Canton's Collinsville A Symbol Of The American Dream

CANTON, CT — It has the makings of a pretty good movie storyline.

Two brothers, both in their mid-20s, embark on an adventure that begins with a dream, continues in the form of a start-up company and ends with a legacy that has a whole neighborhood named after them.

Only we're not talking about some Silicon Valley, high-tech firm from the 1990s.

We're talking about something that actually happened in Canton a long time ago —a long, long time ago.

In 1826, the Collins brothers — Samuel Watkinson Collins, 24, and David C. Collins, 26 — were joined by their 21-year-old cousin, William Wells, in creating the Collins Co.

Of course this being the mid-1820s, Collins, Collins and Wells weren't slinging coffee, making computers or selling some fancy baked goods at higher-than-they-should prices.

Rather, they were making tools, tools, according to an online history of their company, described as being made by the "most innovative edged-tool manufacturers in the world."

By edged tools, we're talking about "axes," a key component in any development endeavor back in those days.

They built a shop on the Farmington River and, utilizing the power of water and water wheels, fueled an industrial endeavor that allowed them to make, get this, eight ready-to-chop axes per day.

Over time, and by time we're talking decades, Collins Co. evolved and grew, so much so it was building housing for employees and a town was blossoming.

The shop became a factory. They were also making a lot of axes.

Soon, productivity bloomed amid the ups and downs of American capitalism and its products diversified into other sharp-end cutting tools, such as bayonets during the Civil War.

Over the decades, the founders died, and heirs upon heirs passed on as intense global competition, essentially, did in the Collins Co. in the following century.

The slow, downward business spiral in the 20th Century ended in 1966, when the Collins Manufacturing Co. dissolved ... went "poof."

What was left behind, however, was a historic series of landmarks and monuments to the company's thriving past, with the "Collinsville" neighborhood still an established part of Canton's past, present and future.

There's even walking tours where folks can enjoy a stroll in downtown Collinsville, or as locals see it, "Historic Downtown Collinsville."

Visitors to the neighborhood can see the village the Collins brothers created in the form of old manufacturing facilities, employee housing and accompanying buildings to support the operation.

The history of Collinsville plays a major part of the Canton Historical Museum as well as three, self-guided walking tours of the area, which also includes quaint eateries and shopping destinations.

At an age where their generational peers of the 2020s are just looking to move out of their parents house, the Collins brothers and their cousin created something that, while victimized by Father Time's economic roller coaster, ultimately resulted in a preserved legacy forever standing the test of time.

The only question now is who will play the Collins brothers and Wells in the film adaption?

For information on historic tours of Canton's Collinsville village, click on this link.

For an in-depth history of the Collins Co. and the Collins brothers, click on this link.