1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salisbury (Connecticut)

SALISBURY, a township of Litchfield county, in the north-western corner of Connecticut, U.S.A. Pop. (1910) 3522. Area, about 58 sq. m. Salisbury is served by the Central New England, and the New York, New Haven & Hartford railways. In the township are several villages, including Salisbury, Lakeville, Lime Rock, Chapinville and Ore Hill. Much of the township is hilly, and Bear Mountain (2355 ft.), near the Massachusetts line, is the highest elevation in the state. The Housatonic river forms the eastern boundary. The township is a summer resort. In it are the Scoville Memorial Library (about 8000 volumes in 1910); the Hotchkiss preparatory school (opened in 1892, for boys); the Salisbury School (Protestant Episcopal, for boys), removed to Salisbury from Staten Island in 1901 and formerly St Austin’s school; the Taconic School (1896, for girls); and the Connecticut School for Imbeciles (established as a private institution in 1858). Among the manufactures are charcoal, pig-iron, car wheels and general casting sat Lime Rock, cutlery at Lakeville, and knife-handles and rubber brushes at Salisbury. The iron mines are among the oldest in the country; mining began probably as early as 1731.

The first settlement within the township was made in 1720 by Dutchmen and Englishmen, who in 1719 had bought from the Indians a tract of land along the Housatonic, called “Weatogue”—an Indian word said to mean “the wigwam place.” In 1732 the township was surveyed with its present boundaries, and in 1738 the land (exclusive of that held under previous grants) was auctioned by the state at Hartford. In that year the present name was adopted, and in 1741 the township was incorporated.

See Malcolm D. Rudd, An historical Sketch of Salisbury, Connecticut (New York, 1899); and Ellen S. Bartlett, “Salisbury,” in The Connecticut Quarterly, vol. iv. No. 4, pp. 345 sqq. (Hartford, Conn., 1898).