MRHS - Bringing the History of Mystic to the World
Over the years MRHS has published and acquired quite a few very interesting books and pamphlets. It seems a shame that most of them are secure in the Downes Building but are all but forgotten and, for all intents and purposes, unavailable to our members and our world-wide audience. To rectify this situation we will be printing some of these publications in the Portersville Press and posting them on our website. This is in keeping with our philosophy of making our collections available in digital form to the world via the internet. None of these documents is to be reproduced without the permission of the Mystic River Historical Society.
The following publications in pdf format are available at no charge. Use for any commercial purpose is prohibited without the written consent of the Mystic River Historical Society, Inc.
They may be searched by using the Adobe "find" function which greatly enhances genealogical and historical research.
A History of Masons Island James H. Allyn 1940
Back When - The Story of A Youth Who Lived Through A Very Exciting Time in America by Karl H. Inderfurth
George Greenman Family History Chronology - Part of a 1995 report for the Mystic Seaport. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the Mystic Seaport.
Greenman Historic Structure Report - Part of a 1995 report for the Mystic Seaport. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the Mystic Seaport.
Haley Farm Souvenir - A little pamphlet tied with a red ribbon with the cover “Haley Farm Souvenir”. There is no date or other information other than the title page "The Haley Farm, Noank, Conn. Near New London, Caleb Haley, Proprietor.”
Major John Mason's GREAT ISLAND by James H. Allyn
Mystic by William Allen Wilbur, The Connecticut Magazine, August, 1899
The Mystic River Historical Society: Our First 40 Years by Patricia Schaefer December 2013 There is also Pat's PowerPoint presentation of her talk at the December 2013 Membership meeting. This is a larger file (55.9 MB) and will take about 2 minutes to download so it can then be opened in PowerPoint.
Preserving history one document at a time The Mystic Times December 12, 2013
1649- 1949 The Stonington Chronology by Williams Haynes
Swamp Yankee from Mystic by James H. Allyn
This file is 30.6MB in size and takes a little while to download and open in Acrobat Reader.
A Trolley Ride - Groton and Stonington Street Railway 1907 by Grace D. Wheeler. Also see our Virtual Exhibit on trolleys.
Do you ever think about the days when a Mystic telephone number was 63-2? Have you ever ridden through town and country on an old time trolley car? Have you ever dreamed about taking a trip from Westerly to the Thames River and back on a lovely spring day?
Grace D. Wheeler wrote about just that in 1907 in a charming little booklet titled Historic Ground Westerly, Rhode Island to Groton, Connecticut issued by the Groton and Stonington Street Railway and printed by Geo. H. Utter, Printer, Westerly, R.I. You can see an original copy at the Downes Building as well as a piece of track from downtown Mystic now lying beside the fence behind Portersville Academy.
Someday I would like to take a camera and try to document the route taken by the daily Trolley Express leaving Mystic at 2:00 P.M. for Stonington, Westerly, Groton, Poquonnock, Noank and back to Mystic at 5:03. But for now print out the map and follow “A Trolley Ride, From Westerly to Groton.” (Can anyone can identify any of the poetry?)
Where Connecticut Has a Glimpse of the Sea by Odell D. Tompkins, New England Magazine, March, 1901 to August, 1901
In a similar vein be sure to look over our Self-Guided Tours.