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New book explores Southwick’s historical gunpowder connection

Date: 9/29/2021

SOUTHWICK — Manufacturing gunpowder was once a booming business in Southwick.

A new book details the history and the people behind the gunpowder industry in Southwick in the 1700s, and their connection to a massive gunpowder mill explosion in Hazardville, CT, nearly 200 years later.

Several generations of families who were among Southwick’s early settlers played pivotal roles in the gunpowder industry in the Connecticut River Valley. “Hazard Power,” written by Enfield author Peter Sorenson, recounts the lives and deaths of the men and women in this local industry.

Sorenson came to the town library recently to talk about his book. During his presentation, he explained how several Southwick families, most notably the Laflin and Loomis families, were involved in an extensive operation of at least five powder mills. They were located along the banks of what is now Great Brook — previously Powder Mill Brook, and before that, Two Mile Brook.

According to Sorenson, the Southwick powder mills were built before the Revolutionary War. By the mid-1760s, Matthew Laflin I owned 134 acres of land and buildings on the small brook fed by water flowing out of the Congamond Lakes. When the war began, gunpowder made in Southwick was used by local militia and Continental Army soldiers, including at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

“The powder mills in Southwick soon became the largest gunpowder manufacturer in New England,” Sorenson said during his nearly hour-long talk. It’s also why there’s a street in town named Powder Mill Road.

Sorenson told a group of about a dozen people that gunpowder manufacturing made money for owners, but was dangerous for those handling the powder. While owners got wealthy, many workers – including owners’ relatives and slave laborers – lost their lives or were seriously injured working in gunpowder mills along streams and rivers.

It was rare for owners to be injured or killed, though. “They didn’t put themselves in harm’s way,” Sorenson explained. “It was a huge money-making business for them.”

In fact, making gunpowder in Southwick was very profitable. It was so lucrative that in 1809, Laflin’s son, Matthew Laflin II, along with his sons and a cousin named Riley Loomis, expanded their gunpowder-making business by buying land and four buildings in the town of Lee.

Gunpowder – a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal – was used largely for ammunition, but it also was used as blasting powder for excavations before dynamite was invented. According to Sorenson, one profitable customer for the Laflin and Loomis powder mills was the state of New York during construction of the Erie Canal. Canal excavation from Albany to Lake Erie started in 1817. Powder from the Lee mills helped expedite its completion in 1825.

The success of the Erie Canal prompted Massachusetts and Connecticut to finally go ahead with building the Farmington Canal through Southwick. The canal ran from New Haven to Northampton. Its highest point was the three-mile section that cut though the Congamond Lakes.

When the Farmington Canal was completed in 1835, it dashed any hopes by the Laflin and Loomis families to rebuild the Southwick powder mills that suffered twin disasters in 1824. An explosion destroyed one mill and killed one worker. A flood later in the year swept away all remaining mill buildings.

Water flowing from the lake into tributaries – including Powder Mill Brook – was greatly reduced, since lake water was used to feed the new canal.

“There was no longer enough waterpower to drive any machinery,” said Sorenson.

The same year as the Southwick disasters, all buildings of the Laflin and Loomis powder mills in Lee were leveled when five tons of powder exploded. After that explosion, the land was sold. Later, a large paper manufacturing company was built on the site.

Sorenson explained that these mill disasters didn’t prevent the Loomis family from finding new opportunities to make money. They operated gunpowder mills throughout New England and ventured into a new business, peddling cigars. Both proved financially successful.

“They cornered the gunpowder market and made money selling cigars made from tobacco,” Sorenson said.

The tobacco was grown in Suffield. When the government began levying new taxes on tobacco, it became less profitable. So, they redoubled their efforts to make gunpowder, buying several powder mills in the area. According to Sorenson, one of the Loomis brothers, Allen, teamed up with a marketer named Augustus Hazard to create the Hazard Powder Company in Connecticut. Sorenson added that Hazard also partnered with Allen Denslow, a New Haven native, to form a business.

Soon, they were merchandising entrepreneurs – or, as Sorenson calls them, “opportunists.” Hazard then introduced Denslow to the Loomis brothers, who were looking to build a gunpowder mill in Enfield to replace the ones destroyed in Southwick. After joining with Denslow in 1834, the Loomis brothers and Denslow bought nearly 500 acres of land to build a gunpowder mill.

Sorenson describes the land as a “steep-walled valley” in a remote section of Enfield along the Scantic River. It became the site of the Hollow Powder mills, which would become one of the largest gunpowder manufacturing facilities in the country.

At Hollow Powder, the Loomis brothers used skills they learned as youths while working at the Laflin Powder Mills in Southwick. But, in the early 1900s, Hollow Powder was sold to the DuPont company.

Throughout the mid-to late 1800s and into the early 20th century, according to Sorenson, powder mills began exploding with regularity as they “matured.” Mill owners, including DuPont at Hollow Powder in Enfield, “put just enough money in the mills to keep them running,” he said.

Then, on the afternoon of Jan. 14, 1913, the village of Hazardville, named for Augustus Hazard, was rocked by four violent explosions. Tons of gunpowder exploded at the Hazard Powder mills, wrecking several mill buildings, nearly destroying the village, and “crisping” two workers. Only fragments of flesh and bone were left of them. Their remains filled just one bucket.

After the explosion, the mill was closed and dismantled. Sorenson said any one of several single events along the way could have caused things to happen differently: “If the Erie Canal or the Farmington Canal hadn’t been built, then the Hazard Powder Mill would never have been built.”

What had started beside a babbling brook in Southwick in the 1700s ended abruptly nearly 200 years later along a roaring river in Enfield with a huge and deadly explosion.