Community Contribution

Original Source

For this chapter, I'll go back in history once again, to the earlier days of the settlement, but just after the end of the great Revolutionary War that created our United States. At that time the area was still sometimes referred to as Judd's Meadow, but more often Salem, or Salem Bridge, after the new ecclesiastical society created in 1773 under the name of the "Salem Society.”

In the years just after the turn of the century however, more and more folks started to adopt the name that would one day become official: Naugatuck.

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“Salem Bridge, since the opening of the post office in the center in 1834 frequently now called Naugatuck, had grown sturdily. It included within its twenty-eight square miles two churches, eight district schools, two through turnpikes, several general stores, and more than twenty-five shops”

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It is in those "shops," what we would today call factories, where many of Naugatuck's more interesting "firsts" occurred. I'll tell you about one of the earliest, from a name you will surely recognize.

After the war the people of Salem/Naugatuck, like the rest of the new country, were facing a shortage of manufactured goods. This problem was compounded by the fact that in the 1780’s there was little money to buy things with as well.

Before the war, Salem farmers were able to purchase English or foreign manufactured goods from merchants in New Haven, often bartering rye, hay, apples, or dairy products for the things they could not make themselves. That all changed drastically once Connecticut and the other new American states were no longer part of the British Empire, and its special trading privileges.

Many badly needed items for farm and household use could only be bought at prices far too high for the local farmers. In the Naugatuck valley, however, a number of entrepreneurs began to see the possibility of new markets. They soon began what we'd call today a "side-hustle." In addition to the farming they were already doing, these trailblazers began small manufacturing businesses, making household items and farm tools, both for their own use and also to barter or sell to others.

Naugatuck's river and the brooks that fed into it allowed for the construction of waterwheels, an ingenious way to harness the flowing water to power a manufacturing process. This prevalence of waterways and the power they provided helped begin the transformation of our town from a farming community to an industrial hub.

As explained in the "Encyclopedia of Connecticut Biography, Genealogical—Memorial, Representative Citizens" published in 1917, Tuttle is a noteworthy name of antiquity in England. It's believed the history of the name is derived from the word; tuthill (conical hill). The Tuttles were particularly prominent in Devonshire, but it was Hertfordshire, that William Tuttle, the direct ancestor of the Naugatuck Tuttles, migrated from in 1635. William carried on his family's distinguished name here in the colonies, and became a prominent man himself. Generations of Tuttles settled in various towns throughout Connecticut and passed their good name down through the turns of two centuries.

Over 170 years after William migrated, Eben Clark Tuttle was born in Prospect, Connecticut, in 1806. He lived there until as a young father, he and his wife, Temperance (Beecher) Tuttle, moved to Naugatuck. His son, Bronson Beecher Tuttle, would carry on his family's legacy and firmly cement the Tuttle name into the history books of this new country, but it was Eben who truly launched the Tuttle name into nationwide, and global prominence. He became one of Naugatuck's earliest innovators and inventors.

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"His reputation as a manufacturer was almost world-wide and when the history of the manufacturing founders of the Naugatuck Valley shall be written, his name will be among the foremost. He lived to see the business he commenced in a small way grow to almost gigantic proportions, and the little hamlet of Union City which, when he went there, contained scarce half a dozen houses, by his enterprise became one of the first manufacturing villages of the Naugatuck Valley."

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Foremost indeed, for Eben, like so many successful entrepreneurs, had seen a need, and so he filled that need. As mentioned before, items such as the necessary farming tools could not be purchased easily in the early 1800s. What we often overlook as commonplace, was in the early days of our country, a precious commodity. The earliest depictions of man using a hoe-like tool to work the earth were found in Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back over 4,000 years. These ancient hoes were constructed out of branches, stone, bones, shells or animal horns.
(Photo #1)

The hoe had a positive impact on quality of life. Anthropologists say because hoes were custom-made and hard to come by in early agrarian societies where food supplies were inconsistent, a broken, lost or stolen hoe could result in too much missed time planting, cultivating or harvesting. The loss of what is today a simple garden tool, could endanger a family’s food supply, making the difference between starvation or survival.

Because they were so critical at the time, early hoes were considered to be highly valuable to their owners. They were usually homemade, well maintained and immediately repaired if they broke. Since a broken or stolen hoe could ultimately cause a family to starve, stealing or breaking another man’s hoe was a serious punishable offense in many places.

It wasn’t until the 14th century that hoe heads began to be forged in metal, and by the 18th century, garden hoes began to be manufactured by different companies. (Photo #2) Though obtaining new garden hoes became easier, many of these manufactured hoes came with a hefty price tag and were too expensive for many struggling farmers. Owning multiple gardening tools became a sign of stature in some communities. Thomas Jefferson reportedly listed owning and using 18 different hoes in his Monticello gardens. The affluence that a hoe represented is in sharp contrast to the word's more street-slang meaning often used today.

Another problem farmers faced besides the price, was the design of a typical 18th century hoe. The basic implement had not changed much over the millennia, (Photos #3 & 4) and it was cause for many a back-ache. (Photo #5)

That is until a man from Naugatuck changed thousands of years of history, and re-invented the garden hoe.

Eben Clark Tuttle is credited with the invention of the modern “gooseneck” form of hoe. This newer, more adjustable form of the tool caused less injury after long usage. His invention became so popular that the gooseneck hoe quickly replaced the old form of the implement. Tuttle became an industry leader, in an industry that he himself had created. Of course having earned a reputation as an honorable man certainly must have assisted the rapid growth of his manufacturing business.

Older hand tools were usually made with straight handles because it was easiest to accomplish, but straight handled tools like hoes put a strain on joints. (Photo #6) Goose-necked hoes are easier to use because they provide greater leverage. The goose neck is part of the metal blade section of the tool, and bending it also allows for adjustment to each user's height. It was an innovation that made earlier tools undesirable, despite having been in use for millennia.

In 1851, the Tuttle factory was located on Fulling Mill brook and while there it greatly expanded its operations. In the same year, Eben took on several partners, and the Tuttle Manufacturing Company was incorporated. It was short-lasted however, perhaps owing to Eben's preference of being a sole proprietor. Before long he bought an old waterwheel shop located west of the Naugatuck River in “the flats” between the river and Hop Brook. There he set up a new hoe shop, leaving his former associates to run the older establishment “up the brook.” The Tuttle Manufacturing Company, then moved across the river to a site near the foot of Church Street where the company turned out steel hoes and rakes for many years.

As the story goes, Eben Tuttle, partly to satisfy a wish of his eighteen-year-old son, Bronson, built an addition to the factory in 1854. By agreement with the workers in the nearby Straitsville foundry, he moved the malleable iron works into the new space. The American Malleable Iron Company, was born, and thus the seeds of the Tuttle/Whittemore partnership that would eventually change the face of Naugatuck forever.

But that's a story for another day. For now, let's remember the man who, perhaps in his own humble way, changed the world. The gooseneck hoe is now the most popular style used around the globe, and it was first mass produced in a waterwheel powered shop on a Naugatuck brook.
(Photo #7)

Eben Clark Tuttle
BIRTH: April 27th, 1806
Naugatuck, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA
DEATH : December 5th, 1873 (aged 67)
BURIAL: Hillside Cemetery
Naugatuck, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA
(Photo #8)