It is difficult to know exactly where to begin for the modes of travel for Durham unless one goes back to its early days of settlement. Fowler’s History mentions very little on this subject. Durham is known to have had wild horses roaming its hillsides, which were captured and sold for the needs of farming and other means of survival. It is also known for its sturdy oxen, which were bred to return home after a hard day of possibly delivering goods to Middletown, which was the seaport at that time. One could nap while the oxen lumbered home.
In 1717, post roads were established between Hartford and New Haven, and mail was carried by post riders. In the History of the Post Office, the first regular mail service recorded from New Haven by way of Durham, Middletown, and Upper Houses, Wethersfield to Hartford, tri-weekly, was let from October 11, 1811, to December 31, 1814. On completion of Hartford, New Haven and Middletown Turnpike in 1814, the mail was carried by stagecoach.
The first stage line between Boston, Hartford and New Haven plied in 1783. During the next 20 years, many stage lines were established, and the service was steadily improved. The stage business reached the height of its development just before the introduction of the railroad; after 1840, travel rapidly diminished and few or no lines were undertaken, but in regions not reached by the railroads, coaches continued to ply for many years. The last stage line in the state to be discontinued was the New Haven—Derby in 1895.
Step-by-step, in development and in decline, the turnpike companies kept pace with the stagecoach lines. A series of short improved roads, connecting important centers, did much to facilitate stage service. As more and more turnpike companies were incorporated, taking over and improving one short stretch of road after another, these sections met, providing a network of improved roadways over a large part of the state.
The first turnpike in the state was the Mohegan Road built in 1792 over the fourteen miles between Norwich and New London. During the four decades, more than a hundred such turnpikes were undertaken by stock companies who had the authority to erect tollgates and charge fees. When the cost of the improvements had been returned to the investors, the road was to be opened to the public without further charge. Before many years, the railroad offered serious competition.
The turnpikes of Durham, so briefly mentioned in Fowler’s History, now provide the same scenic beauty that Durham has always been noted for. When traveling through the now heavily traveled Main Road, one cannot help but take in its serenity. Little wonder that it was once a summer resort.
The Durham and East Guilford Turnpike was commonly and more properly called the Durham—Madison Turnpike, for it ran to Madison and not to Guilford at all. But the official name of the corporation responsible for it was the Durham and East Guilford Turnpike Company, which was chartered in May, 1811. One of the provisions in the charter was that only half tolls should be charged for vehicles having rims over seven inches in width.
The capital stock of the company was ten thousand dollars, according to Steiner’s “History of Guilford and Madison”, which gives a pro rata of about seven hundred and forty dollars a mile. This accords with costs of the Massachusetts roads of which we have data.
The turnpike started at Durham Street and ran through the center of North Madison Green, following like a backbone down the center line of the long, narrow town of Madison. In its thirteen and a half miles, it was allowed one gate, which was charged for two half gates by the assembly of 1830.
Thirty-four years did this turnpike last, the surrender of its charter being accepted in 1845. The corporation was allowed six months longer in which to close its affairs and sell its property.
The Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Turnpike Company was granted a franchise in October, 1813, for a road from Middletown to New Haven through Durham, Northford and North Haven.
In New Haven, an old road, early known as Negro or Neck Lane, was utilized for turnpike purposes, which in later days was called Hancock Avenue and is now the State Street of that city. In Middletown, the modern name of the turnpike was Durham Avenue and was known as the Durham Pike through the intervening towns, now known as Route 17.
This road does not seem to have its mark in history. Watrous, who has noted many interesting points in connection with other roads, found nothing to say about the Middletown Turnpike except that it was chartered in 1813. That it was in operation as late as 1846 is proved by the passage of an act in that year making an alteration in the road.
The Haddam and Durham Turnpike Company was incorporated in May, 1815, and built its road from Higganum, in the northeast part of Haddam on the Middlesex Turnpike, to Durham Street, a distance of less than eight miles.
