It is common knowledge that two of Willimantic’s largest employers during the period 1880-1920 were the Linen Company (later American Thread) and the Windham Manufacturing Company on Bridge Street. As was common practice among mill ownership at the time, each business erected housing for its workers. The Linen Company built theirs in the area bordered by Main, Dunham and Ives Streets (today’s photo) and, of course, at The Oaks”. The Windham Company built tenements along Main Street (just opposite the Town Hall and known as “White Row”), Stone Row (today’s Riverside Drive), and the Brick and Yellow Rows (today’s Vermont Drive). Needless to say, and attested to by hundreds of newspaper articles, these two areas were responsible for a disproportionately large number of crimes and police calls in that forty-year period. The articles, both in “The Courant” and “The Chronicle”, unharnessed by today’s political correctness, provide a sober but sometimes delightful telling of happenings in those areas although “The Chronicle” has a slight advantage in its often folksy, hometown style of coverage. As you read the stories this and next week, keep in mind the words of historian Allen B. Lincoln that “Old Willimantic” was a factory village, “inhabited by a quiet, industrious, hard-working people”. The stories are of the exceptions. We’ll visit the Linen Company area first since that end of the city started its growth early on. Still known as “Sodom”, that part of town was also called “the lower village”. At least for a short time, it actually did live up to the “Sodom” appellation. One notorious location was “The Hawthorn House” at Cardinal Square. Locals all knew that it was the place to buy or drink illegal liquor and the house was constantly being raided. The police referred to it as “a bawdy house”. According to “The Chronicle”, “The case of Leonard Jones charged with various liquor offences and keeping a bawdy house, together with George Warren, Nettie Smith, Dollie Arnold and Mattie Anderson, (the three latter being Jones' stock in trade,) was settled by defendants paying their fines and costs - $100, which was paid at the lockup about 11 o'clock Wednesday night, they having been confined nearly 30 hours.” Notice the irony of “stock in trade”. According to police reports, arrests were made for a bevy of crimes to include  “Attempted murder; attempted suicide; intoxication; abuse of family; malicious mischief; sodomy; highway robbery; wife beating; mother beating; trampism; ; street walking; assault and battery; attempted rape; fighting; keeping bawdy house; and lewdness.” With three saloons in the area along with a few places to buy or consume liquor illegally, a large number of crimes appear to have been committed “under the influence”. In several cases, saloonkeepers themselves were arrested after becoming overly involved in fracases at their establishments. In one report, a saloonkeeper assaulted a man who, in giving evidence of the assault, “exhibited an eye which gave the appearance of having been struck by a battering ram”. In one sad instance, a young man who “came up to the city drank liquor until he became intoxicated. From the bar he wandered down to the Fairgrounds and fell into the canal going to Mill No. 3. His body was found the next morning. By 1900, a gang of “young toughs” had banded together and oftentimes caused disturbances all over the Sodom area. It was reported that they were “tricky” and hard to capture. One night though, the policeman on beat there “came upon the gang near the Horseshoe Bridge where they were making the night hideous with their profanity and other unseemly noises”. The officer was “tricky” too. He let them be but rounded up two more officers. They went to the Fairgrounds, found the gang members sleeping on the grandstand and rounded up the entire gang”. They all pleaded guilty to breach of peace and vagrancy. An unusual event also resulted in several calls to the police. “The inhabitants of the lower village are frightened over the appearance of a ghost in the neighborhood of the Milk Street crossing. It has made its appearance regularly for a number of evenings, and scared the female portion of the vicinity so they hardly dare venture out after dark.” Next week we’ll take a look at activities on Stone Row.