McLean Game Refuge, Granby – Dave Ginsberg

Granby, in Hartford County, is located in northern Connecticut and shares a border with Massachusetts. The town was settled in 1660 and incorporated in 1786 from a section of Simsbury. Granby is easily spotted on a map of Connecticut due to its notch in the northern border with Massachusetts—the result of a 150-year boundary-dispute settlement. The early economy was based on tobacco, agricultural products, and dairying until the mid-twentieth century. Today, Granby is a rural town with a suburban center.

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Sign for Holcomb's Inn, 1802

A Sign of the Times Blends Masonic and Patriotic Imagery

The sign from a tavern operated by Luther Holcomb, a Granby mason, reflects his fraternal affiliation as well as the establishment's role as a meeting site.  …[more]

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“McLean Game Refuge.” 2016. http://www.mcleangamerefuge.org/.
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“Granby - WPA Architectural Survey.” 2013. Connecticut State Library Digital Collections. http://cslib.cdmhost.com/cdm/search/collection/p4005coll7/searchterm/Granby!East/field/towns!towns/mode/exact!none/conn/and!and/order/title (January 6, 2015).
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Phelps, Noah A. 1845. History of Simsbury, Granby and Canton from 1642 to 1845. Hartford, CT: Case, Tiffany and Burnham. http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofsimsbur00phel#page/n3/mode/2up.
Salmon Brook Historical Society. 1967. The Heritage of Granby, 1786-1965: Its Founding and History. Granby,  CT: Salmon Brook Historical Society.
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Salmon Brook Historical Society, and Mark Williams. 1996. A Tempest in a Small Town: The Myth and Reality of Country Life: Granby, Connecticut, 1680-1940. Granby,  CT: Salmon Brook Historical Society.