HISTORY

The village of Georgetown’s settlement dates to the 1720s. The area we now refer to as lower Fairfield County was spun off from three large land agreements with local indigenous people following the Pequot War of 1636–1638. Under this agreement, Fairfield and Norwalk, in their original form, extended from Long Island Sound north in wide rectangular plots to what we know of as Georgetown today, Ridgefield, stretching from the New York border, met the Fairfield and Norwalk boundaries at a point located on Old Mill Road in Georgetown, just south of present-day Route 57. The Fairfield lots in the Georgetown area became Redding and Weston; the Norwalk plot became Wilton. 

Much of Georgetown’s historical significance lays in its Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing Company, a large part in the history of American business, especially as it evolved shortly after the War of 1812. G&B was first started by Benjamin Gilbert, a Georgetown tanner who started working with livestock hair to create sieves and stuffing for mattresses and cushions; he invented the first machine to pick and separate the hair. Sturges Bennett joined the company as a partner in 1828. The hair-weaving process proved time- and labor-intensive, and the partners investigated other options, landing on fine wire and using a neighbor’s carpet loom to weave the wire into wire cloth. During the Civil War, G&B revolutionized the wire industry by adding a protective coat that stabilized it enough to create window screens.

The industrial revolution taking place in Georgetown involved themes familiar to us these days: entrepreneurship, innovation, patents, immigration, building and investment, unionization, environmental impacts, regulations, pressure from China, and more. The Gilbert & Bennett factory characterizes a common American theme, right in Georgetown. With a span from 1818 to 1989, the wire mill factory had a good run, but as with many factory towns in America, obsolescence took hold and jobs moved overseas. Fortunately, due to proximity to New York City and the bucolic beauty of the area, the historic village of Georgetown has survived as an active hub.

The Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill is still a central building in Georgetown, though currently only part of it is in use, namely for storage by local commercial businesses. After it was shut down in the late 1980s, efforts by developers to revive and develop the factory buildings stalled in the late 2000s, however, the town was able to regain ownership of the mill in 2021 and has been taking proactive steps to remediate the property and ready it for its next purposes.

There is much hope and many plans for the property to be reimagined and reworked as a beautiful, beneficial part of the Georgetown community a second time around. Many areas in similar circumstances have experienced such revitalizations, and Georgetown has the charm and tenacity to see one through here. Until then, the restaurants and businesses bustle and residents and visitors enjoy both the historic and the modern that comprises the remarkable village of Georgetown.