This was practically a branch of the Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Turnpike with which it connected at Durham Street. That hamlet must have presented a bustling aspect in stagecoach days with four turnpikes intersecting there. On the other end, the Haddam and Durham connected with the Middlesex Turnpike, but at such an angle that it is hard to see how either derived any advantage from the junction. The Killingworth and Haddam Turnpike made the intersection at Higganum a three-cornered one.
Higganum owed its distinction as a turnpike terminal to the Higganum Ferry, between that village and Middle Haddam, which was established in 1763.
For the purpose of building a road “from Durham to the public square in Guilford and thence to Sachem’s Head Harbor in said Guilford,” the Guilford and Durham Turnpike Company was chartered in May, 1824, filing a bond for ten thousand dollars to carry out its plans before November 1, 1828.
Steiner knew of this road when he wrote his “History of Guilford and Madison,” for he says that it followed the west, or Menunkatuck River to lake Quonepaug and then ran along another west river to Durham Street, where it connected with the road of the Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Company. In the borough, a bore of Guilford Green, the road is now known as Church Street.
At an 1831 town meeting, Guilford voted to bear the expense of repairing the road, if its inhabitants might use the same toll free, but it does not appear that the offer was accepted, for it would have meant practically the giving up of the whole road.
The turnpike management was still in control in 1885, for then a revision of tolls was enacted by the assembly.
Human nature being what it is, great delight was found in dodging payment of the toll. Travelers cut across fields or went by night to avoid the vigilance of the toll keeper. Distinguished citizens were known to complain that they “couldn’t leave their own home town without being made to pay for it,” and to avoid the slight charge, endured the discomfort of several miles of unimproved road rather than use the turnpikes. These thrifty chosen by-paths came to be known as “shunpikes”.
The turnpikes established better stage routes in the state, therefore resulting in a marked increase in the tavern business. The automobile map of today shows that many of the present routes correspond to the course of the turnpikes or earlier Indian trails.
After leaving the Todd Inn in Northford, the next stagecoach stop was Durham. Deacon John Johnson kept an Inn on the Guilford Road at the corner of the highway to New Haven, which was referred to in 1791 as “the smart Mr. Johnson’s new tavern.”
In the records of Middlesex County, we find licenses, good for one year, being granted to J. N. Wadsworth, to Allen Clark, to John Butler and to Abraham Scranton, all between 1800 and 1810. Inns along Durham’s broad tree-shaded street must have been almost as frequent as “tourists accommodated” signs are on some of our roads today. The one that survived the longest was the Swathel Inn, and always remained the Swathel Inn. The old inn sign, which hung near the street, was not taken down until the house changed hands well on into the last century.
John Swathel bought the inn from Samuel Weld, who had kept tavern there; the first license under this management, which was issued in 1801 to one “Swaddle”, was renewed under various spellings. For many years, four stages a day stopped at the tavern for refreshments and to change horses. One reason for long continuance in business of this Inn was that John Swathel and his partner, John Rose, were part owners of the line of stagecoaches which ran between Springfield and New Haven.
At one time the two men were said to own over a hundred horses, many of which were brought from Cuba, and large stables to accommodate them were established a little to the south of the Swathel Inn, almost opposite what is now known as the Scranton House, built by John Rose for himself. The two men also owned much land for raising hay, and, of course, hay from the Durham marshes was used for bedding.
The location of the Inn at the northern end of the village street at its junction with the road to Middlefield made it easily identifiable, although the outside as well as the interior was altered, the central chimney was removed many years before renovation, and a porch was added across the front. Besides the Swathel, two other houses on Durham Street had ballrooms or assembly rooms. In the Jesse Atwell house on the corner of the Wallingford Road, a large room, with curved ceiling and two fireplaces, now divided into bedchambers, ran across the back of the second story. A room with similar ceiling occupies the south side of the Edward Pickett Camp house on the opposite side of the street and a little farther south. In the Swathel Tavern, the swinging partition which threw two bed chambers together survived the many changes which the interior of the house had undergone. A door was cut through the partition, but the hinges remained, as well as several of the large hooks in the ceiling from which the raised partition was suspended.
