During the 18th and 19th centuries, Connecticut copper played a pivotal role in the state’s industrial expansion. The 
state’s dominant industry began as buttons and trinkets for peddlers to sell. Then, factories in Waterbury, Ansonia and the Naugatuck Valley sprang up, transforming imported copper into brass goods. By the early 1800s, the state led the nation in brass production.
Beyond brass, copper was crucial for shipbuilding, with coastal towns like Mystic and New London using copper sheathing to shield wooden hulls. Later, its excellent conductivity made it indispensable for electrical wiring and early electronics, driving industrial growth in Bridgeport and Plainville.
Connecticut’s brass industry boomed during World War II but began to wane in the 1950s. Today, institutions like Waterbury’s Mattatuck Museum and Bristol’s American Clock & Watch Museum keep Connecticut’s industrial legacy alive.
Here are seven fun facts about Connecticut copper.
1. An East Granby, Connecticut, copper mine became a notorious prison.
They named it “Newgate” after England’s infamous penitentiary.
The old copper mine started out as a prison in 1773 as punishment for burglars, robbers and counterfeiters. The Connecticut General Court persuaded the owner, a tavernkeeper, to change careers and serve as the prison warden. Drains were closed, the main shaft was capped and a guardhouse built over it. Prisoners had to climb down a 40-foot ladder into a dark, cold cavern. Fleas, lice, and bedbugs covered every inch of the floor which in turn was covered in five inches of slippery, stinking filth.
Old Newgate Prison, 1910 postcard
Many of the prisoners escaped with help from outside accomplices.
Then during the American Revolution, George Washington ordered the old Connecticut copper mine to take in Loyalists who refused to swear a loyalty oath. As many as 40 Loyalists at a time crowded into the fetid prison with another 50 or 60 criminals. Guards shackled the prisoners and forced them to make nails by hand. Prisoners had a strong incentive to escape the prison they called “hell,” and as many as half managed to break out.
After the war, Old Newgate continued to operate as a prison. Inmates made products to sell commercially in order to pay for prison operations. They produced barrels, plows, shoes, machines and baskets.
Connecticut closed the prison in 1827. Today the state runs it as a museum.
2. Higley copper coins were Connecticut’s first DIY currency
Samuel Higley, a Yale-educated doctor, blacksmith and metallurgist, allegedly minted the colony’s first copper coins in the 1730s—partly to pay his bar tab. The story goes that Higley, who owned the copper mine in East Granby, struck his own three-penny coins because of the colony’s shortage of small coins. On one version of the coin, he inscribed “VALUE ME AS YOU PLEASE.”
Higley or workers he hired hacked out chunks of copper by hand and hammered out the coins, usually the size of a half-dollar. Though illegal, Higley’s coppers (mostly dated 1737) circulated widely, backed by his local reputation. Some bore a deer and the numeral “3,” while others featured axes or wheels with cryptic mottos like “I CUT MY WAY THROUGH.”
Higley died at sea in 1737, on his way to England with a load of copper. His family may have continued production. The mines are gone now, but a few coins survive, selling for more than $600 apiece.
3. Connecticut for decades ranked No. 1 in brass production.
Connecticut’s metalworking entrepreneurs began fusing copper with zinc to make brass buttons. They then started making small household items for Yankee peddlers to sell. The peddlers packed kettles, lamps and buttons into their packs and headed south.
The market for brass just kept growing. By 1840 Connecticut brass manufacturers sold brass products from the Naugatuck Valley to markets around the world.
The regions of the Naugatuck River Valley. Green is the Valley, yellow is the Greater Waterbury area, and blue is the Litchfield Hills region.
By 1884 the Naugatuck Valley produced 85 percent of the rolled brass in the United States. And by 1900, Connecticut produced 75 percent of the brass rolling, 33 percent of brass castings and half of the brassware in the United States.
As brass manufacturing expanded it also consolidated. The largest brass manufacturers, known as the Big Three, were Scovill Manufacturing, Waterbury’s largest employer, American Brass and the Chase Brass & Copper Company. Such industrial concentration usually led to price fixing, and in the case of the Big Three it did.
World War II brought more orders from the government, but the Brass Valley felt the hit from a policy of spreading government brass contracts around the country. By the 1950s, plastic replaced brass as the material of choice and the Big Three shut down.
