Thompson, Connecticut, in the northeast-most corner of the state, is home to ten villages. Sure, more well-known mill villages such as North Grosvenordale are part of this town, but so is Fabyan. No not Fabian, but Fabyan.
The Quiet Corner of the state, also known as Windham County, has dual personalities. One route (Route 12) meanders alongside rivers, including the Quinebaug and Shetucket, through former factory towns whose industrial heritage is tangible still today. The other, Route 169, is the bucolic New England of colonial villages, stone walls, and farmland.
Some of the towns in this region have villages so small that if you blink you’ll miss them. Attawaugan, Ballouville, and Glasgo are all prime examples. Fabyan, a village of Thompson, makes these three look like metropolises.
Last year I was tasked by a friend who lives in nearby Pomfret to find out what the deal with Fabyan was. At that time, even though I was quite versed in the eastern part of the state, I had never even heard of the village. It is located in the western portion of Thompson, on the Woodstock line and close to the Massachusetts border. The Quinebaug River winds through the village and once supplied power for its manufacturing facilities. The “heart” of Fabyan, is the triangle of Fabyan Road, Quinebaug Road (Route 131) and Parker Road.
History of Fabyan: Turn Me Loose!
Villages like Fabyan have an identity crisis. Similar to Rogers (part of Killingly), Connecticut, Fabyan’s confused. The Killingly village began as Williamsville and changed its name to Goodyear after the corporation in the village in 1916. In 1957 things changed again when it adopted the moniker of the Rogers Corporation which replaced Goodyear as the lifeblood of the village. You say tomato, I say tomahto. You call it Williamsville, I call it Goodyear, but we all call it Rogers.
Fabyan was, for much of its early history, known as New Boston. New Boston was a small mill village with a clothier and a potash works, which was used in many manufacturing processes from glass and soap to gunpowder. Thompson was a hardworking town, with industry focused on textile production (just as much of the eastern part of the state). The main factory in the village was the New Boston Textile Company. New Boston was also known for “cordial hospitality” and “enjoyable social entertainments,” according to a history of Windham County.
In 1908, New Boston was to be no more. Kind of like Megatron turning to Galvatron in the award-winning film, Transformers: The Movie, New Boston was gone, welcome Fabyan. (No Orson Welles in Thompson though.) The Fabyan Brothers had a successful mill complex in Stafford Springs. They purchased the former New Boston Textile Company and changed the factory’s name to their own, Fabyan. Along with the name change of the mill was the name change of the whole village.
If you go:
If you go there is not much to the village Fabyan. Unlike North Grosvenordale or other mill villages that have tangible remnants of the past, this looks like a 20th-century residential street. There is the Quinebaug River Water Trail nearby, a water route that ends at West Thompson Dam a few miles downstream. It’s popular with kayakers and canoeists. There also seems to be a path adjacent to the river at this spot on Fabyan Road. One remnant of the past is the New Boston Cemetery on Parker Road, it’s where the gravestone pictures are from.
What’s in a name? A whole lot in this case. A change of identity, and former mill town are buried in the history books. What’s now Fabyan, was then New Boston. Only traces of this village remain. For more Backyard Road Trips in Connecticut, click here and here.
Thanks to Joe Iamartino of the Thompson Historical Society for pointing me in the right historic direction.
