Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago – June 1924

Women were the drivers of motor vehicles involved in 700 of 15,000 recent accidents analyzed by the state motor vehicle department. As there are about 30,000 licensed women operators, the figure indicates that approximately one in every 43 women who operate automobiles in Connecticut figure in accidents. About one in every 12 ½ of the licensed male operators of whom there were 183,000 last year, are in accidents. It is pointed out, however, that male operators, taken as a whole, do considerably more driving than women, and that the ratio stated, therefore, may not be a fair one. Nearly all drivers of commercial motor vehicles, for instance, who spend practically their entire working day at the wheel, are men.

LIME ROCK – Fay Chaffee and Fred Lee have opened a Garage on the new road in one of Mr. Lorch’s fields, near the station.

Frank Sherwood and three friends of New Canaan were in Salisbury over the week end to enjoy the fishing on Mt. Riga.

The roads are being oiled by the state oiling truck.

LIME ROCK – One of the little Bailey boys broke his leg at school and is in the Sharon Hospital.

(Adv.) Lost A large brown envelope containing photograph of canoe. Bore address of Frederick Weicker. Of no use to anyone but owner. Will finder please notify Frederick Weicker, Salisbury School.

G.H. Sylvernale and family are moving back in Mrs. B.R. Wells’ house on the corner.

Madison Silvernale has been off duty with an attack of lumbago.

50 years ago – June 1974

Area fire chiefs, businessmen and town officials were surprised to learn this week of a Connecticut State Police plan to close down the radio communications, fire and burglar alarm systems at Canaan Barracks as of July 1. The communications and alarm functions will be centralized at Troop L in Litchfield.

“The Northwest Corner,” Housatonic Valley Regional High School’s student newspaper, has been awarded the New York Times Certificate of Merit for “outstanding achievement in high school journalism.” The certificate was presented this week in ceremonies at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, New York. The HVRHS student publication was one of 30 high school newspapers from the Northeast and Midwest to receive such recognition.

Mail in Salisbury, Sharon, Lakeville and Amenia was delayed Tuesday afternoon when the mail truck from Hartford broke down in Canaan. Regular afternoon deliveries to post offices was not made. After the truck was towed back to Hartford for repairs, it was again placed in service for the Wednesday morning run. But mail sorting was delayed in several offices because the extra-heavy load made the truck late.

Steve Blass, Falls Village - Canaan native, won his first game in a long time last week, pitching the full nine innings for Charleston in the International League. Blass, long a mainstay for the National League Pittsburgh Pirates, has experienced control trouble this spring and has been trying to work himself back into form in Charleston.

Salisbury Selectmen Tuesday night bridled at the bureaucratic language employed by the State Department of Transportation in response to a town request to acquire a small parcel of state land for a solid waste transfer station. The parcel of 1.36 acres lies between the present Route 41 and the old roadway south of Route 112. It adjoins a parcel of 1.84 acres now owned by The Hotchkiss School and offered to the town on a 10-year lease to accommodate the transfer station.

The sulphur odor that has been reported by a number of residents in the western portion of North Canaan does not emanate from the town’s sewer plant, according to Chuck Wohlfert, operator of the plant. Mr. Wohlfert says that the smell comes from gases thrown off by a smoldering coal fire at the site for the town’s housing for the elderly project. The fire in the coal dust was started accidentally early this spring while the town crew was removing brush. Despite efforts to put it out, it has smoldered in the old coal bank for three months. The latest effort to extinguish it calls for thoroughly saturating the area over a prolonged period.

Betty Atwood, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Grover Atwood of Falls Village, added yet another triumph to her successful 4-H Club career recently when she took first prize in the County 4-H Dairy Judging Contest.

Virginia and Herbert Schweter, the new owners of the Sharon Fabrics and Drapery Shoppe, have enlarged the store’s offerings and now carry a complete line of fabrics, draperies, notions and services.

25 years ago – June 1999

Marsden Epworth, who edits the Compass weekly arts and entertainment publication for The Lakeville Journal, Millerton News and Winsted Journal, has won first prize for page one layout for community and weekly newspapers from the Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut, for the issue of Sept. 24, 1998.

For his dedication and service to the community, Cornwall resident Gary Hepprich has posthumously been named 1999 Citizen of the Year by Taghhannuck Grange 100. Mr. Hepprich died in August, and his wife Carol Hepprich attended the grange meeting May 27 to accept the award in his honor.

WEST CORNWALL – More than 2,000 people crowded into this hamlet Sunday night for the eighth annual Covered Bridge Dance. The bridge dance has been a Memorial Day weekend tradition since it was re-established in 1992 by the Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department. The dance is one of the fire department’s largest fundraisers.

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