Books and backwoods with Tim Hunter
Tim Hunter, right, stewardship director of The Sharon Land Trust giving pointers to a Hotchkiss student.
John Coston
Latest News
125 years ago — August 1900
A shoemaker, Mr. Stephen Galfe, has opened a shop in Robert’s old store.
Peabody, the well known scientific optician, will be at L.P. Hatch’s drug store, Millerton, N.Y., Aug. 22, 23, 24, 25. Examination free.
LOST — July 11th, somewhere between the post office, the depot and Bostwick Hill, a black leather pocket book with silver mountings, containing a small sum of money and three keys. Finder will be liberally rewarded by returning same to Mrs. W.H. Kenyon, Lakeville.
A new iron foot bridge will soon replace the present wooden affair over the brook near the Scoville Library at Salisbury. The bridge is to be furnished by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co., and will be a great improvement to that section.
A small deer was seen one day recently in the rear of William Raynsford’s house. Deer have been seen in this vicinity at different times during the last two years, but never quite as near a residence before as in this instance. It is well for hunters to remember that there is a heavy fine and imprisonment for killing any deer or even frightening them till the year 1904.
Mr. Treat Sanford of Waterbury spent a few days last week at Ira Traver’s returning home Monday. While here Mr. Sanford had excellent luck at fishing and showed our reporter five nice bass that would probably weigh three pounds apiece. Mr. Sanford uses the lightest kind of tackle for the sport of the thing — “Just to give the fish a chance” he says and some days he says he intends to use a piece of linen thread for line. He fishes to see how much science he can use and the more difficult the fish to land the more he enjoys the fun.
Yesterday morning while Patrick McCue was driving up from the depot his horse became frightened and ran away. When rounding the corner near the bank, the wheels struck the stone hitching post, around the tree, and the wagon was quite badly wrecked. Patsy was unharmed and the horse escaped injury. A rig standing in front of the bank had a narrow escape from collision.
100 years ago — August 1925
LIME ROCK — Mrs. Lorch has a home full of city boarders.
SALISBURY — George Parsons and family and Paul Parsons and family motored to Northampton on Saturday leaving Misses Hazel and Ruth Hendricks there for a two weeks visit with their grandmother.
William B. Rudd, after fifteen years service with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. except for a period of war service in France on July 1st entered the employ of the Union Switch and Signal Co. at Swissdale, Pa., where he is specializing on the development of car retarders, this being brakes operated from the ground and used in the classification yards on railways. The device is a pneumatic brake which works on the ground alongside the rails to slow up or stop cars that are being switched around yards to make up trains. It saves the labor of many men who are known in railroad practice as car riders.
ORE HILL — Moxie Rowe from New York is visiting his mother Mrs. Victoria Wevatoski.
RADIO USERS — Don’t waste your money buying new tubes. Save your used ones, take them to Puff’s Radio Headquarters. For 60 cents each Puff’s experts will make them as good as new. Tests before and after renewing will be made before your eyes.
50 years ago — August 1975
His Honor Anthony Stocken, 715th mayor of Salisbury, England, paid a visit to his city’s namesake in Northwest Connecticut over the weekend and pronounced himself charmed by the New England architecture as well as the fine summer weather. During several busy days Mr. Stocken and his wife Pauline managed to check in at the White Hart Inn, attend the Sharon Playhouse, attend a cocktail party and official luncheon in their honor, tour Salisbury, attend church, inspect the ambulance service and the ski jump and visit several private homes.
The Lakeville Hose Company had an unexpected and unsuspected guest at the firehouse for 10 days or so. When the firemen returned from a call one night in July, Mike Fitting caught a fleeting glimpse of a cat in the shadows. He didn’t give it much thought until an ad for a lost cat appeared in The Journal the next week. Mike tried calling the pet’s name around the building, without success, but when the cat’s owner went to the firehouse, a very hungry and scared Siamese appeared from one of the firetrucks. It’s entirely possible, Mike says, that the stowaway rode undetected on the big vehicle all the way over to Falls Village for its firemen’s parade, and back.
Northwest Connecticut has long been notorious for its rattlesnake population, but 1975 seems to have been contributed more than its share of sightings of the reptiles. In recent weeks at least 7 snakes have been sighted in the Canaan/ Falls Village vicinity, with 4 of the sightings in the past 2 weeks. Three of the snakes have been sighted in areas where snakes have not been found for years.
