Taking Stock Of Newtown In Fine Detail

By Kendra Bobowick

“That will explain the white beard and the antenna,” the town historian joked.

With that warning about an ongoing inventorying to update work done in 1996 and to add to that database structures including outbuildings and barns, Dan Cruson had offered the quick description: he has a white beard, and town GIS (geographic inventory system) technician Alicia Messier carried electronic equipment used to locate properties precisely on a map.

What were they doing?

“You caught us finding old houses,” Mr Cruson said. History is only a piece of the project the team hopes to complete, one home and one building at a time. The team is confirming or for the first time documenting structures built in the borough from 1945 and earlier, and in Newtown from dates prior to 1825 — nearly 400 based on earlier information.

On Taunton Hill Road Tuesday, the pair joined GIS Director Scott Sharlow as the group walked from residence to residence to catalog, confirm, and in some cases correct data recorded in a thick binder. Enjoying the digital readout in his handheld global positioning indicator that received satellite coordinates pulled to earth through the antenna Ms Messier carried, Mr Sharlow drew the bottom line. “A fixed geological position is far better than an address,” he said.

Unlike the 1996 study assembled on paper and snapped into the binder that Mr Cruson flipped open on the hood of a town car, the information will all be digitally recorded for town department use — historic records included. “I have wanted to see this project done for a long time, so we have the information all in the same place,” he said.

Individuals with an interest in a property or developers looking into a parcel can learn names, dates, features, and historic details, and the Land Use Department personnel will soon have a complete reference.

How long will it take to navigate on foot the entire town and Sandy Hook Center, which was not previously inventoried? They take a town car into the neighborhoods, then stride door-to-door. Mr Cruson admitted: “This is a tremendous task. It’s going to take time to do.”

With Newtown’s expansion in mind, Mr Sharlow noted, “It’s growing quickly and I want all things considered, it’s easy to miss things.” Historic value, especially, concerns both Mr Sharlow and Mr Cruson. Where are the barns, the chicken coops, the post-and-bean buildings, gristmills, and archaeological sites? Everything will eventually be incorporated into the town’s GIS data.

On Tuesday as they stood in the yard of one Taunton Hill residence, Ms Messier held still while Mr Sharlow scrolled through coordinates streaming along on his handheld data-logger. Mr Cruson snapped a photo. All the data adds up to a complete package that will be kept in town records — historic and archaeological data included.

Although they have not stumbled on anything new, the project offers perspective. “We’re starting to see a slice of how the town developed and how people settled based on the types of homes — we see how Newtown expanded.”

A farming community well into the 20th Century, a lot of the ongoing documentation simply confirms what Mr Cruson and others already know, with one addition. “We’re looking in finer detail,” the historian explained. He still holds expectation of learning something new. “We probably won’t have any major breakthroughs until we go back and compare data,” he said. Comparisons aside, he is also concerned about historic preservation.

“We don’t want to destroy anything,” he said. That question is becoming important to the town, he observed. With the addition of inventorying the outbuildings accompanying the roughly 400 properties, he said, “Nearly half have some kind of outbuilding.”

Has anything been lost to time or damage? “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” Mr Cruson said. Sad about the answer, he explained, “There have been fires, knock-downs…”

Offering one good example of “what happens” over time, he pointed to the Century 21 building on South Main Street, which changed “before we could document it,” he said. The building had been taken down to the foundation and rebuilt. Fire, water, or weather damage are just part of the factors threatening older structures. Benign neglect, or the inability to maintain a house or barn can also add to its deterioration. “The will may be there, but the money is not,” Mr Cruson sympathized.