North Canaan Events Committee chair Jenn Crane, center, leads a preliminary planning session for this year’s events in North Canaan on Tuesday, Jan. 13. Community members and town officials joined.
NORTH CANAAN — The North Canaan Events Committee (NCEC) held a meeting Tuesday evening, Jan. 13, to begin mapping out plans for 2026, a year expected to bring expanded programming tied to major national and local milestones.
Christian Allyn, a resident attending the meeting, noted that 2026 will be “a big year with the 250th,” referring to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Jenn Crane, chair of NCEC, said that with a busy regional calendar expected in 2026, the committee wants to be mindful of other towns’ events to avoid scheduling conflicts. She stressed that the discussion was informal and not a formal meeting.
The meeting went on to discuss more than 20 area events, and some of the highlights include:
The George Washington’s Birthday Ball, scheduled for Feb. 21 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Colonial Theatre. The event, hosted by Friends of the Canaan History Center, will feature live music by Relatively Sound, with “small bites” provided by Freund’s Farm. Guests will also be greeted by costumed historical figures circulating throughout the evening, wearing period attire on loan from Sharon Playhouse. Tickets are $50 per person.
The event will also feature a “Tipple Table,” a colonial-era tradition offering George Washington’s beer recipe brewed by Norbrook Farm Brewery, along with wine from Land of Nod Vineyard & Winery.
In March, the annual Egg Hunt is scheduled for March 28 at Lawrence Field. Town Clean Up Day will follow on April 25 in recognition of Earth Day.
In May, NCEC will assist the Friends of Douglas Library with their annual plant sale, and the first vendor market of the year is planned for Sunday, May 31.
June will feature cemetery tours and Summer Talks presented by the Falls Village–Canaan Historical Society. On June 13, the Canaan History Center will reenact the raising of the Liberty Pole on the Corner Green, adjacent to Bunny McGuire Park, with hot dogs and apple pie served. NCEC will also spearhead the Community Tag Sale on Father’s Day weekend, June 20–21.
Summer programming continues in July with the return of Summer Nights of Canaan, including a carnival, fireworks and parade. The Bitterman Center will host a dinner featuring traditional colonial foods.
Canaan Railroad Days will take place Aug. 6 to Aug. 9, highlighting the town’s locomotive history with events centered around the Canaan Union Depot.
A car show is planned for September at North Canaan Elementary School. Crane said organizers have also asked NCEC to coordinate a vendor fair in conjunction with the event.
Pumpkin Fest and the annual scarecrow contest are scheduled for October. The Calico Fair will be held the first Saturday in November at Pilgrim House, followed by Small Business Saturday on Nov. 28.
The holiday season begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving with Winter Fest’s Parade of Lights. A vendor market will be held at the elementary school prior to the parade.
December planning includes the annual holiday house decorating, business window painting and Letters to Santa programs.
Concluding the meeting, NCEC Chair Jenn Crane said, “So, now it is all about filling these events and collaborations.” She added that volunteers are needed to support the events and prevent cancellations.
For more information visit www.northcanaaneventscommittee.org
Norma Bosworth
125 years ago — August 1901
THE JOURNAL this week begins its fifth year, and thanks are due the public for generous support and cooperation. The Journal has at all times endeavored to faithfully represent its section as home paper should, and hopes the public will continue to bestow its patronage and assistance.
Modern day editor’s note: This week begins The Journal’s 130th year of publication and this year marks 5 years as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We are as grateful today for the support of our community as our predecessors were 125 years ago.
Genial John Belcher has purchased a new driving horse, a sweet one they say.
100 years ago — August 1926
Jack Wells of Brooklyn recently caught a five pound pickerel at Twin Lakes. The fish measured 27 inches in length.
A government airplane came to grief near West Cornwall last Sunday. It is understood the two pilots saw that their gas was running low and looked around for a place to land. They selected a cornfield belonging to Eugene Wickwire, and in landing made a miscalculation of the distance, the plane coming to a stop against a stone wall and barb wire fence, and receiving considerable damage. The pilots escaped injury. The plane was taken apart and towed to Hartford for repairs.
Thomas Graham, formerly of this place, is in the Winsted hospital as the result of injuries received when he was struck by an automobile on Gay Street, Winsted, Monday evening. He was carried in an unconscious condition by two automobilists from the street and left in a barn nearby where he was found later. He sustained five broken ribs and his left arm was fractured. The automobilists, who are unknown, carried Mr. Graham to the barn thinking he was dead, and left without notifying anyone of the accident. The injured man is the father of Mrs. Peter Phillips.
