A Massachusetts town for its first seventy years, where Jonathan Edwards preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the Shakers sold their garden seeds, Thompsonville wove carpets for the nation and Hazardville made gunpowder in Powder Hollow.

Hartford County · Record checked October 8, 2026

42,141Population2020 census1
1683Incorporatedby Massachusetts, as the Freshwater Plantation1
1749Joined Connecticutafter a surveyor's error was settled1
13,000+Carpet workersin Thompsonville at the mills' height in the 1920s2
7National Registerplaces, all still standing3

Then and now

The same town 157 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

Landowners map of Enfield, Connecticut from 1869 by Baker & Tilden, restored by KNOWOL

1869

The landowners map

By Baker & Tilden

Every plot of land is labeled with its owner's name, across 14 districts including Hazardville, Scitico and Thompsonville, with landmarks like Enfield Bridge, the Hazard Powder Company and its powder mills, the Shakers' seed store, Gowdy Distillery and Lovejoy's Ferry.4

See the 1869 printMore about this map
Map of Enfield, Connecticut in 2026, with Thompsonville, Enfield Street, Hazardville, the Shaker lands and 34 numbered landmarks

2026

Enfield today

By KNOWOL

Shaded ground from the ridge above the Connecticut River out past Kings Corner to the Scantic River, every street from Enfield Street to Shaker Road, the villages printed by name, and a guide of 34 numbered landmarks with the National Register sites marked.5

See the 2026 printMore about this map

The story of Enfield

The drum on the green

News of the fight at Lexington reached Enfield by a rider on the Sunday after, while the town sat in its meetinghouse. As the story was told, a drum was found and Thomas Abbe marched around the building beating the long roll, and the meeting broke up. Early the next day 74 men set out for Boston under Nathaniel Terry, from a town of about 1,400 people. Nobody wrote the drumming down at the time, and a speaker in 1916 admitted it rested on tradition, then told the doubters to say what they will. That November a marble statue of Captain Abbey was unveiled on the green across from the Congregational Church, and six hundred members of the Abbey family were invited.678

Carpets and gunpowder

For a long time Enfield farmed, and apart from a small ironworks on the Scantic River from 1802 there was little else. Then in 1828 Orrin Thompson dammed Freshwater Brook and started a carpet company, with skilled weavers brought from Scotland. By 1836 his new village had about 800 people and 120 looms turning out 800 yards of carpet a day, and by the 1920s more than 13,000 people worked there. East of the center, Allen Loomis started a small powder mill on the Scantic in 1835. It grew into the Hazard Powder Company, where John Mathewson set up the first steam machinery for making gunpowder brought to America. Over 60 people died in explosions in Powder Hollow before powder making ended in 1913.95102111

Sinners and Shakers

On July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards of Northampton came to preach in Enfield's little meetinghouse on the green, 40 by 45 feet. Neighbors had spent the night before in prayer, worried that Enfield's people were careless about their souls. The sermon was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and an 1818 history says the room filled with such weeping that Edwards had to ask for quiet so he could be heard. Forty years later Joseph Meacham, an Enfield native and Baptist pastor in the northeast of town, became one of the first American Shakers and rose to lead them. A Shaker society formed in Enfield about 1788, and its members were said to be the first to sell garden seeds in little packets, as early as 1802.12131415

Through the years

25 moments from 1679 to today.

