Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — November 1922

Sharon is planning to build a new schoolhouse to replace the one recently burned by a firebug. The new building will probably be financed with a bond issue with a carefully planned sinking fund.

James Ellis exhibited on Tuesday a perfect rosebud half opened which he picked at the Kenyon place at Sharon. Many also have seen dandelion blossoms the last week.

A good sized tarantula was found on a string of bananas at Roberts’ store on Tuesday. It is now confined in a glass jar for exhibition.

Ernest Muller has purchased two houses near the railway of W.D. Whalen. The houses at present are occupied by Tony Novicki and George Washington.

50 years ago — November

The Village Improvement Society has initiated court action to obtain clear title to the former “horse sheds” property, now roughly covered by the parking lot behind the Salisbury Pharmacy and the bank branch office. Salisbury residents voted in June to sell the property to the VIS by quitclaim deed for $1500. Titles to the various segments of the land date back to the early 1860s, when prominent citizens stabled their horses there, and lines of ownership have become blurred through the years. The area is the site for a proposed off- Main Street shopping area, with the construction of a new food market planned as the first step.

Gay’s Appliance Center on Church Street in Canaan has announced an “adults only” cooking demonstration and dinner party for 7:30 p.m. next Thursday. Featured will be demonstrations of the Sharp Microwave Oven. Factory representatives will be on hand to cook a meal using the Microwave high speed oven. Those who attend (only adults are invited) will then be treated to that dinner. 

Salo W. Baron of Honey Hill Road, Canaan, and New York City was made a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy Tuesday at the Italian Consulate in New York. Mr. Baron received the honor for his contribution to Italian culture and civil history. He is working on a series of volumes tracing history from pre-history through to the modern world.

Peter Hammer, a Kent native, is the editor of Goodbye, Moby Dick, a film documentary shown this past Sunday night over WABC. The half-hour film dramatizes the threat of extinction posed by modern technology as applied to whaling. It also focuses on the mystery and the grace of whales. Nineteenth century whaling songs sung by Judy Collins form part of the soundtrack.

25 years ago — November 1997

In a last-minute intervention, The Journal Register Co., owner of the daily Register Citizen in Torrington, has reached an agreement to buy HVM, LLC of New Milford, publisher of several weekly newspapers including The Litchfield Enquirer and the Kent Good Times Dispatch. The deal cancels HVM’s letter of intent agreed to two months ago to sell the Litchfield and Kent weeklies to The Lakeville Journal Co., LLC, publishers of The Lakeville Journal, The Millerton News and The Winsted Journal. 

Next year’s racing season at Lime Rock Park will have a new start with a new building. The new start/finish building for the track will be an elevated, wood-framed structure which co-designer Sam Posey said will have a more “vernacular, New England” feel to it. The building is one of the more important structures at the track because it is where the races begin and end.