2009 Discoveries Provided A Peek At The Past

By Nancy K. Crevier

For many years before the brick building on the corner of Church Hill and Glen Roads in Sandy Hook Center was known as Chao Chao Restaurant or The Red Brick Tavern, locals knew that local landmark as the site of H.G. Warner’s general store. A discovery by staff members of the Danbury Museum and Historical Society in January shed light on the likes and lives of Sandy Hook citizens who frequented the store during the 19th and early 20th Century.

One hundred twenty-five account books kept by H.G. Warner were found in a storage area of the Danbury Main Street museum. “Staff members recognized them as not being from Danbury, and contacted me,” said town historian Dan Cruson. “They gave them back to Newtown as a resource,” he said. The crumbling, leather-bound books include several daybooks that recorded daily transactions as they occurred, and ledgers that list by name the debts and credits of early area residents. There are several things to be learned by reviewing the account books, Mr Cruson said.

“The first thing we learn is about business practices and the evolution of business practice across the 19th and into the 20th Centuries. The second lesson is about events and specific things that make the history of the store more clear to us,” he said. Examining the ledgers also sheds light on consumption patterns of individuals and organizations of that era.

Mr Cruson was also kept busy this year with the discovery in the library’s attic of a cache of dozens of Harper’s Monthly, Scribner’s Monthly, Century, and Atlantic magazines, from the late 19th Century through the early 20th Century. “This one made me realize what we had here,” said Mr Cruson, as he displayed a leather-bound volume containing the publication of “Our Mutual Friend.”

“It was significant to me because I had heard that Charles Dickens had first published his stories in serial form, but this was the first time I had ever seen it,” he said. The value in preserving these magazine collections and making them available to the public lies in the fact that they serve as a literary and social history of the United States from the 1850s to the turn of the last century, Mr Cruson said. “It’s a virtual digest of 19th Century life and culture in letters,” he said.

Mary Thomas has been busy filling the “very big shoes of Caroline Stokes” since she was named curator of the C.H. Booth Library this past July, a position held for more than 19 years by Ms Stokes, who retired this summer. Prior to becoming curator, Ms Thomas had served 19 years on the C.H. Booth Library Board of Trustees. The curator’s job, explained Ms Thomas, is to track, maintain, and preserve the many collections owned by the library, including furniture, permanent art work, and the many display items that include those in the re-created Mary Hawley dining room on the third floor. The curator also makes sure that all collections are properly stored, so that fragile items do not deteriorate or become damaged by time and exposure to light or moisture.

 It was while poking about the C.H. Booth Library attic this summer that Ms Thomas came across a scrapbook that excited her. Inside the hand-sewn, calico-covered scrapbook were original photographs taken H N. Tiemann, Sr, of Newtown of a 1934 old-fashioned costume show at the library. The scrapbook was put together by the Historical Study Group, according to a hand-lettered paper attached to the front inside cover. She realized quickly that many of the late 18th and early 19th Century costumes that had been modeled in the 1934 show by local women were packed away in boxes in the attic, along with several other examples of 19th and early 20th Century fashions. She hopes to put together a display of the antique outfits in early 2010.

Yet another Newtown relic found its way home this year. At the Woodbury Flea Market last September, a drawing caught the eye of John Renjilian, local antiquarian book and print expert. “I had no idea what it was, but I recognized it from the distance as an architectural drawing. I like prints and drawings of recognizable places, so I was attracted to it.” The discovery of the architectural scale drawing of the 1883 St Rose Catholic Church, replaced by the present building in 1969, is a welcome addition to the collection of Newtown Historical Society, said Mr Cruson. Donated by Mr Renjilian to the society, the drawing, with its original frame and glass, is a valuable documentation of an increasingly little known piece of Newtown history, said Mr Cruson. The piece will find a permanent home in the Matthew Curtiss House on Main Street.

And so piece by piece, Newtown’s history is put together, with who knows how many discoveries yet to be made?