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Turning Back the Pages - June 19, 2025
Jun 18, 2025
125 years ago — June 1900
S.W. Raymond of the Connecticut Bible Society conducted a service in the school house at Mt. Riga last Sunday afternoon.
SALISBURY — An automobile passed through this village on Monday evening.
SHARON — Mrs. Rogers of Amenia is sewing for Mrs. R.P. Knight.
We have the wireless telegraphy, the horseless carriage, the chainless safety smokeless powder, and now if we had gossipless country towns, a good many people might have some dreamless sleep.
Our local wheelmen are cautioned against riding on the sidewalks. It is counted a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine. The practice is especially dangerous after dark. It is also well for wheelmen to remember the law against going without a lighted lantern after dark.
During the heavy thunder shower of Monday evening lightning struckahay stack near John Garrity’s and burned it. A bolt also struck the ground back of A. Martin’s, tore up a telephone pole and plowed quite a furrow in the ground.
100 years ago — June 1925
The new schedule on the C.N.E. went into effect last Sunday. The 11 o’clock morning train and 1 o’clock afternoon steam trains are removed and a gas bus now operates in their place. The gas bus is a dinky affair and carries passengers and mails, but the mails are only through mails in locked pouches, as the bus has no room for a mail clerk. Thus we lose local mails. The only time we can send a letter to way stations east is on the early morning steam train, and we can only receive way mail from the east on the evening steam train. It is indeed a “beautiful” service and about fit for darkest Africa, or the Arctic regions. No passenger trains at all are operated on Sunday.
About 20 young friends of Master George Sherwood helped him to celebrate his fifth birthday on Wednesday.
Mrs. Annie Scribner has been suffering from an infected right hand the past three weeks, but is much improved.
LIME ROCK — Mr. John Lowe is selling fine strawberries from his own garden.
Mrs. Rose Mitchell who has been in New York for the past few months has returned to Lakeville, and is employed at The Gateway. In the recent robbery of the railway station Mrs. Mitchell’s trunk was one of those which was forced open. Mrs. Mitchell says that she thus lost two hundred dollars which she had placed in the trunk when it was shipped from New York.
The rebuilding of Interlaken Inn is nearing completion and it is thought the building will soon be ready for business.
Owing to the fact that the express service on the midday trains has been discontinued, O’Loughlin Bros. have decided to run an auto parcel delivery service daily between Millerton and Hartford. Any one desiring service of this nature can have their errand attended to by calling 174-2 and will be assured prompt and courteous treatment.
A small fire at Edward McCue’s ice house called out the hose company last Friday. The fire siren failed to work and then when it did finally start it failed to stop. A broken push button seemed to be the cause of the trouble. The fire was extinguished before the services of the firemen became necessary.
A.S. Martin has added a new Selden Pathfinder auto truck to his equipment. John Phillips is driving the new machine, and is so proud of it he will not even let a fly light upon it.
A severe rain and wind storm struck town on Monday evening with a fall of hail stones. The wind broke branches from the trees in some sections. The amount of dead branches on the ground after the storm emphasized the fact that many of our beautiful trees are in need of pruning and other care.
50 years ago — June 1975
Six-year-old Michael Dunn, a kindergartener at North Canaan Elementary School, drowned Tuesday in Salmon Kill in Lime Rock. Two-year-old Melissa Bearns, daughter of Stuyvesant and Wendy Bearns of White Hollow Road, also fell into the stream and is in critical condition at Sharon Hospital but is showing slight improvement, according to a hospital spokesman late Wednesday. Michael was the son of Bernard and Debra Dunn of Housatonic Road in Canaan. The mothers of both children, as well as other adults, were working in and around the Bearns home at the time of the accident, but reportedly none was aware that the children had gone outside and to the streambank.
Memories of railroad wheel manufacture in Lime Rock around the turn of the century are still a vital part of the life of Willard Palmer of Perry Street, Lakeville. He even has some of the old wheel patterns. Mr. Palmer, a lively man whose sprightly manner belies his 80 and more years, has lived in Northwest Connecticut most of his life and springs from a family that was involved with the major industries that flourished here. “My father’s people were connected with the foundries,” he said, “while mother’s were all railroaders.” Some of the family also worked in the quarries. Mr. Palmer confesses to an early desire to become a railroader, but eventually gave up that dream to work in wood. He said that his family discouraged him from working with the railroads, holding that “it was no kind of life.” And then, “the woodwork just seemed to come handy,” he noted.
“It is a total joy to live in an age in which you can fly,” Nancy Tier of Sharon told members of the Salisbury Rotary Club Tuesday in recalling her 48 years as an active pilot. “I think flying today is the safest means of transportation,” she declared, noting that this feeling is reaffirmed “when I sit there and relax and look down at all those people in cars going zip, zip.” Mrs. Tier related how she had wanted to fly ever since she was 9 and started taking lessons at Hoover Field in Washington, D.C. the fall after Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic. She obtained her license in 1928 after a total of 16 hours and 45 minutes in a plane with 10 hours of solo.
