Disclaimer: Content for these properties was compiled in 2014-2017 from a variety of sources and is subject to change. Updates are occasionally made under Property Information, however the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation (dba Preservation Connecticut) makes no representation or warranty that the information is complete or up-to-date.
50 (2007)
The New Haven Copper Company began as the Humphreysville Copper Company, a partnership between John W. Dwight (son of Yale president, Timothy Dwight), Raymond French and others in 1848, in what was at the time a section of Derby along the Naugatuck River. The company established a wharf and small smelting operation in East Haven around 1853, where copper ore was delivered, refined and then shipped to the rolling mill. The company reorganized in 1855 under the name New Haven Copper Company. As the reorganization took place, the company’s tangible connection to New Haven was threatened with locals complaining about pollution; the New Haven smelting operations closed in 1857. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, the New Haven Copper Company grew, functioning primarily as a rolling mill, producing sheet and rod brass to other manufactures for use in finished products. During the Second World War, the company received contracts from the U.S. Maritime Commission to produce ship-related items. Considering the company’s specialties, it is likely that they produced marine quality sheet brass. At some point in the mid-twentieth century, the facility became a holding of Monarch Brass and Copper Co. out of Waterbury, which was itself purchased by the Olin Corporation in 2001. Under Olin, the New Haven Copper Company continued to operate as a rolling mill, producing copper strip for cable table, electrical connectors, and transformer windings. In 2007, the Olin Corporation closed the New Haven Copper Company facility, laying off its fifty employees.
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c.1884-1894, post 1986
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The oldest surviving building dates to between 1884 and 1894, and is not visible from the street. It is two-story brick with hip roof at the western end of the complex along the east bank of the Naugatuck River, and has a one-story brick flat roof addition to the south. The buildings to the east were likely built after a propane leak explosion and fire that destroyed most of the older structures in 1986. They are mostly concrete or corrugated steel structures. Until at least 1950, the property on which the complex sits was divided on a north to south axis by a headrace, which ran the factory’s waterpower systems until the late nineteenth century.
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Good, Fair, Deteriorated
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SWC of Deforest and Main Streets
Located in Downtown Seymour Historic District (1983).
http://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=9c1c2e31-b8fc-40cf-9afe-c788b63b4c71
Yes
3.39
Mike Forino
August 2014; December 2016