Mrs. Katherine Johnson Ashe is spending the summer near Asheville, N.C. Mrs. Ashe writes that Asheville was named after her husband’s “great-great-grandfather who was a distinguished general in the Revolutionary war.”
50 years ago — August 1976
A former Salisbury resident has become “foster father” to a young male chimpanzee and is helping him learn to communicate more clearly with human beings. The “father” is Walter Benesch, a graduate of Housatonic Valley Regional High School, and son of Louise Benesch of Amesville. His “foster son” is a 2 ½ year old chimp, Nim Chimpsky, whose name is a take-off on that of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky, a noted linguistics expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for his skepticism on the subject of chimpanzee research, Benesch said. In Project Nim, Benesch cares for the young chimp like a parent, feeding him, putting him to bed and taking him to visit friends.
CANAAN — Age and ill health have left undimmed Grete Stuckgold passionate commitment to the world of opera. Confined to Geer Memorial Extended Care Facility for the past three years since she suffered a stroke in New York City, the 80-year-old former opera star continues to follow opera through Saturday morning broadcasts. “I’ve become emotionally involved,” she says. Mrs. Stuckgold’s interest in opera is no passing fancy. She has devoted her life to the art and was for 15 years prima donna with the New York Metropolitan Opera House. She has sung most of the major soprano roles during her career, and has appeared in nearly every European country, all the states of the Union and every Canadian province.
ASHLEY FALLS — Sheila Angus, Sheffield correspondent for The Lakeville Journal, produced some shattering news Monday morning when she drove her car through the window of the Ashley Falls Post Office. When Mrs. Angus pulled up in front of the post office she had difficulty in getting her gear shift into the parking position. “The car just refused to stop,” she said,” and I found myself going into the plate glass window. There were no personal injuries, thank heaven, but you should see the post office!”
25 years ago — August 1976
Housatonic Valley Regional High School senior Candace Deeds spent the last six months in Costa Rica, studying at a high school and teaching at an elementary school. She also found time to check out some of the beaches. “I’ve never experienced anything like them before,” she said of the finely crushed seashells that made the soft shimmering sand.
These items were taken from The Lakeville Journal archives at Salisbury’s Scoville Memorial Library, keeping the original wording intact as possible.
Patrick L. Sullivan
Jennifer Epstein Rudnick spoke in Falls Village Aug. 4.
FALLS VILLAGE — Jennifer Epstein Rudnick, a National Park Service ranger in Washington, D.C., and the author of “Search for the Signers: Visiting the Graves of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence,” said that finding the graves of the signers turned out to be more complicated than she initially thought.
For starters, it was by no means clear that the actual remains of some of the signers were actually beneath their gravestones.
Rudnick spoke at the South Canaan Meetinghouse Tuesday, Aug. 4, as part of the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society’s “First Tuesdays at 7” series of summer talks.
Rudnick is the daughter of The Lakeville Journal reporter Ruth Epstein and Ed Epstein, and grew up in Kent, attending Kent Center School and Housatonic Valley Regional High School (HVRHS).
At Gettysburg College, she met fellow historian Peter Vermilyea, who is the head of the Social Studies Department at HVRHS.
With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Rudnick said she came at the subject of the signers from a different angle.
“I wasn’t interested in them while they were alive,” Rudnick said. “What I ended up doing was looking for their graves. I figured I’d find them, take a photo. It wouldn’t be that hard.”
What began as an interesting but modest side project became more complicated.
“I realized that just because the stone was there didn’t mean the signer was in the grave.”
She offered some examples of irregularities she uncovered, starting with Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, 50 years after the Declaration was adopted, and was buried at his home in Monticello in Virginia.
His remains are still there, beneath an impressive monument. His original headstone, however, is at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Rudnick said the family graveyard at Monticello was plagued by visitors looking for souvenirs. They “chipped away at the original headstone” until it had to be removed.
The original eventually wound up in Missouri in recognition of one of Jefferson’s major achievements, the Louisiana Purchase, which included the territory that is now Missouri.
Closer to home, Roger Sherman of Connecticut is said to be interred in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, where a headstone and monument bear his name.
But Rudnick quickly found a problem. “
“The cemetery opened in 1796. Sherman died in 1793. So where was he for three years?”
During her research, Rudnick found that while cemetery guides often provided the official version of who is buried where, cemetery caretakers sometimes told a different, more nuanced story.
