Upson Brothers Grocery Store History of Main Street Southington

By: Nadia Dillon

The Upson Brothers

Frank Root Upson was born on October 14, 1855. He was the son of Captain Andrew Upson who fought in the Civil War. He married Hattie Holcomb in 1883 and had three children with her. One of his children was Leila Upson Barnes who was married to Bradley Barnes who was a part of one of the most prominent families in Southington.
Prior to opening a grocery store, Frank had a career as a clerk for about seven years at various companies. In 1880 he formed a partnership with F.C. Slate called Slate & Upson. When he bought out Slate's shares in 1882, he moved his office to 15 Center Street.

​William C. Upson was born on June 19, 1859 in Southington, CT. His brother was Frank R. Upson. He was also the grandson of Captain Andrew Upson.
He was married to Fannie Sutliffe and they lived in New Haven later in their lives. He worked as a grocery clerk for F.C. Slate. He was a foreman at the Southington Fire Department and eventually became chief. He still worked at the fire department even after he opened Upson Bro's grocery store.

Upson Bro's Grocery Store

In 1884, Frank R. Upson and William C. Upson opened the firm Upson Bros where they were partners. They opened Upson Brothers dry good store on 15 Center Street in Southington. Unfortunately there was also a fire that originated in the store on in January of 1885. Their entire stock was lost. The fire spread to the other stores in the building accumulating approximately $18,000 in losses. With inflation, today that number would equate to  around $612,000. The Upson Bro's alone had $7,000 in loses which would be around $238,000 today. One firefighter was injured.
Luckily the building still remained and the brothers were eventually able to replenish their stock. Frank used to go to New York city about once a month to buy new stock.  

In 1892, they moved the store to 3 Center Street on the corner of Center and Main. By that time, the store grew to have five clerks. One of them was Allan Upson who was the son of Frank. While we are unsure of their store hours at the time, in 1886, they announced that their store was open until 8:00 pm every evening in the Southing Phoenix. 
They used to have some interesting window displays. In 1891,they had three electric lights put up in their display window. While their displays were mostly relevant to the product they were trying to sell, they did display a tarantula in their window in 1894 during the month of September.
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In addition to selling groceries, the store also sold toiletries like perfumes. In 1896, they started taking phone orders for customers to pick up, according to their advertisement in the Southington Phoenix. The Upson Bro's grocery store also sold some exclusive items such as cereal and coffee. 

​In 1900, Upson Bros extended their grocery store to include a soda and candy shop at the Bishop block where the Hitchcock jewelry store was previously located. They ended up remodeling the shop again in 1906 to place a display shelf in the new area.
Unfortunately, in April of 1907, the Upson Bro's firm, which owned the grocery store dissolved. Frank took charge of a co-op in Torrington while William stayed at the Southington store. On April 15th, 1907 the store had a change in management but it was unclear who took over. The store closed in 1912 after almost 20 years of a successful business. Afterwards, William moved his family to New Haven to work at S.S. Adams Company which was another grocery store. Frank stayed at the co-op until his death in 1917.

Click through the photos on the right to see several of the Upson Store's artifacts within the museum's collection.