Cornwall Bridge

The settlement known as Cornwall Bridge lies toward the southern end of Cornwall along the Housatonic River. Early in the life of the town a ferry crossed the river to Sharon. The community then became the site of a succession of bridges, including a covered bridge that was washed away in the 1936 flood. It was early known as the South Depot; then as Lewis' Bridge, and also as Deantown.
Dr. Reuben Dean built Cornwall's first mill, known as the Red Mill, about 1750. Mills--sawmills, fulling mills, gristmills--were built along the streams that ran into the Housatonic.
Cornwall Bridge arrived as a commercial center only after the Housatonic Railroad came through. As historian Edward Starr wrote, it then boasted "a blacksmith's shop, a vinegar factory, three stores, a Methodist Episcopal Church and railroad station." Farmers brought their milk to Cornwall Bridge for shipment to New York City and Bridgeport. In the 1920s, a carload of milk and another of "Berkshire Spring" water from bounteous local source, went daily from Cornwall to New York.
Cornwall Bridge was the location of what was probably Cornwall's largest factory building ever, the Cornwall Bridge Iron Company. Sited on what came to be known as Furnace Brook, it opened in 1833. The remains of the charging wall, furnace stack, dam, race, retaining walls of the charcoal storage sheds, casting sheds, and wheel pit were more or less visible along Furnace Brook throughout the 20th century.
Cornwall Bridge's school district, Number Eight, was formed in 1804. In 1840, the schoolhouse was moved to make room for the railroad. Perhaps as a result of dwindling population, District Eight was merged in 1908 with Districts One and Thirteen. The town then consolidated these into District One--constructing a new schoolhouse that was later enlarged to two rooms.
In the late 1920s, the state of Connecticut built a large concrete bridge across the river and retired the covered bridge to foot traffic. The old business district, which was centered on the road that ran along the river, was gradually relocated at the junction of Routes 4 and 7.
South of Cornwall Bridge was the small settlement of Puffingham. Enterprises were a smith, store, some manufacturing, and possibly a post office. In the 1920s it became a Jewish settlement with a rabbi and regular religious services. Starr observed that "the Hebrews" have "recently settled near Cornwall Bridge numerously enough to make 'Jerusalem' the trainman's name for a station there."

Elm trees lining Pine Street were set out in the early 1860s. John C. Calhoun contributed those on the east (right) side; west side elms came from
Captain E. F. Gold.

An arch of the concrete bridge frames the covered bridge --destroyed by a 1936 ice jam--in a 1930 etching by Bernhardt Wall

Cornwall Village

What today is often known as Cornwall Village is one of the few flat places in the town of Cornwall. It was originally known as Cornwall Valley and covered with pines five or six feet in diameter and 100 feet tall. The huge trees made it the last area in Cornwall to be settled and it remained little more than a crossroads until about 1800. In the wake of the schism in Cornwall's Congregational church, the First Church relocated to what came to be known as South Cornwall, then Cornwall Plain, Cornwall Plains, or simply The Plain, launching it on its career as a civic center.
A private academy opened in 1797, but lasted only about a year. The building, known as the Academy, shortly reopened as a district school. In 1817 it became the school house of the Foreign Mission School and a new district schoolhouse was built. A building constructed in 1848 held a series of private schools known as the Alger Institute, the Housatonic Valley Institute, the Foster School, the Cornwall School, and Rumsey Hall. Another briefly housed a law school and then a girls' school. The Village acquired a liberty pole, a post office in 1850, and eventually became the site of the town hall, the Cornwall Free Library, and many homes.
A nostalgic article, published in 1969 by former resident Ralph E. Corban, Sr., reminisced about Cornwall Village at the beginning of the 20th century. C.E. Wilcox & Son, the General Store and post office, was a large, two-story building, Corban recalled, whose "long, wide porch with... many chairs in varying stages of disrepair furnished seats for the daily assembly of men awaiting the arrival of the mail. This veranda, with its views of the village... [made][ an ideal spot for the 'mail waiters' to sit, smoke their corn-cob pipes, chew their favorite 'plug,' talk or snooze...."
This settlement continued to house Cornwall's town office, town hall, principal library, and one or another private school. But by the start of the 20th century, it, too, was showing the impact of demographic change. Corban referred to it as "Old Maids Manor."
"Back at the turn of the century," Corban wrote, "the 'Plains' population had almost a majority of spinsters or old maids, if you prefer." He listed more than a dozen right in the settlement and many more nearby. And, he observed half-a-century later, "the harvest of the grim reaper has left no descendent generation. Only a few nieces and nephews of the 'summer' people, mostly far away from the Plain."