Manchester was originally a part of the township of Hartford, and later a part of the township of East Hartford.
The first settlement within its present limits was made about 1672; the land was bought from the Indians in 1676; and the township was separated from East Hartford and incorporated in 1823.
In 1852 Professor Stowe accepted a professorship in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, and the family made its home there till 1863, when he retired wholly from professional life and removed to Hartford.
After the death of her husband in 1886 she passed the rest of her life in the seclusion of her Hartford home, where she died on the 1st of July 1896.
In comparing the figures, it should be noted that main line mileage in the Eastern states, as for example that of the Pennsylvania railroad and the New York, New Haven & Hartford, does not differ greatly in standards of safety or in unit cost from the best British construction, although improvement work in America is charged to income far more liberally than it has been in England.
