Settled in 1695 as Wallingford "West Farms", this area obtained status as the village of New Cheshire in 1723. It was incorporated as a town in 1780. Cheshire became famous for its agricultural productivity and light manufacturing. Copper was mined here in the eighteenth century, the mineral barytes in the nineteenth. The Farmington Canal was completed through town in 1825. Cheshire is renowned for the Episcopal Academy, now Cheshire Academy, founded in 1794 by Samuel Seabury, first Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut. Former students include financier John Pierpont Morgan, Jr.; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under President Lincoln; Civil War Admiral Andrew Foote; and Confederate General Joseph Wheeler.
(Continued on other side
(Continued from other side)The Congregational Church was completed in 1827 to a design by David Hoadley, noted architect of New Haven. Among famous hostelries here were Beach Tavern, the Wallace and Munson Hotels, and the Waverly Inn. Cheshire is the site of the State Correctional Institution founded in 1910, and is the mother-town of Prospect, Connecticut, and Burton, Ohio, Among its famous sons are Governor Samuel A. Foote; Amos Doolittle, early silversmith and engraver; landscape artist John Frederick Kensett; Lambert Hitchcock, maker of popular chairs bearing his name; and Commodore Robert Hitchcock.
Erected by the Cheshire American Revolution
Bicentennial Committee
the Town of Cheshire
and the Connecticut Historical Commission
1976
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