Turning Back The Pages

100 years ago — 1921

SALISBURY — Herbert Edelman has returned to New Haven. While at his home here he gave his mother’s house a coat of white paint.

Beginning January 1st the new plan of auto registration will become effective. The charge per horse power is increased from 50 to 75 cents and is calculated from the number of cubic inches piston displacement. Under the new system, the fee for all passenger cars is determined by the following formula: The diameter of the bore in inches, squared, multiplied by 0.7854, multiplied by the number of cylinders. The result of this compilation gives the number of cubic inches of cylinder displacement and the fee is reckoned at eight cents per cubic inch. For the owner of a Ford this means a fee of $15 in 1922. No car can be registered for less than $15.

LIME ROCK — If anyone has seen a stray tiger cat will they please notify Perry Loucks.

60 years ago — 1961

A new building, a new interest and a new occupation has been added to the six-town area on a stretch of land bordering the Housatonic just north of Dutchers Bridge and opposite Green Acres, Canaan. Here Fiorello (“Jerry”) Segalla is completing spacious training stables for thoroughbred race horses. They will be known as Green Acres Stables. The good-looking, creamy pink building (220 feet long by 52 feet wide) has a 540 foot indoor track and box stalls for 32 animals plus a wing which houses an office, a tack room with large stone fireplace, lavatories and a furnace room. Outdoors, the big tract of land flanking the river will, when landscaping is completed, boast seven or eight paddocks and a regulation half-mile training track.

Perry Mason should be called in to solve The Case of the Missing Deer — it’s too much for the Canaan State Police! Edward H. Belter of Wassaic, N.Y. was traveling west on Route 4 in Sharon at 5:15 last Monday afternoon when a light eight-point buck jumped in front of his car and was killed. Mr. Belter went to a neighboring house a quarter of a mile down the road to report the accident. When he returned to the scene of the accident, the deer was gone and a bale of hay was left in its place. Was the hay a down payment on the deer? Or could a truck loaded with hay have been passing and threw off the bale to make room for the dead deer? Trooper George Zuraitis, who investigated, is baffled.

Harry Bartram reported on Monday evening that he had received 41 contributions for the Town Clock Fund in response to a letter sent out in mid-November to about 170 Sharon residents asking for money for electrifying the Town Clock. He said that he was confident that enough money would be raised for the project but added that any money received in excess of that needed to make the change would be put in a permanent fund for maintenance of the clock.

CANAAN — William Merriman of East Main Street was elected president of the Tomorrow’s Farmers 4-H Club at a recent meeting. The other officers are Harold Wickwire, vice president; Althea Vanicky, secretary-reporter; and Bruce Vanicky, treasurer. The club leader is Michael Vanicky of Allyndale Road.

— Leslie Mallinson, Postmaster at West Cornwall, has announced that the Rural Route has been extended to provide year round service for the patrons between Scoville’s Corner and Yelping Hill entrance. In former years this portion of the route was not provided service between November 1st and May 1st.

25 years ago — 1996

Catamount ski area on Route 23 in Hillsdale, N.Y., Mohawk Mountain in Cornwall, and Butternut Basin on Route 23, east of Great Barrington, are all scheduled to open this Friday, provided there is enough snow from either a storm or from artificial snow-making, or a combination of both.

— Thirteen Region 1 students were honored last week at the annual Litchfield County Superintendents Association student recognition awards program. They were: Kelly Downey and Daniel Evon from Lee H. Kellogg School in Falls Village; Nicholas Hunter from Cornwall Consolidated School; Julia Devaux and Charles Vick, Kent Center School; Erin Godburn and Eric Rhynhart, North Canaan Elementary School; James Hutchings and Erin Kowtko, Salisbury Central School; Allison MacInnes and Melissa Moskowitz, Sharon Center School; and Cynthia Matthews and Roberta Yerkes, Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

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