Canaan town officials have received a final insurance payment on equipment damaged in last November’s town garage fire. The check for $414 covers damage to the town’s payloader.
Dr. Thomas Livingstone will open an office at Kent Green in Kent on Monday. He is a graduate of Lycoming College and the Fairleigh-Dickinson University School of Dentistry. Dr. Livingstone and his wife live in Sharon.
Starting with next week’s edition of The Journal, Ruth Epstein will assume the role of Kent correspondent. She replaces Paul Dooley who has been with the paper for 2½ years and has resigned to assume a more active role in local politics.
A group of concerned neighbors in the Macedonia section of Kent gathered recently at the home of Eugenia Evans to discuss ways and means of slowing traffic on the road between the entrance to Macedonia Brook Park and the village of Kent on Route 341.
25 years ago — August 2000
SHARON — W. Hudson “Hud” Connery Jr. believes the infusion of capital and the expertise of Essent Healthcare personnel can save Sharon Hospital. Speaking Monday evening at the first of several community forums scheduled to discuss the impending sale of the hospital to Essent, Mr. Connery, the firm’s CEO, gave assurance to the standing room only crowd. “We will bring the capital that’s needed to grow and reduce operating expenses,” he said, adding “the operating expenses needed to be reduced are not related to patient care.”
KENT — When the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe’s petition comes before the Bureau of Indian Affairs later this year, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is likely to be left behind. Last week the BIA denied a request by the Schaghticoke that its petition for federal recognition be considered simultaneously with that of the Golden Hill Paugussett. The Schaghticoke contend that simultaneous consideration is necessary because the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe, based in Bridgeport, may have stolen a portion of the Schaghticoke’s genealogy and is attempting to use the lineage as its own.
Keep ReadingShow less
Front row from left: Finn Cousins, Muireann Grace Keliher, Helen Sanders, Emma Colley, Zoe Gillette, Nash Archimedes Barillaro. Back row from left: Catherine Bushey, Gabriela Titone, Olivia Olsen.
Patrick L. Sullivan
SALISBURY — A group of Northwest Corner college students participated in a brief scholarship award ceremony Thursday, Aug. 7, at the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association (SVNA) building in Salisbury.
Nine of the 13 students plus assorted proud parents were on hand: Finn Cousins (Sharon), Muireann Grace Keliher (North Canaan), Helen Sanders (Cornwall), Emma Colley (Sharon), Zoe Gillette (Lakeville), Nash Archimedes Barillaro (Lakeville), Catherine Bushey (Lakeville), Gabriela Titone (Lakeville), Olivia Olsen (Norfolk). Avery Tripp (Falls Village), Myah Baird (Cornwall). Erin Daley (Norfolk) and Madelyn Krasowski (Warren) were not present.
The students each received a scholarship of $10,000 from the SVNA. The scholarships are renewable and some of the students had taken advantage of that.
The scholarships are for Northwest Corner students who are going into the medical field, broadly defined.
The fields of study included: physical therapy, business administration, psychology and nutritional science.
Addressing the group, SVNA board member Nancy Toer said, “We were so impressed by all your resumes, ambitions and talent.”
Keep ReadingShow less
Shoppers flocked to Kent Town Center and Main Street for the Sidewalk Festival Aug. 7 to 10.
Lans Christensen
KENT — Beautiful weather blessed the Kent Sidewalk Festival Aug. 7 to 10 and welcomed crowds of happy shoppers.
All along Main Street, the walkways were lined with goods and bargains of every variety. Shops had set up tents, tables and covered booths displaying bundles of treasures.
The festival kicked off Thursday,with a concert on the Town Hall lawn by the ever-popular Joint Chiefs.
Friday began with one of the festival’s premier highlights, the St. Andrew’s Parish Tag Sale. Shoppers, eager to get the first shot at the offerings, could get “early bird’ entry for a small fee. The free entry began at ten, and the crowd packed in.
Tag sale coordinator, Marel Rogers, said the church had extended the donation period to two weeks and the volume of goods on the tables was staggering. Furniture, toys, baskets, jewelry, fine china and glass to name a fraction of the available bargains.
