While the Town of Newtown has seen many changes over the years, Newtown Historical Society has remained steadfast in working to ensure that current and future generations of residents will know all about its rich past. In order to continue that, though, they need the public’s help.

Melissa Houston, board president of Newtown Historical Society, shared that the nonprofit’s mission “is to preserve and present the town’s history through its archival collection as well as its historic house, which is the Matthew Curtiss House.”

The red saltbox-style Matthew Curtiss House, at 44 Main Street, received its name from longtime resident Matthew Curtiss, who lived in the house from 1781 until his death in 1824.

“The Matthew Curtiss House appears in early records of the town and was built around 1750. We host open houses there, we have docents who dress in costume, and talk about the collection,” Houston said.

Newtown Historical Society is run completely by volunteers and works to engage the community through a variety of free activities, including lectures at the library and the annual second grade tours of Main Street.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted Newtown Historical Society’s ability to connect with people like they used to.

Houston explained, “Like many places, we ceased programs in 2020 and didn’t have any way to engage with the public other than social media. In 2019, to give you an idea, we had about 780 people that we reached through our various programs. Then nothing in 2020. For 2021, we just ran the numbers, and we only had about 207 people that we were able to reach through our in-person programs. That’s a huge loss for us.”

Not being able to reach as many people has reduced the amount of donations they received and caused the group to feel disconnected with its place in the community.

“It’s really hard for small organizations,” Houston said.

Upcoming Projects

Newtown Historical Society is hoping to make 2022 its year to bring back more engagement and to start the much-needed projects on its to-do list.

In a Letter to the Editor, published January 14, Houston wrote that Newtown Historical Society will be embarking on the process of digitalizing artifacts and documents, as well as creating an updated website.

Houston told The Newtown Bee, “We have been starting what is called a strategic plan for the Historical Society. Nonprofit organizations often go through a strategic plan, which is setting up your goals and intentions for the next five years … One of the things everyone realized with this pandemic is that it is very necessary to have a digital presence. The Newtown Historical Society traditionally has not had that, so we lack a bit of the internal capacity and tools right now to really engage with the public digitally, but it is really necessary.”

Additionally, they are moving forward with their goal to digitize the collection.

“There are a number of different ways we are looking at doing that,” Houston said. “One of them is applying for grants. We did receive a grant through the Connecticut Humanities Council for $6,000, which is excellent.”

Connecticut Humanities, a statewide, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has awarded Newtown Historical Society its Connecticut Cultural Fund Operating Support Grant.

The money from that grant will go towards the care and management of the collection, so that the group can get to a place where they can digitize it.

The archives for Newtown Historical Society were previously stored at Edmond Town Hall but were relocated to the Newtown Municipal Center.

Town Historian Daniel Cruson, who passed away last year, cared for them and now his son, Ben, has taken over the job of acting Town Historian to oversee the inventory to reestablish the archives in the new space.

Part of the grant will go towards the necessary supplies needed to accomplish this task.

Houston listed, “We need archival folders to protect documents from the 18th century, and we don’t have a dedicated laptop for the collections. We need that sort of basic tool. We need a scanner to digitize these documents, so they don’t have to be handled over and over again.”

Sending a digital copy of an item will not only help Newtown Historical Society members answer inquiries efficiently, but it will also help protect the objects and artifacts that they have.

As for the timeline, Houston hopes to be able to complete the collection’s care and management over the next six to eight months and then apply to be part of Connecticut Collections.

“Connecticut Collections is an online database that museums in Connecticut can use,” she explained.

Being part of that platform will allow the collection to be available to a wider audience with other collections across the state.

House Restoration

The second main project that Newtown Historical Society is undertaking is restoring the Matthew Curtiss Home to its original 1750s splendor.

Houston revealed that the integrity of the house is being compromised from basement flooding and roof leaks.

“Nothing has been damaged, but the basement is a dirt floor and a stone foundation, so any water leakage does affect the stability of the foundation,” she said. “It’s not so much that things in the house themselves are getting wet or dirty. The house as an envelope needs to be cared for because you can’t protect the things that are in it if it is falling apart.”

Not only that, but there are also smaller tasks that need to be attended to such as peeling ceilings.

Before any repairs can be done, Houston says that a historic preservationist needs to come out and inspect the whole house. Then they can set up what the plan of work is and what the goals are for preserving the house as a historic artifact.

“When you are treating the house like an artifact, you don’t treat it like a house that’s being lived in. We are trying to preserve it as a snapshot in time. There are certain things that we will modernize or bring up to code, but we really want to preserve the character and the history of the house,” she said.

Doing so would require that if a room needed to be painted, they would look only at historic paints and colors that would be appropriate to that time.

“There is a lot of research that goes into that, so once we have that document, then we can start looking for contractors to do the work laid out by the historic preservationist,” Houston said.

To start that process, she says that Newtown Historical Society will apply to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for its survey and planning grant.

“The survey and planning grant is a matching grant, which means that they will give us a certain dollar amount, but we have to match it dollar for dollar,” she said. “The Newtown Historical Society has to put out half of the funds for the project basically.”

Ways To Help

These necessary improvement plans all come at a cost and the community is an integral part making these dreams a reality.

“Our biggest needs are always getting volunteers to help us with the projects and funding the projects. When you are an all-volunteer organization, offering everything for free, those are your needs. People to help with the work and the funds to do the work,” Houston said.

People can donate online through PayPal on the Newtown Historical Society website at newtownhistory.org. Checks can be mailed to P.O. Box 189, Newtown CT 06470.

“Donating money is wonderful and helpful, but so is donating time as volunteers. Docents are all volunteers. The people that run History Camp are all volunteers. People who help manage the lectures are all volunteers … We’d love to have more members and more volunteers,” she said.

Having additional people involved in Newtown Historical Society, doing projects to preserve the Matthew Curtiss House and its artifacts, and receiving donations all helps to keep the nonprofit a vibrant destination in the community.

“I’d love to see us become more of a resource for not just the people who are already history buffs, but I’d love to see families think of coming to open houses,” Houston said. “We’ve talked about, as a board, making our open house spaces more family friendly, because we want to inspire younger generations not just to love our town but to also be engaged in the way people lived in the past and be fascinated by history. We really want to be a resource to our community for inspiring a love of history and curiosity about our town.”

The public will have the opportunity to donate to Newtown Historical Society in person when open houses resume at the Matthew Curtiss House on the third Sunday of the month, starting in March.

For more information about Newtown Historical Society, visit newtownhistory.org or e-mail info@newtownhistory.org. Go to Newtown Nonprofit Council’s Get Connected, Newtown website at newtownnc.galaxydigital.com and search “Newtown Historical Society” to see a list of volunteer opportunities.

Reporter Alissa Silber can be reached at alissa@thebee.com.