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Newtown should be a bustle of activity on Friday and Saturday, July 23 and 24, when the Newtown Chamber of Commerce holds its annual Sidewalk Sale. The sidewalk sale is the culmination of a chamber drive, under the direction of its new President Ed Bogdan of Rosberg Industries, Inc, to emphasize the businesses in Newtown and to publicize the availability of shopping here.

* * *

The fifth vote on Newtown’s budget — a town meeting that took place July 8 — will not be the decisive one, as the Newtown Concerned Taxpayers circulated petitions for a referendum this week to seek to overturn the town meeting’s approval of the $16,762,893 town budget. The battle over adopting the 1982-83 budget is the longest in the town’s history.

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Balloons bearing messages of friendship were sent aloft at the Newtown Association for Retarded Citizens’ exceptional child summer camp at the Newtown Middle School last Friday, culminating “friendship week.” Director Sara Hinckley explained that the camp members sent messages “to unknown friends hoping they can start a pen pal thing.”

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A new organization has been formed in Newtown to provide financial assistance to Newtown residents for spaying and neutering their cats and dogs. The official name of the new group is The Spay and Neuter Association of Newtown, Inc. It is a non-profit organization composed of volunteers who receive no pay for their services.

* * *

There’s an air of excitement around the Cyrenius H. Booth Library these days. Trustees, staff members, friends and townspeople are sharing ideas and talents and working hard to make sure the library’s golden jubilee celebration is a memorable event. It has been fifty years (December 17, 1932) since the Booth library first opened its doors to the public.

* * *

A new Pizza Palace will arise on Church Hill Road as the result of the Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of site development plans for the establishment on July 1. It will replace the small building now housing the Pizza Palace — a building which was originally a chicken coop. The new structure will have 78 seats and more than 30 parking spaces.

 

July 19, 1957

Trinity College’s summer series of free carillon recitals will feature Frank L. Johnson of Newtown at the bells Wednesday, July 24 at 7:15 pm. Mr Johnson, a 1917 graduate of Trinity, Hartford, has played at his alma mater many times. He taught and was carillonneur at St Paul’s School, Concord, N.H. until 1947, and in the past has studied at Cambridge University in England and Columbia University. He has been a member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North American since its founding.

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Mrs Yvonne Kilbride announces the opening next Monday of her new yarn shop located at her house on Glen Road in Sandy Hook. Mrs Kilbride has recently built an addition to house her new venture which will be known as K’s Needlecraft Shop. Besides yarns and cottons, notions will be carried.

* * *

Quiet Valley Dusky’s Double, a ten-year-old registered Ayrshire in the herd of Mr and Mrs E.J. Churchill of Newtown, has recently completed a record on official Herd Test of 10,360 pounds of milk and 414 pounds of butterfat made in 305 days or less, milked twice daily.

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The Hawley Manor Inn has a new look We proudly announce to our Newtown neighbors, and friends everywhere the opening of our new dining wing and its many facilities for the comfort and convenience of our guests. Months of planning and building have been devoted to the expansion of our dining area without sacrificing the comfortable informality of this country inn. There is now space for a reception for two hundred, a private dinner for one hundred or more, and intimate meeting rooms for smaller groups.

* * *

The first part of a court action brought against the Town of Newtown, attacking the ordinance which prohibits vehicle racing was resolved with the recent decision handed down by the Superior Court of Fairfield County. Judge John R. Thim, in denying the motion for a temporary injunction last week resolved the first part of the action. The ordinance and the special town meeting that adopted it grew out of a feeling that a sports car racetrack would be detrimental to Newtown.

* * *

New England Quakers delivered to President Eisenhower this week more than 10,000 signatures on a petition urging the banning of nuclear bomb tests. Nearly half of the signers are from New England. 30 percent are from Massachusetts, and the rest from the other 42 states and the District of Columbia. A total of 617 of the signers are from Connecticut.

