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Litchfield, CT history

The History of Litchfield, Connecticut, 1720-1920.

by Alain C. White

This was a big job, especially the job of preparing the all-new index of this important volume, but White's History of the Town of Litchfield, CT is ready! 

White's History of Litchfield, Connecticut is an interesting one, no question about it.  Alain White was a member of the White family that donated a magnificent preserve to the town of Litchfield, and we assume when he prepared his history of Litchfield he did not lack financial resources to get the job done right. 

Civil War triumphal arch, from History of Litchfield

Civil War Triumphal Arch

The book was prepared for Litchfield's bicentennial, at the behest of the Litchfield Historical Society, and White drew on several contributors in addition to his own considerable knowledge of the history of the community.  The 75 page appendix containing everything from rolls of veterans, to lists of clergy of all the churches in town (not just the Congregational church as one frequently finds in this neck of the woods), to elected officials, to a whole range of organization officer lists (all the way from fire departments to an Italian mutual benefit group), to a comprehensive street directory. 

In fact, the appendix of White's History of Litchfield would justify the project all by itself!  It's excellent, and to the extent that our project was slow in appearing, it was because the appendix is so dense with names that indexing took a huge amount of time.

Many people like to see if a particular individual or place is mentioned in an old book, and we're happy to accommodate you if you fall in this group.  Just  Names in White's History of Litchfield to see a complete list of names of people and places mentioned in White's History of Litchfield

White's History of Litchfield also contains abundant photographs -- 102 of them, plus an old map -- all of places and people significant in Litchfield's history.  They are quite remarkable, and some of them are rare (such as the picture of the Civil War triumphal arch in Litchfield, seen above).  When you are striving to reproduce quality images like there, you need high resolution scanning, which we employed.

The book is significant in another way, too, in that it concentrates on more modern history -- namely the period following Woodruff's (1845) and Kilbourne's (1859) histories of Litchfield (as well as Boswell's Litchfield Book of Days).  Thus, we consider this one a "must own" for anyone with an interest in Litchfield history from the Civil War through World War I.

How to obtain White's History of Litchfield:

Several years ago, we offered this book on CD-ROM.  But two things happened:  (1) technology advanced to a point where people simply didn't care to get their data on CDs anymore, and (2) major institutions started scanning important historic works and making them available as free downloads.  Between the two, it didn't make sense to continue to offer this book, even with our new index, on CD-ROM, and we discontinued it.

Now we offer it as a download.

Here's a question you might ask:  Why should I pay you for a download of this book if I can download it free?

There are two reasons:

1.  This book badly needs an index.  We indexed it and include our index in our version.  None of the free downloads offer an index.

2.  Our scans are high resolution.  If the images in the book are important to you, you will want high resolution.  We provide it.

So, ask yourself if you think you will need an index and if you want high resolution scanned images.  If you do not need these, we suggest that you download the free version from the Internet Archive.

If you need either the index or the high resolution scans, you may want to consider our version.

Including the index, it is 435 pages, in PDF format, and costs $3.75.

 

SORRY!  THIS PRODUCT IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE.

  

 

Thank you!

Return to our Town of Litchfield page

See our Litchfield County page -- there's lots of additional Litchfield County material there!

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Contacting us:

Between the Lakes Group is located at 372 Between the Lakes Road, in Salisbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut.  More specifically, we're in Taconic -- a hamlet  in the Twin Lakes area of the Town of Salisbury.  Questions about us or about our products?  Go to our Frequently Asked Questions page.  

Telephone:
(860)824-0640
Postal address:
Post Office Box 13
          Taconic, CT  06079-0013
Electronic mail:
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