THE SMITH AND WINCHESTER MACHINE SHOP

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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 43, 2025, Article 25

"I have attached a short essay about an old factory in Windham Center, Connecticut. The town of Windham is home to the city of Willimantic which happens to be my home town. Aside from this information there is more available on the internet for anyone interested.

"Small New England towns along any size river became industrial meccas for the production of Cotton, Wool and Silk Cloth and threads of the same during the Industrial revolution. And paper making evolved from hand made individual sheets to rolls of paper made possible by the Fourdrinier Press.

"I also submitted this to NENA News, and it might be of interest to E-Sylum readers and collectors in southern New England, Connecticut especially."

If this picture looks like the fire ravaged remains of the brick factory on the corner of Babcock Hill and Machine Shop Hill Roads in South Windham to you, you are correct. The old Smith and Winchester plant was set afire a few years ago, vandalism I assume. Privy to only a few, this plant started in 1828 as the Spafford and Phelps machine shop. This building was erected in 1908 and their prime product was a large and involved machine that made paper in rolls like newsprint, etc. It was called a Fourdriner Press, named after the European inventor and the first made in the U.S.

One of their customers was the Crane Paper Company of Dalton, Massachusetts. Crane made the paper for the U.S Government's paper money (it still does) and used this Windham made machine for their rolls of bank note paper which they sold to the U.S. government which in turn used that paper to print the federal bank notes (paper money) starting in 1863. The U.S.A. only issued coins before this date.

During the 1860s there were various types of notes issued. Some, called National Bank Notes came in various denominations and had the local issuing bank's names engraved right in the design. The notes were then shipped to those banks for use first in the local economy. And of course they could be spent anywhere in the U.S. These old notes are now numismatic treasures.

So readers, the machines made at the Smith and Winchester plant were sold to the Crane Company (paper maker) at Dalton, Mass. that in turn made the paper that was shipped to Washington on which U.S. National Bank notes were printed then sent to the local National Banks (First National Bank and Windham National Bank) and some of these in turn, sent to the payroll office at the South Windham plant of Smith and Winchester to be paid out to the workers who started this whole game!

Like coins, U.S. paper money became a historic and collectable item for hobbyist. Issues from a smaller town that needed less of the notes became more expensive due to their rarity compared to others. The bank notes printed for the local banks in this area are in demand for collectors of such stuff! Below, will be shown one of the notes issued in Willimantic. This is how numismatic history was made in South Windham!