That on this site in the early 1890s was Canton’s first golf course and next to it toward the pond was a rifle range which was a pit dug out of the hillside, directly under the Canton High School.  The golf course was started by a group of men from Collinsville who enjoyed it for several years. The land then was owned by William E. & Sara Jane (Mills) Simonds, and in the pond alongside the athletic field Mr. Simonds planted cranberries some years earlier, but the venture was not successful.  Also, the pond was known as the ice pond where ice was harvested until refrigerators came on the …

This lunch cart was located on River Street in Collinsville in the early 1900s,  close to the river.  It was opposite the Collinsville Railroad Depot and directly across from the Collinsville Hotel, both of which were later demolished to make way for Route 179 to go through and bypass Main Street.  At the time, However, the lunch cart was located so as to lure customers from the depot and hotel, as well as from all the schools nearby and the Collins Company, as well as being on a main highway.  That is all we know about the lunch cart.  Can you identify who ran it and what kind of food they …

Sam Collins built his 23-room mansion overlooking the Farmington river and his factory in 1851 on the site where the Calvary Cemetery is now located.  He lived there until his death in 1871, and following the death of his wife, it was sold.  For a while it was used as a sanatorium.  Later, under new ownership, a tragedy occurred when the estranged husband of the daughter who was living there with her parents and infant child came out from Hartford on the train, armed with a gun with the intent to abduct the child and shoot his wife.  The grandmother had sequestered the baby, but he did shoot …