Date: Fri 28-Jul-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Quick Words:

Rocky-Glen-Mill-Wright-Fabric

Full Text:

Mill Owners Plan Rocky Glen Museum

BY SHANNON HICKS

When driving along Glen Road in Sandy Hook, a residential area lined with

trees and family homes, there is a bend in the road one comes upon - from

either direction - where you go around a corner, past the homes protected by

the woods, and the topography opens up immensely, giving sight to the

sprawling, red-brick former factory building that is the Rocky Glen Mill. It

is impossible to miss the beautiful brick building, the largest structure in

Newtown.

Hundreds of people drive, ride or walk past this building every day, but how

many know its history? How many have gone inside the building, to look out

through any of its 250 windows at the Pootatuck River flowing behind the

building, walk one of its four floors, revel in the beauty of its

exposed-brick walls or stand in awe of the exposed ceiling pipes and fixtures?

New owners purchased the building last February, and their hope - in addition

to continuing the building's use as an office building - is to research its

history and share their findings with the public.

Bordered by the Pootatuck River, the beautiful building, one of Newtown's

claims to fame - the Victorian structure built in the Italiante style in 1831

was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 - has come to

be more commonly referred to as the Fabric Fire Hose Building, thanks in part

to the large black sign with grey/white letters that runs along the roofline

on the side of the building that faces Glen Road. It is a leftover from one of

the building's earliest long-term residents.

Newtown's connection with the rubber industry began over 165 years ago.

Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven; his sister married a Sandy Hook

resident. Goodyear spent many years experimenting with rubber in his

brother-in-law's factory in the Glen - the Fabric Fire Hose Company - and

during the 1850s, the Goodyear Rubber Company developed the process for the

vulcanization (treating crude or synthetic rubber or similar plastic material

chemically to give it useful properties as elasticity, strength and stability)

of rubber at this site.

Goodyear himself never became wealthy from his invention, but he benefitted

his fellow men and was one of the first to put the Glen of Sandy Hook/Newtown

on the map.

Similar to the benefits Newtowners received from the notoriety of Goodyear,

the new owners of the Rocky Glen Mill plan on sharing the historical

importance of their building with today's Newtown and Sandy Hook residents.

Sandra and Kenneth Wright, who purchased Rocky Glen Mill last February, plan

on pouring through historical files, newspaper files and locating memorabilia

related to their building's past, all in an effort to share their findings

with the public through an attractive museum display.

"In the Glen on the Pootatuck ... are two factories originally belonging to

the New York Belting and Packing Company... The `lower factory' is the home of

the Fabric Fire Hose Company, one of the oldest companies in the United States

that makes cotton rubber-lined fire hose. Founded in Warwick, N.Y., in 1869,

it moved here in 1900 and is the only factory in the country devoted

exclusively to the use of fire hose. It ships to fire departments all over the

country...

"The company was a main source of employment for the inhabitants of Newtown

and there are a few retirees around town who worked here for 50 years. Many of

its present employees are residents of Newtown. Until recently the factory was

managed by three generations of the Cole family...

"...Although manufacturing is still carried on in the Sandy Hook Plant, the

company is now a subsidiary of Uniroyal, Inc."

(from Newtown, Connecticut , by The League of Women Voters of Newtown;

published by Bacon Printing Co., Derby, Conn., 1975)

For over a century, the Rocky Glen Mill played an integral part in the lives

of generations of Newtown and Sandy Hook residents. For a long time, the

60,000-square foot building was the major employer in the then-thriving hamlet

of Sandy Hook. Ancestors of many mill employees still live in surrounding

towns.

Earlier this year, a new generation of caregivers took over the building when

Sandra and Kenneth Wright of Redding, along with partner George Baker, stepped

in and purchased the building.

"We live in an antique house, and I'm in the antiques business, so we're

interested in antique buildings," Sandra said last week. The building manager,

Sandra was taking a short break from the jobs, large and small, that keep the

new co-owner of a historic building busy during renovation and upkeep stages.

Sandra's husband, Ken, had been following the progress of the building for a

few years through the newspaper, and he came across an article last January

about the building changing hands again and being placed on the market. The

Wrights felt it was time to take a look, they saw the building, and they owned

it a month later.

"We looked at just ourselves at the beginning, but we realized very quickly

that this was too big of a financial undertaking for us, individually, so we

came upon a partner, a personal acquaintance, who is an investor who is very

experienced in lots of financial areas. He thought it was just the best,"

Sandra explained between telephone calls, the arrival of employees who are

continuing the renovation for the Wrights during the summer, and mail pick-ups

and deliveries.

Sandra has become the full-time manager of the building, putting in, it seems,

30 hours a day, eight days a week. Kenneth, an emergency medicine doctor at

Norwalk Hospital, also puts in a fair share of hours. Sandra calls him a "Mr

Fix-It," able to patch up or install just about anything they come across.

The Wrights already owned a couple of commercial properties in New Canaan,

including an antiques center in the oldest building in New Canaan. At

4,000-square feet, however, the antiques center, says Sandra, was never in the

state of condition the mill was when the Wrights purchased it.