  1. 1679Robert and John Pease come from Salem to farm the land at Freshwater.1
  2. 1681The town committee makes the Pease family's lots wider than the rest, as the first settlers.16
  3. 1683Massachusetts incorporates the town on May 16, and Margaret Pease is the first child born here.17
  4. 1688The townspeople buy the land from Notatuck for 25 pounds.1
  5. 1713A twenty-year court fight with Windsor over Enfield's southern line ends in a compromise.18
  6. 1734The eastern part of town becomes the town of Somers.1
  7. 1741Jonathan Edwards preaches Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in the little meetinghouse on the green.12
  8. 1749Enfield leaves Massachusetts and becomes part of Connecticut.1
  9. 1770The Separates, who broke from the first church in 1762, become the Second Ecclesiastical Society of Enfield.19
  10. 1775After news of Lexington, a drum is beaten around the meetinghouse and 74 men march for Boston.6
  11. 1775The meetinghouse that's now the Old Town Hall museum is finished.20
  12. 1788About this year a Shaker society forms in Enfield, after Enfield native Joseph Meacham and part of his Baptist church turn Shaker.14
  13. 1802The Enfield Shakers are said to start selling garden seeds in little packets.15
  14. 1826William Dixon builds the Enfield Bridge across the Connecticut to Suffield.21
  15. 1828Orrin Thompson dams Freshwater Brook and starts the carpet company that names Thompsonville.2
  16. 1835Allen Loomis starts a small powder mill on the Scantic River in Powder Hollow.5
  17. 1836Thompsonville has about 800 people and 120 looms making 800 yards of carpet a day.10
  18. 1845The Presbyterian church of the Scottish millworkers splits over instrumental music in worship.22
  19. 1848The meetinghouse is moved across Enfield Street and given its columned Greek Revival front.20
  20. 1900Half of the old covered bridge to Suffield is carried off in a freshet on February 15.21
  21. 1913Gunpowder making ends in Hazardville.23
  22. 1914The Carnegie library on Pearl Street opens on May 5.24
  23. 1916The Abbey Memorial is unveiled on the green on November 4.8
  24. 1917The Enfield Shaker community comes to an end.25
  25. 1972Asnuntuck Community College opens with 251 students.1

Places to see

The numbers match the landmark guide printed on the 2026 map.

  • 3Pearl Street LibraryThompsonville. The Carnegie library of 1914.
  • 8Scantic River State ParkPowder Hollow. Foundations of 21 powder mill buildings.Visit their website
  • 10Enfield Historic DistrictEnfield Street. Two miles of houses on the ridge.
  • 13Hazardville Historic DistrictHazardville. The old powder company village.
  • 15Asnuntuck Community CollegeElm Street. Its name means fresh water.Visit their website
  • 21Powder Hollow ParkHazardville. Ball fields where powder was made.
  • 28Thompsonville Boat LaunchConnecticut River. Onto the river at Thompsonville.
  • 30Enfield Town MeetinghouseEnfield Street. Isaac Kirby's meetinghouse, now a museum.Visit their website
  • 32Enfield Shakers Historic DistrictTaylor Road. Connecticut's only Shaker settlement.
  • 34Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills Historic DistrictThompsonville. Carpet mills and company housing.

On the National Register

All 7 places in Enfield on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.3

  • Enfield Historic District

    Listed 1979 · 1106-1492 Enfield Street

    Two miles of Enfield Street, the town's main road since early days, where house lots ran in strips down to the river. Its grandest house is Orrin Thompson's brick Greek Revival home of 1832, facing the 17th-century parade ground near the 1848 Congregational Church.26

  • Enfield Town Meetinghouse

    Built 1773 to 1775 · Listed 1974 · Enfield Street at South Road

    Built by Isaac Kirby and modeled on a meetinghouse in East Windsor, it was moved across the street in 1848 and given its Ionic temple front. It was the town hall until the 1920s and is now the historical society's museum.20

    Visit their website

  • Enfield Shakers Historic District

    Listed 1979 · Shaker, Taylor, and Cybulski Roads

    What survives of Connecticut's only Shaker settlement, known for its garden seed business, which lasted until 1917. Fifteen buildings remain, among them a meetinghouse, a large brick residence, barns and a sawmill, most from 1830 to 1860.25

  • Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills Historic District

    Listed 1994 · Roughly bounded by Lafayette Street, Hartford Avenue, Alden Avenue, and Pleasant, High, Spring, South, and Prospect Streets

