From Thomaston, we make a side trip to the mother town of Plymouth, closely identified with Eli Terry and the development of the clock industry. Settlement dates back to 1728, or soon after, and in 1739 the Northbury parish of Waterbury was organized. After being for a time a part of Watertown, a separate town was incorporated in 1795. The grandfather of Henry Cook, the first settler, (in the present town of Thomaston) was one of the Pilgrims, and the town was named for Plymouth, Mass. A rough hill country forms the watershed of the Pequabuck River flowing east to Bristol. Plymouth impresses the traveler as being all hill.
Leaving Thomaston on U. S. 6, we climb to Plymouth Center. The Cleveland House, at the northwest corner of the Green, was built before 1800. At the southeast corner, the fine Colonial house now serving as the Episcopal Rectory dates from 1780. There are other 18th century houses a block farther east.
Directly south of the center, over 3 miles of fine country road which follows the hill top, we come to Mt. Toby, with a fine southern outlook. The Government has laid out an airport on the level summit.
Half a mile east of the center, a road turns south through the rural beauty of Todd Hollow and the wilder scenery of Greystone. In 3 miles, we turn east to the attractive *Buttermilk Falls, near Tolles, where the owner has provided a picnic ground for the public. The Mattatuck Trail, running from Reynolds Bridge to the Grand Junction in Wolcott, passes this point. Farther east is the region known as Indian Heaven. Jack's Cave lies about 3/4 mile from Buttermilk Falls, a little south of the Trail and 1/4 mile east of the Tolles-Wolcott road. The cave has a passage 10 feet wide and 20 feet long, leading into a solid rock room which was used as a sleeping room. It was inhabited as late as 1830 by three old Indians, and named after their leader Jack. The cave is said to have been on the route of an old Indian trail from Farmington to the Naugatuck River. There is another not far away, known as Indian Jack's East Cave.
Eli Terry (1772-1852) was born in what was then East Windsor, where he learned the clock-making trade as an apprentice of Daniel Burnap. In I 793 he set up a shop of his own in Plymouth. At that time and for many years after, clocks were generally made with wooden works, which were cheaper than imported brass. Terry began using waterpower at the turn of the century, and with a few men and boys to help him was commencing 10 to 20 clocks at a time. In 1807 he sold out to one of his apprentices, and bought an old mill at Greystone, in the southwest corner of the present town, going into partnership with Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley. They started 4000 clocks, 500 at a time, and peddled the works as they were finished, Terry often going out himself on horseback, These were wooden works for grandfather clocks. Local cabinet makers would provide the cases. In 3 years, the 4000 clocks were completed, and all disposed of, to people's astonishment, and at a good profit. In 1810, as we have noted, Terry sold out to his partners and started a new factory at the present Thomaston (Q. V.) where he developed the epoch-making shelf clock. Eli Terry was the mechanical genius of the clock industry, and continued until the end of his life to devise improved mechanisms and methods. He shares with Eli Whitney the introduction of interchangeable parts. And mass production created the institution of the Connecticut clock peddler.
Two miles east of Plymouth Center on U. S. 6, we descend to Terryville, the industrial center of the town, on the Pequabuck River. It was named for Eli Terry, Jr., who established a clock factory here in 1824. His son, in turn, James Terry, turned from clocks to locks, after pioneering in silk manufacture, and developed the cabinet lock, of which the Eagle Lock Co. for a time had a monopoly. Another son, Andrew, started one of the first malleable iron foundries. These two concerns are still the principal industries of the village. Eli Terry, Sr., moved to Terryville in 1838, and two houses built by him are still standing next the Congregational Church, for which he made one of his steeple clocks. The old wooden wheels are now driven by electricity, but otherwise the clock is in its original condition. (For permission to visit the belfry, apply at the parsonage next door.) East of the center is the attractive Baldwin Park, with a monument to Dorence Atwater, a Civil War prisoner in a Confederate prison camp, whose secret record of 13,000 dead Union soldiers proved invaluable to the War Department.