Windham County occupies the northeastern corner of the state of Connecticut, bordering Worcester county, Massachusetts, lying on the north, and Providence and Kent counties in Rhode Island on the east. New London county bounds it on the south and Tolland on the west. Its greatest length, from north to south, is twenty-seven miles, and its greatest width, from east to west, is twenty-three miles. Its north, east and south sides are nearly straight lines, while on the west side its territory interchanges offsets with Tolland. The greatest. variation in the line made by these offsets, however, does not exceed six miles. This occurs on the northwest corner, where the town of Union makes an advance of about the distance mentioned. We may explain that the longest north and south line would be drawn from the northwest corner of Thompson to the southwest corner of Plainfield, and the longest east and west line would be drawn from the northwest corner of Windham to the Rhode Island line, about the middle of Sterling. The county as now constituted contains the towns of Ashford, Brooklyn, Canterbury, Chaplin, Eastford, Hampton, Killingly, Plainfield, Pomfret, Putnam, Scotland, Sterling, Thompson, Windham and Woodstock, fifteen in all; and included in these towns are the incorporated boroughs of Danielsonville and Willimantic.
Pardon Tillinghast, the grandfather of Waldo Tillinghast, was an early resident of West Greenwich, Rhode Island, and for forty years a deacon of the Baptist church. He married Mary Sweet, of East Greenwich, to whom were born twelve children. Thomas of this number was a farmer in his native town of West Greenwich, and an […]
Son of Doctor William Witter and Emily Bingham, his wife, was born at Willimantic, Conn., November 13th, 1842, in the substantial brick house now standing at the corner of Main and Witter (now called High) streets. His ancestry, both on the father’s and the mother’s side, is given with some detail in the sketch of
Ezra Dean was born in Killingly, Connecticut, on the 31st of August, 1813, and when twelve years of age, on the death of his father, came to Woodstock to reside with an uncle, who was then engaged in the business of a tanner and currier. He attended the nearest school for one or more years
Noah Aldrich, a revolutionary soldier and a resident of Scituate, Rhode Island, married Huldah Whittaker, who died in her one hundredth year. They raised a large family of sons and daughters, among whom was David, born in 1770, in Scituate, where his life was spent as a farmer. A public-spirited and influential citizen, he was
William Sully Beebe was born at Ithaca, N. Y., in 1341, and educated with a view to his appointment to the Military Academy at West Point. He was one of the president’s appointments there in 1858, on account of the services of his uncle and adopted father, Captain John C. Casey, himself a graduate of
James Cranska, the father of Floyd Cranska, a native of Portland, in the state of Maine, removed to Providence when a boy, and at a later date made Thompson, in Windham county, his home. Here he embarked in the shoe business, continuing in the same for nearly thirty years, and was for twenty years station
Edward Aldrich, the grandfather of the subject of this biography, resided on the homestead farm in Thompson. His son Easick, a native of Douglas, spent the chief portion of his life in Thompson. He married Miriam Howland, of Burrillville, R. I., whose children were: Elizabeth, Edward, John, Viletta and Eddy. Edward Aldrich, the eldest of
Deacon Jason Phipps was at an early day an extensive landholder and farmer in Thompson parish, as also a justice of the peace, who exercised his prerogative with an inflexible hand. His son Jason, a soldier of the revolution, married Mary Healy, of Dudley, Mass., whose children were: Peyton Randolph, Salem T., Jason, Polly, Hannah,