It has been claimed that Lafayette and Washington stopped at this tavern. The more wealthy travelers who posted in their own vehicles changed horses less frequently than the stages. Fifteen miles instead of seven or eight was the average distance with a lighter conveyance. Just where these Generals stopped to bait or change horses, for minor repairs, or to take a glass of ale, it is difficult to say with historical accuracy. There is no record of an elaborate welcome being offered to Lafayette here as there was in many towns during his last visit. If General Washington took any refreshment, it was not at an Inn but at the house of the leading citizen of the town, Mr. Wadsworth’s, some distance farther south on the lower green, where he made a short call.
The south of the Inn had a watering trough, supplied by a spring controlled by the Durham Aqueduct Company, one of the town’s earliest cooperative enterprises. Swathel, a shareholder, was frequently the subject of a special meeting, being accused of taking more than his share of water. Each shareholder was, and is, entitled to a pint a minute.
At the north of the house, where it once stood, is Round Hill, a part of the Swathel property. In early days, a canon was fired on great occasions from the top of this hill. The ridges of a terraced garden can still be faintly traced around its gentle slope. Older residents say that there was much resentment in the town when the hill was thus marred. There is a sad and charming tale that Swathel made this a garden on which his invalid wife could look down from the windows of the attic where she was so long confined.
Until recent years, there existed a portrait of Swathel, but it was destroyed by his heirs, either because it was in poor condition or because they felt that the likeness was unflattering. As the saying was that “John Swathel’s nose was so crooked you could pull a champagne cork with it”, it is quite possible that the portrait was not a thing of beauty.
He married the granddaughter of a fellow innkeeper, the daughter of a British officer who had been quartered in her grandfather’s house. She was violently insane for years. In those times, the method for handling such cases was bitterly primitive. For years she was chained night and day to a ring in the attic floor; the ring disappeared, but there are those living in the town who are said to have seen it. The inside of the attic doors were gashed by blows of an axe made perhaps by someone in a frenzied state. Later, her husband built for her a small house with a chimney where she could be kept warm, one symptom of her malady being that she constantly tore her clothing to bits.
To the chagrin of the townspeople, the Inn was demolished in _____. So it is for some of the beauty that welcomed a weary traveler.
Our thoughts go back again to the earliest recollections of Mrs. Howard Field, born in 1882, to the single carriage horse and buggy for private use. A two-seater with wagon and draft horse was used for farming and scrubbed down on Sundays for church. In the days of sandy, difficult roads, jitneys consisting of three seats and two horses, provided transportation to Middletown for the hardiest of shoppers. The same jitneys provided transportation to the Railroad Station in Middlefield.
The first car was heralded into Durham under the ownership of Walter Wilcox in 1909. The Penny Press, now the Middletown Press, was delivered then by Mrs. John Isbelle via horse and buggy.
The story of the trolley that never ran is a very interesting one. The roadbeds are still visible over the parcels of land over which it was to have run. Its history, written by Carlten P. LeGendre, is, at this writing, being recorded in the minds of Durham people.
The present day brings us up to buses, which replaced the trolley lines and gave Durham its first bus service in early 1920. In the beginning, there were two daily runs from Middletown with pickup service to Durham, but with the advent of the family car, this service was done away with. Passengers are now picked up on request.
Long distance trucking has greatly replaced the railroad system, which is used by the industries of Durham.
If one is so fortunate as to have a copy of the town ordinances, one would find very many interesting statistics pertaining to openings of new roads and closing of old roads dating back to 1838. It also contains selectmen’s specifications for road construction. These facts are too numerous to mention here.