In Sherman’s case, the caretaker told her that before the Grove Street cemetery opened, New Haven’s notables were buried on the town green.
As the town grew into a city and space became limited, graves and remains were moved. Mostly.
“He said there was no record of Sherman ever being moved “ to Grove Street, Rudnick said.
“He’s probably still on the green.”
In the case of Caesar Rodney of Delaware, the quest initially seemed straightforward. At Christ Episcopal Church in Dover, Delaware, there was a monument marking his grave.
Then Rudnick noticed a plaque on the cemetery wall stating that Rodney’s remains had been moved to the church yard in 1889 – more than a century after his death in 1784.
This time, it was the cashier at the gift shop and the local visitor center who provided the additional information.
As Rudnick bought a scarf bearing the names of all 56 signers, the cashier asked what brought her to the shop. After learning of Rudnick’s interest in Rodney, the cashier said “Oh, he’s probably not really there.”
“We think it’s a woman,” added the cashier as she completed the transaction.
Seeing Rudnick’s surprise, she elaborated.
When the remains were relocated from the family graveyard, those doing the moving were not sure if they had found Rodney. Popular opinion holds that it was a woman’s remains that were interred in Rodney’s new grave.
Rudnick asked if that was true, where was Rodney’s body?
“Under Runway Seven of the Dover Air Force Base,” she replied.
Patrick L. Sullivan
Singers Jennifer Marshall (left) and Emily Levin perform as part of the church’s First Friday concert series on Aug. 7.
SALISBURY — The songs of Charles Ives, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Aaron Copland filled the Salisbury Congregational Church on Friday, Aug. 7, as singers Jennifer Marshall and Emily Levin performed for the church’s “First Friday at the Meeting House” concert series.
Accompanied by David Baranowski on piano, Marshall, a soprano, and Levin, a mezzo soprano, performed together and separately, beginning with “Stepsisters’ Lament” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”
Marshall, who lives in Danbury, sang three songs by Danbury native Charles Ives.
“He ended up selling insurance and did music on the side,” she said. “He didn’t think he was very good at it.”
Levin sang “What a Movie!” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti” with considerable elan. Introducing the song, she said it was a personal favorite.
“It’s Bernstein at his sharpest,” she said.
The next concert is Friday, Sept. 4, with contralto Alison Gish and pianist Melody Faber performing “Stabat Mater” by David Butler and the “Hermit Songs” of Samuel Barber.
All First Friday concerts begin at noon.
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Patrick L. Sullivan
Lilly Rand shows workshop attendees how to make decorative books using paper.
SALISBURY — Artist and educator Lilly Rand showed nine adults and two teenagers the basics of making a small decorative book from scratch in a workshop at the Scoville Memorial Library Tuesday, Aug. 4.
Rand, who teaches art at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, had supplies galore spread across tables in the children’s area of the library.
There were wallpaper samples, wax, various kinds of string, binder clips, envelopes, pencils, markers, awls and many different types of paper.
Rand said children of artists often donate “whole studios’ worth of supplies” to the high school when their parents die.
She got the group started with a basic design she called the “Japanese four-hole binding,”
using three stiff pieces of paper folded to create six pages.
Rand demonstrated techniques for folding the paper, creating a sharp edge, using an awl to create the holes, and how to use the wax and string. She also pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of having the knot inside or outside the finished book.
The class worked diligently, with the occasional raised hand to ask for assistance.
After about an hour, everyone was admiring each other’s handmade books.
Rand noted that almost everything she used is readily available. Now that the group has the basics down, she said, there was no reason not to continue making books at home.
Alec Linden
State and local officials discuss health care policy during a conference at the Torrington Community Health and Wellness Center office on Thursday, Aug. 6.
TORRINGTON — Rural health care continues to pose unique challenges, but the Northwest Corner’s Community Health and Wellness Center (CHWC) is ready to take them on, said the organization’s CEO, Joanne Borduas, during a recent visit from Gov. Ned Lamont.
The governor was joined by public health officials at CHWC’s headquarters on Thursday, Aug. 6, for a brief conference in recognition of National Health Center Week, an annual celebration of the approximately 1,500 Federally Qualified Health Centers across the country. CHWC’s three locations – Torrington, Winsted and North Canaan – are among that group, offering sliding-scale payments regardless of insurance status. The CHWC serves as the only primary care provider for many in the region, especially those in lower income brackets.
