Editing Woodstock, Connecticut (section)

===18th and 19th centuries===
A farming town in the 18th century, Woodstock began attracting industry after the [[War of 1812]]. "By 1820, there were 2 distilleries, 2 wheel wrights, an oil mill, fulling mill, carding machines, grist mills, saw mills, a goldsmith, and twine and cotton batting operations. Woodstock Valley was known for its shoe factories," according to the history page at the Woodstock town government Web site.<ref name=history/>

By the middle of the 19th century, industry almost ceased, and Woodstock reverted to a rural state. The town then became a summer destination for wealthy city dwellers from around the East coast of the United States.<ref name=history/>

[[Henry Chandler Bowen|Henry C. Bowen]] was critical to this development. Bowen was a Woodstock native who became wealthy through the dry-goods business and publishing in [[Brooklyn|Brooklyn, New York]]. He also founded the anti-slavery newspaper ''The Independent,'' helped found the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]], and headed the lay managers of the famed [[Plymouth Church (Brooklyn, New York)|Plymouth Church]]. Bowen had built a [[Roseland Cottage|home]] in Woodstock and invested heavily in the improvement of his home town. Other lay leaders of Plymouth Church would summer with him, including [[Henry Ward Beecher]], the church's pastor; Frederick Hinrichs, whose descendants still live in Woodstock; the [[Henry Holt (publisher)|Holt]] publishing family; the [[Lewis Tappan|Tappans]]; and [[Albert Lythgoe]], an Egyptologist renowned for pioneering the use of scientific methods in the unearthing of antiquities.