SHARON — Merydith McMillan has won another award from Cricket, the national children’s magazine. This is the second time she has been honored for her work as an artist. Mery has just completed first grade at the Town Hill School.
The Grand Union this week announced it would discontinue use of trading stamps as part of a major new marketing strategy in 82 stores of its Empire Division in upstate New York and sections of Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
25 years ago — June 2000
CANAAN — Geer Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary, but no one is looking back. A carnival-like picnic on the lawn of the facility last Saturday was within view of a piece of history that is in the process of becoming a memory and making way for two new facilities. Folks also got a sneak peek at plans to renovate the existing center. Demolition began Friday on the old Geer Hospital, last used eight years ago. Two adjacent Geer-owned houses are also slated to be removed, all to make way for “The Village at Geer Woods.” Two assisted-living facilities — Geer Village and Geer Woods — will be built on a revamped 69-acre Geer campus that includes a relocated main driveway and expanded parking.
FALLS VILLAGE — For the second year in a row, the Lee H. Kellogg School has earned first place in Gov. John Rowland’s Summer Reading Challenge. Students at the school read a total of 3,553 books, or an average of 30.9 books per student, and 100 percent of students participated. School librarian Judy Gafney said much of the credit for the school’s outstanding placement was due to D.M. Hunt librarian Erica Joncyk, who encourages the students with prizes and parties and keeps count of how many books are read.
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Save our public lands before it is too late
By the end of the 19th century in the United States, many animals and birds had been decimated by overhunting. The most notable was the passenger pigeon, which existed in massive numbers but went extinct from overhunting, as did the Eastern elk, which was declared extinct in 1880. This occurred due to a combination of overhunting, loss of habitat, and a lack of knowledge of conservation.
When he was merely 26 years old, Theodore Roosevelt traveled west to see buffalo and discovered only skulls of the animals on the vast plains. This made such an impression on him that when he became President years later, he created the U.S. Forest Service, 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five additional national parks, and 18 national monuments using the 1906 Antiquities Act.He wanted to leave the American people a treasure for future generations to enjoy by preserving the magnificent land of this country and the animals and birds which lived here.
Today there are more than 430 national parks across 85 million acres in every state and territory of our country. Millions of Americans each year visit our national parks which stimulates the economy and brings jobs to those states.
The Trump administration is the first administration not to add land to the national parks but to try to destroy them. Many park personnel have been fired, so keeping the parks open to the public has become a problem. Now the Trump administration wants to hand the national parks over to the states to run, which would be a financial burden for many states. The Trump administration also wants to open the national parks for mineral extraction, mining, logging, and drilling for corporate profit. They are asking the Department of the Interior and of Agriculture to reinstate oil and gas leases on the public lands and to revoke drilling protections in lands from Alaska to Wyoming and from New Mexico to Pennsylvania.
The millions of acres of our national parks — from the Arctic National Wildlife Sanctuary to the Everglades—have thus far been saved for future generations and have protected hundreds of threatened and endangered species. This includes over one million acres of wildlife migration corridors and five thousand miles of streams and rivers, plus watersheds that collectively supply drinking water for over two million people.
Exploiting the parks and public lands by this administration would destroy our country’s public lands and its wildlife for future generations of Americans. We must speak out now to stop this destruction before it is too late.
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
Clarifying Concept 6 and the Pope Property
Lorraine Faison raised important issues in her recent letter to the Lakeville Journal (June 12th) concerning the ecology of the Pope Property.Many others (including myself) share Ms. Faison’s concern that concept plans were developed absent a thorough understanding of the Pope site’s underlying ecological attributes.The site’s ecology must guide any proposed development and infrastructure planning.
At the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity and Housatonic Valley Association’s Northwest Connecticut Affordable Housing & Conservation Collaboration meeting on May 16th at Salisbury Town Hall, I was quite clear that Concept Plan 6 could no longer serve as the guidepost for development of this site.That position was strongly supported by several meeting attendees.
One statement in Ms. Faison’s letter requires correction/clarification.Although I am the Chair of Salisbury’s Planning and Zoning Commission, the ecological analyses being conducted on behalf of the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity and the Town of Salisbury are not in my elected capacity, but as an ecological consultant.
For those who may be unaware, since 2002 I have served as a consultant, advising a wide range of clients including agencies at the federal, state and municipal levels, as well as conservation groups, developers, corporations, and grass roots citizen groups. My focus has been on how to best use scientific data to create project outcomes based upon comprehensive ecological understanding and best development principles. There have been questions about my qualifications to conduct such research.I have decades of field experience studying New England’s turtles and vernal pools and have authored many peer-reviewed publications on these subjects, as well as herpetology in general.
