bakersville old mill & blacksmith shop - trailer

The Old Mill & Blacksmith Shop in Baker(s)ville, Connecticut

By William Hosley, Terra Firma Northeast

A Place in time:

Baker(s)ville, Connecticut

This 3-story steam-powered mill was built by John Scott Baker in 1859. It replaced a water-powered tannery on the same spot built by his grandfather Scott Baker about 1812. Soft drinks, condensed milk, a tailor shop, lumber mill, wheelwright, shingle factory & cobbler’s shop and a renowned dance hall operated here over the years.

Used only for storage since its glory days before 1930

Through the glass

A world we have lost

Let’s look inside.

First floor

The way up

2nd floor

Second floor – cobwebs, vines & wheelwright parts

Machines and hand tools

Agrarian business and democracy

Ephemera in a drawer – A place in time

Jones’ Dance Hall: A flourishing social institutions ca 1885-1925

Men’s cloak room, stair hall, lady’s cloak room – grained & symmetrical

Graffiti: Allyn Sedgwick & Jane Smith, 1942

George Warren Jones’ Blacksmith shop.

The best-documented, most intact blacksmith’s shop in America!

George Warren Jones became renowned, but the story neither begins or ends there

Documentation is abundant. Goods & services were provided to more than 100 local families. Names include

Birge, Bissell, Enright, Johnson, Merrill & Marsh

Born in 1861, George Jones continued in his father Warren Jones’ trade until 1955. He preserved the traditions of a vanishing world.

This is the ox sling in 1940. It gave Jones an edge for County Fairs

Attached to the shop is a 19th century outhouse.

The shop was part of a vigorous local and regional culture & economy.

Before Coca Cola and Payless Shoes there was JE Larkin’s Shoes & Hats in Winsted and Canton Springs Soda.

George Jones was part of a complex local economy and society.

This was the shop about 1946

The back sills need work / Weeds & brush need cutting; some windows re-glazing – but the roof is good!

Tourists and children marveling at the experience of Jones’s shop about 1948. What inspired then can

inspire again!

Save the Bakersville Blacksmith Shop

Created by William Hosley for the New Hartford Historical Societywnhosley@snet.net

April 2006 / June 2011Special Thanks to Scott Goff, Allyn & Tom Sedgwick, Gordon Ross