An Early Gazetteer’s View Of Newtown

By Jan Howard

Final preparations were taking place on August 4, 1905, for the celebration of Newtown’s Bicentennial, beginning the next day. In the August 4 Newtown Bee, Henry Clay Judd of Bethel contributed an article about Newtown that was taken from A Gazetteer of the State of Connecticut and Rhode Island, by Pease & Niles, published in 1819. It gave a historical sketch of Newtown that, Mr Judd said, “may be read with interest Bi-Centennial celebration week.”

The 1819 article described Newtown as a flourishing “post town,” pleasantly situated in the northern section of the county, “on the southwestern border of the Ousatonick river, 48 miles southwest from Hartford, and about 26 miles northwest from New Haven; bounded on the northwest by Brookfield, on the northeast and east by the Ousatonick river, which separates it from Southbury, in New Haven County, on the southeast by Huntington and Weston, and on the southwest by Redding and Danbury.”

The town was described as being of triangular form, comprising an area of about 50 square miles, and having an average length from northwest to southeast of about eight miles, and a mean breadth of more than six miles.

The town, it said, “is located in an elevated location. Its surface is hilly, and many of the eminences are extensive and continuous, but no part of it is mountainous.”

The soil was described as a gravelly loam, with some sandy loam, that was fertile and productive and well adapted to the growing of grains. Rye was said to be extensively and successfully cultivated.

The soils were also favorable for fruit, and the article noted the town “abounds with many valuable orchards. The agricultural interests are respectable; and, being an interior township and having paid but little attention to manufactures, they afford employment to the principal part of the industry of the place.”

Newtown was “well watered,” the article said, by the Ousatonick on its northeast boundary and the Pootatuck and several small streams as well as a sizable pond in the northwestern section, Taunton Lake.

A toll bridge, called Bennett’s Bridge, on the “Ousatonick” connected Newtown with Southbury. Public roads and several turnpikes included one from Hartford to Danbury, and one leading to Bridgeport.

The manufacturers of Newtown are “inconsiderable,” the article noted. Among them in 1819 were one woolen factory, ten small distilleries, four tanneries, five grain mills, five carding machines, and four fulling mills and clothier’s works.

The population was 2,834 in 1810. In 1819, there were about 400 dwelling houses, 300 electors, and three companies of militia.

Seven religious groups served the spiritual needs of the community, including one Episcopal, which was the largest in the state, one Baptist, one small society of Sandemanians, one Universalist, and two others.

There were 15 school districts and primary schools and two libraries, according to the article.

A “considerable” village made up the central section of the township. “It is pleasantly situated on a height of land, rising gradually from the south and more abruptly on the east and west.” The village consisted principally of one street, “which is very broad, and for nearly a mile, is well built.” The street, the article noted, contained 50 or 60 houses, two houses for public worship, two schoolhouses, three mercantile stores, and numerous mechanics’ shops and other buildings. The two turnpikes led through the village.

“From the elevated site of this village, it affords an extensive and interesting prospect to the east, south and west, a distance of eight or nine miles, comprising a fertile country, in a high state of cultivation, and exhibiting, in every direction, the grateful results of rural industry,” the article said.

In 1819, Newtown had two clergymen, four physicians, and four attorneys.

The aggregate list of the town in 1817 was $65,085.

In May 1708 the town, the article noted, then known as Powtatuck, from the river of that name, was incorporated as the town of Newtown.