Globe Pequot Returns to Essex Roots
Globe Pequot, a 75-year-old book publisher, has purchased the two office buildings located at 64 South Main Street in Essex. The company will move into the offices this summer after a complete renovation of the 7,000-square-foot space. The property was previously leased to Morgan Stanley for a decade and before that it housed the gift store Candlewood.
Globe Pequot imprints Falcon Guides, Lyons Press, Prometheus Books, Stackpole Books, Gooseberry Patch, Backbeat Books, and Applause Books publish non-fiction, fiction, and children’s books in a wide range of subject categories. Though the early days of the press focused mostly on New England subjects, Globe Pequot is now the largest publisher of regional interest books in the nation, covering all things local across the country under the imprints of Globe Pequot (New England and beyond), Down East Books (Maine), Pineapple Press (Florida), and TwoDot (Western states).
The book publisher, originally named Pequot Press after the Native American tribe, was founded in 1947 by Williams D. Haynes in Stonington. He owned Stonington Printing Company and wrote historical treatises that he printed himself. The company published Connecticut town histories and genealogies.
A new owner in 1967 moved the still-small publishing company to Essex, where it took up residence in the historic Pratt Village Smithy, a repurposed blacksmith shop founded in 1678 by William Pratt. The Pequot Press became a publisher for New England historical societies and assisted neighboring towns and other local groups with their publishing needs.
Robert Wilkerson purchased The Pequot Press in 1970 and moved the business up the Connecticut River to Chester. Wilkerson expanded the publishing program to include books of New England history, biography, architecture, antiques, and travel. The company published an average of 15 new titles per year in the 1970s, including the Guide to the Recommended Country Inns of New England and the Factory Store Guide to New England.
In 1992, the company relocated from Chester to Old Saybrook, consolidating all publishing and fulfillment operations into one custom-designed 30,000-square-foot facility. Globe Pequot Press moved once again in 1999 to an enlarged office in Guilford and opened a warehousing facility in Springfield, Tennessee.
The move to Essex will bring the business full circle back to its 1960s presence in one of America’s most historic and well-preserved 17th-century villages.