State Library Resists Town’s Effort To Secure Newtown’s Original Deed

By Jan Howard

A governmental snag is affecting plans for the keynote event of Newtown’s tercentennial celebration planned for January 2005.

The event, which is to be chaired by Marie and Dick Sturdevant, will feature the return to Newtown of the original deed to the town signed in 1705 by members of the Pohtatuck tribe and three settlers.

Despite Special Act No 76-32, “An Act Concerning Possession of the Original Deed of the Town of Newtown,” signed into law on April 22, 1976, the Connecticut State Library is, according to Tercentennial Commission Vice Chairman Mae Schmidle, “a little hesitant about honoring the special act.”

The act, passed by both houses of the General Assembly, states: “The state librarian shall convey to the town of Newtown the original deed from Mauquash, Massumpas and Nunnawauk, Sachems of the Pohtatuck tribe, granting to Captain Samuel Hawley, Jr., William Junos (or James) and Justus Bush, the territory in and about the junction of the Housatonic and Pohtatuck rivers, and dated July 25, 1705, which deed is document 63 in volume III, Towns and Lands, Connecticut Archives, First Series. The town clerk of said town shall pay the cost of removing said document, replacing it with a facsimile or duplicate and transferring said document to the town hall of Newtown.”

The state library bases reticence to release the document on a administrative regulation implemented in 1989, Ms Schmidle said, when the state was having problems with records disappearing.

The library’s position is that it does not have to return the deed. It believes the 1989 regulation is all encompassing, including everything, Ms Schmidle noted. She disagrees and said she consulted private, personal sources to see what grounds the town has in its quest for the original deed.

“The special act is still valid,” she said. “There is nothing invalid in what the special act calls for.” She said nothing in the 1989 administrative regulation says the 1976 act is invalid.

In a September letter to Mark Jones of the Connecticut State Library, Ms Schmidle emphasized that “the keynote to our celebration will be the return of Newtown’s original 1705 deed.” She explained that the committee appointed by the Tercentennial Commission Steering Committee “is raising money to restore and preserve this document as our treasure much in the same way that we have national historic treasures.”

She said Mr Sturdevant had traveled to Hartford recently to see the deed and discuss its return, only to be told that the original would not be returned to the town under the 1989 administrative regulation. He was told, however, that the state would present the town with a digital color copy of the deed.

Ms Schmidle said she feels the library would “hang its hat” on the administrative regulations, but feels the town can preserve, restore, and protect the deed.

“Preservation and restoration and showing the deed, with today’s technology, would be very easy,” she said. She noted it is important that the deed be protected.

At the time of the 1976 act regarding the return of the deed, Ms Schmidle said representatives of other Connecticut towns told her that they had their original deeds in their possession.

“It’s a bit of pride to have our birth certificate,” she said. “We consider it our prize possession, and it should be in our possession for the tercentennial. We should have lawful possession.”

She said it is unknown how the deed came into the state’s possession. 

Ms Schmidle said that no decision has been made as yet on how to proceed, but the return of the deed would be discussed at the next meeting of the Newtown Tercentennial Commission Steering Committee on December 1.