Ensign-Bickford Industries history

On March 15, 1851, the rebuilt factory burned down after friction from a piece of machinery ignited cotton lint.

Still, there had been no loss of life in the various fires or explosions at the fuse factory—until December 20, 1859. “The Terrible Calamity At Simsbury” was the headline in the Hartford Daily Courant on December 21.

He served on a committee to raise troops when the Civil War began in 1861.

The events of June 21, 1862, changed the course of Toy, Bickford & Co.

The first to marry was Susan Toy, in 1863, and her choice of Simsbury-born and Methodist-raised Ralph Hart Ensign provided her father and the firm with a successor.

In 1867, sensing an opportunity, Joseph Toy sent him to California to build a satellite manufacturing facility.

Ellsworth left California and the firm in 1871, returning to Hartford to join his brother’s seed and fertilizer business.

In 1876 Sarah Jennette Toy married Charles Edson Curtiss.

Ensign, Ellsworth, and Curtiss would come together to provide leadership for Ensign-Bickford Company after Joseph Toy’s death in 1887.

The eldest son of Susan Toy Ensign and Ralph Hart Ensign, Joseph Ralph (“J.R.”) Ensign, joined the company around 1890.

In 1906, he had the stone Ensign House constructed, using red sandstone primarily from the local Ketchin Quarry.

In 1907 Ensign, Bickford & Co. merged with Climax Company to become The Ensign-Bickford Company.

1920 – Simsbury Historical Society

Ellsworth Grant, in Exploding into The Space Age: The Story of Ensign-Bickford Industries, Inc., marks 1945 as the beginning of the company’s efforts to diversify.

In 1955, Polly Ensign Lovejoy sold the Ensign House to the First Church of Christ across the street for $10,000.

In 2020, there were more boating accidents in Connecticut— 54 —but fewer deaths, three, according to the Coast Guard’s annual Recreational Boating Statistics report.The Courant