business along the same lines on which it was established nearly seventy years ago.

Mr. Prentice has devoted no small share of his time and talents to the management of financial institutions. He has been president of the Norwich Savings Society since 1890. With one exception, this is the largest savings institution in Connecticut. He has been senior director of the First National Bank of Norwich for over twenty-five years. Besides the financial-organizations mentioned, Mr. Prentice is a director in the Richmond Stove Company, and other companies of lesser note, and is a trustee of the Norwich Free Academy.

Men of Mr. Prentice’s stamp must expect to have official stations tendered them for acceptance. In 1854 he represented the old eighth senatorial district at the state capitol, and served on the committee on state prisons as chairman. [. . . .] In 1859 his fellow citizens elected him mayor of Norwich, and it was during his term of office that the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the city was celebrated. He was equal to all the responsibilities of the occasion, and nothing occurred to mar the festivities of the day. Mr. Prentice served his constituents so satisfactorily that he was re-elected the following year. The year 1877 again found him at the capital of the state, this time as the representative of his city in the lower branch of the legislature. [. . . .] He was a member of the judiciary committee, which is usually composed of lawyers, and was appointed on a special committee on the examination of the state capitol.

The house was later the residence of Alice A. Allis, who served as a Trustee of the Norwich Free Academy. Upon her death in 1957, Allis left the house to the NFA and it now serves as the Academy’s administration building.