“This company was incorporated in Bridgeport, Conn., on October 7, 1876, with a silex manufacturing plant at Fort Ann, N. Y. In 1881 the company removed to its present location at Still River, and erected there a large silex, filler and paint, and japan and varnish plant. The principal portion of this plant was destroyed by fire in February, 1902, and was rebuilt with better facilities for meeting its business requirements. The products of the company are ground silex and feldspar, Wheeler’s Patent Wood Filler, Breinig’s Lithogen Silicate Paint, Breinig’s Water and Oil Stains, Japans, Varnishes, etc. The business of the company has steadily increased in volume from year to year, and its products now have a world-wide reputation, so that, at the present time, agencies have been established in all the principal cities of the United States and Canada, as well as in Porto Rico, South America, and the principal European cities. With an auxiliary silex manufacturing plant at Branchville, Conn., and branch offices and warehouses in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the company is well equipped to care for its largely increasing interests at home and abroad. The officers of the company are: David E. Breinig, president and general manager; Edward E. Porter, vice-president; George B. Calhoun, secretary; Henry S. Mygatt, treasurer.” The cause of education has always received the earnest attention of the citizens of New Milford, and the little brown schoolhouses, planted a few miles apart, in which the boys and girls received all their book learning, were landmarks in the New England colonies, as are to-day the more pretentious structures which have supplanted them. In the early days, the Bible was read every morning at the opening of school and religious instruction was given; it was also thought proper to invoke the blessing of the Great Ruler of the Universe. New Milford was divided into twenty school districts, the schools of which taught the elementary branches. In later years, as the population increased and a greater desire for knowledge was manifested, private and select schools and academies were founded in different parts of the town; at Gaylordsville, at Northville, and in this village. The most noted school, established in the early part of the last half century, was the Housatonic Institute, which was carried on many years by Benjamin J. Stone and Mary A., his wife. It was situated on the site now occupied by Memorial Hall. This school was known far and wide and received pupils from the surrounding towns. Many of the older people of the town received their education there. A famous school for boys was the Adelphi Institute, which removed from Cornwall, Conn., to this town in 1860. Ambrose S. Rogers put up fine buildings on the sightly hillside southeast of the village, and conducted for many years an educational institution which took the form of a military school during the Civil War.