Volume 22 Issue 3, Summer 2016

An Eighteenth-Century Scoundrel in Simsbury

James Poisson was not a nice man. Nor was he an honest man. He was a doctor, a merchant, a shopkeeper, an investor in mills and factories, a land speculator, a financial wheeler-dealer, frequently involved in lawsuits, a defaulter of loans, a liar, a con-man, a wife beater and a counterfeiter. He was also a French Huguenot.

The Poisson name is French – meaning fish. However, in various Connecticut records, it is spelled, Payson, Pyson, Poyson, Pison and frequently, Poison. New England Yankees had problems with French names.

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Volume 21 Issue 4, Spring–Summer 2015

Part 2:  Antecedents in the Work of Weatogue’s Three Ministers

The preceding part of this article dealt with the founding of Weatogue’s Neighborhood House in 1905, the moving and refurbishing of the donated building and a sampling of the dinners and cultural programs given in the house. This second part will explore some of the events that preceded the founding of this institution, which was dedicated to the wellbeing of all residents of the community and town.

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Volume 21 Issue 3, Fall 2014

Part 1: A Community Center with a Special Mission

Simsbury’s first social club that could boast of a building for its exclusive use was the Casino, which opened in 1898. It stood in the center of town on Hopmeadow Street where Eno Memorial Hall stands today.1 Over the next few decades several other community centers opened in buildings in various parts of the town, each with its own distinctive character. The next was the Neighborhood House in the village of Weatogue and its founders had the stated objective of welcoming and including recent immigrants who had settled in town.

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Volume 21 Issue 1, Spring 2014

The Alice Goodrich Eno Letters

More than a hundred year ago, before the map of the world was changed by two world wars, twenty-seven-year-old Alice Goodrich Eno of Simsbury accompanied her aunt and uncle on a trip abroad. On February 4, 1911, the New York Times published an article.

The article went on to list fourteen of the dignitaries who were making the trip with their spouses or whole families, including Rev. Dr. A. Dunter Dunn, Lord Bishop of Quebec; Major General Marshall Ludington; and Senator E. O. Miller of Los Angeles.

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