A. Watts store, featuring the W. A. Watts sign found in 2024 in Washington Food Market. image: Adam Watts, photographer; courtesy of Robin Hanna

By David W. Babington

In 2013, I was inspired to research the “genealogy” of the Washington Food Market in Washington Depot, Connecticut, tracing the store back to its earliest “ancestor,” Baker & Brinsmade, a general store that opened in 1872. Much like a genealogist researching family history, I used a variety of sources—including Washington Depot property records; advertisements and articles in local newspapers, The Hartford Courant, and The Stray Shot, the newspaper of the Frederick Gunn School, a private school in Washington; William C. Bader’s book An American Village: The Light at the North End of the Tunnel (Design to Printing, 1998); census records; and genealogical information on the different owners. I was able to trace the genealogy of the store from 1872 to the present, revealing along the way how a small town in Connecticut changed over more than a hundred years.

In September 1871, Elias Kinney deeded a half-acre in Washington Hollow (now Washington Depot) to Samuel and Daniel Baker. The Litchfield Enquirer of September 14, 1871, reported that “Samuel Baker is digging out the cellar, and the Canfield brothers are framing the timbers for the new store in Washington Hollow.” The owners were Alpheus Baker and his brother-in-law, Samuel Leavitt Brinsmade. On January 4, 1872, The Litchfield Enquirer announced, “Baker & Brinsmade open their new store beside the depot this week.” Their first freight consisted of “two fine show-cases, two boxes of raisins, and a sack of Brazil nuts.” The timing could not have been better as the Shepaug Valley Railroad had just been completed in Washington, and supplies for the new general store could be brought in by rail. Baker & Brinsmade sold everything from food to clothing to farm equipment—just about anything people in the area could not provide for themselves. A July 31, 1879, ad in The Litchfield Enquirer noted some food items for sale: flour, sugar, tea, soda crackers, oatmeal, canned fish, and rice. “Twenty pounds sword fish” or “10 1/2 pounds fancy Carolina rice” each cost one dollar, but four pounds of the “best muscatel raisins” could be had for only 45 cents.

Excerpt of an ad from The Litchfield Enquirer, July 31, 1879. This ad appeared on page 2 and ran an entire newspaper column, showing customers what they could buy in increments up to $200. 

In 1881, Alpheus Baker decided he needed a German butcher for the store and sent his employee Frederick Hoffman to New York City to find one. At the time German butchers were known for their professional skills and were sought after among the German immigrants arriving in the United States. Indeed, American institutions like Wesleyan University in Middletown had started to embrace the new German food science of nutrition and healthful animal practices, according to Edward Kirkland in “‘Scientific Eating’: New Englanders Prepare and Promote a Reform, 1873–1907,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 86 (1974). Successful in his mission, Hoffman returned to Washington with Carl Bader Sr., who had just arrived in New York City from France. Bader Sr. worked for Baker & Brinsmade and succeeding stores until he opened his own meat market in Washington Depot. Bader family lore is that Alpheus Baker would keep an eye on the store at lunchtime from his house, three-quarters of a mile up Washington Green Hill from the store, using a spyglass.

A wagonload of people in front of the store. After the railroad shut down in 1947, the store’s entrance was moved to the back. The back of the current store on River Road, formerly Main Street, was once the main entrance. image: Robin Hanna

In March 1884, the following item appeared in the Frederick Gunn School’s Stray Shot newspaper: “The firm of Baker and Brinsmade have decided to close business, and they have an auction every Saturday night, besides reducing their prices to dispose of their stock preparatory to dissolving partnership.” By April 1884, a Stray Shot ad appeared for “A. Watts (Successor to Baker & Brinsmade).” “A. Watts” was Adam Watts, an Irishman who had been in Litchfield County since before 1857 and owned a store in Litchfield before taking over the former Baker & Brinsmade store in Washington Depot. By February 1888, The Stray Shot ran an ad for “Adam Watts and Son, Groceries, Washington Depot.” With Adam Watts’s passing in 1891, his son William took over the store. In 1893, the Washington Feed and Grain Company opened in Washington Depot in a tobacco warehouse. Founded by local farmers, the store sold general feed, grain, and seed and offered competition for Watts’s general store’s feed sales.

