Turning Back The Page

100 years ago — November 1921

SALISBURY — William Parsons badly gashed his left hand while cutting kindling wood on Tuesday afternoon. The ax came down upon his left hand at the base of the thumb, inflicting a wound that necessitated a trip to the Sharon Hospital. The cords were severed and the wonder of it is that the thumb was not completely severed.

H.R. Brinton’s Garage at Salisbury was badly gutted by fire between eleven o’clock and twelve o’clock Monday morning. Mr. Brinton is of the opinion that it was caused by the explosion of the gasoline tank of the water heating apparatus which he has recently been installing in his motor caravan preparatory to taking a trip to Florida for the winter. Monday morning he had decided to try the apparatus out and while the water was heating he went into the front office for a moment. Hearing a crackling sound he ran out into the garage just as an explosion occurred which threw him bodily out through the big doors of the garage. In a second the flames seemed to be everywhere. He made an attempt to save his books, breaking in the large window in front, and received some cuts and gashes on both hands which fortunately are not serious.

The main building was gutted, but the large ell was saved practically intact. No attempt was made to save the seven or eight autos inside as the place was an inferno. Mr. Brinton is not able at this time to state his loss but as near as he can estimate it will be at least $20,000 partially covered by insurance.

LIME ROCK — The Pulver, Van Dyke and Roraback babies were baptized Sunday morning at Trinity Church.

Dr. Thomas Shannon has sold his “Sanitarium” building in Falls Village to Samuel Weiner of that place. It is not stated what Mr. Weiner will do with the property.

LAKEVILLE — Peter Flynn has given up the Wononsco Garage and will conduct his auto livery and sales business at his home — the Hurd place.

60 years ago — November 1961

Area residents were dismayed to awake Monday morning and find a thick, wet snowstorm in progress. After a warm Fall, and no warning from the weatherman, motorists were caught without snow tires or chains and a spate of automobile accidents occurred. Between 11:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. there were nine accidents reported in the area, four of them in the town of Salisbury with three people injured, none seriously, but damage to vehicles was high.

Trooper Alan W. Ringklib of the Canaan Barracks shot the highest score in the State Police firearms training program and received top prize of $25 donated by an anonymous Hartford attorney. Another Canaan trooper, Fred E. Rebillard, was in the money in third place.

Mrs. David F. Duffy of Sharon has waited all this time since Halloween, hoping the pranksters who took the rocking chair off her porch that night would relent and she’d find it sitting in its place some fine morning. She has finally given up and placed an ad in The Lakeville Journal pleading for its return.

The old green rocker has a great sentimental value to Mrs. Duffy. She had very gay and pleasant memories of the old Sharon Inn and before it was demolished, she purchased the rocker as a souvenir of the old inn. Friendly hint: Kids, why not sneak it back onto the porch some night soon. Mrs. Duffy NEVER looks out the window!

SHARON — Mr. and Mrs. William R. Kenny have just had word that their son Peter, who is attached to the Judge Advocate General Branch of the U.S. Army and is stationed at Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, has been promoted to Captain. Captain Kenny has been in Europe since April.

A new weekly newspaper, The Litchfield County Beacon, will make its bow on Nov. 30 and will cover the Torrington- Winsted area. Its publisher, Daniel Pranka, formerly with The Hartford Courant, says the paper will be printed in Canaan.

The Rev. Standish MacIntosh, rector of Trinity Church in Lime Rock, was discharged from the Sharon Hospital on Wednesday of last week after 25 days. Father “Mac,” as he is known to many, suffered a crushed vertebra and a cracked rib and now wears a back brace. He says he wants to sing the praises of all at the hospital who ministered to him for their friendliness and competence and that “Support Sharon Hospital” has become more than a slogan to him.

Guests attending the Open House of the new Cornwall Post Office on Dec. 3 will enter the building across one of the oldest stepping stones in Cornwall. The stone is of native granite and was quarried at the old Beer’s quarry which was then located across from the Cornwall Cemetery.

Russell J. Shaw, President of the National Iron Bank of Falls Village, announced today that Mrs. William Boults is a prize-winner in the nationwide Bankers Aweigh Contest sponsored by the American Express Company. Mrs. Boults, who has been with the bank since 1946, won the seventh prize in competition with bank executives and employees throughout the United States and Canada. The award, a Corning Ware Family Set, was presented to her at the bank Friday by Mr. Shaw with a message of congratulations from James A. Henderson, vice-president of American Express.

Dairy farmers in the area started a course in feeding dairy cattle last week at the North Canaan Elementary School. Dairymen from Falls Village, Canaan, Colebrook, Norfolk and Salisbury are attending the series sponsored by the Litchfield County Extension Service.

25 years ago — November 1996

SHARON — The reward stands at $600 for information leading to the prosecution of those who knocked over 30 or 35 gravestones at the Hillside Cemetery two weeks ago. Superintendent of the old burying ground Ed Wilbur said police are still investigating but to date no one knows who knocked over the markers, some dating back to the 1800s, some weighing as much as 600 pounds.

Owners of Canaan Union Station, the town’s centerpiece and the oldest continually operated train station in the country, have put the downtown property on the market. It is not a “fire sale,” according to Ross Grannan, who bought the station with Paul Ramunni 13 years ago. The partners are simply “testing the waters” to see what kind of offers they might get, he said.

Fast action and good preparation is credited with saving Cornwall Consolidated School from a major fire over the weekend. Some time very early Saturday morning, the pump that feeds water to one of the elementary school’s two steam boilers stopped working. “The boiler ran out of water, and the shutoff feature failed. By the time the firefighters arrived the boiler was red hot,” First Selectman Gordon Ridgway said. If the huge metal box had gotten any hotter, it might have exploded, he said. If firefighters had sprayed it with water, it would have exploded.

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible. Go to www.scovillelibrary.org to see more historical archives.