It earned it's
name because it was an upland valley where killing
frosts occurred late into the spring season and arrived
early in the fall. It was learned (probably the hard
way) that any people of the hollow who depended totally
on agricultural crops for livelihood were destined
to live in poverty.
Despite it's name, Poverty
Hollow was a comparatively prosperous community in
the days of waterpower. Town roads radiated in eight
different direction from the area and mills occupied
it's stream banks at every logical site over the course
of a century and a half. Among these were several
sawmills, grist mills, a woodworking shop and a clothier.
The Town's third district "Brook Side School"
and a blacksmith shop also stood in the hollow.
It was here in the early 1800's
that William Huntington, the father of the world-renowned
railroad builder, Collis P. Huntington, purchased
water rights and stream bank to build a "fulling
mill" (an establishment to shrink and increase
density of woolen fabrics by pounding). Collis spent
the first few years of his youth here in the "hollow."
As industry's independence
on waterpower waned during the latter part of the
nineteenth century, the residents of the area survived
as cordwood and log cutters, part time farmers, charcoal
makers, and as teamsters hauling forest products to
and for the Thomaston brass industry and other users.
A few residents found employment within the various
factories in the town of Thomaston and the village
of Terryville.
As modes of transportation
and highways modernized, "people of means"
began to acquire properties and establish homes in
Poverty Hollow during the 1930's. It wasn't long before
the word "poverty" no longer truly described
the hollow. In fact some local folks (in humor) began
to substitute the word "property" for "poverty"
when making reference to the area.
The flood of 1955 brought about
changes to the little community. The Army Corps of
Engineers acquired the "floor" of the valley
as a part of the Thomaston Flood Control reservoir.
Portions of the highways within the Valley were relocated
or abandoned, while the one-room school and all but
four of the old houses (that were on higher ground)
were torn down or moved to the Valley's perimeter.
The former home sites, meadows, and roadways returned
to brush and woodland growth. The sites and remains
of the several once-busy water powered mills and their
dams along the brooks became ever more difficult to
locate.
Guess we have no choice but
to label the changes within Harwinton's Poverty Hollow
as "progress" and let it go at that.
