The Ballad of Mack Street
The following is a transcript (edited for space and clarity) from a June 2004 interview between Dr. Daniel Mack and WHS executive director Christine Ermenc. Dr. Mack discusses his family's brickyard on Mack Street in [...]
Volunteer Profile: Carlton Parkinson
One of our dear volunteers, Carlton Parkinson, passed away two weeks ago. We’ll miss him tremendously at Windsor Historical Society. He inspired hundreds of school children to understand and to care a little more about the place they live in. We're re-publishing an interview we conducted with Carl in 2010 in his memory.
“I am contented to be what I am, so long as I have my rights.” -Joseph Rainey
The above was quoted from the December 1995 issue of Life Magazine, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of his first day in office as a United States Representative. We know Mr. Rainey as a summer resident of Windsor who lived at 299 Palisado Avenue.
Soldiers of the Soil
What would it be like to come to this town after a harrowing ocean voyage and adjust to a new climate, new foods, new working conditions, and racial prejudice, as well? Fay Clarke Johnson tells the story of Jamaicans who left their lovely, temperate island to find work in the Connecticut River Valley during WWII in her 1995 book Soldiers of the Soil.
The Hayden Station School
You may have driven by this lovely building at 853 Palisado Avenue. In 1896 when it was erected, Windsor was divided into 10 school districts. The northern end of Route 159, known as Hayden Station, was called School District No. 6 and had 55 students between the ages of 4 and 16 years old.
Moses and Oliver Mitchell: Portraits of Two Late 18th-Century African Americans in Windsor
The first black household in the area of Windsor north of the Farmington River was probably that of Moses Mitchell, who bought his first recorded piece of property here in 1791. Moses's brother Oliver came from East Windsor in 1797, buying a piece of property with "two dwelling houses" on the west bank of the Connecticut River near the Scantic Ferry.
Sandy Archer and the Archer Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church
There are two sites in Windsor named after someone called Archer: Archer Road, which runs north from Kennedy Road all the way to Windsor Locks, and the nearby Archer Memorial AME Zion Church. But who [...]
Remembering Sarah
They worked in the kitchen from dawn to dusk cooking, washing, and ironing. They emptied chamber pots every morning after sleeping in basements and attics. And they were supposed to be invisible whenever guests came calling. Who are ‘they’? They are the slaves of Windsor’s Chaffee family.