BOOKS AND GIFTS   

TOLLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY    


Books and gifts of local and wider interest published by the Society and others.  Items available at the museum gift shops and local retail outlets.   Call or e-mail for additional information.  Sorry, no credit cards. 

 

TOLLAND:  A CONNECTICUT TOWN
By William P. Mc Dermott
Published 2008 by Kerleen Press
$25
A new book about the town's first century takes us from the  settlers who struggled to establish homes and farms and provide the necessities of community life to the earliest years of Tolland as county seat.  Dr. Mc Dermott is a member of the society who relocated to Tolland several years ago, after having published a couple of histories in his former hometown.    His exhaustive research has provided a great deal of previously unpublished material.     
 
 

THE EARLY HISTORY OF TOLLAND
By, Loren P. Waldo
Published 1861
Reprinted 2008 by Tolland Historical Society
$25
Reprinting of an old book, which was delivered as an address to the Tolland County Historical Society in 1861.  Includes settlement, early town and county government, churches, military history and development of local institutions.   Index added by Historical Society lists 489 early family names.  Available only at the Old Jail Museum  and Old Tolland County Courthouse .

TOLLAND:  AN OLD POST ROAD TOWN
By Harold Weigold
Published by Clinton Press of Tolland for Tolland Historical Society 1965
$20
The first of the Society's books was compiled by  Harold Weigold to bring Tolland's history into the 20th Century.  Repeats and develops some of   Waldo's themes.   Pictures of churches, schools, the Green and other landmarks. 

 
ANSWERING THE CALL
[A 75TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY OF THE TOLLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT]
By Richard N. Symonds, Jr.
Published 2008 by Tolland Fire Department/Gulemo Printing
Hard Cover $45
Soft Cover $20
A comprehensive history of fire, rescue and emergency medical services as the department progressed from one hand-drawn hose cart to today's four fire stations and training center, 13 response and eight support vehicles.

AROUND AND ABOUT THE TOLLAND GREEN
By Christine Gray
Published 2002 by Tolland Historical Society
$15
A tour of the Green, with old and new pictures of the houses and buildings you encounter along the way and a bit of history about each of them.  An ideal walking tour guide.

DANIEL BENTON HOMESTEAD
Gail W. White and Peter C. Palmer
Published 1999, Tolland Historical Society
$6
Tolland's oldest house and the family that lived there for 112 years.  The Homestead is now a society museum.  
 

DEAR WIFE AND CHILDREN
Letters of Dr. Jeduthan Eaton, Edited by Barbara Palmer
Published 2001  by Tolland Historical Society
$15
Dr. Jeduthan Eaton left Tolland to mine gold California.  His letters home from 1850 to 1853 were carefully preserved by his family in a small tole box.  Edited and explanatory material added by former town historian Barbara F. Palmer. 

 
GROWING UP IN TOLLAND Circa 1950 to 1967
By Peter Palmer
Published 2004 by Tolland Historical Society  
$12
A local attorney's story of childhood and adolescence on a Tolland farm in the mid 20th Centory, with many pictures. 

 
LIFE AND TIMES OF ARIEL BENTON
By Ariel Benton, edited by Barbara Cook
Sketches by Linda Jaye Tofolosky
Published 1997 by Tolland Historical Society
$6
Ariel Benton left Tolland for Ohio in the early 1800s to search for a farm and a better life for his extended family.  Incites into the religious upheaval of the times.  Written by Benton  in his 80s, edited for reprinting by Barbara Cook. 


LIFE IN TOLLAND VILLAGE IN THE 1880S
By Edgar Marvin Hawkins. edited by Barbara Cook
Photographs prepared and edited by Peter Palmer

$10
Edgar Marvin Hawkins' tales of his childhood paint a very real picture of a boy's life here in the 1880s.  Possessed of an excellent memory for details, Hawkins takes us through the blacksmith shop, the general store, and other boyhood haunts and introduces us to the people who lived here. 


PONDS, DAMS AND MILL SITES IN TOLLAND, CONNECTICUT
By Richard N. Symonds, Jr.
Hard cover $45
Soft cover $20
Dick Symonds spent hundreds of hours searching for ponds and old pond sites, finding an amazing total of 240, and carefully recording the location, size and empoundment of each original pond, including the known history of its uses.  A valuable resource as well as fascinating reading.


THE CHURCH ON TOLLAND GREEN
By Marshall A. Atwater
Published 2007 by United Congregational Church of Tolland Tolland                                                                                                          
$15
History of the Congregational Church from the founding of the town, when town and church were one, through 2007.  Many pictures.

TOLLAND IN CARTOONS
Cartoons by Ivan Robinson, Text by Joyce Robinson
Published 2001 by Tolland Historical Society                                                                                                                                           
$5
Cartoons of local interest originally published in the Rockville Journal in the 1960s.

  

MINI-BUILDINGS AND ORNAMENTS

Miniature Tolland buildings and homes available:
Agard House (76 Tolland Green) Daniel Benton Homestead, Old Jail and Museum, Old Tolland County Courthouse, Steel House, United Congregational Church

Christmas ornaments available for all of the above at the Homestead Gift Shop or the society.

In addition, the Homestead Store carries the Town Hall (Ratcliffe Hicks Memorial School) the Homestead, and Hicks-Stearns Museum.  Arts of Tolland has available exclusively its own building (the Arts Center in the Old Town Hall) and Tolland Inn has its own as well.  Hicks-Stearns and Arts Center are also available as ornaments. 

Calendars:
For the past two years, Tolland Historical Society has published a calendar.  2010 depicts and describes a baker's dozen Tolland doors.  It is for sale at the Homestead Gifts and the museums.   ON SALE NOW and at the Antiques Show.