Bolton

By Hans DePold, Congressman John B. Larson and Congressman Joe Courtney

A quiet village 18 miles east of Hartford, Bolton was born at the nexus of two prehistoric Native American trails. Bolton was formed in 1720, and because of its location outside of Hartford, the town played an important role as a Revolutionary War route. In the early 19th century, Bolton emerged as a small, yet prosperous town and a stagecoach stopping point for trips from both Boston and Providence to Hartford. By 1849, the railroad erased the need for stagecoach lines and inns, and soon industrial mills cropped up along the streams. In the early 1900s, immigrant families settled in Bolton, and affluent families from Hartford bought farms and summer homes in town. Today Bolton continues to preserve much of the history and natural beauty that has drawn residents to it for generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439624036

Hans DePold

Bolton town historian Hans DePold is the author of many historical essays about Bolton and the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail, which passes through town. He has crafted a collection of photographs from the Bolton Historical Society and local private collections.

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INTRODUCTION

This book is a pictorial history of Bolton, emphasizing the town’s history since the invention of the camera. So the editors and I were especially delighted when Congressmen John Larson and Joe Courtney said they would be happy to introduce some of the early Bolton history during our nation’s founding in the Foreword and Afterword sections of this book. We are the beneficiaries of these two outstanding congressmen who are dedicated to the freedoms and principals laid down in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers.

The American Constitution was the first in the world to protect the rights of individuals, minorities, and states by limiting the power of the federal government. It was well understood from earlier democracies that in a democracy of three persons, two persons could create and pass laws to legally expropriate and redistribute the wealth or labor of any third person. Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic Party, to P. Dupont in 1816 wrote, The majority oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundation of society. James Madison in the Federalist Papers, February 5, 1788, wrote to the Massachusetts Convention, But as a just government protects all alike, it is necessary that the sober and industrious part of the community should be defended from the rapacity and violence of the vicious and idle. A bill of rights, therefore, ought to set forth the purposes for which the compact is made, and serves to secure the minority against the usurpation and tyranny of the majority.

In fact, under English colonial law the ruling majority had already democratically classified some minority peoples as goods to be bought, used, and sold. Americans pledge allegiance to a republic because that is what the Founding Fathers intended. The American Constitution was designed as a republic specifically to limit federal government power. The government is divided into three branches of power, each completely unique with differing election terms, checks, and balances. In the Senate, small states have the same power as populous states. These impediments to strong centralized majority power were included in the American Constitution because every pure democracy before America was short-lived and often ended in a bloodbath. By 1824, Thomas Jefferson already thought the American government was too big. He wrote to William Ludlow, I think myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. In 1816, he also wrote (note in Tracy’s Political Economy), To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.

Both Congressmen John Larson and Joe Courtney actively support education to make all Americans aware of the history of the founding of our republic with its principles and freedoms. Congressman John Larson and Senators Joseph Lieberman and Christopher Dodd sponsored the legislation that funded research and documentation of W3R heritage along the entire route through nine states. Congressman Joe Courtney joined them in making the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail a reality in 2009, managed by the National Park Service. That provides the incentive needed to use early American natural and historic heritage as immediate educational focal points for the nation’s