Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago — December 1921

LIME ROCK — Mrs. Harlow Merriman underwent a successful operation for appendicitis at the Winsted Hospital last Thursday and the latest report is that she is getting along splendidly.

TACONIC — The Roche Farm on the Undermountain road has been purchased by Judge H.D. Hotchkiss of the New York Supreme Court.

Miss Mary Holmes of Taconic says that if anyone tells you that a car will run without water in the radiator, don’t believe it. Mary knows from experience.

ORE HILL — Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Rowe and family have moved into one of the Salisbury Iron Corporation’s houses.

50 years ago — December 1971

Pervasive rumors that land near the Housatonic River owned by the Stanley Works is about to be sold for development purposes were denied categorically Wednesday by Howard Coe, director of real estate for the New Britain firm. The land in question aggregates some 1900 acres in Kent, Sharon and Cornwall. “I know of no plans to dispose of it,” Mr. Coe said, expressing interest in how the rumors that have worried neighbors for the last several weeks got started. At the same time Northeast Utilities is understood to be interested in the possible purchase of some or all of the Stanley land in the future for use as a recreation area in the event it seeks to build the proposed Canaan Mountain pumped-storage project.

Sharon Hospital this week announced increases of 43 to 46 percent in room rates. The increases, which took effect last Saturday, average $21 per day and bring the average daily room rate to $69.74. Hospital Administrator Paul W. Sternlof pointed out that until now the Sharon Hospital has had the lowest room rates in Connecticut.

Contrary to The Lakeville Journal’s original suspicions, it was apparently not pranksters but state workmen who moved the large white marker at the Lakeville- Salisbury village boundary. A spokesman at the state highway department sign headquarters in New Milford explained that the old-style signs which announced a town’s name and warned passing motorists (ungrammatically) to “Drive Slow” are being replaced by new ones which merely state the name. These are not official town limit signs, but “informal” markers at the edges of thickly-settled districts. Therefore, the spokesman explained, they are sometimes moved to accommodate increased building in a given area, or placed on a lot line rather than right in someone’s front yard. But no one seems to know exactly who moved that particular sign, or when or why. Anyway, Lakeville has not actually expanded northeastward toward Salisbury after all.

After 46 years with the Kerite Co., most recently as chairman of the board, Theodore O. Rudd of Lakeville will retire on Dec. 31. Mr. Rudd joined Kerite, largest manufacturer of insulating cable in this country, as a sales engineer in 1926.