Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — June 1922

— Fireworks of all kinds are for sale at George Parsons’ home in Salisbury.

While working on the electric light line near the Lime Rock cemetery on Monday Stanley Mather killed a large rattlesnake. The snake measured 43 inches in length and had eleven rattles. The wheel of the auto truck passed over the snake but did not kill it and it crawled into the bushes. Stanley, who was wearing rubber boots, followed it and dispatched it after it put up a fierce fight and rattled furiously. Stanley is now looking for someone who knows how to tan a rattlesnake skin.

LIME ROCK —  Levio Perotti and John Curtis spent Thursday at Camp Vue, Cornwall. Levio caught so many fish that he and John came back on Sunday and brought some friends to watch them catch some fish, but to no avail, for the fish didn’t like the popular song that Levio was singing most of the time and refused to bite.

—The work of constructing a new concrete road from the foot of Smith Hill to Dutcher Bridge has been started. Mascetti and Holley have the contract.

50 years ago — June 1972

Salisbury had the second highest property assessment per capita but the second lowest tax rate of all the 169 towns in Connecticut in 1971, according to the Office of the State Tax Commissioner. The figures were disclosed by the Municipal Division of the Commissioner’s Office in Hartford in response to an inquiry from John H. Brooks on behalf of the Salisbury Board of Finance.

—Sunday’s torrential downpour failed to dampen the celebration of the 25th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Sczcesiul of Lakeville. About 150 relatives and friends gathered under a tent on the lawn, and inside the family’s large home on Main Street, for the festive event.

—John F. Bianchi, Canaan attorney and one of the four original prosecutors for Circuit Court 18, has been named to succeed Thomas F. Wall of Kent as states attorney for Litchfield County.

—Kenneth Rutledge, executor of the estate of James Rutledge, this week refuted rumors that a decision has been made to raze the old Canfield Hotel. The elder Mr. Rutledge had operated the hotel until his death last week.

—In what is billed as the largest event of its kind in the area, the Lakeshore Land Co. will auction off approximately 75 cabins and cottages this Saturday. The sale will be at the former Children’s Colony summer camp off Long Pond in Lakeville. Prices may be as low as $100 per cabin plus $100 in moving costs, according to Millerton auctioneer Waldo Scardapane.

25 years ago — June 1997

Caroline C. Calhoun of Cornwall was named to the dean’s list for outstanding academic achievement for the spring semester at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.