Support the Preservation of Cotton Hollow Mill! 

Over the coming years, the Town will be working collaboratively with the Land Heritage Coalition and Historical Society of Glastonbury to restore the historic Cotton Hollow Mill site. (See site history below photo gallery below.)

Individuals and local businesses interested in contributing to this effort may donate online at www.savecottonhollowmill.org, or by mailed check to the Cotton Hollow Mill Preservation Fund at the mailing address below. Please be sure to note “Cotton Hollow Mill Fund” in the check memo line.

Click here to view an informational flyer from the Cotton Hollow Mill Coalition.

Check donations may be mailed to:

The Cotton Hollow Mill Preservation Fund
c/o The Land Heritage Coalition
PO Box 634
South Glastonbury 06073

For more information on this effort, please visit www.savecottonhollowmill.org. 

Thank you for your support and generosity!

History of Cotton Hollow Mill

Since colonial times, the Roaring Brook has been the site of numerous mills stretching from the eastern border of Glastonbury to the Connecticut River. In Cotton Hollow, the Brook drops rapidly through a narrow gorge, making it the ideal site for building dams to power a mill. During the Revolutionary War, the Stocking Powder Mill manufactured a particularly powerful type of gunpowder, which was then sent to Boston for use by the militias in their fight against Britain. The mill exploded in 1777 and tragically killed the owner and three of his sons.  

Years later, in 1814, a number of investors built the five story Hartford Manufacturing Company mill from granite and fieldstone. The mill was powered by two dams; the upper dam was approximately 40+ feet high and the lower one was about 25 feet high. The two dams provided so much power that a second factory was built across the brook. At its height, the cotton mill employed over 350 workers, many of whom lived in houses located on both sides of the neighboring brook. The stone cellars of several of those houses are still there today on the south side of the brook. Residents of these duplexes were known as “Hollowites” and even had their own school and store. At 9:00 p.m. each night, a watchman closed a gate across the road on the north side and anyone returning from town had to enter the Hollow by the south side (where hikers enter today by Cotton Hollow Kitchen), and cross a narrow bridge across Roaring Brook to the north side. 

The Hartford Manufacturing Company processed cotton, which led to the area’s current nickname of Cotton Hollow. The factory was cleverly built against the hillside so that materials could be transported between floors by a series of ramps from each level, which led to a sloping road that went from the forest floor to the top of the hillside. As the cotton went through the manufacturing process, the finished product would leave one level by the ramp and then be placed on a cart to go up or down the hill to the next level, and then across the ramp onto the factory floor.  

The cotton factory was forced to close in the financial panic of 1893. In the early 1900s, the brick mill across the brook was used by John Purtill to manufacture paper binder boards. He used the abandoned cotton mill to store supplies. In 1920, fire broke out in the brick mill and quickly spread across the connecting walkway to the cotton mill. Both mills were destroyed in the fire and the manufacturing era in Cotton Hollow came to an end. A few years later, both dams were removed in response to residents' fears that they may flood their downstream homes and properties, if they were ever to break. The mill became private property after that.