* * *

Whether or not Timothy B. Treadwell Memorial Park will open in time for Memorial Day remains to be seen. The park opening scheduled for last week has been delayed to give officials a chance to see whether the handball wall meets their specifications. Officials who revisited the park this week were divided about the wall. Meanwhile it is apparently not the handball players who are the most concerned about the park, but those who use the ball fields. With field assignments already tight, the lack of the two Treadwell fields has put a further strain on local leagues.

* * *

After skirting the town meeting issue for several months, the Charter Revision Commission voted at a special meeting Monday night to eliminate that form of government entirely and substitute a public meeting with a non-binding vote. Under the recommendation, final authority for the budget, as well as special appropriations and sale of public land, would be placed in the hands of the Legislative Council.

* * *

Newtown Chief of Police Louis Marchese was working on a traffic control plan this week which may enable the Fourth of July Fireworks sponsored by the Newtown Summer Festival Committee to go on at Dickinson Memorial Park after all. Tentatively, his plan is to close Elm Drive from its junction with Route 302 south to the entrance to the park.

* * *

The final stage of the restoration of the Main Street flagpole that has been carried on by Newtown Police Sgt David Lydem got under way Thursday morning as the pole was sandblasted down to bare metal by Classic Painters and Restorers, Inc of Ridgefield. The cracked and scabby coat of white paint was being removed so the pole could be primed and then repainted, hopefully before Memorial Day.

* * *

Shortly after 8 am on a drizzly Friday morning, May 20, the squatly frame building that housed the Newtown Pizza Palace on Church Hill Road was no more. An H.H. Stone & Sons shovel crushed the old building into a pile of rubble in a couple of minutes to make way for the new Pizza Palace under construction immediately adjacent. The new building, a 5,000 square foot brick structure, will be a far cry from the old Pizza Palace, which had little parking or seating capacity.

* * *

The new chairman of Newtown’s Planning and Zoning Commission, Ted Whippie, says any extension of Route 25 from Trumbull to link with I-84 in Sandy Hook is “a long way off.” Mr Whippie said he thinks the existing Route 25 should be upgraded. As called for in the town plan of development, rather than constructing a new highway, a road should instead be built from Dead Man’s Curve on Route 25 east to Exit 11 of I-84 in Sandy Hook. Such a new connector would take traffic away from the center of Newtown.

 

May 30, 1958

There were Boy Scouts as far as the eye could reach at the Italian Community Center on Route 34 over the weekend for the Pomperaug Council “Live For Tomorrow” Camporee. Aside from the weekend of camping out a highlight of the affair was the council’s annual meeting.

* * *

On June 3 at 8 pm the Newtown Board of Education will hold a public meeting in the cafeteria of the High School to explain the proposed reorganization of grades four through seven on the basis of ability grouping. These grades are at present divided according to age. Superintendent of schools, Carl A. LeGrow, and elementary principals Leo Garrepy and Frederick Parr will explain the reasons for ability grouping and how the grades will be organized.

* * *

The Newtown Kennel Club will mark a centennial on Thursday, June 5, when the club will hold its 100th American Kennel club sanctioned match at Edmond Town Hall. Members of the club are making special preparations to commemorate the milestone. The first match was held on April 10, 1947, and while records of such continuing successful matches are not available, it is believed that the Newtown Kennel Club holds a record for matches held by any kennel club in the country.

* * *

A brief ceremony at Dickinson Memorial Park Friday afternoon at 2:30, just before the start of the annual Memorial Day Parade, will mark the official opening of the park’s third season. Chief among improvements and additions which include landscape work with new plantings and general sprucing up, additional parking area, an extension of side wings at the outlet dam, new steps from the parking area to the beach, and three new fireplaces with two more under construction, is the wading pool for toddlers.

* * *

Real Pawnee Indians from Oklahoma have pitched their tepees on Hanover Road in Newtown, three miles from the monument and may be seen in all their tribal trappings doing Indian dances, when Silver City Ranch, a bit of the old Wild West in Yankee-land, will open to the public on Memorial Day.

* * *

An enthusiastic capacity crowd thoroughly enjoyed Sunday afternoon’s unveiling of the sixth annual Stardust Revue presenting the pupils of the Lathrop School of Dance at the Edmond Town Hall Theatre. The Lathrops conducted an extremely able presentation, moving at such a lively pace that 44 separate acts and a generous intermission were held in a timetable of two hours. The entire production demonstrated an amazing degree of backstage skill at marshalling the nearly 200 performers to meet their cues.

