Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Town history comes alive on heritage walk

Town history comes alive on heritage walk
Dick Heinz briefed a group of visitors on the background of buildings in the Falls Village historic district during a Housatonic Heritage walk on Saturday, Sept. 25.
Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan

FALLS VILLAGE — Dick Heinz and Judy Jacobs led a group of eight visitors around the historic district of Falls Village on Saturday, Sept. 25.

The tour was part of the Housatonic Heritage series of informative walks and tours.

Starting on Railroad Street at the Depot, home of the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society, the group took a leisurely stroll past the Falls Village Inn, where Jacobs noted the building’s history, as tavern and brothel.

Moving on through the town Green, where Falls Village Cafe customers were enjoying the sunshine at the outside tables, Heinz said as a child he and his friends played baseball on the site.

Jacobs told the group that cash for the bank up the street was once unloaded from the train and wheeled up Main Street on a horse-powered, narrow gauge rail line.

As the group made its way up Main Street, Heinz and Jacobs explained how the downtown landscape changed over the years.

Prompted by a question, Heinz launched into an explanation of the difference between “Town of Canaan — Falls Village” and “Town of North Canaan,” commonly referred to as “Canaan,” even though the actual Town of Canaan is really Falls Village.

“Wait, now I’m confused,” laughed Heinz.

Jacobs said it was the railroad that popularized the name “Falls Village.”

The visitors were suitably impressed when informed about the Tiffany windows in the Center on Main, and were interested to know that Heinz had lived in several of the houses along the tour route, which continued  to Beebe Hill Road and the Hunt Library before angling down Brewster Road and then back to the Depot.

The Heritage Walks began Sept. 4 and will end this weekend, Oct. 2 and 3. Get the schedule at https://housatonicheritage.org/events/heritage-walks/.

Latest News

‘So Little to Do,’ so much to discover at James Barron Art

Curator Deborah Goodman Davis reads the Emily Dickinson poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do.” Spencer Finch’s “Following Three Bees (Zinnias)” buzzes in the background.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

“The Grass Has So Little to Do,” on view at James Barron Art in Kent, takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Grass So Little Has to Do,” written in 1862:

“The Grass so little has to do—
A Sphere of simple Green—
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain—”

Keep ReadingShow less

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey is not a woodworker

Marina Kotchoubey at the Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers showroom in West Cornwall.

Photo by D.H. Callahan

After 40-something years navigating the world of custom fine furniture, Ian Ingersoll was getting ready to retire. Starting off with a little dovetail stool that he sold at a shop in West Cornwall in the 1970s, he’d grown his skill and his business into something he — and the whole town — could be proud of. Shutting down that business was not an option.

Ingersoll built Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers, which produced mainly classical Shaker furniture, on passion: the passion he had to make a living through creative challenges and the passion of his employees, who all seem deeply in love with their craft.

Keep ReadingShow less
A legacy of giving at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

One hundred and twenty years ago, Carl and Ellen Stoeckel commissioned New York architect E.K. Rossiter to design The Music Shed in Norfolk, Connecticut. After nearly a decade of entertaining their friends and neighbors with the finest music of the day, they built a permanent home for their beloved Litchfield County Choral Union.

The commission and full funding of the construction was not unheard of in an era when great fortunes led to public enrichment. Railroad tycoon John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in funding institutes of higher education. Steel baron Andrew Carnegie was building libraries all over the country, and famously said that a man who dies rich is a disgrace, challenging his peers to give their fortunes back to the people.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Two unique exhibitions at Geary Gallery

Henry Klimowicz with his sculpture, “Partial Pillar 1”

Photo by D.H. Callahan

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Geary Gallery opened its doors in Salisbury for two unique shows in its first- and second-floor gallery spaces. Art lovers flooded both floors over the course of the afternoon, giving the events a vibrant feeling that enhanced the importance of the art.

On the first floor is a show by Chicago-born, Colorado-based photographer Summers Moore, titled “Lobitos: Pueblo Fantasma,” or “Lobitos: Ghost Town.” The work centers around her daughter’s current hometown in Peru. Moore herself found a home away from home in Colorado in the mid-1980s and encouraged her children to seek out new places outside of their comfort zones.

Keep ReadingShow less

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Writer’s retreat in the woods

Participants in a 2024 Great Mountain Forest Woodland Academy workshop at Yale Camp.

Photo by Mike Zarfos

Great Mountain Forest (GMF) will host its first Nature Writing Retreat at the historic Yale Camp in Falls Village from Aug. 7-9, 2026. Writers of all levels are invited to draw inspiration from one of New England’s most notable forest landscapes. GMF envisions the retreat becoming an annual event celebrating writing, conservation and the relationship between people and forests.

This immersive three-day retreat reflects on the legacy of Hal Borland, the American writer and New York Times nature columnist whose work was deeply connected to this landscape. The retreat explores how wilderness shapes language, strengthens close observation and fosters environmental consciousness.

Keep ReadingShow less
From Cornwall to Rome, Adam Van Doren at Berkshire Botanical Garden

Artist Adam Van Doren and curator Donna Hassler talk to a group of visitors at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. A Stephen Proctor vessel sits to their left.

Photo by Natalia Zukerman

This summer, the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge has hosted “Grounded in Nature: Paintings by Adam Van Doren,” an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between architecture and the natural world.

On view for only a few more weeks in the Leonhardt Galleries, the exhibition features more than 35 watercolor and oil paintings by the New York-based artist, architect, author and Yale professor, curated by art historian Donna Hassler, director emerita of Chesterwood. The works span three distinct places that have shaped Van Doren’s artistic practice: New York City, Cornwall, Connecticut, and his travels throughout Europe.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.