The Hartford Courant of April 11, 1895, reported a thunderstorm that wreaked havoc across the state: “At Washington Depot the general store of Watts Brothers was burned by lightning, loss $8,000, insurance small.” The store had sold livestock feed, textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, toiletries, and groceries. The proprietors’ families lived above the store, and the third floor was occupied by the Rising Sun Lodge of the Masons. According to Bader, his grandfather Carl was a member of the bucket brigade that fought this fire. The proprietors were eager to rebuild. The Newtown Bee of May 3, 1895, noted that “William Watts has commenced in earnest excavating the old cellar, preparatory to putting up a new store on the same ground as the former.” In 2024, in the attic of Washington Food Market, a large W. A. Watts sign was found, which must have been used for the rebuilt W. A. Watts store.

Portrait of William A. Watts taken in the photo studio of his brother-in-law in New Milford, Connecticut, ca. 1903, after he stopped running his store in Washington Depot. image: Nancy McMullen Johnstone, granddaughter of Robert J. Watts, photographer; courtesy of Robin Hanna

Watts’s impending retirement from running his store was featured in The Newtown Bee on December 22, 1899. On January 1, 1900, the store opened under its new owners, Watts & Cogswell. The Watts was William’s brother Robert, and Cogswell was Thornton Cogswell, who had been William’s employee. Before long, Robert sold his share of the store to Joseph Wetterau, according to The Newtown Bee of January 20, 1905. The store continued for five years as Cogswell & Wetterau. Wetterau likely came to Washington as an auditor with the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad before April 1904, when he married Florence Foulois. In April 1905, Wetterau and his family lived in rooms above the Cogswell & Wetterau store.

On January 21, 1910, William Watts leased the store for five years to Wetterau and yet another new partner, William H. Williams, who remained until at least 1920 when Williams appeared in the census in Washington as a “Merchant—General Store.” In March 1912, Wetterau, who had leased the store for a decade, purchased it from Watts.

The July 25, 1878, edition of The Litchfield Enquirer announced the installation of a telephone at the store.

On April 19, 1930, Wetterau died of a heart attack at his home in Washington. The Hartford Courant of April 20, 1931, reported that he “was associated with the firm of Wetterau and Williams for 25 years in managing a large community store in this town.” Wetterau’s estate leased the store for five years to Anthony Dinova of Waterbury, Connecticut, effective November 1, 1931. Since 1930, the store owners have been Italian Americans, reflecting the increase in the Italian immigrant population in Connecticut starting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On May 3, 1939, the estate of Joseph Wetterau sold the store to brothers Joseph and Anthony Dinova of Waterbury. According to Bader, Anthony Dinova contributed a pickup truckload of empty orange crates to a bonfire at Washington High School in Washington Depot for Victory over Japan Day on August 15, 1945. On October 24, 1947, Dinova sold the store to August “Red” DiVittorio of Waterbury and Egidio Lucchina of Torrington, who organized under the trade name “Washington Food Market.” Changing the name may have been intended to shift the emphasis from a family’s name to the food at the market.

W. A. Watts store in Washington Depot, Connecticut. image: Gunn Memorial Library and Museum

The Washington Food Market was sold by DiVittorio on June 12, 1973, to Eugene Verrastro and Vincent Annelli Sr. of Waterbury. Verrastro and Annelli were brothers-in-law who had previously owned two markets in Waterbury. Annelli ran the meat department of the store until his death in 1983. The store was closed for months following a fire in August 1991 that destroyed the store’s interior. On June 2, 2023, the Verrastro family celebrated 50 years of ownership of the Washington Food Market. The Verrastros have owned the store longer than any prior owner. The Washington Food Market is now run by the late Eugene Verrastro’s son, George.

Over more than 150 years, the store in Washington Depot has evolved from a general store to a small market providing a deli, bakery, fresh meat and fish, catering, produce, local food products, and toiletries to a small community in Litchfield County. Hanging on the wall in a back corner of Washington Food Market, above the potato chips, is a reminder of its history: the W. A. Watts sign that hung outside the store 129 years ago.

David W. Babington is a retired federal employee who worked on food assistance programs. He was a volunteer researcher for the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum in Washington, Connecticut.