 

July 15, 1932

With the tremendous traffic of a holiday week-end sweeping over it in every section of the state, the Connecticut highway system, consisting of more than 2,000 miles of paved roadway, is inanimately celebrating its 35th birthday. Thirty-five years ago this month, on July 1, 1897, to be exact, the Connecticut Highway system came into existence with the establishment of the State Highway Department at the state’s first single headed commission.

* * *

The Town-Line Gas Station, located on the Danbury-Newtown State road in Newtown close to the Bethel line, has just been sold by Stephen L. Wade to Edward and Marion Jacobs of New York City. The property contains four acres of land and is improved with a modern seven-room dwelling, a tea room store and gas station. Mr Jacobs will operate the gas station and auto repairing business, while Mrs Jacobs will conduct the tea room.

* * *

Mrs Paul Sotis recently had hatched a four-legged duck. The duckling is very lively and is apparently going to take to life like the other ducks in the flock.

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Starting Wednesday, July 13, the stores in Danbury will be closed each Wednesday afternoon. The Danbury Business Association has followed the custom of other years in voting this measure, and the Association asks all readers of The Bee to take note of the Wednesday closings, so that no one will be disappointed in attempting to shop in Danbury on Wednesday afternoons until after August 31.

* * *

The former Annex barn next to the new Cyrenius H. Booth Library was moved, Tuesday, by Venning Brothers, down the street to William P. Murnane’s place. Rodney P. Shepard, who bought the former annex and barn, sold the building to Mr Murnane and he has had it moved on to his property on Glover avenue, where it will be used as a private garage. It took them about four hours to move the building about one-quarter of a mile.

* * *

Due to the dry weather and the fact that water in Taunton Lake is low, everyone using water for sprinkling lawns and gardens is requested to refrain from doing so, except during the half-hour period from 6:30 to 7 pm each day. The officers of the water company ask 100 percent cooperation in meeting this request.

 

July 19, 1907

Brown’s Anti-Rust Tin Ware. GALVANIZED WASH BOARDS: use either side; 50 cents. These boards are something new and are selling like “hot cakes.” OIL STOVES: single, double and three burner with ovens. WHITE MOUNTAIN ICE CREAM FREEZERS; AMETHYST ENAMEL WARE, which is the latest production and is decidedly the toughest and strongest enamel on the market. We have a fine assortment of DAIRY PAILS: 45 cents to 60 cents; very heavy. GALVANIZED GUTTERS, PIPES, ETC. PRESSURE REGULATORS, IRON AND RUBBER BUCKET PUMPS. We do Plumbing, Tinning, Steam, Water, and Hot Air Heating and shall be glad to make price on any job large or small. E.J. Hall’s Sandy Hook, Conn.

 

* * *

On Saturday, July 6, lightning struck in the center of a field of potatoes belonging to B.H. Peet in Hattertown and killed about 50 hills of potatoes.

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Although not living on the waterline, P.H. McCarthy has completed at his Edgewood farm a water system which insures a plentiful supply of pure spring water without the inconvenience of being bothered with a water tax. The water is carried from the spring through a pipe into a reservoir built of stone and cement which holds 900 gallons, from there it is conveyed to the house and barns a distance of 80 feet, through a one-inch galvanized iron pipe. The outflow from the spring is two gallons per minute.

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Judge C.S. Platt handed out $7 and costs on a charge of chicken stealing at the Brick building, Wednesday afternoon, after a prolonged hearing, to Harry and George Miles and Fred Barrett. A half-dressed fowl, entrails, pails and wash boiler filled with feathers were exhibited. Sheriff Johnson testified he found a part of his exhibit covered up with hay in a cellar. R.L. Warner identified the half-dressed rooster exhibited as one he sold to the complainant, whose hennery was robbed.

* * *

James Barber, who lives with Andrew C. Moore, in Taunton, met with a peculiar accident, last week Thursday. While handling some corn a kernel got into his ear so he could not get it out. Mrs Moore brought him at once to Dr Schuyler, who succeeded in getting the kernel of corn out but not until it caused him considerable pain. Fortunately, his ear was not injured.