B erlin Wright Tinker, the superintendent of Waterbury Schools for twenty years, was a descendent of Thomas Tinker of the Mayflower.
W hen George Washington laid siege to Boston in 1775, 52 Waterbury men were in his troops.
W aterburians John Saxon and Mark Richards were with George Washington at Valley Forge 1777-78. 689 Waterburians were in the Revolutionary War.
M iIicent Baldwin Porter, namesake of the Waterbury Chapter of the D.A.R., helped Washington's troops at the Battle of Monmouth, June 1778.
W aterbury resident Moses Dunbar, a Tory and Church of England devotee, was hanged in Hartford on March 19, 1777 for "high treason against the state of Connecticut" as an example to all Tories.
L afayette and Washington were said to have passed through Waterbury on their way to Hartford on September 17, 1780.
A plaque in East Farm cemetery commemorates two French soldiers who died in Waterbury during Rochambeau's march of 1781.
D avid Hale, the brother of Nathan Hale, taught school at the Waterbury Academy (1784-85)
C harles Commerford, ex-postmaster of Waterbury and deputy chief of the first state labor bureau married Alexander Hamilton's daughter, Elizabeth.
T he Hayden, Scovill and Leavenworth Co. made the Lafayette Presentation Button set which was a gift to General Lafayette on his return visit to the U.S. in 1824.
T he Waterbury Button Co. made a button stamped "Andrew Jackson, March 4, 1829" that was duplicated several times during Jackson's presidential campaign.
C harles Ferdinand Dowd, the Waterbury Superintendent of Schools from 1859-1860, was the originator of the system of "standard time."
T heodore R. Timby (1822-1909), A Waterbury resident, invented a revolving turret that revolutionized military warfare and was used on the "Monitor" during its historic battle with the "Merrimack."
F ifty-five Waterbury soldiers accompanied General Grant to accept General Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. 942 Waterburians fought in the Civil War.
J ohn Hoadley Abbott was a member of the famous Tompkins Band of Waterbury that performed at Abraham Lincoln's funeral cortege in New York City on April 24, 1865.
W illiam Frederick Poole, who introduced the pioneering Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, purchased and organized the first collection of the Silas Bronson Library in 1869.
L t. Frank W. Kellogg of Waterbury was on one of Adm. Dewey's naval ships during the Battle of Manila Bay, May 1898. Kellogg Day was observed in Waterbury on October 21, 1898.
O n May 21, 1901, the Waterbury Clock Co. received a letter from Mark Twain stating, "Please send me a watch. $1 enclosed." This refers to the highly successful and inexpensive "Watch That Made The Dollar Famous" made by the company. By 1917, 300 workers produced 23,000 clocks and watches a day on benches which, if laid end-to-end, would extend for seven miles. The Waterbury Clock evolved to U. S. Time of Middlebury in 1942 and Timex in 1969. In 1957 Walt Disney was presented with the 25 millionth watch produced.
A rchitect Henry Bacon of New York, who designed Waterbury Hospital in 1908 and the Citizens & Manufacturers Bank on Leavenworth Street, also designed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
O n October 13, 1908 Waterbury's U.S. Congressman, George W. Lilly read a letter he received from President Teddy Roosevelt requesting a copy of Lilly's speech on the naval bill, delivered before Congress on April 11, 1908.
O n April 15, 1912 Waterbury's Rev. Roger Anderson was a passenger on the ship, Carpathia, that rescued survivors of the Titanic. He gave a memorial service over the exact location where the Titanic had just gone down and later gave a burial service at sea for three crew members and a passenger who died of their injuries while on the Carpathia.
M any Waterbury veterans returned to Gettysburg on the 50 year reunion of the battle in 1913.
