Historic Happenings: Time Marches On In Newtown

By Nancy K. Crevier

History is always in the making in Newtown, being discovered and rediscovered every year. The year 2006 held a few historic moments and discoveries for the town.

C.H. Booth Library Director Janet Woycik stood by on Monday, January 9, as Brenda McKinley, systems librarian at Booth, activated the wireless network at the Main Street building in what will go down as a historic moment.

“Finally,” said Ms McKinley, “we can say ‘Yes!’ when someone comes in and asks if we have wireless capacity. It’s very exciting.”

As usual, town historian Dan Cruson continued to delve into Newtown’s past. Descendants of Philo Curtis donated a box of private documents to the town last year and Mr Cruson happily dug through the contents. Among the reams of papers, mainly land sale deeds, the words “my certain negro girl named Genny” in faded script on one of them caught his eye. Emancipation documents, he said, were sometimes recorded on land records, but a bill of sale was “extremely rare, even in the South.”

The bill of sale for Genny, dated October 30, 1813, was unique in two respects, said Mr Cruson. “First of all, the age of the girl. She was only 3, maybe 3½, years old. Very young. Secondly, she was sold for 25 cents, an extraordinarily low price.” The usual price at the time for a young slave girl, said Mr Cruson, the author of Newtown’s Slaves: A Case Study In Early Connecticut Rural Black History, was at minimum $20. Philo Curtis, Jr, who purchased the toddler slave, owned nearly 100 acres bordering today’s Philo Curtis Road in Sandy Hook. Slaveholders were not common in Newtown, but many prominent families, as well as more than one Congregational minister, had a slave or two as part of the household. As usual, one bit of information leads to many more questions, such as what became of Genny. They are questions that will perhaps be answered in the new year.

More history unveiled itself when Mr Cruson accompanied Mike and Pam Davis and an entourage from High Noon Productions out of Centennial, Colo., through the Davises’ home at 25 Sherman Street in Sandy Hook for an episode of the popular Home and Garden Television program, If Walls Could Talk. The house was built around 1784 by Cato Freedom, also known as Cato Platt and Cato Freeman, a former slave of the Platt family, who lived on property nearby. The program features homes across the country on its weekly half-hour program, focusing last year on homeowners who made unusual discoveries in their homes.

One of the discoveries that made the Davises’ home attractive to HGTV was found on a beehive oven in their basement. To the untrained eye, the X scrawled on the front of the fireplace could have gone unnoticed; but research from experts on black history in the United States inspired Mr Cruson to note what is known as a “spirit mark” when he was invited to explore the home two years ago. The other discovery was a surprisingly intact leather shoe, also inscribed with the “spirit mark,” more than likely one that was owned by the home’s original owner and concealed beneath the kitchen. A “concealment shoe” was a European custom thought to protect a home and those who lived in it. The HGTV episode featuring the Davis home was aired in late October.

Echoes from the past literally marched through Newtown and announced their arrival 225 years later, almost to the day, that Compte de Rochambeau, a French general, led his troops through Newtown as they assisted local Patriots. The restless past tugged at Newtown’s sleeve for attention in early July as the town remembered some of its own Revolutionary War history at a plaque dedication to Rochambeau at Hawley School. Historian Dan Cruson had coordinated a dedication ceremony, inviting the state’s March To Yorktown members — a handful of devoted Revolutionary War reenactors who marched the length of the trail carved across New England by Rochambeau — commemorating his contributions to the Patriot’s eventual, hard-won victory. Prior to the unveiling, a June 29 ceremony reflected on incidents that occurred more than two centuries ago when French troops were in town on the 28th of June 1781, and marched out again on July 1 of that year.

Historic Hawleyville Post Office was also in the news this year. What started out as a gesture of goodwill and a desire to improve a local landmark by resident Maureen Colbert-Wilhelm turned into a one-woman crusade to make sure that the post office remained a viable entity in Hawleyville.

In seeking approval for her modest plans, Ms Colbert-Wilhelm contacted Housatonic Railroad (HRR) and the US Postal Service (USPS). She was not granted permission to go forward with her helping hand and what she discovered disturbed her. What worried her most was an indication that the little post office could be eliminated, rather than renovated. According to Carl Walton, a former spokesperson for the USPS out of the district office in Hartford, though, the postal service is actively working to rectify the poor condition of the Hawleyville Post Office. In a conversation on Friday, March 17, with The Newtown Bee, Mr Walton emphasized that the postal service had no plans to eliminate the post office in Hawleyville.

Rob Finley, vice president of Housatonic Railroad, which holds the lease for the building that houses the post office, disclosed on July 19 that the company was negotiating with the USPS to renovate the building owned by HRR at 30 Hawleyville Road in which the Hawleyville Post Office now leases space. More recently, Mr Finley said that the Housatonic Railroad decided to bring in a US Postal developer to work with the USPO. It is hoped that work to restore the building will begin in 2007.

A Sandy Hook business celebrated a bit of history in 2006. Located at the corner of Riverside Road and Center Street in Sandy Hook, Lorenzo’s Restaurant has been a community icon for 80 years. Founded by Louis Lorenzo, an Italian immigrant, Lorenzo’s was just a little seasonal storefront selling mostly candy, hot dogs, and soda when it opened in 1926, according to Paul McCollum, owner since 1968 and the son-in-law of Louis Lorenzo, and Mr McCollum’s daughter, Laurie McCollum, who is now the general manager of Lorenzo’s. Mr McCollum estimates that nearly 90 percent of Lorenzo’s customers are repeat, local customers, what he said is an amazing percentage in the restaurant business. They come, he said, for what he believes has been the recipe for 80 years of success in a difficult business: “Good food and good prices.”

In the attics of Newtown, history breathes from long forgotten tomes and faded photographs. The Matthew Curtiss House, Edmond Town Hall, and C.H. Booth Library attics contain no ghosts or magic mirrors, but harbor other treasures. Caretakers of the old buildings’ secrets gave The Bee a peek into the historic attics. The library always invites visitors to explore the portion of their attic that houses artifacts from town benefactress Mary Hawley.

In much more recent history, we saw a landmark literally bulldozed into nonexistence at Dickinson Park. Cascades of soil spilled into Dickinson Pond in late March from the backs of town trucks. The rough fill covered with finality more than 50 years of town history as heavy equipment flattened the last loads of soil over the Newtown’s longstanding swimming hole. One alternative swimming source, Eichler’s Cove Marina, a small inlet tucked away in a corner of Lake Zoar, was purchased by the town but was not yet prepared for swimmers in 2006.

Sometimes, history needs to be added onto. With the addition that will become their master bedroom attached to their home at 157 Poverty Hollow Road, Rick and Nora Murphy are truly coming home to roost each night. Realizing that the patina of an old structure would better match a planned expansion their 1767 saltbox home, featured in 2005 on the Newtown Historic Homes tour, they had a chicken coop trucked to Newtown from its Millville, Mass., location.

The coop, its roof, and the cupola that tops it off arrived during the morning of Friday, September 1. The coop was attached to the saltbox home and the exterior of the clapboard coop, with its decorative cornices, will be restored to the original condition. Work continues to progress nicely as 2006 fades into 2007. And history is in the making once again.