4. A Wall Street tycoon exposed his own corrupt scheme to buy a copper mining company.
Thomas Lawson, William Rockefeller and Henry Rogers teamed up to execute a Wall Street heist. They formed a shell company called Amalgamated Copper. It had no assets, but it did have an option to buy Anaconda Copper for $37 million. No one on Wall Street trusted Rogers or Rockefeller, but they trusted Lawson. He urged people to buy shares in Amalgamated Copper because, he claimed Amalgamated had already bought Anaconda.
Thomas Lawson
Lawson whipped people into a frenzy and shares of Amalgamated soared to $175. Then either Rogers or Rockefeller leaked the word that their company hadn’t actually bought Anaconda. They would just keep all the money they raised. Shares fell to $30, ruining some of Lawson’s friends and associates and reportedly driving some to suicide.
Wall Street ostracized Thomas Lawson, but he didn’t care. His share of the heist drove his fortune over the $50 million mark. As an act of contrition, he wrote a book, “Frenzied Finance,” exposing the fraud.
Anaconda later bought American Brass.
5. Connecticut copper household goods belong to museum collections.
Founded in Meriden, in 1849, Manning, Bowman & Co. became known for its high-quality plated and non-plated metalware. The company specialized in crafting elegant coffee and tea pots and cutlery. Later it expanded into electrical household goods.
Renowned for its stylish and inventive designs, Manning, Bowman & Co. showcased its products at major international exhibitions, including the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris and the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition.
Today, dozens of Manning, Bowman designs belong to the collections of such museums as the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, the Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Yale University Art Gallery.
6. It all began with the Waterbury Button Company.
Founded during the War of 1812, the Waterbury Button Company not only reigned as the largest producer of stamped metal buttons in the U.S., it also laid the foundation for the Naugatuck Valley’s brass industry.
It started in 1790 when the Grilley brothers crafted pewter buttons in Waterbury. By 1802, Abel Porter & Company pioneered brass button production by fusing local copper with imported zinc.
Then along came Aaron Benedict, who made bone and ivory buttons for military uniforms during the War of 1812. He began to make brass buttons, and his partnerships evolved into the Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing Company in 1843. In 1849, its button division spun off as the Waterbury Button Company.
The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury has a collection of Waterbury Buttons. Here are a few.
Benedict had the now-outdated idea that skilled workers could help him succeed, and he brought them from England. He also bought new water-powered machinery, which the Naugatuck River ran. Eventually the Naugatuck Railroad allowed the Waterbury Button Company to reach national markets.
The company grew by selling uniform buttons for everyone from Civil War soldiers to the Titanic crew. The company innovated with materials like Bakelite in 1925 and diversified into toys, airplane parts and WWII bomb fuses
After acquisitions and relocations, the revived Waterbury Button Company continues in Cheshire, crafting buttons for military and fashion. The Mattatuck Museum today showcases its buttons.
7. Today, thousands of square feet of former Connecticut copper and brass factories molder into the soil of the Brass Valley.
Devotees of abandonment porn can have a field day exploring the old copper and brass factories—if they can get past the chain link fences.
In Ansonia, rusting machinery, a collection of forgotten tools and crumbling buildings once comprised the Ansonia Copper & Brass Company and the Farrell Foundry & Machine Co. They once reigned as key players in the brass industry.
Waterbury ironically chose as its motto, Quid Aere Perennius? It means “What Is More Lasting Than Brass?”
Not any more
The American Brass Company is now a labyrinth of underground tunnels in Waterbury. The Scovill Manufacturing Company abandoned its machinery, and the Chase Brass & Copper Co., left its huge factory floor empty. Benedict & Burnham is another poster child of Waterbury’s industrial decay. The Waterbury Brass Co., a cornerstone of the valley’s industry, is now an abandoned maze of rooms and corridors; the Anaconda American Brass Co., a sprawling complex, now an abandoned ruin.
The Plume & Atwood Manufacturing Co., which once made high-quality brass, now pretty much grows weeds, in Thomaston. The Torrington Commons Shopping Center occupies much of the Coe Brass Manufacturing Company’s old brass mill in Torrington.
***
Coming soon from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the people who immigrated from France and French Canada. It will be available in paperback as well. Click here to pre-order your copy today!
Images: Button collection By Jllm06 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47490506. Former Waterbury Companies building By Farragutful – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79626386.
