(rshsdepot) Colchester, CT

["jdent1_@_optonline.net" <jdent1@optonline.net>]

Rich in history, Colchester's freight depot gets a second life
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By: Diane Church, Staff Writer December 02, 2002=20
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From the Regional-Standard=2E=2E=2E

The circa-1880 freight depot on Lebanon Avenue is getting a new life as a
carpet store=2E

COLCHESTER - A piece of local history on Lebanon Avenue is being brought
back to life=2E
The old freight depot, which helped transport rubber, grain and even
tractors in and out of town, is getting a new life as a carpet store=2E=20=

According to "The Air Line Railroad Trail" by Jennifer Tremblay, the
freight station was built in the 1880s for the Colchester Spur of the Air
Line Railroad, a freight and passenger line that connected Boston to New
York=2E At the time, Colchester was home to the Hayward Rubber Factory, wh=
ich
employed up to 600 people=2E Nathaniel Hayward, who invented the
vulcanization process that stops rubber from becoming sticky in hot
weather, opened the factory in 1847=2E The plant drew many immigrants,
especially the Irish, who were coming to America in large numbers to escap=
e
the potato famine in their homeland=2E In 1854, the town's first Roman
Catholic Church, St=2E Andrews, was established for them=2E
The town paid half of the $50,000 needed to build the 3=2E5-mile spur, whi=
ch
branched off the main line in Hebron, in 1885=2E The railroad was less
expensive and more convenient than shipping freight by wagon, a boon for
Hayward Rubber=2E But the train also gave locals access to less expensive
products=2E Cheap coal from other states replaced local wood in the factor=
y's
fires=2E Produce arriving by rail from western farms sold at low prices lo=
cal
farmers could not compete with, putting several area farms out of business=
=2E
Hayward Rubber closed in 1883 because businessmen drove up the cost of raw=

rubber to more than the company could afford=2E Owner Hayward had also mad=
e
the mistake of selling his vulcanizing patent to a Mr=2E Goodyear=2E The p=
lant
reopened under new ownership as the Colchester Rubber Factory in 1887, but=

closed again five years later=2E
But the railroad lived on=2E Summer resorts in Colchester became popular w=
ith
New York residents in the early 1900s, and in the summer the town's
population doubled from 2,000 to 4,000=2E A passenger station, which is no=
w a
liquor store, served the new visitors=2E
Former First Selectman Loren Marvin said that passenger service came to a
halt in the early 1930s, when the Great Depression closed many resorts=2E
Freight service lived on, though, as farmers imported grain to feed their
chickens and cows=2E But in the early 1960s, with the advent of tractor
trailer trucks and local farms being replaced by subdivisions, the train
stopped running=2E=20
Marvin also recalled the trains that shipped tractors to his business up
until 1958=2E Ten years later, when he was first selectman, the town
purchased the spur's right of way from the railroad company for $7,000=2E
Marvin has another connection to the railroad=2E He is related by marriage=
 to
Andrew Anderson, whose grandfather Peter Anderson, a onetime Hayward Rubbe=
r
employee, held a $1,000 bond on the railroad that he never cashed in=2E
Anderson gave the bond to Marvin, who put in his collection of local
memorabilia=2E=20
At one time, a trestle ran over Lebanon Avenue to connect the train
directly to the rubber factory, which burned to the ground long ago=2E=20
The rails were removed in 1966=2E The spur is now part of the Airline Tria=
l,
a popular hiking path restored by volunteers as part of the Rails to Trail=
s
project=2E The project's eventual goal is to have a path along former rail=

lines that runs the length of the entire East Coast=2E=20
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=A9Regional Standard 2002 =20


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=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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