The town of Glastonbury, located in Hartford County, is in central Connecticut on the eastern banks of the Connecticut River. Founded in 1636 as part of Wethersfield and called Pyaug, the area was incorporated in 1693. Dating back to 1655, Glastonbury has the oldest continually operating ferry in the United States. It runs between South Glastonbury and Rocky Hill. During the Revolutionary War, Glastonbury produced gunpowder, and in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, Glastonbury was a shipbuilding town. In the 1840s, the J.B. Williams Company opened a commercial soap manufactory in town that later became known for such twentieth-century products as ‘Lectric Shave and Aqua Velva. Today, Glastonbury is primarily a suburban residential community.
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The Smith Sisters, Their Cows, and Women’s Rights in Glastonbury
By refusing to pay unfair taxes, these siblings became national symbols of discrimination suffered by women and of the struggle of the individual against government. …[more]