Coventry Roots: Fairbanks

In the original Shawomet Purchase of 1642 the western part of Coventry was known as the Seven Men’s Land and was not settled by the European settlers before 1700. In 1714 the town of Warwick laid out a highway that became known as the Great North Road, and construction of this road helped to connect all the small farms and villages and helped the farmers move their goods. 

The road was eventually renamed Plainfield Pike because it ended in the town of Plainfield, Connecticut. Along this turnpike were many taverns that provided weary travelers a place to stay. Coventry at one time had 41 taverns along its various roads. In 1783 a Revolutionary War Veteran named Colonel John McGregor opened a tavern on the Plainfield Pike and in 1831  it became known for its connection to a new movement, the cause of Temperance, which was encouraging people to avoid alcohol consumption.

The McGregor Tavern became known as the Temperance Tavern, and retained that name until its destruction by fire in the late 19th century.

In 1809, Randall H. Blanchard purchased three acres of land with water rights along the Moosup River. Along the river he built a grist mill, carding machine, and fulling mill. The fulling mill was constructed in 1812 in partnership with a Thomas Blanchard. Fulling is the process by which cloth is cleaned, shrunk and thickened with moisture, heat, and pressure; and carding machines are used to straighten and disentangle fibers to prepare them for spinning. 

In 1826 George Fairbanks, who was from Sudbury MA, bought out the Blanchard’s and constructed a woolen mill on the north side of the Moosup River. Mr. Fairbanks relied on local sheep farmers for his wool and used local seamstresses as his workforce. Inside the mill the entire process of taking raw wool and turning it into dyed cloth took place. 

As the need arose he constructed a tailor shop that was three bays wide next to the mill and employed a tailor named George Bartlett from Massachusetts to make clothes in the latest style for men from Western Coventry and Eastern Connecticut.  After the destruction of the mill by fire in 1866, and a small financial downturn, George Fairbanks and his son, Elbridge Gerry Fairbanks, opened a dry goods store and slaughterhouse. The seamstresses were paid in goods from this store. The Fairbanks family operated this household goods store until 1881.

The discontinuing of the stage line and the rerouting of the railroad forced people to move and was the demise of this once thriving village. There are remnants of this village still visible today; the Fairbanks House still stands and the foundations of the McGregor Tavern and the Fairbanks Mill site still sit along the banks of the Moosup River.