On May 24, 1851, it was voted to petition the legislature of Connecticut for liberty to loan the credit of the town to the amount of $10,000 to aid in the construction of the Boston and New York Airline Railroad. Again, on June 8, 1867, it was petitioned from David Lyman for charter of the Airline Railroad and was voted against because there was not enough knowledge regarding the railroad. It was voted to hire and to pay an engineer to study a railroad through the north of Durham, then North Guilford, Northford, North Haven and on to New Haven.
The new Airline Company was then organized on July 24, 1867, to construct the railway through New Haven, North Haven, Wallingford, Durham, Middlefield, Middletown, Portland, Chatham, Marlborough, Hebron, Columbia, Lebanon, Colchester and Windham to a point in Willimantic, and it was called the New Haven, Middletown, and Willimantic Railroad. Having turned down the money for service to Durham, it was brought to Middlefield, which was more advantageous to the Lyman fruit industry and the largest of its kind in the state.
The first passenger run made to Willimantic was made on August 12, 1873, 27 years after the first charter amidst great celebration through each town. Prior to that, on April 27, 1873, a run was made by two flat cars carrying upwards of forty people, including officials and crew.
Durham residents made the difficult ride to Middlefield via jitney for passenger and freight service.
Middlefield no longer has passenger service, but the fruit industry still goes by rail, passenger service now going to Meriden or New Haven.
Changing times being what they are, one mode of travel gives way to another. The railroad suffers the pains of these changes from the ever-increasing number of automobiles. We can think back with fond memories to a little depot which was once a bustling railroad station which now stands on Durham property formerly owned by Richard Parmelee on Saw Mill Road. It is now being used as a garage and workshop.
A little anecdote on how Maiden Lane received its name. John Johnson and his wife Abigail were the parents of ten children, one son and nine daughters. Three daughters died when young and one daughter married. The five other daughters never married, all of them living to the age of 80 or 85 years. The street on which the house is located was therefore named Maiden Lane. The five maiden sisters were very methodical in all their ways. For instance, they would walk to church together according to their ages and sit in their pew in the same order. For several years, Esquire Washington G. Chauncey paid marked attention to one of the sisters and a marriage was expected, but at last, the troth was broken, and in reply to the questions asked Esquire Chauncey as to the reason he did not marry, he said, “I hated to break the set.”
In 1717, post roads were established between Hartford and New Haven, and mail was carried by post riders. In the History of the Post Office, the first regular mail service recorded from New Haven by way of Durham, Middletown, and Upper Houses, Wethersfield to Hartford, tri-weekly, was let from October 11, 1811, to December 31, 1814. On completion of Hartford, New Haven and Middletown Turnpike in 1814, the mail was carried by stagecoach.
The first stage line between Boston, Hartford and New Haven plied in 1783. During the next 20 years, many stage lines were established, and the service was steadily improved. The stage business reached the height of its development just before the introduction of the railroad; after 1840, travel rapidly diminished and few or no lines were undertaken, but in regions not reached by the railroads, coaches continued to ply for many years. The last stage line in the state to be discontinued was the New Haven—Derby in 1895.
Step-by-step, in development and in decline, the turnpike companies kept pace with the stagecoach lines. A series of short improved roads, connecting important centers, did much to facilitate stage service. As more and more turnpike companies were incorporated, taking over and improving one short stretch of road after another, these sections met, providing a network of improved roadways over a large part of the state.
The first turnpike in the state was the Mohegan Road built in 1792 over the fourteen miles between Norwich and New London. During the four decades, more than a hundred such turnpikes were undertaken by stock companies who had the authority to erect tollgates and charge fees. When the cost of the improvements had been returned to the investors, the road was to be opened to the public without further charge. Before many years, the railroad offered serious competition.
The turnpikes of Durham, so briefly mentioned in Fowler’s History, now provide the same scenic beauty that Durham has always been noted for. When traveling through the now heavily traveled Main Road, one cannot help but take in its serenity. Little wonder that it was once a summer resort.
