1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wallingford (Connecticut)

WALLINGFORD, a township of New Haven county, Connecticut, U.S.A., S.W. of the centre of the state, in the valley of the Quinnipiac river. It contains the villages of East Wallingford, Tracy and Yalesville, and the borough of Wallingford. Pop. of the township (1900) 9001, (1910) 11,155; of the borough (1900) 6737, of whom 1796 were foreign-born and 21 were negroes, (1910) 8690. Area of the township, about 38 sq. m. The borough is 12 m. N.E. of New Haven, on a hill about 1½ m. long, and is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway (which has stations also at East Wallingford and Yalesville) and by an interurban electric line connecting with Meriden and New Haven. The borough has a public library (1881), a Masonic Home, the Gaylord Farm Sanatorium of the New Haven County Anti-Tuberculosis Association, the Phelps School (for girls) and the Choate School (1896, for boys). Among the manufactures of the borough are sterling silver articles, plated and britannia ware, brass ware, rubber goods, cutlery and edge tools. The township of Wallingford was settled in 1670. At a meeting held in January 1766, in protest against the Stamp Act, it was declared, that “Whereas it appears from ancient Records and other Memorials of Incontestible Validity that our Ancestors with a great Sum Purchased said township, with great Peril possessed and Defended the Same, we are Born free (having never been in bondage to any), an inheritance of Inestimable Value,” and a penalty of 20s. was imposed upon any one who should introduce or use stamped paper or parchment. During the War of Independence patriotic sentiment here was strong and Loyalists were sometimes exiled to Wallingford, where they could have no effective influence. The borough of Wallingford was incorporated in 1853 and re-incorporated in 1868. From 1851 to 1880 there was a communistic settlement, a branch of the Oneida Community, here; its property was bought by the Masonic Order and made into the Masonic Home.

See C. H. S. Davis's History of Wallingford (Meriden, 1870).