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The Packerville Bridge is the most recent and most durable of a series of Mill Brook crossings at this location that probably go back to the early 18th century. English settlers began moving into this section of the Quinebaug River drainage in the late 17th century, and the towns of Plainfield and Canterbury were incorporated in 1703 with the river forming most of the town boundary (a small part of Canterbury extends east of the river, very close to the bridge). Mill Brook, a Quinebaug River tributary, soon became one of Plainfield's industrial waterpower sources. By the 1720s, there was a sawmill somewhere in the vicinity of the present bridge, perhaps at the site of a small ruin immediately downstream on the south bank. A short distance further downstream on the south bank, the Farnham family built a gristmill some time between 1740 and 1761. There was probably a timber bridge over the brook by this time on present Packerville Road, as the brook was not readily crossed anywhere nearby.
The Packerville Road crossing, maintained by the Town of Plainfield, became more locally significant in the 19th century as the industrial village of Packerville emerged. A consortium of entrepreneurs built a frame cotton mill just east of the gristmill in 1810, adding at least four workers' houses nearby, and may have built the first dam at what is now Packer Pond, upstream of the bridge. In 1818, Daniel Packer and Daniel Lester bought these properties. Packer bought out Lester's interest in 1825, and created the village which has borne his name as Packer, Packersville, or Packerville. He built a second, granite cotton mill in 1832 about 700 feet west of the 1810 mill, over the Canterbury town line. After acquiring the remaining Farnham mill privileges, he probably enlarged the dam at present Packer Pond to store additional water for the new mill. A paternalistic entrepreneur, Packer built approximately 10 more houses for mill workers and a store south of Mill Brook, and the church and parsonage north of the brook, between 1832 and 1837. After Packer's death in 1838, his sons operated the mills until 1846, and soon thereafter began a series of industrial leases to various parties which lasted well into the 20th century. The youngest son, Elisha, lived for much of the time until his death in 1903 in a now-demolished 1850s house about 175 feet south of the bridge and east of Packerville Road. The village's industrial activity was enhanced by the arrival of Hartford, Providence & Fishkill Railroad (later the New York & New England) in the 1850s, which crossed Mill Brook just below the Packer Pond dam.
After Elisha Packer's death, members of the Bramwell family of New York City bought all remaining Packer family interests and leased at least some of the industrial properties into the 1920s. William Bramwell sold off much of the industrial and residential property in the mid-1950s. By the early 1960s, some of the buildings were demolished, and today none of the factory structures remain standing. The last manufacturing development in the bridge vicinity was the short-lived Packer Plastics company, which built a new plant in the vicinity of the demolished Elisha Packer house around 1963. This plant burned in the 1970s and was later razed.
Michael S. Raber