Enfield Historical Society presents well-received ‘Show & Tell’

The Bigelow Sanford Carpet Company not only made carpets for home and business, it also produced hundreds of thousands of wool army blankets. Photos by Tom Phelan.

The Enfield Historical Society meeting drew a larger-than-anticipated audience on Jan. 23. The opportunity to share in the reminiscence of the heyday of Enfield's manufacturing industry apparently whetted the appetites of those whose cars filled the parking lot beyond its capacity. The audience of more than 75 Enfield Historical Society members and non-members made for an atypical meeting of the group, filling just about every seat in the meeting room.

Mike Miller, who helps to maintain the EHS collection at the Old Town Hall Museum, coordinated the Historical Society's “Show & Tell” program at the American Baptist Church. Miller covered the major elements of the town's manufacturing industry, while also talking about some of the not-so-common products and ideas, as well. He recited a long list of items that had, at one time, been standard products developed and made in Enfield. The list included brooms and clocks; shirts, underwear, and Shaker-style bonnets; plows for preparing farmers' fields and for clearing ice for harvesting; parts for bicycles and cars; carriages, wagons, a three-wheeled car; tools and machinery. During the first and second world wars, the town's industry provided a significant amount of material and equipment for troops at home and abroad, including $56 million in olive drab army blankets, Miller said.

The town's Thompsonville and Hazardville sections got their names from the founders of Enfield's two biggest industries – carpet and gunpowder manufacturing. Orrin Thompson built the first carpet mill, giving rise to the industry that grew into the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company. Across town, Col. Augustus Hazard built a black powder manufacturing plant along the banks of the Scantic River that survived into the early 20th century.

Many of the items and processes Miller covered were the results of inventions and patents of some of Enfield's creative citizens. One company was founded around the production of glass burial cases for interring loved ones in style. Another inventor created “spiritual telegraph dials” for communicating with the dead in the afterlife.

Miller's presentation was preceded by stories and items brought in by more than a dozen participants. The show-and-tell portion actually took up more of the event time than did the presentation of the museum pieces, and the society's planned business meeting agenda was canceled.