Committee Pleased With Sale Of Tercentennial Publications

By Nancy K. Crevier

The tercentennial year may be over for Newtown, but the duties of the Tercentennial Steering Committee continue. At a meeting held Wednesday, February 8, committee member John Trentacosta put to rest any worries the committee may have previously had concerning the ability to cover remaining costs from the yearlong celebration in 2005.

“I’m pleased to announce an excess in our account,” he said. “The publication expenses have all been paid.”

The cost of publishing the commemorative Newtown 2005: The Way We Are After 300 Years coffee table book, Dan Cruson’s collection of essays, A Mosaic of Newton History, as well as other tercentennial publications, had been the topic of discussion at previous meetings. The sales of the coffee table book have been quite successful, Mr Trentacosta said, with 782 copies sold at various venues about the town.

“I’m very pleased by this and think it’s wonderful we didn’t have to go to the town for a nickel.” All of the funds used to pay for tercentennial events were raised via fundraisers, donations, and the sale of tercentennial memorabilia.

Money remaining in the committee’s account will be put toward the purchase of a permanent memorial to the tercentennial year and to honor volunteers and others who donated significantly to the tercentennial events.

 Books are still available for purchase at C.H. Booth Library, the Drug Center, Lexington Gardens, and Newtown Savings Banks branches until September, when any remaining copies will be handed over to the Newtown Historical Society for sale. It is planned that money raised by the historical society from the sale of the tercentennial books will become an endowment for the purchase of historical publications.

“We’ve achieved the mission of what we tried to do,” Mr Trentacosta said.