The Durham and East Guilford Turnpike was commonly and more properly called the Durham—Madison Turnpike, for it ran to Madison and not to Guilford at all. But the official name of the corporation responsible for it was the Durham and East Guilford Turnpike Company, which was chartered in May, 1811. One of the provisions in the charter was that only half tolls should be charged for vehicles having rims over seven inches in width.
The capital stock of the company was ten thousand dollars, according to Steiner’s “History of Guilford and Madison”, which gives a pro rata of about seven hundred and forty dollars a mile. This accords with costs of the Massachusetts roads of which we have data.
The turnpike started at Durham Street and ran through the center of North Madison Green, following like a backbone down the center line of the long, narrow town of Madison. In its thirteen and a half miles, it was allowed one gate, which was charged for two half gates by the assembly of 1830.
Thirty-four years did this turnpike last, the surrender of its charter being accepted in 1845. The corporation was allowed six months longer in which to close its affairs and sell its property.
The Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Turnpike Company was granted a franchise in October, 1813, for a road from Middletown to New Haven through Durham, Northford and North Haven.
In New Haven, an old road, early known as Negro or Neck Lane, was utilized for turnpike purposes, which in later days was called Hancock Avenue and is now the State Street of that city. In Middletown, the modern name of the turnpike was Durham Avenue and was known as the Durham Pike through the intervening towns, now known as Route 17.
This road does not seem to have its mark in history. Watrous, who has noted many interesting points in connection with other roads, found nothing to say about the Middletown Turnpike except that it was chartered in 1813. That it was in operation as late as 1846 is proved by the passage of an act in that year making an alteration in the road.
The Haddam and Durham Turnpike Company was incorporated in May, 1815, and built its road from Higganum, in the northeast part of Haddam on the Middlesex Turnpike, to Durham Street, a distance of less than eight miles.
This was practically a branch of the Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Turnpike with which it connected at Durham Street. That hamlet must have presented a bustling aspect in stagecoach days with four turnpikes intersecting there. On the other end, the Haddam and Durham connected with the Middlesex Turnpike, but at such an angle that it is hard to see how either derived any advantage from the junction. The Killingworth and Haddam Turnpike made the intersection at Higganum a three-cornered one.
Higganum owed its distinction as a turnpike terminal to the Higganum Ferry, between that village and Middle Haddam, which was established in 1763.
For the purpose of building a road “from Durham to the public square in Guilford and thence to Sachem’s Head Harbor in said Guilford,” the Guilford and Durham Turnpike Company was chartered in May, 1824, filing a bond for ten thousand dollars to carry out its plans before November 1, 1828.
Steiner knew of this road when he wrote his “History of Guilford and Madison,” for he says that it followed the west, or Menunkatuck River to lake Quonepaug and then ran along another west river to Durham Street, where it connected with the road of the Middletown, Durham, and New Haven Company. In the borough, a bore of Guilford Green, the road is now known as Church Street.
At an 1831 town meeting, Guilford voted to bear the expense of repairing the road, if its inhabitants might use the same toll free, but it does not appear that the offer was accepted, for it would have meant practically the giving up of the whole road.
The turnpike management was still in control in 1885, for then a revision of tolls was enacted by the assembly.
Human nature being what it is, great delight was found in dodging payment of the toll. Travelers cut across fields or went by night to avoid the vigilance of the toll keeper. Distinguished citizens were known to complain that they “couldn’t leave their own home town without being made to pay for it,” and to avoid the slight charge, endured the discomfort of several miles of unimproved road rather than use the turnpikes. These thrifty chosen by-paths came to be known as “shunpikes”.
The turnpikes established better stage routes in the state, therefore resulting in a marked increase in the tavern business. The automobile map of today shows that many of the present routes correspond to the course of the turnpikes or earlier Indian trails.
After leaving the Todd Inn in Northford, the next stagecoach stop was Durham. Deacon John Johnson kept an Inn on the Guilford Road at the corner of the highway to New Haven, which was referred to in 1791 as “the smart Mr. Johnson’s new tavern.”
