1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meriden

MERIDEN, a city of New Haven county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the township of Meriden, S.W. of the centre of the state, about 18 m. N.N.E. of New Haven and about the same distance S.S.W. of Hartford. Pop. of the township, including the city (1900), 28,695; (1910), 32,066; of the city (1900), 24,296, of Whom 7215 were foreign-born; (1910), 27,265. Meriden is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway and by an inter-urban electric line. The city is bisected by Harbor Brook, a small stream, and through the S.W. part of the township flows the Quinnipiac river. A short distance N.W. of the city, in Hubbard Park, an attractive reservation of more than 900 acres, are the Hanging Hills, three elevations (West Mountain, South Mountain and Cat-Hole Mountain) in a broken range of trap ridges, which have resisted the erosion that formed the lowlands of the Connecticut valley; they rise to a height of about 700 ft. above the sea. In their vicinity, near the boundary of Berlin township, is Merimere, one of the city’s four reservoirs. Meriden is the seat of the Connecticut School for Boys (Reformatory). There are also a public library (1899), a state armoury, a hospital, the Curtis Home for orphans and aged women, and a tuberculosis sanitarium supported by the city. Meriden is one of the most important manufacturing cities of Connecticut, and in 1905 produced 59·9% of the plated ware manufactured in the state, and much sterling silver. In 1905 the factory product was valued at $13,763,548, an increase of 17·1% over that of 1900. Meriden was originally a part of the township of Wallingford, but a tract in the northern part of this township was designated as Merideen by an Indian deed of 1664. It was made a separate parish under that name in 1728, but did not become a separate township until 1806. The city was chartered in 1867.

See G. W. Perkins, Historical Sketches of Meriden (West Meriden, 1849); C. H. S. Davis, History of Wallingford (Meriden, 1870), and G. M. Curtis and C. Bancroft Gillespie, A Century of Meriden (Meriden, 1906).