Date: Fri 16-Aug-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Newtown-Fair-history

Full Text:

w/photo: Remembering The Great Newtown Fair

No one alive today remembers the Newtown Agricultural Fair. At the turn of the

century, however, the fair was the fourth largest in the state and one of the

most exciting events of the year in the town.

The irony that such a major event should have all but been forgotten prompted

Town Historian Dan Cruson to bury himself in back issues of The Bee , read

through the glorious accounts of this lively but short-lived social

phenomenon, and report on it in the Summer 1996 issue of The Rooster's Crow.

By the 1890s, New England had reached the heyday of its agricultural fairs,

with 37 in Connecticut alone including five large regional fairs like the one

held in Danbury on the site of what is now the Danbury Fair Mall. Newtown's

fair appeared in the middle of this period, originally organized by the

Pohatuck Grange in 1894, then backed by an independent organization beginning

in 1896.

The fair was first held at the old Town Hall, which stood where the exit

driveway for Edmond Town Hall is located today, and the fair animals were

paraded up and down Main Street behind the St Rose Drum Corps for judging.

Poultry cages were arranged on the sidewalk in front of the town hall, and

cattle and oxen were housed in an enclosure at the rear of the building.

After the judging was completed, oxen pulling contests were held, followed by

a spirited bicycle race from the town hall to the flagpole and back. The next

day, horse racing took place. Only two horses finished; the third shied and

threw its rider into the crowd.

Accidents such as these and the inadequacy of Main Street for fair activities,

combined with the overwhelming success of the 1895 fair, induced a number of

members of the Grange to make the fair a permanent institution with a

self-condtained location of its own. On June 10, 1896, a group of prospective

stock holders met in the town hall and formed a corporation for the purpose of

holding an annual fair. They sold stock at $25 a share to 110 individuals and

raised $5,000.

Finding a Site

Now they needed to find a convenient location for the fairgrounds. They

settled on a parcel of property owned by one of the corporation directors,

Philo Skidmore, and promptly voted to lease his 12« acres of land for 10 years

at $125 a year. This parcel was just large enough to accommodate the proposed

half-mile race track, so it quickly became apparent that they would need

additional land on which to put the exhibition buildings and tents that formed

the heart of the fair. So they leased two adjoining parcels. The Skidmore land

was located where the Hawley School is today and the race track extended from

the school building to a point just north of the playing fields. The other

lots were to the west.

The location was ideal because it was between the major populated areas of the

Village and Sandy Hook, and was on top of a ridge with a commanding view of

the countryside to the east (in 1896 there were almost no trees in this area

of town). It also was within easy walking distance of the railroad depot for

visitors who would come from Bridgeport, New Haven, Danbury and New Milford.

The race track was laid out, enclosed with rail fences, and a grandstand

measuring 28x120 feet was built. Over the next two years two large exhibition

buildings were constructed and a small ticket booth was put up near the Church

Hill Road entrance to the fairgrounds. The whole complex was then surrounded

by an eight foot-high fence which was about three-fourths of a mile long.

The first three-day fair in 1896 was an overwhelming success with attendance

on one day exceeding 3,500 people. Attendance peaked at over 5,000 in the

following years.

Horse races and bicycle races were held on the track (the decade of the 1890s

was the golden age of the bicycle and no fair races would be held without one

or two featuring this popular means of transportation). The highlight of the

second day's racing was the Ronald Stake. P.I. Ronald was the heir of the

Lorillard tobacco fortune and the builder of the "Castle" which stood atop

Castle Hill until it was demolished in 1947. Each year Mr Ronald donated a

$100 purse for the winner of the race.

More Than Races

While the races were taking place, fair exhibits were being judged, food was

being sold and consumed, merchants were hawking their wares and games of skill

and chance were being played. (But professional hucksters, or Fakirs as they

were called in The Bee , were prohibited.) In 1906 hot air balloon exhibitions

were added. Bands and other entertainment were featured in the evenings.

One of the more bizarre of the special attractions was the Magnetic Man, R.H.

Mack. According to The Bee, dozens of the strongest men on the grounds tried

to lift him, but always gave it up.

Attendance for the three days of the fair never dropped below 4,000, but each

year The Bee devoted a little less space to its coverage. By the last year of

the fair, 1906, news about the fair filled a little more than half a page of

the newspaper, significantly less than the two and one-half pages devoted to

it in 1896.

Still, it came as quite a surprise when three weeks after the fair of 1906,

the news broke that the fair company was in debt and facing a crisis. The

company owed almost $682 including $461 for unpaid premiums on exibits at the

last fair and about $200 in unpaid bills (including $100 for emergency repair

of the grandstand). In December of that year, the shareholders voted 150 to 4

to dissolve the company and sell the buildings.

The buildings and their fixtures were sold to Henry C. Curtis for $2 because

the company owed Mr Curtis a considerable sum of money. He disposed of most of

the buildings and fencing but the grandstand and a small agricultural building

were still on the grounds in March 1909 when they were sold to Cornelius B.

Taylor. Mr Taylor had purchased the fields on which the race track had been

built after Philo Skidmore died in 1902. Mr Taylor dismantled the grandstand

and moved the agricultural buildings onto his fields. In 1922 he donated these

fields to the town.

Hawley School was built on the lot immediately in front of Taylor's donated

property. Where the cheers of the racing crowd once echoed, the cheers of

soccer parents now fill the athletic fields behind the school in what is known

as Taylor's Field.

The reason why the fair company collapsed so quickly is not clear, according

to Mr Cruson. The fair had been profitable up to 1905. The 1906 fair incurred

financial loss because rain on the final day, and the threat of rain on the

two other days, reduced attendance. The grandstand had to be fixed but even

that does not seem sufficient to have doomed the fair.

The only explanation, Mr Cruson said, seems to be a lack of energy on the part

of the officers and directors. The original organizers had turned it over to

successors who simply didn't have the same enthusiasm and commitment.

"The fair seems to have died, not with a bang but with a whimper," Mr Cruson

said. "The echoes of Newtown's lost fair can still be heard in neighboring

Bridgewater, where at the end of August the noise of animals being judged and

food being sold can still be enjoyed, and where Newtowners can relive a little

of the excitement of the old Newtown fair."