Other shops included Terston, Tarot in Thyme, The Heron Shop and Foreign Cargo, kept the sidewalks full of eager bargain hunters.
Lans Christensen
Keep ReadingShow less
SALISBURY — As the Pope Land Design Committee continues talks around a three-pronged housing, recreation and conservation proposal on a large downtown-adjacent property, a Thursday, Aug. 7, presentation advocated for the consideration of a particular long-term resident: the wood turtle.
“Conservation is the dominant use of this property,” said herpetologist Michael Klemens, who has spent decades studying the wood turtle’s Connecticut population and helmed the Pope study, which has been considered a vital early step in the planning process for the project. Klemens also chairs the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, though affirmed he conducted this work purely as a “consultant” and would recuse himself from applications to P&Z regarding the project to ensure there is no conflict of interest.
In reporting his findings to the Zoom audience, which included members of the Committee, First Selectman Curtis Rand, Selectman Katherine Kiefer, Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity Director Jocelyn Ayer and town Recreation Director Lisa McAuliffe, among others, Klemens suggested the 72.3 acres of the Pope Property and Trotta Field be restructured into three parcels: 6.6 acres for housing, 13.5 acres for recreation and 50.4 easement-protected acres dedicated to wood turtle conservation.
Klemens said his motivation in the recommendations was “approaching this as a conservation issue, not a development issue.” Klemens holds a doctorate degree in ecology and conservation biology and has led research on reptile and amphibian conservation for over forty years, most recently co-authoring a 2021 book on the conservation status of many species in Connecticut.
He noted that experts from the Natural Diversity Data Base section of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection have endorsed the study and findings, agreeing the site is of special ecological value. “The state considers the wood turtle to be the principal and primary conservation concern of the site,” said Klemens.
The wood turtle, a smallish turtle endemic to the Northeast U.S., Great Lakes and southeastern Canada, is listed as a species of special concern in Connecticut and is protected by the Connecticut Endangered Species Act. They spend their lives in and around streams, roaming riparian (river-adjacent) forests and grasslands for meals and mating and nesting opportunities. Their primary threats in the Northwest Corner are depredation, being hit by cars and, notably with broad fields on the Trotta and Pope parcels, strikes from mowing equipment.
Klemens reported the landscape of much of the proposed project area is prime wood turtle habitat: a network of braided stream channels surrounded by extensive wetlands and native forests, with all the watercourses ultimately feeding Salmon Kill which also supports the species. He said the land is part of a broader ecosystem which extends to some abutting private property and land owned by the Salisbury Winter Sports Association.
Four turtles have been found in the area comprising the current Pope and Trotta parcels, including one spotted during the study which Klemens described as a “very healthy female, quite young, very large.” He said there are likely many more, but surveying the area is difficult due to complex and varied terrain.
Klemens produced a map from the study’s findings, which he shared with the Committee and assembled local leadership. The map showcases the boundaries of the various parcels and management zones he proposed, along with a low-profile turtle exclusion fence between the conservation areas and recreation and housing parcels. He said since the map had received positive feedback from the state, he was not open to altering it — “this map has buy-in.”
He reported he will be working with experts both from DEEP and the private sector over the next month to develop a wood turtle-specific management plan for the proposed conservation area.
Klemens explained that while it will be a conversation further along in the planning process, he does not foresee the conservation parcel to be open to passive recreation, like hiking or dog-walking. “So-called passive recreation is not always so passive” when it comes to protecting sensitive species, he said.
McAuliffe said recreation plans will not be substantially altered by the new layout, despite losing a few acres of land to turtle conservation. Elizabeth Slotnick, member of the Pope Land Design Committee and vice chair of the Salisbury Affordable Housing Commission, said while the proposed housing development will need to be moved from its previously planned location, she didn’t think it would lose units. The most recent development plan showed a maximum of 64 residential units on the property.
Klemens countered, stating he felt the proposed residential component will need to be downsized. “I personally believe 64 units is unrealistic given everything we know,” he said.
The project has several more steppingstones to overcome before development planning and applications can begin in earnest, including an 8-24 review by P&Z which screens whether the proposal is compliant with Salisbury’s Plan of Conservation and Development. That process is expected to begin later this year.
A color-coded map from the study is available online at lakevillejournal.com
Keep ReadingShow less
loading
