Why Plymouth Hollow Became Thomaston

What does it take for a town to rename itself after a single man? In the case of Thomaston, Connecticut, it wasn’t conquest, expansion, or calamity that sparked change—it was the steady tick of a clock and the quiet persistence of legacy. Once known as Plymouth Hollow, the town rested quietly in the folds of Litchfield County, unremarkable but full of potential. That potential found its pulse in Seth Thomas, a clockmaker whose name would come to measure more than hours—it would measure the spirit of a place. In 1810, after purchasing Eli Terry’s clock business, Thomas planted the seeds of transformation. His timepieces, crafted with precision and purpose, turned a modest village into an industrial heartbeat. The red-brick factories along the Naugatuck River hummed with machinery, the air filled with the rhythmic clink of metal and the scent of oil and pine. These clocks traveled far, but they were born of this place, and they carried its name with them.

When Thomas died in 1859, the wheels didn’t stop. His company endured, his influence only deepened. And by 1875, the townspeople decided the old name no longer fit. Plymouth Hollow became Thomaston—not by spectacle, but by choice. There’s no surviving record of the day it changed, no mention of weather or parade, no gathering etched into newspaper ink. If there was a celebration, time has swallowed it. But the gesture itself was lasting. It solved the practical headache of postal confusion with neighboring Plymouth, yes—but more than that, it carved identity from legacy. Changing a town’s name isn’t simple. It demands legal motion, bureaucratic recalibration, and, above all, communal will. Yet for Thomaston, the change felt organic, as if the town had always been waiting for its true name to arrive.

Today, the original Seth Thomas Clock Factory still stands—its worn bricks catching the light like relics of a bygone rhythm. The clang of industry may have faded, but the name endures, chiseled into signposts and stitched into memory. Thomaston is more than a tribute; it’s a testament. Every time a Seth Thomas clock chimes, whether on a farmhouse mantel or in a museum hall, it carries a whisper of the town that beat in time with its maker. It reminds us that sometimes, the measure of a man is not only what he builds—but what refuses to be forgotten.