Turning Back The Pages

100 years ago — August 1921

Salisbury was honored on Thursday last by a visit from James Hartness, Governor of Vermont, who, with his wife and a member of his staff called upon old time friends at Sunny Slopes. Governor Hartness was much pleased with Salisbury.

TACONIC — Mrs. L. Beal has gone to Pittsfield with her two boys to have their adenoids removed before school opens.

ORE HILL — Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Garrison of Hudson are occupying one of the Company’s houses.

Mr. Adolfo Perantoni of Hartford was a week end guest of his former teacher, Miss Esther Frink.

50 years ago — August 1971

New hope for revival of the Northwest Connecticut Glass Recycling arose this week when a used trailer was located that could be used for sorting at the Salisbury Town Dump. George Kiefer of Salisbury located the trailer, which he said had been used for grain storage on a farm and can be purchased for $100. Several other persons are joining in the search for additional trailers at a low price.

U.S. Gypsum Company will shut down its Falls Village quarry and lime plant by March 1, a company spokesman announced in Chicago Monday. The Sand Road plant, which employs 21 people, will close for two reasons, according to William Stephens, its manager. Intracompany economics, with U.S. Gypsum discovering a substitute material for the finely ground lime dust produced in Falls Village, make the shutdown feasible, he disclosed. A demand by the Connecticut Clean Air Commission for installation of air pollution control devices was also a definite factor, he said. “It was the straw the broke the camel’s back,” he said, referring to the Clean Air ruling.

When fire broke out at Bierce’s General Store in West Cornwall early Tuesday afternoon, fire companies came from West Cornwall, Cornwall Bridge, Sharon and Ellsworth. Their united efforts brought the blaze under control by evening, but the 97-year-old building suffered considerable damage.

The Southern New England Telephone Company has announced plans to put a new telephone line underground through much of Canaan’s business district.

For the second time in two weeks the North Canaan Dog Pound has been broken into and all the animals released. According to Mrs. Alfred Thomen, wife of the dog warden, the pound has been vandalized five times in the past two years, despite the various methods that have been tried to make the cages secure.

25 years ago — August 1996

FALLS VILLAGE — Alice Wolf stepped around the yard-wide pine tree growing through her front porch and opened the screen door to visitors. Mrs. Wolf and her husband Bill have enlarged the hole in the porch floor and roof three times to accommodate the tree. Last year the wind-blown pine towering 110 feet above the house separated the porch from the rest of the cottage. Mrs. Wolf, who spends the rest of the year in St. Augustine, Fla., says Pine Grove is a place where no one may cut down a tree regardless of where it’s growing.  hit

It is also a place where every face is a familiar one, where residents raise an American flag to signify they are home, where no one may buy one of the 64 Victorian cottages without a formal vote of the families already there, a place where the old owners leave the linen, the furniture, even the tableware for the new owners, and a place where the pull of history, religion and the common good compels everyone. This weekend, the 70 or so members of the Pine Grove Association will celebrate the beginnings of this summer community as a Methodist campground 125 years ago.

CANAAN — Two out-of-state women miraculously escaped injury Tuesday when their car hit a utility pole head on, snapped it in two and came to rest on top of the remaining three-foot-high section. The accident occurred when their 1993 Buick Regal veered off a straight stretch of Church Street between Grove and Barlow streets at 5:25 p.m. Both women were able to safely leave the car, although power lines were pulled down around it. The road was closed and traffic detoured around the scene until the pole was replaced. About six homes were without power for several hours.

CANAAN — The pickin’s were slim at Edwards this week. Customers were greeted by sparsely stocked and empty shelves throughout the store in anticipation of the supermarket’s transformation to Stop and Shop. The store will close at 6 p.m. this Saturday and remain closed for a scheduled four days while crews replace signs, reset and restock shelves with Stop and Shop and Select brand products.