T homas P. Devine was the lawyer for Bessie Wakefield during the infamous trial covered by the N.Y. Times, 1913-14. Bessie and her paramour, James Plew, a one-time Waterbury resident, murdered her husband. They were both sentenced to hang. He was hanged. She would have been the first woman ever hanged in Connecticut since the seven "witches" between 1647-1653. Instead, she received life imprisonment after much controversy which included pleas to President Wilson and anger from the renowned Emmeline Pankhurst and Women's Suffrage organizations.
R epresentatives from many clans of gypsies throughout the U.S. came to Waterbury to mourn Tryphena McNeil, Queen of the McNeil tribe, at a South Main Street site on April 28, 1915.
F ormer Waterbury residents Stefan Bialaneus, Yvan Mozurak and Alexander Stuart were passengers on the Lusitania when it was sunk on May 7, 1915, leading to U.S. entry in WW I.
E leanor Chase, the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Irving Chase of Waterbury, married Charles Taft, the son of the ex-President, in 1917.
R aymond Guyette, winner of the Croix de Guerre, is one of 50 heroes sent back from France by General Pershing to help with the Liberty Loan campaign and tour of the U.S. on April 29, 1918.
A bout 6,100 military personnel came from Waterbury in World War I. Twelve Distinguished Service Crosses and twenty-one Croix de Guerres were awarded to Waterbury residents.
F ive "alleged Reds" from Waterbury were rounded-up and sent to Hartford. They were later put on a ship, called "The Soviet Ark" to be sent back to Russia. on January 8, 1920.
S panish War veterans unveiled a memorial tablet at Hamilton Park on July 4, 1921.
M aterials for Charles Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis" airplane were obtained from Waterbury's French Manufacturing Co., then located on Robbins Street, in 1927.
C harles Lindbergh, along with four other famous aviators, sent autographs to Waterbury teenage fan, Justin F. Casey in 1927. His uncle had met them in a Long Island hotel and spoken of Justin's admiration for them.
T elecells manufactured by the Waterbury Battery Co. were used by Admiral Byrd on his expeditions, 1928-30.
T he first chapter in David Garrow's 1994 book, Liberty and Sexuality, is entitled "The Waterbury Origins of Roe v. Wade" and it details the turmoil and historical significance of the Chase Dispensary being Connecticut's first clinic in a public institution to offer birth control information.
T he Waterbury Republican American won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism for its exposure of graft in the city. Mayor T. Frank Hayes and 22 others were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the City of Waterbury. Hayes received a 10-15 year sentence and served six years.
W aterburian George "The Mad Bomber" Metesky returned to the headlines in 1995 when the FBI examined his case in an attempt to catch the Unabomber. Metesky's reign of terror from 1940-57 was provoked by the denial of his Workmen's Compensation claim by Con Edison after a gas accident in the plant caused him chronic lung problems. Fifteen people were injured by Metesky's bombs, and he spent sixteen years in jail. The bomb sites like Macy's, Radio City Music Hall, and the subway, were linked because they all used Con Edison electric power.
T he 10,800 ton S.S. Waterbury Victory was a merchant marine ship launched on July 26, 1945 in Baltimore and christened by Rose Bergin. It was sold to a Dutch company in 1947, to Liberia in 1965, and Taiwan in 1968. It sank off the shore of Taiwan in February 1973.
I n July of 1945, Waterbury resident Michael Nido helped repair the USS Indianapolis - the cruiser that delivered the Atomic Bomb that would later be dropped on Hiroshima.
I n World War II, over 12,000 men and over 500 women (from Waterbury) served at every major campaign. 150 won Bronze Stars.
G eorge D. Libby, born in Maine, entered the military service in Waterbury. For his "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action" during the Korean War he received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
C oncetta Di Michele was listed as one of the missing when the elegant Italian passenger liner, Andrea Doria, sank after colliding with the liner Stockholm off Nantucket Island on July 25, 1956.
