Going west from Canton on R. 101, we enter the town of New Hartford in Litchfield County. This was part of the territory acquired and laid out by Hartford, settlers coming from the mother town in 1733 and town government being granted in 1740. Manufacturing is still carried on in the village, along the Farmington River. The town is mountainous, and we enter the pine area of the State formerly known as the Greenwoods.
R. 101 crosses just above the wild Farmington River Gorge, a spot of scenic beauty, and interesting to geologists because of the outcrops of pegmatites and schists. The highway then passes on the left the region known as Satan's Kingdom, from the lawless settlement of lndians, negroes and renegade whites toward the end of the 18th century.
After going through Pine Meadow, an earlier woolen center, we reach New Hartford Village, situated in a deep valley, surrounded by wooded hills. The white spire of the Congregational Church stands out from Town Hill, west of the river; the Church was built of brick in 1828, and has a plain pediment, with rounded doorways and windows. The vacuum cleaner factory of Landers, Frary and Clark has taken the place of a former cotton mill. In 1845, Elias Howe, a cotton mill mechanic, invented the sewing machine. His shop was in the basement of the brick building still standing to the west of the village center, the old New Hartford House. Though the principle of the sewing machine was discovered 12 years earlier by Walter Hunt of New York, Howe came on the idea independently and was the first to patent and exploit it. The first woman in the world to operate a practical sewing machine was a New Hartford school teacher.
Route 4 makes an attractive drive through the southern part of the town. It crosses the dam of Nepaug Reservoir, with a beautiful ravine below, and skirts the shore of the lake. This is the principal water supply for Hartford, 485 feet above sea level, with a yield of 25 million gallons a day. North of R. 4 is Nepaug State Forest, and about a mile west of the lake a Forest road leads north 1 1/2 miles to a Soapstone Quarry, used by the Indians for making pots. A half mile north of the highway, not far from Bakersville, is a Sulphur Spring. There are good views from various points in the northwest of the town. West Hill Pond, an attractive body of water, formerly an Indian camp ground and now headquarters for the New Haven, Hartford and Torrington boy scouts, is best reached from U. S. 8 above Burrville.
The blue-marked Tunxis Trail enters New Hartford west of the Nepaug Reservoir, and 1 1/2 miles north of R. 4 passes Tipping Rock, a glacial boulder, easily moved although 28 feet in circumference and weighing about 12 tons. From this point there are good views to the south and east. About 1/2 mile farther is Table Rock, 35 feet long and resting on a broad leg; a dozen people can find shelter under it. The Trail crosses the Farmington River by the highway bridge (R. 101) above the Gorge, and works along the hills above the East Branch, with good views of the Compensating Reservoir.