Unless you’ve travelled Jerusalem Road from its junction with RT 203 in Windham Center to its transition into Station Road in Scotland, you may not know that there is a dam located on the Shetucket River almost on the Windham-Scotland town line. You also may not know that Windham once had another bridge across the Shetucket that went from just off Jerusalem Road to the northwest corner of Franklin. In May, 1907, after months of planning, the newly formed Uncas Power Company of Norwich began construction of a dam across the Shetucket “some three miles below the village of South Windham”. The dam and power house were built primarily to furnish power to Norwich but Willimantic the company was very interested in selling power to Willimantic as well since Norwich would be using only about a third of the power produced there. The new trolley companies in Willimantic and Norwich were also interested in buying power.  And so, while many looked forward to the new dam and the power it would generate, problems began to arise. In May, 1908, Uncas Power filed an injunction against John Cuddy and two others alleging interference with the work being done on the dam. It also attached a piece of land owned by Cuddy. Cuddy had purchased the land which was “situated in such a way as to be of considerable hindrance to (the power company) as he will not sell and intends to keep everyone off his land.” And just as the company was filing suit against Cuddy, it was hit with a suit from the Shaw Construction Company which it had hired to build the project. The Shaw Company had quickly built the powerhouse but believed that they would be building the dam on the Shetucket River's rock ledge.  However, when excavation began, it was discovered that the river bed was nothing but sand and boulders at this point, and the Shaw Company refused to continue without extra payment. And so Uncas Power replaced it in April 1908 with the Tucker and Vinton Construction Co. of New York. Shaw filed a $50,000 lien on the Uncas property for work that had been done. The Cuddy case went on through 1909. Uncas Power’s lawyers argued eminent domain and the fact that Cuddy had purchased the property after the dam project had begun. Uncas Power eventually prevailed and the case was settled in their favor. In February, 1909, “all of Willimantic’s fishermen were gathered in the Fish and Game Committee’s room to oppose a bill to give the Uncas Power Company the right to regulate fishing in its pond on the Shetucket River”. Representative Guilford Smith of South Windham along with Mayor Dunn and George Hinman of Willimantic spoke on behalf of the fishermen. (The dam had created a 500-foot wide pond on the Windham side of the dam and had greatly widened the river for quite a distance.) In Mach, 1909, the state legislature rejected a bill that would give the company the right to control fishing. In May, 1910, Uncas Power , in Superior Court, appealed the Town of Windham’s assessment of $101,150 for Uncas Power’s property in Windham saying it was, ‘unfair, unjust, unequal, and excessive”. A month later the company, out of court, agreed to accept the assessment so long as a full hearing on the property’s value would be held before the next year’s assessment. The erection of the Scotland Dam affected Windham in one final, almost unnoticeable way. For almost 100 years, there was a bridge that went from just off Jerusalem Road (near the Fish and Game Club) across the river to Franklin. (42) Known as the “Old Bridge” or “Manning’s Bridge”, it had once been part of the Windham and Mansfield Turnpike. In its day, the turnpike road was present day RT 32 through Lebanon and Franklin but veered left in northwest Franklin and ran about a mile to the bridge. The bridge itself was apparently not durable. In 1881, the Chronicle wrote, “During this period Manning's bridge has been carried away several times and is always more or less injured by a large freshet. All of which goes to show that if it is ever to be rebuilt it will be good policy for the town to put one there to stay, at least till people find there is a bridge there.”. However it was rebuilt time and again but its final demise resulted when the building of the dam downriver caused the river to widen even more and it was no longer cost effective to rebuild.

                              

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