Burlington

BURLINGTON The original inhabitants of the part of Farmington known as West Woods were Tunxis Indians. Early settlement by white men was scattered. The first house of record, noted in an estate inventory of 1725, was that of John Wiard, who had bought land in 1721. The settlers petitioned for an ecclesiastical society in 1774, citing their distance from Farmington. It was granted and the Society of West Britain was established. Their first church was built in 1783. A number of Seventh Day Baptists from Rhode Island had settled here and John Davis was appointed elder in 1771 to minister to the group as part of the Hopkinton, Rhode Island, church. By 1780 Elder Davis was appointed to organize an independent church, and it was built in 1800. The parishes of West Britain and New Cambridge were set off in 1785 as the Town of Bristol, and so remained until 1806, when West Britain was incorporated as the Town of Burlington. (Continued on other side) BURLINGTON (Continued from other side) Two prominent educators native to Burlington were Romeo Elton, minister and later classics professor at Brown University, and Heman Humphrey, born in Simsbury, who came here at the age of six, was educated locally, and in 1823 was named president of Amherst College. Among early manufacturers was Ethan Stillman, a firearms maker who contracted in 1808 with the Federal Government for 2500 muskets. Elisha Hotchkiss, a major clockmaker 1820-1837, made clocks for the trade and the Yankee pedlars. George J. Hinman (died 1890) came here in his later years and erected a sawmill, running the first circular saw in the State. The fifth generation of the family is in the same business today. The Bristol copper mine, located mostly in Burlington, was discovered in the late 1700's but not worked until 1802, and spasmodically after until abandoned (1895). The Town is now mainly residential and is a source of water supply to nearby cities.