MANCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Historic Places

EXPLORE AND DISCOVER

The Bon Ami Building

Now: Time Machine Hobby, Hilliard Street.

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St Bridget Church

Still there!

Union Pond

Currently Northwest Park

Cheney Silk Mills

Now: Apartments

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Center Congregational Church and Trolleys

Now: Church still there. Trolleys stopped running in 1938

Manchester Green and the Woodbridge Farmstead

Now: Woodbridge Farmstead Museum

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Center Memorial Park, and Civil War statue

Now: 7-acre park still there.

“Hall of Records,” in 1914

Now: the Probate Court

Railroad yards of South Manchester Railroad, going north-south 2.5 miles.

Now: a rail trail

Washington School

Now: Closed in 2019

Cheney Machine Shop

Now: Manchester History Center

Educational Square — Barnard & Franklin Schools

Now: Bennet Academy

“Old” High School

Now apartments

St. James Church

Now: Still there

Hilliard Mills and Hilliardville

Now: Mixed Use

Hilliard Ponds

Now: Gone

Buckland Railroad Depot

Now: 

Shade-grown Tobacco Sheds

 

Factories along Charter Oak St.

Now: Charter Oak Park

Oak Grove St., site of former paper mills

Now: Oak Grove Nature Center

East Cemetery

Now: Still there

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Historic Places
Susan Barlow

Bon Ami – “Hasn’t Scratched Yet”

Compiled by Jim Hall from various sources noted below Excerpted from: “The History of Manchester, Connecticut” by Mathias Spiess and Percy Bidwell, 1924 The Orford Soap Company. The most widely known of Manchester’s products, with the exception of the Cheney silks, is Bon Ami (“Good Friend”), the cleanser manufactured by

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Historic Places
Susan Barlow

The Cheney Silk Mills

THE CHENEY SILK MILLS By Susan Barlow, Manchester Historical Society Beginning in 1838, Cheney Brothers built the silk mills that made Manchester famous and drew workers from throughout the United States and Europe. During the second Industrial Revolution (1860-1890), the Cheney business prospered, and eventually became the largest silk manufacturer

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