Willington

WILLINGTON Incorporated 1727 In 1720 a party of eight men, originally from England, bought sixteen thousand acres in this region and called it Wellington. One of these, Roger Wolcott, subsequently became governor of Connecticut (1750-1754). After a century of farming the town gradually expanded industrially until 1845 when it boasted a thread mill, a cotton mill, three silk factories, a scythe factory, four comb factories, button mills, and a glassworks (1815-1871) producing demijohns and flasks with varying designs. Persons of distinction born here were Jared Sparks (1789-1866), historian and biographer and president of Harvard; Elias Loomis, professor at Yale, celebrated mathematician and astronomer.