T he Young Marines, a National Youth Organization, was founded by members of the Brass City Memorial Detachment of the Marine Corps League in 1959
F orty thousand people waited until 3 a.m. on the Green to greet Presidential Candidate John F. Kennedy, Sunday, November 6, 1960. Sen. Kennedy spoke to them from the balcony of the Roger Smith Hotel (now called the Elton). Pierre Salinger later said it was the greatest night of the campaign.
T he Mattatuck Drum Band, (founded 1767) the oldest continuing active musical organization in the country played at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
A ll of the large structural steel sculptures of Alexander Calder, located throughout the world, were constructed by Segre Iron Works on Reidville Drive in Waterbury.
H erbert Marcuse, philosopher, social activist, author of Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man , favorite of 1960's radical thinkers and mentor of Angela Davis, had a son, Peter Marcuse, who lives in Waterbury.
J udge John J. Sirica, born in Waterbury, presided at the Watergate Trial and was Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1973.
L escare Kitchens, one of the largest privately held kitchen and bath cabinet manufacturers in the U.S., made cabinets for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Frank Sinatra.
P latt Bros. & Co., has been doing business in Waterbury since 1797. They produced 800 miles of zinc alloy rod which was used in the underground section of the Alaskan Pipeline to protect it against corrosion.
W aterbury medical students Mark Perazella and Mark Albini were evacuated from Grenada when the U.S. invaded on October 25, 1983.
O n April 23, 1987, Astronaut Kenneth Cameron gave a special NASA award to Hayden Switch for its high-quality workmanship on the switches it supplied to the Space Shuttle.
I n 1987 Congress established the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for American companies in honor of the former President of Scovill Inc. and U.S. Secretary of Commerce during the Reagan Administration.
F ive thousand people lined the streets on May 12, 1984, as Joseph Carrah, Thomas Fava, Frank Fulco, Gary Coles, Richard Boutot, Bob Wesson and others carried the Olympic Torch through Waterbury on its way from Greece to California for the 1984 Summer Games.
S r. Mary Donovan, a Waterbury native and Maryknoll missionary, was taken hostage by the Nicarauguan Contras on January 3, 1985, and released unharmed, on January 10, 1985. At that time, the Contras were funded by White House arms sales to Iran.
F yodor Fedorenko, a former Waterbury resident and Scovill worker, was put to death on July 27, 1987 for being a Nazi war criminal; guilty of mass murder and treason. He was the first person ever extradited to the Soviet Union by the U.S.
C urt Blik, an investment advisor working on the 33rd floor of the World Trade Center, used his Timex Ironman Indiglo wristwatch to guide himself and others down thirty-three darkened staircases after the bombing knocked out power in 1993. His story was featured in a full-page print ad in USA Today.
D eirdre Coleman, Waterbury-born actress with appearances on "The Cosby Show," "Regis and Kathie Lee," a French perfume commercial that won a Cannes Award and star of a one-woman show, "Gorgeous Mistakes," married famed radio personality Don Imus in 1995.
T he seventh annual American Tour de Sol, an eight-day, 300-mile educational road rally for solar and electric powered cars began in Waterbury on May 20, 1995 and ended in Portland, ME on May 27, 1995.
T he torch for the Special Olympics World Games, the largest athletic event in the world, (140 countries, 7,000 athletes, 15,000 families, 45,000 volunteers), passed through Waterbury on June 27, 1995 on its way from Greece to New Haven, CT.
T he Naval destroyer, U.S.S. Stetham, is named after Waterbury native, Robert D. Stetham, who was killed by Arab terrorists during the TWA Airliner hijacking in 1985. Commissioned on October 21, 1995 it is the first U. S. Navy ship named in memory of an enlisted man.
T he button division of the Waterbury Companies supplies metal buttons to America's top fashion designers, including Anne Klein, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, and Donna Karan. They also manufacture buttons for retailers, such as Brooks Brothers and J. Press and design buttons for Burger King, American Airlines, and made buttons for uniforms worn on the Titanic. Waterbury Companies' buttons have been created for all branches of the U.S. Military since the Civil War.