An antique photo of a venerable antiques sale

In the April 29 issue of The Lakeville Journal, we shared a few photos from an antiques fair that was held for many years in Salisbury. The photos we used were from sometime in the 1970s but we weren’t sure when; and because of that, we weren’t able to trace the original article in our online archive through the Scoville Memorial Library, at https://scoville.advantage-preservation.com.

Betsy Knight of Lilburn, Ga., gets the Best Archive Sleuth Award for finding the original article on the front page of the Sept. 17, 1970, Lakeville Journal. The original issue can be seen at our online archive (the web address is above); the images in our archive are, sadly, hard to read. But fortunately, we have a digital scan of the original negative made for us by volunteer Perry Gardner. 

The original photo from the front page article, taken by Stewart Dean, is above. 

Rob Buccino grew up in Salisbury. His mother, Barbara, was for many years The Lakeville Journal’s Salisbury correspondent and Rob has continued the tradition by writing occasional articles for us on topics that interest him. Rob actually now lives on the property where the antiques sales used to be held. 

“Russell Carrell’s annual flea market used to be held in the fields next to my house, just east of Noble Horizons. The cupola on the house seen in one of the photos is still on the house across the street, which once had the House of Herbs enterprise (in the house, not the cupola; they grew and sold herbs, I believe with national distribution, up to the late 1960s).”

That herb business was run by the woman known in those days as Mrs. Ezra Winter (her own first name was Pat), the wife of the famed painter whose home and studio in Falls Village is now known as Winterhouse. 

An article about the House of Herbs can be found in our online archive on page 21 of the issue of the Aug. 8, 1957, issue.

The newspaper’s online archive can certainly be a rabbit hole for anyone interested in the history of our towns. Betsy Knight said in her email to us, “I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent looking through the old Journals online! It’s great! I use it to find family history and just interesting tidbits. 

“When I was a kid I used to look through the old bound copies at the library. Back then they allowed us to look through the huge books.”

Those huge books can still be found at Salisbury’s Scoville Library, but the oldest issues are now most easily accessible through the online site. 

Back to the flea market/antiques sale, Michael Kahler of Salisbury (who contributes poems to our newspaper’s opinions page) wrote in to say that the “Salisbury antiques fair was called ‘Antiques in a Meadow.’”

Its creator, Russell Carrell, “lived in the faded violet house on the Lakeville/Millerton road. Antique dealers would arrive in their station wagons, park in a big circle and sell out of the back of each wagon.”

Betsy Knight noted that Carrell’s sales were quite famous and were even written up in the New York Times.

“People came from all over to attend all through the 1960s, and beyond,” she said in her email. “It was expensive stuff, not ordinary flea market items.  

“I can’t believe i remembered his name,” she added. “I do remember so many cars parking on the grass.”

Although she lives in Georgia now, Betsy said her father was the postmaster in Salisbury from the 1950s to the 1970s. 

We are grateful and delighted that so many of our readers enjoy the vintage photos as much as we do. We will continue to run the images when we have space, and we hope they will continue to spark memories that you will share with us.