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