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Bristol, Connecticut

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 16 m. S.W. of Hartford. It has an area of 27 sq. m., and contains the village of Forestville and the borough of Bristol (incorporated in 1893). Both are situated on the Pequabuck river, and are served by the western branch of the midland division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by electric railway to Hartford, New Britain and Terryville. Pop. (1890) 7382; (1900) 9643, including that of the borough, 6268 (1739 being foreign-born). Among the manufactures of the borough of Bristol are clocks, woollen goods, iron castings, hardware, brass ware, silverplate and bells. Bristol clocks, first manufactured soon after the War of Independence, have long been widely known. Bristol, originally a part of the township of Farmington, was first settled about 1727, but did not become an independent corporation until the formation, in 1742, of the first church, known after 1744 as the New Cambridge Society. In 1748 a Protestant Episcopal Church was organized, and before and during the War of Independence its members belonged to the Loyalist party; their rector, Rev. James Nichols, was tarred and feathered by the Whigs, and Moses Dunbar, a member of the church, was hanged for treason by the Connecticut authorities. Chippen's Hill (about 3 m. from the centre of the township) was a favourite rendezvous of the local Loyalists; and a cave there, known as "The Tories' Den," is a well-known landmark. In 1785 New Cambridge and West Britain, another ecclesiastical society of Farmington, were incorporated as the township of Bristol, but in 1806 they were divided into the present townships of Bristol and Burlington.