Wilton’s ‘Island’ was a bustling downtown industrial hub in its heyday

Published: Friday, October 9, 2009

The section of downtown Wilton across the Souhegan River from Main Street is known locally as “The Island,” with Island Street running through it leading to the access to the by-pass. Technically, it is an island, and, by stretching it a little, literally one.

The Souhegan River flows mainly north from its origins in Massachusetts until it reaches the western end of Wilton’s Main Street, where it meets Stoney Brook. The combined rivers then flow easterly toward Milford behind the Main Street stores. It is a sharp bend, almost a square corner.

Just south of downtown, off a short piece of road now known as Chabot Way, a dam was constructed sometime in the mid- to late-1800s. The dam directs water into a canal, which flows into a mill pond near what is now the Label Art building complex. The water eventually returns to the Souhegan River. That canal, with the pond, is the third side of the triangle that is “The Island.”

The dam was the site recently of an accident that could have been tragic for three boys who were innertubing on the river. They were caught in the undertow at the base of the dam. It is not a very high dam, but the dynamics of the river at high water caused a hydrologic effect, which prevented the boys from escaping it until rescued by others.

A mill built by the Wilton Manufacturing Co. in1850 was the first textile mill in town, and the dam may have been built then. That mill burned and the site was purchased by the Colony Brothers of Keene in 1882, who built the first parts of the present building.

William George Abbott purchased an interest in Hillsborough Mills, now called Pine Valley Mills, located in West Milford, in 1899. Over the years, as the Abbotts built up the company into a national textile business, they acquired the old Colony Mills. The thread, or yarn, was spun at the Hillsborough site, woven into cloth at the Worsted Mill, now Label Art, and textile machinery was manufactured at the Abbott Machine Shop, now Riverview Mills.

Abbott Industries produced some of the finest wool suiting materials in the world. I remember standing in a lower level of the mill and watching the gray cloth come from the looms in great folds. Like most of the New England textile industry, the Abbott business went south after World War II, finally closing in Wilton in the 1960s.

The old canal is now mainly part of the backyards of houses along Island Street. In one spot it is a grazing site for a miniature horse. There has been talk from time to time of filling it in, but that has not yet happened.

The mill pond, no longer needed for water power, is home to some ducks. Many of us ice skated there in the winter. It is a pretty pond, best visible from the Wilton By-pass (Route 101).

Street names don’t change, even if surrounding circumstances do, so I expect it will remain “The Island,” no matter what happens to the old canal.