 

May 26, 1933

While there is nothing definite as yet, Dr W.H. Walker, assistant superintendent of the Fairfield State hospital, said that as things looked now the Fairfield State Hospital will open about June 15. It is planned to bring 550 patients to the hospital about that time, if plans work out well. Four hundred will be men from the Connecticut State hospital at Middletown and 100 from the Norwich State hospital.

* * *

Local townspeople, in addition to the residents at Lakeside on Lake Zoar, are invited to attend the series of Saturday night dances which start on Saturday of this week at the pavilion at Lakeside on Lake Zoar. Fred Esposito and his WICC seven-piece Radio Orchestra will furnish the music, and this popular band is sure to make these Saturday night dances pleasant events for all.

* * *

C. Magar of the Elmwood Filling Stations, located on the Newtown-Bethel road, is putting in a new sand bottom in his lake in preparation for the summer season. This place has fresh water continuously running in and out with a depth of from two to nine feet. This place comprises nine acres with a beautiful picnic grove with tables, fireplace and a large dance room. Luncheon, ice cream and refreshments may be had at all times.

* * *

A New Haven man stopped at the Sandy Hook bridge, near the Niantic dam, took out his fish pole and started to fish. Before he had finished he had landed 10 beautiful trout. A man from Danbury followed after him and pulled seven nice speckled beauties out of the same pool and then Irving Beers tried it and landed four nice trout. Wednesday a man pulled a trout weighing a pound out of the pool near Troy’s dam.

* * *

Dear Mr Smith: I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for mailing me the two issues of The Newtown Bee while I was a patient in the hospital…I left the hospital the 11th post-operative day and I am now in the country at my parent’s home, gaining very rapidly. I shall return to Sandy Hook the first of the week, anxious and eager to resume my practice, and I hope, a better Doctor for having had this recent experience. Sincerely your friend, Waldo F. Desmond

* * *

The contract for the cut off at the corner of the state roads in Dodgingtown, west of J.W. Behn’s, has been awarded to George J. Kaylor, well known Washington contractor, who will begin work, this week. There are 631 feet of road to be constructed.

May 29, 1908

All comrades and others interested in the remembrance of the soldiers of past wars for our country are requested to meet at the Sandy Hook postoffice on May 30, at 1 o’clock pm. We would request of the public a collection of flowers to be left at the postoffice or the house of Charles E. Hawley early on Memorial day. —Custer Post Adj, Sandy Hook

* * *

Residents of Newtown Street and vicinity were astonished, Tuesday afternoon, when it became noised about that Charles H. Northrop, former town treasurer, had committed suicide by hanging, in his own house. The pathetic fact that his only son, a mere lad, coming home from school, should first discover the lifeless body of his father, is a situation to make stout hearts mourn with those who suffer most keenly. The instrument used was his body or belt strap and he met his death in the hallway of his residence, taking the precaution to lock the door before committing the sad act. It is generally believed that brooding over his trouble had brought on a state of mental unsoundness, causing him to do the rash act.

* * *

Michael J. White, who has held the offices of constable and registrar of voters and indexer of land records at various times in Newtown in the last 14 years, had his application for citizenship denied by Judge Silas A. Robinson in the Superior court of Bridgeport, Tuesday. Judge Robinson said he was satisfied that White had been leading a respectable life but he could not overlook the fact that the man had been voting for 14 years when he never took out his second citizenship papers. Mr White testified that he was 37 years old and came to this country from Ireland in 1888.

* * *

O.F. Terrill, the Hawleyville butcher, who has been living in F.S. Sanford’s house at Hawleyville for several years, which has just been sold, has moved temporarily into his new barn which he has just erected on the property he purchased a few weeks ago opposite F.S. Sanford’s place at Hawleyville. Mr Terrill is moving his market on to the property this week, and will locate it just west of his barn.

* * *

The turnpike companies are a relic of pioneer days, and it seems strange to think our main highway running north and south was for a long period of years in the sole charge of the Bridgeport and Newtown Turnpike Co., a company chartered by the Legislature, which did business for about 80 years. The complete records of this company are owned by that popular Newtown citizen, Arthur Treat Nettleton, who secured them from Charles Henry Peck, the last treasurer of the company. The Bridgeport and Newtown Turnpike Co was organized, November 17, 1801, at the swelling house of Col Caleb Baldwin, now the residence of Charles Beardsley.