Buckland continues to expand

[MadVlad]

The two biggest wastes of space going:

Flat Parking Lots

Strip Malls

Congratulations, Buckland has plenty of both....

[JimSawhill]

Hi Connecticut! I'm just checking in via the Providence UP. I haven't been to Manchester in years, so I can't add anything current to this thread, but reading it has been interesting and kind of alarming to learn what Buckland's turned into. Holy smoke do I feel old right now. I was born in Manchester in 1954, so my earliest memories of Buckland involve the Caldor store that was the anchor of a small plaza right next to the highway. Right across the highway, everything was acres and acres of shade-grown tobacco dotted with a big red tobacco barn here and there. The crops were tented under vast, flat cotton gauze coverings and when the wind was blowing it would ripple the cloth in waves. It looked very much like an ocean, only bright, bright white. In the early sixties, the fresh, hard-edged, hardtopped Caldor plaza looked very much out of place. Going there was like being dropped from the countryside into the future.

My dad worked for years at a small (10-12 guys, probably) machine shop maybe half a mile down the road from Caldor; Buckland Manufacturing. It was an ordinary two-lane road that led from Manchester to Buckland, and pretty much ended up right in front of Caldor. I think it connected to North Street, but I've forgotten a lot of the names.

My grandparents owned the house on Kerry Street next to the dam on on Union Pond, which stank terribly in those days thanks to discharge from the paper mills upstream. This area was what the old timers called the "Polock Village" (hey, that's what they called it -- most of my family lived there or had grown up there).

My grandmother shopped for groceries at an ancient A&P -- a tiny, wood-floored, 1860's-era brick storefront right at the foot of the street that comes down the hill by St. Brigit's Church (assuming that's not long-gone, too...). She had a huge vegetable garden between the house and the dam, and she fed half the neighborhood from it. Other than that, we'd go downtown to shop, and as I first recall it, downtown was a well-kept and thriving town center. Soon after that, Caldor and the Parkade shops started drawing the life out of it.

As I said, I haven't seen the area in years, but I'm pretty sure from what I've read in this thread I wouldn't recognize a thing. And this post is hands-down the old-fartiest thing I've ever written.

[JimSawhill]

My dad (born on North Street in 1911) worked in those fields in the mid-twenties and early thirties -- he used to always claim, even decades later, that he'd been the "champeen tobacco-spearer" of the period, meaning, I guess, that he'd put up the most tobacco on any given day.

I guess Union Village was the "real" name for the Polish section -- Manchester Depot was definitely the place-name I was searching for. The A&P was exactly right there; I may be wrong, but I think the train tracks ran directly in back of it; I think it's possible that trains may have unloaded from a siding right into the back of the store...? In any case, A&P was one of the pioneering grocery chains from the mid-1850's -- it couldn't have succeeded the way it did without the railroad.

I don't really remember the building right next to St. Bridget's -- on the downhill side? I do recall the Bon-Ami cleanser factory on a side street down from St. Bridget's. It was a huge old mill that employed many of the people from Union Village, and it went up in flames one afternoon around 1964 or so. I remember watching it collapse. It was soon after that, I'm pretty sure, that the A&P went out of business and the depot block was torn down.

robm, it's been so long that I don't even have a clue as to where the JoAnn's plaza is, but if you remember a big field there, it almost has to have been one of the tobacco fields -- they stretched on and on, literally all the way to the horizon. I share your feelings about the kind of development that's happened in Buckland and so many other, similar places -- but it does seem to be what a lot of Americans want, and like.

[uconn99]

How do you leave the area and never visit for so long? I can understand leaving, but do you not have any family or friends in the area worth visiting? Being only about 60 miles away its crazzy you never ventured back.

[campster]

How do you leave the area and never visit for so long? I can understand leaving, but do you not have any family or friends in the area worth visiting? Being only about 60 miles away its crazzy you never ventured back.

[blink55184]

My dad (born on North Street in 1911) worked in those fields in the mid-twenties and early thirties -- he used to always claim, even decades later, that he'd been the "champeen tobacco-spearer" of the period, meaning, I guess, that he'd put up the most tobacco on any given day.

I guess Union Village was the "real" name for the Polish section -- Manchester Depot was definitely the place-name I was searching for. The A&P was exactly right there; I may be wrong, but I think the train tracks ran directly in back of it; I think it's possible that trains may have unloaded from a siding right into the back of the store...? In any case, A&P was one of the pioneering grocery chains from the mid-1850's -- it couldn't have succeeded the way it did without the railroad.

I don't really remember the building right next to St. Bridget's -- on the downhill side? I do recall the Bon-Ami cleanser factory on a side street down from St. Bridget's. It was a huge old mill that employed many of the people from Union Village, and it went up in flames one afternoon around 1964 or so. I remember watching it collapse. It was soon after that, I'm pretty sure, that the A&P went out of business and the depot block was torn down.

robm, it's been so long that I don't even have a clue as to where the JoAnn's plaza is, but if you remember a big field there, it almost has to have been one of the tobacco fields -- they stretched on and on, literally all the way to the horizon. I share your feelings about the kind of development that's happened in Buckland and so many other, similar places -- but it does seem to be what a lot of Americans want, and like.

[campster]

Union village was more up towards the pond than Manchester depot. Depot was from where farrs is now to almost the grain factory. Old North Main street is still there, behing the YMCA. It just doesnt connect to main street anymore.

If you are looking at the front of the church, yes, the downhill side. The Cracker factory was to the right if you are looking at the church, next to the old fire station.

I thought that building burned down in the 80's, not the 60's...??

That one was a little further up hilliard street, the main bon ami building is still there, with the hobby shop like jims said

[lastvisiblerat]

The fire I mentioned was actually at Bon-Ami. I remember a huge flock of starlings flying toward the fire and swooping back away from the heat. It seems to me we saw a huge chunk of the roof collapse into the flames, but I was only 10 or so, so who knows? I'm certain though that it was quite a big, dramatic fire. It would have been around 1964; maybe there was another fire later? Was that the cracker factory?

[blink55184]

The Bon Ami fire was in 1973. It was a huge fire which gutted much of the complex - fortunately most of the buildings were able to be saved and rehabbed.