Leonard Silk Company Mill (1875)

The factory building at 132 Main Street at Warehouse Point, East Windsor, was built in 1875 by the Leonard Silk Company. Founded by J. N. Leonard in Rockville, the company produced thread from raw Japanese Silk. The industrial history of the site the Leonard Silk mill goes back to 1804, when Brazail Sexton started a woolen mill. The East Windsor Woolen Mill later failed and the property was acquired by Jehiel Simonds in 1870. The Leonard Silk Company became a tenant of the five-story building, along with the Barber & Chapin Silk Company. Not long after moving in, the building burned down in a dramatic fire on the evening of December 16, 1874. The fire had threatened the neighboring gas works, which were saved, preventing a disastrous explosion. Leonard’s company soon rebuilt, as reported in the Hartford Courant (under “State Correspondence”) on January 26, 1875:

It was two weeks after the fire before they concluded on their present course; and in the short time which has elapsed they have accomplished an astonishing amount of work, in the way of erecting a dye-house and fitting up new quarters with power, machinery, &c., necessary to conduct their business.

To protect against fire, the new factory utilized a sprinkler system, supplied from a water tank in the bell tower. The tower also contained a 780-pound bell, cast in 1868 in Sheffield, England. Leonard soon expanded his business, partnering with Luther J. Warren to expand the Warner silk mill at Northampton, Mass. As described in Picturesque Hampshire (1890):

Mr. Leonard came here fresh from his well known triumphs at Warehouse Point, Conn., where, as is generally known, he had the name of making a full honest weight of silk to the spool, and the very best in the market at that. Mr. Leonard has brought to Northampton the same spirit of intense application and painstaking attention which distinguished him in Connecticut

An addition to the Warehouse Point mill was constructed in 1887 and two more in the early twentieth century. The silk mill closed in 1940 and the bell was sold in 1960. Various companies have since occupied the building, most recently Keystone Paper & Box Company, Inc.

Jonathan Pasco House (1794)

Built in 1784, the house at 31 South Main Street in East Windsor was later converted to use as a restaurant. For 26 years it was Jonathan Pasco’s Restaurant, named for the man who built the house. A captain in the Revolutionary War, Jonathan Pasco (1760-1844) was at the Battle of Trenton and at one point was held captive by Native Americans. By 1869 the house was owned by E. F. Thompson. Jonathan Pasco’s Restaurant closed in 2015. The house is now the location of Roberto’s Real American Tavern.

Melrose School (1850)

About 1850 the town of East Windsor organized its schools into twelve districts. The 7th District School in the village of Melrose was built around that time and remained in use as a school until 1938. The Melrose Library was also located here from its founding in the 1930s until it closed in 1950. After that the building, located at 195 Melrose Road, was used by local community groups as a meeting place. In more recent years it was restored by the Melrose School Restoration Committee. The building’s Neoclassical front portico is a later addition that fits in well with the school’s Greek Revival architecture.

William H. Thompson House (1850)

William Howe Thompson (1813-1901) acquired his father’s farm in the village of Melrose in East Windsor after his marriage to Huldah Chapin (1818-1897) in 1836. There he erected a Greek Revival farmhouse in 1850 (219 Melrose Road). Thompson had an office in the wing of his home from which he managed his various farms. He was also a civic leader, serving as selectman and tax assessor in East Windsor and as a representative in the state legislature in 1861-1862. Deacon Thompson was also one of the founders of the Broad Brook Congregational Church. Shortly before his death Thompson sold the farm to his neighbor, John Pease. In 1957 the farm passed from the Pease to the Smigiel family, which grew tobacco. Today the property survives as a particularly well-preserved example of a Connecticut River Valley farmstead, with associated nineteenth-century barn, tobacco shed and pumphouse.

Dr. M. L. Fisk House (1850)

Dr. M. L. Fisk House

The Italianate house at 108 Main Street in Warehouse Point, East Windsor was built c. 1850. It soon became the home of Dr. Marcus Lyon Fisk, who is described in Vol. II of Henry R. Stiles History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor (1892):

Marcus was dependent for educational advantages upon the public schools, the village academy, and private tutors, all of which he improved to the utmost degree. Likewise, as a traditional New Englander, he taught school for several terms at different places in Conn., R. I., and Mass. Deciding upon the medical profession, he made for it a very thorough preparation. After enjoying the preceptorship of Dr. Alden Skinner of Vernon, Conn., Dr, Robert Grosvenor of Killingly, Conn., and Dr. Wm. Grosvenor of Providence, R. I., he completed his course of study at the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Mass., then an institution of much celebrity. He then went to Philadelphia, and became a private pupil of the distinguished Dr. Geo. McClellan, founder of both the Jefferson and the Pennsylvania Medical Colleges. Entering the latter, in which Dr. McC. was then a Professor, he was grad. with the degree of M.D., 4 Mch., 1842.

He soon after established himself in East Windsor, Conn., at Broad Brook, where he remained until the autumn of 1864, when, on the death of Dr. Joseph Olmsted of Warehouse Point (E. W.) and at the solicitation of the people of that part of the town, he rem. thither, spending there the remainder of his life, and dying there 2 April, 1883.

Among physicians Dr. F. was widely known and honored as a Fellow of the Conn. Med. Society, and as one of its oldest members. An experience of over forty years gained him the reputation which carried his practice also into six or seven of the towns adjoining his own. His splendid skill and talents were always at the, service of every one who needed them. He was quick and accurate in diagnosis, sanguine, confident, hope-inspiring to his patients; never at a loss for an expedient; always present-minded and full of resources. To the last, even with Death’s hand upon him, he toiled to relieve human suffering.

B. Sexton House (1810)

99 Main St., Warehouse Point

The house at 99 Main Street in the Warehouse Point section of East Windsor was built c. 1810-1830. According to the 1869 Baker & Tilden atlas of Hartford County, the house at that time belonged to B. Sexton. Brazail Sexton started the East Windsor Woolen Company. Bezaleel Sexton (1811-1891) was president of the East Windsor Woolen Company. In 1860 he had a patent for “Improvement in Machinery for Drying Cloth.” In 1836 he married Elizabeth Phelps. Their son, Thomas Bezaleel Sexton, Trinity College Class of 1860, later owned a ranch in Sonora, Mexico.