Spoonville: Early Industry On Granby's Waterways

As you travel around New England you may come across a town with a ville in the name. In the Hartford area we are familiar with Collinsville, Hazardville and Tariffville. A ville was often the area of town where there was water to power factories or mills.

In Granby there were areas like Pegville, Goodrichville and Mechanicsville. Sometimes these sections were named after the owner of the business (Collins, Goodrich) or a product like pegs for shoes or a hazardous material like gunpowder.

In the early 19th century, Granby was utilizing almost every body of water in town for its manufacturing industry. Salmon Brook in West Granby, the East Branch of Salmon Brook in Mechanicsville and on the Farmington River in Turkey Hills in a little area known as Spoonville.

In 1829 Whitfield Cowles, the former pastor of the Congregational Church, built a new factory just east of the Spoonville Bridge and about 200 feet north of the Farmington River. It was a wood building standing two stories high with a basement, 25 windows, two large doors, and two small doors.

Cowles dammed up a small stream that ran into the river beside the new factory to power an overshot waterwheel. Here he manufactured wire and cards used to convert raw wool into a product that would allow the wool to be spun or used as batting. 

By 1832, the Cowles & Sons business was at its peak and the company even built a large boardinghouse west of the factory to accommodate its many employees.  In 1836, after Whitfield and his son Madison passed away, the remaining brother Gilbert transferred the business to his youngest brother William B. Cowles. 

William was an innovator and around 1840 he converted the business to one that manufactured flatware made of German silver. German or Nickel silver, as it was sometimes called, was an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc.  It was prepared by melting the copper and nickel together in a crucible and adding, piece by piece, the previously heated zinc.  In 1843 Cowles was joined by James Isaacson, an experienced plater and Asa Rogers, a well known silversmith from Hartford.

Soon they were silver-plating  German silver flatware using a new galvanic process involving batteries. Electroplating, the process of coating a base metal such as copper with a thin sheet of silver, made silver-plated flatware available to a mass market.  The new process gave the look of sterling without the expense. This technique produced a brilliant finish, since it was a coat of pure silver.

In 1845, four English brothers named Kenworthy, came to Turkey Hills. These craftsmen were experienced spoon makers from Birmingham, where the first silver-plating patent was issued to G. R. and H. Elkington  in 1840.  

In 1846 the Cowles Manufacturing Company had grown with 16 women and 98 men working in the factory, most of them not from Turkey Hills.  They produced plated teaspoons and tablespoons; dessert, mustard, and salt spoons; sugar scoops and tongs; cream, gravy and soup ladles and also spectacles. They made bifocals, an invention of Benjamin Franklin’s and even sunglasses which sold for from 20 to 30 cents each.

Eventually the Rogers Brothers Asa, a partner and William, a financial backer, competed strongly with the Spoonville operation.  Mr. Cowles complained that they were even stealing his customers.  

While Cowles' business began to decline, the 1847 Rogers Bros. trademark grew and eventually became a hugely successful flatware producer and a household name throughout the dining rooms of America.

For more information about the manufacturers of Spoonville, consider these links:

Cowles Mfg. Co. ladle

Cowles Mfg. Co. boardinghouse

Spoonville photo album