The Origins of Broad Street

From H. V. Arnold’s Birds-Eye View of Danielson Borough

Broad Street is the oldest roadway within borough limits in existence, since it was orginally struck out as a bridle-path through primeval forests about 1690 to an intersection with a road made by the Woodstock settlers between their settlement and Boston. Therefore the settlers of Plainfield appear to have thought that by reaching the Woodstock road to the north of their settlement an easier route to the towns of eastern Massa-chusetts might be developed than through the wilderness of northern Rhode Island. In 1836 Broad Street was known as Summer Street.

How Franklin Street Got Its Name

From H. V. Arnold’s Birds-Eye View of Danielson Borough

What was known as Christian Hill was a remote corner of Danielsonville of Civil War times. There were then as many as half dozen houses grouped about the crossroads by Broad and Franklin streets and on the hill slope below. The most noted building was the Kies Tavern in the southeast angle of the roads. It was built by Harris Kies for a stage station about 1834 or ’35. In the thirties a daily stage traveled between Worcester and Norwich, but the opening of the railroad put the stage route out of business. At first the tavern was called the Benjamin Franklin House of which the name given Franklin Street may be reminiscent. The old building has never been changed much beyond the addition of a piazza since it was built.