In the records of Middlesex County, we find licenses, good for one year, being granted to J. N. Wadsworth, to Allen Clark, to John Butler and to Abraham Scranton, all between 1800 and 1810. Inns along Durham’s broad tree-shaded street must have been almost as frequent as “tourists accommodated” signs are on some of our roads today. The one that survived the longest was the Swathel Inn, and always remained the Swathel Inn. The old inn sign, which hung near the street, was not taken down until the house changed hands well on into the last century.
John Swathel bought the inn from Samuel Weld, who had kept tavern there; the first license under this management, which was issued in 1801 to one “Swaddle”, was renewed under various spellings. For many years, four stages a day stopped at the tavern for refreshments and to change horses. One reason for long continuance in business of this Inn was that John Swathel and his partner, John Rose, were part owners of the line of stagecoaches which ran between Springfield and New Haven.
At one time the two men were said to own over a hundred horses, many of which were brought from Cuba, and large stables to accommodate them were established a little to the south of the Swathel Inn, almost opposite what is now known as the Scranton House, built by John Rose for himself. The two men also owned much land for raising hay, and, of course, hay from the Durham marshes was used for bedding.
The location of the Inn at the northern end of the village street at its junction with the road to Middlefield made it easily identifiable, although the outside as well as the interior was altered, the central chimney was removed many years before renovation, and a porch was added across the front. Besides the Swathel, two other houses on Durham Street had ballrooms or assembly rooms. In the Jesse Atwell house on the corner of the Wallingford Road, a large room, with curved ceiling and two fireplaces, now divided into bedchambers, ran across the back of the second story. A room with similar ceiling occupies the south side of the Edward Pickett Camp house on the opposite side of the street and a little farther south. In the Swathel Tavern, the swinging partition which threw two bed chambers together survived the many changes which the interior of the house had undergone. A door was cut through the partition, but the hinges remained, as well as several of the large hooks in the ceiling from which the raised partition was suspended.
It has been claimed that Lafayette and Washington stopped at this tavern. The more wealthy travelers who posted in their own vehicles changed horses less frequently than the stages. Fifteen miles instead of seven or eight was the average distance with a lighter conveyance. Just where these Generals stopped to bait or change horses, for minor repairs, or to take a glass of ale, it is difficult to say with historical accuracy. There is no record of an elaborate welcome being offered to Lafayette here as there was in many towns during his last visit. If General Washington took any refreshment, it was not at an Inn but at the house of the leading citizen of the town, Mr. Wadsworth’s, some distance farther south on the lower green, where he made a short call.
The south of the Inn had a watering trough, supplied by a spring controlled by the Durham Aqueduct Company, one of the town’s earliest cooperative enterprises. Swathel, a shareholder, was frequently the subject of a special meeting, being accused of taking more than his share of water. Each shareholder was, and is, entitled to a pint a minute.
At the north of the house, where it once stood, is Round Hill, a part of the Swathel property. In early days, a canon was fired on great occasions from the top of this hill. The ridges of a terraced garden can still be faintly traced around its gentle slope. Older residents say that there was much resentment in the town when the hill was thus marred. There is a sad and charming tale that Swathel made this a garden on which his invalid wife could look down from the windows of the attic where she was so long confined.
Until recent years, there existed a portrait of Swathel, but it was destroyed by his heirs, either because it was in poor condition or because they felt that the likeness was unflattering. As the saying was that “John Swathel’s nose was so crooked you could pull a champagne cork with it”, it is quite possible that the portrait was not a thing of beauty.
He married the granddaughter of a fellow innkeeper, the daughter of a British officer who had been quartered in her grandfather’s house. She was violently insane for years. In those times, the method for handling such cases was bitterly primitive. For years she was chained night and day to a ring in the attic floor; the ring disappeared, but there are those living in the town who are said to have seen it. The inside of the attic doors were gashed by blows of an axe made perhaps by someone in a frenzied state. Later, her husband built for her a small house with a chimney where she could be kept warm, one symptom of her malady being that she constantly tore her clothing to bits.
