According to the 1909 New Britain Herald:

The U.S. Treasury Department predicts that because of the current demand for gold, good little boys and girls may find shiny gold eagle coins in their stockings on Christmas morning ... In December Mark Twain returns from a Bermuda vacation. From his country home in Redding he tells reporters: “I hear the newspapers say I am dying. The charge is not true. I would not do such a thing at my time of life.” Twain, a noted wit and author, AKA Samuel Clemens, dies the following year at age 75.

The Herald can be delivered to your home in New Britain for 15 cents a week.

In politics and social news, George Landers is serving his second and final term as mayor of New Britain. After he leaves office, he will marry Katherine Sanford Sheffield, a divorcee. The event will take place in her summer villa in Norwich. Landers is described by The New York Times as “one of New Britain’s prominent manufacturers.” The newspaper of record adds that he and his new bride “are both wealthy in their own right.” By 1909 New Britain is entering the Golden Age of Industry. And, the numbers show it.

Four years later, city manufacturers will employ 12,000 workers. In 1909 New Britain builds 141 new buildings. Despite the spate of new buildings a housing shortage remains during the first decade of the 20th century. Workers, many of them recent immigrants, unable to afford their own homes, rent sleeping space in boarding houses or rooms in two or three family homes.

When the water department adds 2,510 new customers in 1909 the Herald predicts that “the Hardware City is destined to become a leader in ‘The Land of Steady Habits,’” i.e., Connecticut. The water department mulls metering the entire city while the New Britain Post Office shows a $49,000 gain in business over 1908.

Noting a growing number of factory workers, many from central Europe, the city opens E.C. Goodwin Tech. The school is designed to educate factory workers in skills they will need during the coming industrial boom.

Other signs of industrial might:

By late 1909 New Britain manufacturers are producing nearly 300 different products. In 1902 P.&F. Corbin, Corbin Cabinet and Lock and Russell & Erwin merged to become American Hardware Co.

Champlain & Norton Manufacturing opens in Plainville. The company is itching to get in on the newest trend, electricity, by manufacturing small appliances for homeowners.

In 1909 Landers, Ferry and Clerk decides it’s too expensive to import ball bearings from Europe and starts manufacturing them in New Britain. At most area factories, workers will remain at one company for their lifetime. Raw materials are still being transported by horse and wagon from one plant building to another. But change is coming.

Over the Christmas holidays Corbin cars, manufactured in New Britain, are exhibited in New York City in Madison Square Garden. In 1909 the Corbin car wins many hill climbs and economy trials.

Manufactured in New Britain from 1904 through 1911, less than 800 cars are sold in those years. Some attribute the poor sales to the car’s price tag: $2,500 (thought to be a premium price when Sage Allen & Co. is selling ladies shoes for $2.90 a pair and local food stores are pedaling eggs at 25 cents a dozen.)

However, the company will continue to operate a repair garage primarily for Corbins until 1939. Corbin ads boast that its cars are “made with New England quality.” Features, such as the Corbin’s cooling system, are continually upgraded by company engineers. One of the faster vehicles on the road, the four cylinder car can do 62 miles an hour and get 27 miles to a gallon.

New Britain not only produces a classic car it is also the home of a pre-Lindbergh adventurer, destined to help shape America’s fastest mode of travel.

Charles Hamilton, 24 of New Britain, is earning a reputation in the new and challenging world of flying. He begins with gliders then graduates to biplanes. In 1909 he stuns an audience in Kansas City, Mo. when he keeps his biplane in the air for 22 minutes while soaring to a height of 500 feet. The Associated Press reports this feat as “a record-breaker.”

That same year, Hamilton braves snow storms as he makes a round-trip flight in his biplane from New York to Philadelphia and back again. The following July, New Britain honors its hometown hero with “Hamilton Day” in Walnut Hill Park. A crowd of 50,000 turns out to cheer him. After a sputtering, throat-swallowing start, Hamilton thrills the people by buzzing around in his biplane over the city for a full five minutes.

Two years earlier in 1907, the New Britain National Bank building is erected on the corner of Main and West Main; by 1909 it is still the newest — yet oldest — financial institution in the city.

Scenes from New Britain a century ago.

Sources include Arlene Palmer’s there volume picture book on New Britain and Patrick Thibodeau’s “New Britain: The City of Invention.”