Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — April 1923

I. Kent Fulton has joined the brokerage firm of Adams Merrill and Co. of Hartford.

A.T. Tufo has closed his shoe-making business and has also sold his place at Lincoln City to Peter Brazzale. Mr. Tufo expects to move to Watertown, N.Y.

Messrs. C. and A. Hateman who have been caretakers of Mr. C.W. Barnum’s house in Lime Rock have moved. It is reported that Mr. Barnum’s house has been sold.

The experiment which the C.N.E. road is to try within a short time by putting to use two gasoline cars between Millerton and Hartford will be watched with much interest. The new cars are now being built and will be larger than those now operating on other branches of the New Haven system. The use of these cars will do away with much of the heavy expense of running a regular train with a full crew and few passengers. In view of the financial condition of the road and the continued high wages demanded by the trainmen, it would look as if the new gasoline buses will be more and more widely adopted as time goes by.

50 years ago — April
1973

One more northwest Connecticut dairy farm went out of business last Saturday as auctioneer Milt Crosby presided at the Gobillot Brother farm dispersal sale in Sharon. Developers will convert the big farm to homesites.

A Millerton, N.Y. headquarters was announced this week by a new “Northeast Transportation Coalition,” claiming “up to one million” members in 500 citizen groups. The coalition, with Canaan’s Tom Zetterstrom and Millerton’s Lettie Gay Carson as key organizers, marked its formation with a statement backing measures now in Congress which would free some Highway Trust Fund money for use in mass transit projects.

Dr. Robert Noble’s historic home on Main Street in Lakeville has been sold to Richard and Barbara Maltby of Indian Mountain Road, Lakeville. The transaction included the house and barn and 72.7 acres of land, with the real estate conveyance tax indicating a purchase price of $130,000. The house has been designated a historic landmark by the Salisbury Association but its exact age is in question. One version says the house was built in 1815 by Gen. Elisha Sterling, while a plaque on the house itself is dated 1763. It was the homestead for many years of the Robert Bostwick family for whom Bostwick Street is named.

Any woman in Northwest Connecticut who has had a secret hankering for police work now has her chance. Women may become auxiliary members of the Connecticut State Police, according to Commissioner Cleveland B. Fuessenich. A limited number of women will be accepted at the Troop B barracks in Canaan for clerical and office work, radio dispatching, and assisting troopers with female prisoners.

25 years ago — April
1998

Teviot Fairservis of East-West Fusion Theatre is seeking help moving sets and materials formerly used at Sharon Stage to a site in Cornwall Bridge. She has put out a call to all “theater-lovers, carpenters, landscapers, movers and shakers with strong backs and arms, trucks or large vehicles” to help salvage the materials.

Fred Kautzmann said last Tuesday he “didn’t like all the fuss.” The fuss he was referring to was Noble Horizons acknowledging his 104th birthday April 8. Along with a sign on his door touting the event, he’d been wished a happy birthday by Today Show weatherman Willard Scott.

Michael Arnoff will carry on the tradition of Arnoff Moving & Storage company, which was founded in 1924 by Abraham Arnoff and his son Louis. The business had one truck then. In 1971, Louis’ son Richard took over the firm and now his son Michael is in charge. The company’s services now include household and commercial storage at six locations from Albany to Fort Pierce, Fla.

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.