Also present were Sen. Paul Honig (D-CT), Dr. Mandar Jadhav, of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Deb Polun, of the Community Health Center Association of Connecticut, Lisa Ferris, of the United Way of Northwest Connecticut and Petra Clark-Dufner, of the University of Connecticut’s Area Health Education Center Network.
During her opening remarks, Borduas said there was much to celebrate, including the recent reinstatement of CHWC’s dental practice after losses forced its suspension last year. However, challenges remain, she said.
One, Borduas said, is a misconception among policymakers that affluent areas do not need services.
“Sometimes there’s a misconception when you talk about areas that are considered a bit affluent — that there’s no need, they don’t need services,” she said. “So not true.”
Lamont said his experience lobbying in Washington for federal health care funding has been similar.
“We had to go talk to Dr. [Mehmet] Oz,” Lamont said, referring to the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services since 2025. “He said, ‘You know, I thought you were a couple of big cities and a lot of leafy suburbs.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think you understand Connecticut.’”
Connecticut ultimately received $154 million in 2026 through the new federal Rural Health Transformation Program and is expected to receive additional funding annually through 2030. The state will disburse the funds to providers and programs through grants.
Borduas said CHWC will focus on four key challenges unique to Northwest Corner health care as the federal funds are rolled out: transportation and geographic isolation, workforce recruitment, digital infrastructure and an aging population.
“The Northwest Corner is probably, I’ll be biased again, one of the most beautiful parts of the state,” she said, “but it is lacking in resources, and probably our biggest barrier here is the lack of public transit.”
Addressing transportation is a key priority for the organization, Borduas said, including through the organization’s mobile unit BETTY — “Bringing Exceptional Treatment to You ”— which brings services directly to patients.
BETTY was outside the Torrington facility accepting school supplies for children in need. Donations will be distributed to students at the Torrington Police Activities League’s 19th annual school supply event at Coe Memorial Park on Aug. 15 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Some supplies will be reserved for the CHWC’s school offices, some of which are located at HVRHS, North Canaan Elementary School and Sharon Center School.
Borduas also emphasized telehealth and the need to care for the region’s aging population.
“These folks want to age at home,” she said. “We need to make sure we can care for them so that they can do so with dignity.”
Overall, Borduas said she hopes to use the funds across these initiatives to “forge ahead” by enhancing and expanding the vital services CHWC provides.
Honig, a Harwinton resident, said he recognizes the organization’s importance to the region. “I have personal experience with this area being a primary care desert,” he said.
Jadhav, who serves as a liaison in Washington for the 1,500 Federally Qualified Health Centers across the nation, offered final remarks.
Despite impending cuts to Medicaid, he said, “this is a good year to celebrate.” He reported that FQHCs have moved from a negative to positive margin, “and that’s because you are innovative.”
Lans Christensen
Musical guests, Brother Other, play an outdoor acoustic set in Kent during the sidewalk sale.
KENT — A highly anticipated summer tradition, Kent Sidewalk Sale Days celebrated its 50th anniversary Aug. 6 through 9, bringing businesses, organizations and shoppers together for bargains and outdoor shopping on Main Street.
Tents and canopies spanned the length of the street, providing shoppers with a wealth of choices and great deals. Favorites like Terston, Foreign Cargo, and House of Books were joined by newcomers Perfectly Paired, Westerlind and others.
A premier destination of the event has always been the St Andrew’s Tag Sale. This year the “early bird” opportunity was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, giving dedicated shoppers first choice of the offerings. Glass, china, kitchen equipment and art were polished and cleaned to “as new “condition.
Shoppers stop by the popular House of Books and Terston during the sidewalk sale. Lans Christensen
The success of this earlier access was evident in the long line of customers waiting for the 4 p.m. opening — and shoppers leaving with armloads of bargains.
Weather for the event was hot and humid as predicted, with the “feels like” temperature nearing triple digits. Rain held off, although it prompted the Karl Allweier concert to be rescheduled from Saturday evening to midday Sunday.
Beyond sidewalk shopping, Sale Days offered music, entertainment, food and drink, as well as fire truck rides and games for children.
The Kent Chamber of Commerce organizes and presents Sidewalk Sale Days, with Chamber Vice President Ellen Corsell and Board Member Gary Kidd playing key roles. Corsell emphasized Kidd’s contributions, saying she was in awe of “his motivation, innovation, and determination to make this the best Sale Days ever.”
“I am so happy to see the town so alive with people from everywhere,” Kidd said.
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