Former owners had not been able to keep up with maintenance, and a few

renovation ideas were unwise - like the skylights in a beautiful studio-like

area near the rear of the building that the Wrights are toying with turning

into a restaurant. The skylights leaked from day one and had to be removed by

the couple as one of the first projects they undertook upon purchasing the

mill building.

The bank holding the lein on the building provided almost no maintenance over

the years, so the Wrights are playing a lot of catch-up. They have a lot of

water issues to deal with, and the heating system is complicated, to say the

least. The plant has its own sewer treatment facility and, says Sandra, what

does the average person know about sewage treatment? So there is a lot of

on-site learning going on these days, also.

"It's a very hands-on place," she says. "And we have every intention of

sticking with it.

"It was one of those things where you just sort of had to take the plunge on

faith," she said. Sandra manages the building because, she says, it's the kind

of building that needs to have someone on-site all the time. "Crises tend to

happen sometimes over the weekend."

They plan on not only using the available 60,000 square feet for office space

- currently there are approximately 40 people working in the building for

various companies, utilizing nearly half of the available office space - but

to assemble an interesting display for a lobby museum open to the public.

Sandra has set the date of Friday, September 8, as the projected open house,

when the lobby/museum display will open, in conjunction with another business

moving in and setting up shop at Rocky Glen Mill.

The new owners of Rocky Glen Mill hope local residents can help them in

locating background material, maps, old photographs and other memorabilia

which relate to the site's prosperous industrial past.

In the lobbies of the different floors, Sandra plans on using different

styles. She hopes to go with Americana on the first floor, while walnut and

manhogany furniture will dominate the lobby of the second floor. Glenmill

Corporation will also be scouring local newspaper files and historical

documents in an effort to assemble the display. Photographs, she hopes, will

all relate to the building and its past.

A G.P. Gordon printing press made in New York, probably during the Nineteenth

Century, is situated in the second floor lobby. It was there when the Wrights

purchased Glen Mill and there are no plans to move it any time soon.

"It's extremely heavy," Sandra said. Work crews had planned to move the press

when it was time to paint the walls of the lobby, but the press is so heavy

that the crew decided to simply work around it. Hence, a centerpiece is

already in place for the lobby's display.

"With a work force of 250 hands, the mill shipped elevator belts, rubber

mailbags, and other applications of the Goodyear patents to sites as far away

as Texas. Mostly sons of Erin fleeing the Irish potato famine, the employees

soon nestled into Walnut Tree Hill (or Mount Pisgah, as the Indians called

it), brought over their relatives, and stirred up the local economic,

religious, and political scene.

"In 1997 the old Fabric Fire Hose Company closed its doors. It sat empty until

1980, when, after gaining a listing in the National Register of Historic

Places, new owners began a restoration project that would convert the

still-handsome brick structure into a light industry and office building."

(from Newtown, Connecticut , by The League of Women Voters of Newtown;

published by Eastern Press, Inc., New Haven, Conn., 1989).

When Fabric Fire Hose moved to South Carolina in 1977, the building was

thoroughly cleaned. Plant foreman Kenneth Munson was instrumental in managing

to save several interesting artifacts, but a great deal of historical material

was already lost by that time.

Mr Munson pulled a beautiful wooden fire hose-winding cart from the dumpster,

which now resides in the front lobby of Rocky Glen Mill, but the other 11

carts in the building at that time were lost. Mr Munson has already donated a

large number of items to the Wrights, and his recollections of goings on at

the factory will be used to enhance a display.

Other employees were also able to rescue photos, documents and artifacts, many

of which, like the hose cart, have been returned to the mill in recent years.

All of these items will be incorporated into the planned exhibit.

After placing ads in local newspapers, Glenmill Corporation has already

received phone calls from people do have exactly what the Wrights are looking

for: not just photographs, but memorabilia.

"As technology changes, these things that were so incidental will become

important," Sandra stated. Local people have turned up with items like a huge

stretch of fire hose that was manufactured in the building. Someone else

donated a fire hose nozzle.

The couple may be from Redding, but their intention was never to move in and

shut out the neighborhood. Sandra knows that the Pootatuck is a popular

fishing spot, especially near the falls of the mill, and she has no intention

of asking the locals to stop fishing in the area.

"We just hope they'll be careful," she says. On weekends or during the

evening, Sandra has gone out to introduce herself to fishermen who continue to

work the waters near the mill.

In terms of what the Wrights have already done and plan to do with Rocky Glen

Mill, both the state and town have already been helpful, reports Sandra. "The

state has been extremely helpful, very supportive," she said last week. "They

do seem to be wanting to help.

"And this town has been very helpful - they really want it to work."

And why not? Rocky Glen Mill - or, if you prefer, The Fabric Fire Hose

Building - has certainly been part of Newtown being on the national and local

maps for a long time. With the Wrights' purchase a few months ago and their

ambitious future plans, there is no reason to think that it won't continue to

stay there for a long time to come.

Anyone owning or knowing the whereabouts of materials related to Fabric Fire

Hose, New York Belting or Goodyear Rubber is invited to contact Sandra Wright

at 426-8864, or stop by the mill at 75 Glen Road in Sandy Hook.