Wolcott Historical Society News - June 2007
By Florence Goodman
Time has a way of passing without us even realizing it. As we look around our town it is hard to imagine what it must have been like in the late 1600s when the first residents came up Southington Mountain and began to settle this area. Farmingbury Parish as it was called had few residents in those early years, but times have changed and today our town's population has grown to over 15, 000. I thought readers might enjoy a look at our population through the years, starting with the first recorded census to the present.
Population of Wolcott 1800 – 2000
1800 | 948
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1810 | 952
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1820 | 943
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1830 | 843
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1840 | 633
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1850 | 603
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1860 | 574
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1870 | 491
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1880 | 493
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1890 | 522
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1920 | 719
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1930 | 972
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1950 | 3553
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1970 | 12,495
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1990 | 14,170
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2000 | 15,215
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As you look over these numbers you might wonder why our population dropped in the mid 1800s. There are many reasons why people move in and out of areas, one in particular is availability of jobs. Since there was little manufacturing in our town, residents had to find work in area towns. Waterbury was developing as a major manufacturing region, as well as, towns like Southington, and Bristol. Thus many residents moved to areas where jobs were plentiful. As transportation became available people were able to move away from the cities and back to the suburbs, thus you see an increase in population around the 1930s on.
Each month, I hope to give you some interesting bit of information about our town's history and development. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget…the Garden Tour is July 8th, for more information, please contact Barbara Wood at 879-1218.
Visit our WebPages at (http://www.wolcotthistory.org/). You can download a membership application there. Our meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month at the Old Stone School on Nichols Road at 6:30 P.M.
To view past installments of the Wolcott Historical Society News, click here.
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