Through inheritance, business acumen, and social aplomb, the Wolcott family rose in just a few generations from being tenant farmers in England to political elites in America. Henry Wolcott Sr., has been described as “the most prominent member of the Windsor settlement throughout his long life, and its richest citizen.”
As a researcher, women are frustrating to follow over time. Often their names change, they do not regularly appear in land records or tax rolls, many do not leave behind wills. Being a daughter, wife, and mother were primary roles for early American women. Running a household was a full time job. The account books of the Barber family help us shed light on the productive activities of those women.
Mill Brook today flows gently and quietly through Windsor, but it was once the busiest industrial area of town. In the early days, before the larger mills came to the Farmington and Connecticut Rivers, the small mills along the local streams were an important part of the town’s local economy.