To the chagrin of the townspeople, the Inn was demolished in _____. So it is for some of the beauty that welcomed a weary traveler.
Our thoughts go back again to the earliest recollections of Mrs. Howard Field, born in 1882, to the single carriage horse and buggy for private use. A two-seater with wagon and draft horse was used for farming and scrubbed down on Sundays for church. In the days of sandy, difficult roads, jitneys consisting of three seats and two horses, provided transportation to Middletown for the hardiest of shoppers. The same jitneys provided transportation to the Railroad Station in Middlefield.
The first car was heralded into Durham under the ownership of Walter Wilcox in 1909. The Penny Press, now the Middletown Press, was delivered then by Mrs. John Isbelle via horse and buggy.
The story of the trolley that never ran is a very interesting one. The roadbeds are still visible over the parcels of land over which it was to have run. Its history, written by Carlten P. LeGendre, is, at this writing, being recorded in the minds of Durham people.
The present day brings us up to buses, which replaced the trolley lines and gave Durham its first bus service in early 1920. In the beginning, there were two daily runs from Middletown with pickup service to Durham, but with the advent of the family car, this service was done away with. Passengers are now picked up on request.
Long distance trucking has greatly replaced the railroad system, which is used by the industries of Durham.
If one is so fortunate as to have a copy of the town ordinances, one would find very many interesting statistics pertaining to openings of new roads and closing of old roads dating back to 1838. It also contains selectmen’s specifications for road construction. These facts are too numerous to mention here.
On May 24, 1851, it was voted to petition the legislature of Connecticut for liberty to loan the credit of the town to the amount of $10,000 to aid in the construction of the Boston and New York Airline Railroad. Again, on June 8, 1867, it was petitioned from David Lyman for charter of the Airline Railroad and was voted against because there was not enough knowledge regarding the railroad. It was voted to hire and to pay an engineer to study a railroad through the north of Durham, then North Guilford, Northford, North Haven and on to New Haven.
The new Airline Company was then organized on July 24, 1867, to construct the railway through New Haven, North Haven, Wallingford, Durham, Middlefield, Middletown, Portland, Chatham, Marlborough, Hebron, Columbia, Lebanon, Colchester and Windham to a point in Willimantic, and it was called the New Haven, Middletown, and Willimantic Railroad. Having turned down the money for service to Durham, it was brought to Middlefield, which was more advantageous to the Lyman fruit industry and the largest of its kind in the state.
The first passenger run made to Willimantic was made on August 12, 1873, 27 years after the first charter amidst great celebration through each town. Prior to that, on April 27, 1873, a run was made by two flat cars carrying upwards of forty people, including officials and crew.
Durham residents made the difficult ride to Middlefield via jitney for passenger and freight service.
Middlefield no longer has passenger service, but the fruit industry still goes by rail, passenger service now going to Meriden or New Haven.
Changing times being what they are, one mode of travel gives way to another. The railroad suffers the pains of these changes from the ever-increasing number of automobiles. We can think back with fond memories to a little depot which was once a bustling railroad station which now stands on Durham property formerly owned by Richard Parmelee on Saw Mill Road. It is now being used as a garage and workshop.
A little anecdote on how Maiden Lane received its name. John Johnson and his wife Abigail were the parents of ten children, one son and nine daughters. Three daughters died when young and one daughter married. The five other daughters never married, all of them living to the age of 80 or 85 years. The street on which the house is located was therefore named Maiden Lane. The five maiden sisters were very methodical in all their ways. For instance, they would walk to church together according to their ages and sit in their pew in the same order. For several years, Esquire Washington G. Chauncey paid marked attention to one of the sisters and a marriage was expected, but at last, the troth was broken, and in reply to the questions asked Esquire Chauncey as to the reason he did not marry, he said, “I hated to break the set.”