It is premature to discuss in detail the results of my work, but I will touch on several general points.The study is taking place on both the Pope Property as well as Trotta Field.Those two Town-owned properties are contiguous and share the same riparian ecosystem, so it makes good “ecological sense” to study and subsequently manage these parcels together.Additionally, these investigations are not limited to the areas that need to be conserved, but also areas that should be managed and restored for the benefit of wood turtles and other important species.
While there is space on the site to accommodate both housing and recreation infrastructure, the ecological constraints of these properties warrant a smaller development footprint than anticipated by the concepts presented by the Pope Land Design Committee.The end result is that considerably more land will need to be dedicated for habitat conservation, habitat management, and habitat restoration.
Michael W. Klemens, PhD
Lakeville
North Canaan concern
I am writing in opposition to the tripartite ordinance to create four-year appointed terms for the positions of Treasurer, Tax Collector and Town Clerk in its proposed form.
While I am not necessarily opposed to shifting these positions from elected officials to appointed employees, I feel strongly that the upcoming town meeting is the wrong venue for this ordinance. The Board of Selectmen only just proposed this ordinance at the most recent Board of Selectmen meeting on June 2. The town meeting to decide on this matter has been set for June 23, and this proposed change was only announced in the town newsletter on June 13. I believe the timing of the proposition and its announcement in the newsletter ten days prior to the town meeting does not give the residents of the town sufficient time to consider the ordinance. This ordinance should instead be put to the town as a ballot proposition in November. This would allow the selectmen and the Board of Finance to determine how such a change might impact the town budget and whether these positions should be combined in any way. Residents are being asked to vote on a significant change to municipal operations without any clear indication of how this change may affect the town budget.
Furthermore, I believe that if this ordinance goes forward, it should be amended so that the appointment of a Treasurer, Tax Collector or Town Clerk should be approved by all three selectmen, rather than by a simple majority vote of two selectmen. Since these positions are essential to the smooth operation of municipal business, all three selectmen should be in agreement on any appointments.
The conversion of these positions from elected to appointed may indeed be beneficial for the town of North Canaan. However, I believe the residents of North Canaan should be given more time to consider this proposal.
Chris Jacques
Chair, North Canaan Democratic Town Committee
Cheers forJune 14th demonstration in Salisbury
In my 65 years in Salisbury Never have I seen the need for a demonstration the size of the one I am now witnessing on the White Hart lawn protesting the desire of our president to be treated like a king.
George Washington, not to be compared with Donald Trump, resigned as leader of this new country rather than be declared a King.
Trump has crossed a red line authorizing National Guard and 700 Marines out against his own people. We are a country of immigrants and it is our diversity which has made us great. Protests today against Trump’s actions show that the American spirit is alive and strong. We will not tolerate such abuse of our Democracy.
Elyse D Harney.Age 94
Salisbury resident since 1960
NASCAR, Lime Rock concern
The problem with NASCAR at Lime Rock is NASCAR itself.
Too big, too noisy, and totally inappropriate for Salisbury.
Let ushope that the owners of Lime Rock realize this and do not repeat the event next year.
Inge Heckel
Salisbury
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Our community working together
Local artists Victoria and Mike Selbach created designs, pre-cut and prepped cardboard, supplied materials, and hosted the group making signs for protests.
The power and joy of our community working together towards a common goal were beautifully illustrated this month.
More than 60 friends and neighbors from as far as Amenia and Great Barrington joined forces with Salisbury’s ‘Saving Democracy’ group to hold an impressive ‘Makers Event’ to make 90 posters in preparation for the “No Kings Day” protests in Salisbury and Hartford on Saturday, June 14.
Local artists and social justice activists Victoria and Mike Selbach created designs, pre-cut and prepped cardboard, supplied materials, and hosted the group. They even designed and produced “No Kings” T-shirts for everyone to wear.
Amy Lake and Kathy Voldstad were instrumental partners, bringing their brilliance and support to the concept from the very beginning. And, as is often the case, the scale of this project could not have been achieved without the deep connections and years of activism that so many people have built in this community.
Organizing the protests was a true team effort. Jill Drew, Sophia and Lee deBoer, and Al Ginouves also made significant contributions to help make it possible.
A bus was organized for transportation to Hartford. Our group joined the estimated 9,000 to 10,000 people calling for change.
It’s no surprise that research shows that people who feel connected and get involved in their communities often feel a greater sense of happiness and well-being. I’ve seen this firsthand — not just for myself, but for my friends as well.
Capitol police estimated that nearly 10,000 people were protesting.