Made In Guilford

Made In Guilford. . , Although predominantly agricultural for much of its history, Guilford has also been home to many other forms of commerce and industry. Some Guilford goods, like the milk produced on its dairy farms or the ice harvested to keep it cool before the era of electricity, were consumed close to home. But the arrival of the railroad in 1852 (see display on south side of railroad tracks), and the increasing ease of shipping by water, brought Guilford's prized canned tomatoes and other local products to customers farther afield., Abundant natural resources, from fresh seafood to pink granite, sustained a small but diverse local economy. Fishing, shipbuilding, and other cottage industries thrived alongside large-scale operations such as I.S. Spencer and Sons Foundry and Pinchbeck's greenhouses. Knowles-Lombard, the largest of several canneries in town, provided jobs for over 100 people in peak season. Three times that number - mostly women - processed ball-bearings for the war effort at the repurposed New Haven Clock Co. factory in the 1940s., In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of African Americans, Irish, Swedes, Italians, Finns, and Spaniards worked in Guilford's factories, farms, and quarries, like the one that the Scottish-born John Beattie established on Leete's Island in 1869, which employed as many as 500 in its heyday. In the summertime, well-heeled tourists flocked to the elegant Guilford Point House hotel, overlooking today's town beach, and other Gilded Age watering places., Key To Photos Overhead. , Panel A: (left to right) Manufacturing and Quarries , 1. I.S. Spencer and Sons Foundry on Fair Street (now condominiums), ca. 1915 , 2. Fred Moore pours mold in Spencer's Foundry, ca. 1940 , 3. New Haven Clock Co., 66 High Street (now condominiums), ca. 1940. Numerous factories operated here from 1850 on, including the Guilford Enterprise Co., which made ivory buttons , 4. Jim DaMico operating steam drill at Beattie's Quarry on Leete's Island, ca. 1885 , 5. Statue of Liberty base, made of Beattie's granite, under construction, ca. 1885 , Panel B: Canning and Greenhouses , 1. Stoking the mammoth furnace at Pinchbeck's greenhouses, ca. 1940 , 2. Knowles-Lombard factory (razed 1965) at Guilford train depot, mid-20th century , 3. Delivery wagon at Sachem's Head Canning Co. on Water Street, ca. 1910 (razed ca. 1940) , 4. Knowles-Lombard workers canning tomatoes, ca. 1910 , Panel C: Tourism, Ice Cutting, Fishing, and Farming , 1. Children on the lawn at Guilford Point House hotel, ca. 1886 , 2. Harvesting ice for refrigeration on the town Mill Pond, ca. 1920 , 3. Lobster boat at the sluice in Guilford harbor, ca. 1930-1945 , 4. Julius Engleman plowing with horses, ca. 1910, The Guilford Preservation Alliance appreciates the support of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, and contributions from the Guilford Free Library: Edith B. Nettleton Historical Room; the Guilford Keeping Society Library Collection; and the collection of Carl A. Balestracci, Jr., Display by the Guilford Preservation Alliance, . (photo caption) , The short-lived Guilford Manufacturing Co., southeast side of Jones Bridge, Engraving, ca. 1850.