Turning Back The Pages

100 years ago — October 1921

SALISBURY — Little Sidney Ball had the misfortune to fall from a tree last Friday, fracturing one arm.

H.R. Brinton and family enjoyed a motor camping trip in their new motor “caravan” last week, visiting the Mohawk Trail, Vermont and other points. Mr. Brinton reports that the new equipment worked perfectly and the trip was thoroughly enjoyable.

ORE HILL — Mr. F. Robertson Jones has broken ground for his new home here.

A touring car belonging to Miss Jennie Smith caught fire from a backfiring carburetor at her garage on Tuesday evening. The car was immediately pushed out of the building and the fire extinguished with an extinguisher. The damage was slight but John Neville’s trousers were somewhat scorched in the melee.

E.J. Vosburgh picked a nice mess of red raspberries from his bushes last Saturday. That’s going some for Oct. 22nd.

Paul Andrews is off duty owing to an injured hand received while cranking a car.

60 years ago — October 1961

On Saturday members of the Housatonic Valley Regional High School band, dressed in their new blue and gold uniforms, will go to the University of Connecticut at Storrs to participate with 14 other high school bands in the fourth annual Band Day.

About 20 people met Friday night at the home of Donald T. Warner in Sharon to discuss the future of Opinions Unlimited, a forum for the full discussion and examination of challenging ideas and differing points of view which was started locally in the area in 1954. At the meeting Friday it was unanimously voted to reactivate the organization.

John Murtagh, a familiar figure for the past 41 years to persons living on the rural delivery mail route of Sharon, will make his last mail deliveries tomorrow. He will, for a time he says, take it easy. Mr. Murtagh started in 1920 when his route covered 23 miles and the number of boxes he served amounted to 120. Now, 41 years later, he covers 73 miles per day and the boxes he serves number 400.Mr. Murtagh changed over from a horse to a car after eight years after he started on the job. Since that time, he says, he has gone through 36 cars. He had worn out four horses before that.

Traffic is tied up with large machinery in the road as work was begun this week on the widening of Main Street in Canaan up to the Methodist Church. Increased traffic to the new Post Office and the narrowness of the road at this point were deemed traffic hazards which necessitated the widening.

Mrs. Vera Charleton, formerly of Cornwall Bridge, now living in Alma, Michigan, entered the Pillsbury Baking contest recently and won a $100 prize and a trip to Beverley Hills, California.

Thomas E. McGivern, son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McGivern, celebrated his fourth birthday last Friday with a party of young friends at his home on Perry Street in Lakeville.

Predicting that telephone users may be able to directly dial Hawaii or Alaska, world-wide communications by satellites, automatic transference of calls and push-button dialing were a few of the telephonic developments in the next decade according to Harold E. Eiby, Canaan manager of the Southern New England Telephone Co.

25 years ago — October 1996

KENT — Berkshire Transformer, a small manufacturing firm that has done business in Kent since the mid ‘50s, will close its doors Nov. 15. Its 25 employees will be offered the opportunity to work at another plant in Somers, a subsidiary like the Kent plant of the parent company, PH Preferred Holdings. BT Manager George Kraemer said some employees have indicated they will accept the offer to go to Somers.

SALISBURY — Donald Stevens, known for his carved wooden duck decoys, took 1st, 2nd and 3rd places for “Best in Show” in the recent Connecticut River Carving Competition in Enfield, N.H. His grebe, scaup and black duck renderings were chosen for awards.

SHARON — After negotiations with two water companies to operate the town’s water system, Aquarion, a subsidiary of Bridgeport Hydraulic Company, was awarded the contract.

KENT — The Schaghticoke Pequot Indians have a long history of living in what is now the town of Kent. They were there before the white men. There aren’t many Schaghticokes in Kent any more — only five families comprising about 12 people, but in other parts of Connecticut there are approximately 300 more who are descendants of original Kent settlers.

These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible. To see more local history in the newspaper archives at the library, go to www.scovillelibrary.org.