Colrain — Villages
Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.
Coleraine Centre
Coleraine Centre is the oldest settlement, and is peopled and supported chiefly by agriculturists. Here are the town-hall, three stores, an excellent hotel, and two churches; the town business is done at this place.
Foundry Village
Foundry Village, now a rural settlement (although at an early date the location of an iron-foundry, operated by George Hastings in 1834, and later by U. Thomas, when it was swept away by a flood in 1869), is a mile west of the centre, and contains a Baptist Church and a few business places. Near here, at what is known as Willis Place, is one of the cotton-mills of the Griswoldville Manufacturing Company, whose employes, to the number of 100, reside in substantial brick tenements close at hand, and owned by the company.
Lyonsville
Lyonsville, half a mile south of Willis Place, is a small hamlet of half a dozen houses, without features of especial interest, and south of this, about a mile, is
Griswoldville
Griswoldville, the location of the main mills of the Griswoldville Manufacturing Company. The handsome residences of the Messrs. Griswold, and the many neat tenements and cottages occupied by the employes, prettily embellish the village, while the busy hum of the great mills animates and enlivens the place.
Shattuckville
Shattuckville, a mile south of Griswoldville, is a manufacturing point, where Mr. C. W. Shattuck has, since 1837, operated an extensive cotton-mill, in which 100 persons are employed. Here there are a store and post-office, and the population is mainly composed of employes in Mr. Shattuck's mill. The villages above named are located on the North River, from which the factories mentioned obtain their water-power. In the west, ADAMSVILLE is a small agricultural settlement, as is also ELM GROVE, in the northeast.
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