C.L. Griswold Factory (1870)

According to the History of Middlesex County, Connecticut (1884), the Town of Chester

“is finely situated for manufacturing, having two considerable streams of water running through it, which have their rise in the lower part of Haddam and unite, at tide-water, at the head of the cove. […] The first factory on the south stream is the bitt factory of C. L. Griswold, now occupied by the Chester Manufacturing Company, consisting of Edwin G. Smith, John H. Bailey, and Charles E. Wright, who manufacture auger bitts, corkscrews, reamers, etc. The factory is on the site of a forge built about the year 1816, and occupied by Abel Snow in the forging of ship anchors. About 1838, the building was used for the manufacture of carriage springs, later by C. L. Griswold & Co. for the manufacture of bitts, and by the present owners for the same business.”

The C.L. Griswold Factory building, built around 1870 (or perhaps as early as 1850) continued to be used for manufacturing until 1919. In the 1920s, the building became a Masonic Lodge and was more recently used by the National Theatre of the Deaf. In 2001 the building was purchased by the Chester Historical Society and has been renovated to become the Chester Museum at the Mill.