    The company village around the carpet mills, with more than 150 housing units the company built between about 1830 and 1920. It includes the Gothic cottages of Cottage Green from 1845, perhaps built to draw skilled craftsmen from England.2

  • Hazardville Historic District

    Listed 1980 · Hazard Avenue (CT 190 and CT 192), Hazardville and vicinity

    The company village of the gunpowder works that ran from 1835 to 1913. Four brick buildings with brownstone trim anchor it: a school of 1864, the Hazardville Institute of 1869, an Episcopal church of 1863 and a Methodist church of 1872.23

  • Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills

    Built about 1895 to 1928 · Listed 1983 · Main and Pleasant Streets

    Seven large brick mill buildings on nearly 23 acres, from the years when the company was the nation's biggest maker of carpet. The 1901 Tapestry Mill is nearly 900 feet long, and most of the complex is now apartments.27

  • Enfield Carnegie Library

    Built 1914 · Listed 2025 · 159 Pearl Street

    Andrew Carnegie gave $20,000 for it in 1910, and the library designed by McLean and Wright of Boston opened on May 5, 1914. It still serves as a branch of the town library.24

In their words

“No history of Massachusetts is complete without including the history of Enfield for the first seventy years of its existence, nor would a history of Connecticut be complete that failed to include the entire history of Enfield.”

Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley, 190628

“Let us believe this story to be true, let the cavillers say what they will.”

Memorial of Captain Thomas Abbey, 1916, on Thomas Abbe's drum7

“Seldom has the Town of Enfield been asked to accept any gift other than an increase in the town's debts.”

Allen B. Hathaway at the unveiling of the Abbey Memorial, 191629

Nearby towns

Sources

  1. Enfield, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  2. Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills Historic District, Wikipedia
  3. National Register of Historic Places listings in Hartford County, Connecticut, Wikipedia
  4. Landowners map of Enfield, Connecticut from 1869, restored by KNOWOL
  5. Map of Enfield, Connecticut in 2026, KNOWOL (USGS elevation, Census Bureau roads)
  6. The Connecticut quarterly (1895), on Enfield and Lexington, Internet Archive
  7. Memorial of Captain Thomas Abbey (1916), on the drum story, Internet Archive
  8. Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography (1917), on the Abbey Memorial, Internet Archive
  9. Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley (1906), on Enfield's early manufacturing, Internet Archive
  10. Connecticut historical collections, John Warner Barber (1836), on Thompsonville, Internet Archive
  11. Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography (1917), on John Mathewson, Internet Archive
  12. Memorial of Captain Thomas Abbey (1916), on Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Internet Archive
  13. A complete history of Connecticut, civil and ecclesiastical (1818), on the revival at Enfield, Internet Archive
  14. The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on Joseph Meacham and the Shakers, Internet Archive
  15. The Connecticut quarterly (1895), on the Enfield Shakers, Internet Archive
  16. The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on the first settlers, Internet Archive
  17. Memorial of Captain Thomas Abbey (1917), on the first child born in Enfield, Internet Archive
  18. Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley (1906), on the boundary war with Windsor, Internet Archive
  19. The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on the Separates, Internet Archive
  20. Enfield Town Meetinghouse, Wikipedia
  21. Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Suffield, Connecticut (1921), on the Enfield Bridge, Internet Archive
  22. The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884 (1886), on the Thompsonville churches, Internet Archive
  23. Hazardville Historic District, Wikipedia
  24. List of Carnegie libraries in Connecticut, Wikipedia
  25. Enfield Shakers Historic District (Connecticut), Wikipedia
  26. Enfield Historic District, Wikipedia
  27. Bigelow-Hartford Carpet Mills, Wikipedia
  28. Historic towns of the Connecticut River Valley (1906), on Enfield, Internet Archive
  29. Memorial of Captain Thomas Abbey (1916), on the unveiling, Internet Archive