Danbury Times and the Danbury News Now Online!

The Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project (CDNP) is thrilled to announce that Danbury Times and the Danbury News are now available on Chronicling America!

Danbury Times was a weekly paper established by Edward Butler Osborne and published from 1837 to 1870. The Times covered Danbury through the early years of its famous hatting industry (which earned Danbury the title “Hat City”), into the early years of the Connecticut labor movement as those hatters, many of them immigrants, sought better working conditions.

Advertisements included trade-specific products for hatters, e.g. wool hat bodies and kettles for steaming hats. Advertisements and schedules for the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad followed its opening in 1852. Other notable content includes coverage of the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, with some letters from the front lines published in full.

The first reservoir constructed in Danbury for the purpose of supplying the hatting industry with water was the Kohanza Reservoir, which froze and consequently burst on January 31, 1869. Coverage of the disaster and the destruction of property that followed can be found in the Times, including names of those who died and where they had been found. The story was told in the paper’s usual poetic voice, “In a moment they knew not of, God’s hand was laid upon them, and from the midst of life and happiness, they were called into eternity.”

The paper was renamed the Danbury News in 1870, a title which ran from 1870 until 1933. At present, the title is available online through 1870.

Chronicling America is currently undergoing a site migration. The papers digitized during this cycle will be available on the beta site. You can find the Danbury titles here (Times) and here (News).

Keep an eye out for more project updates in the weeks to come! Our next available titles will be the Weekly Gazette and the East Hartford Gazette.

Thank you for supporting the preservation of Connecticut history!