Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago – August 1924

Mr. Charles E. Renshaw, who has been ill during the past winter and spring, has returned from a period of rest and recuperation in Scotland, and is now much improved.

The substation of the Connecticut Power Co. at Sharon was destroyed by fire on Sunday morning at about 3 o’clock. The complete outfit of the company was totally destroyed. A temporary substation has been put into operation, and the juice was back on the wire by 10 o’clock Sunday morning. The large substation of the company at East Canaan was also burned out last Sunday night, but the lines were in operation by Monday morning. Lightning was the cause of the fire.

Abram Martin has an oak walking stick which he thinks very much of for its historical relations. In 1812 the American vessel Defiance was sunk in Lake Champlain to keep her out of the hands of the British, and it has remained at the bottom of the lake since that time. In 1910 one of Mr. Martin’s friends who was foreman of a bridge building crew secured a large piece of one of the oak timbers which was brought up while a bridge was being built. From this timber was cut the walking stick and presented to Mr. Martin. The stick is of perfect grain as hard and undamaged as when it went under water nearly a hundred years ago.

If you don’t attend the Men’s Club Carnival on the Public Play Grounds August 30th you “ain’t” well. “By heck” we’ll all be there with bells on. “B’gosh” you miss it if you don’t come.

STRAY CATTLE – Ten yearlings, three red and the rest black and white, one with bell on. Owner can have same by paying for this advertisement and care of cattle. E.L. Peabody, Lakeville, Conn.

The barbers are certainly pleased with the bobbed hair craze. Men are getting to be pretty small potatoes in the average barber shop. Next.

What has become of those gasoline buses that were going to be operated on the C.N.E.

Robert Feathers is wearing his right arm in splints owing to a broken bone in the wrist sustained while cranking a flivver last week.

50 years ago – August 1974

For the second time the Salisbury Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night rejected the application of the Farmington Development Group to build 52 condominium units adjacent to the old House of Herbs under the new cluster zoning regulations. The 3-2 vote came after promoters of the proposed Salisbury Glen Village project had endeavored to meet all the eight points listed by the Planning and Zoning Commission for its previous disapproval in May.

W. Rees Harris, a dedicated worker for the Salisbury Volunteer Ambulance Service since its inception more than three years ago, will now have an opportunity to apply his expertise on the state level. Mr. Harris was appointed last Friday as chairman of a new state advisory committee on emergency medical care.

Five hundred names appeared on the White House “enemies” list that was compiled by former President Nixon’s staff in 1972. Nineteen of those listed were from Connecticut, and three were from the Salisbury area. This week, The Lakeville Journal solicited comments from two of them on their opinion of Washington’s new administration. John Briscoe, a former university professor and retired farmer now living in Lakeville, said that he “had predicted all along that the far right of the Republicans would demand he (Nixon) leave office. Richard Emerson is a former teacher who has come to Lakeville and concerned himself with literature, music, the arts, and foreign travel. He attributes his appearance on the “enemies” list to the fact that The New York Times printed a list of contributors to the 1972 presidential campaign of Sen. George McGovern. Sally Ellsworth, the third Salisbury resident who appeared on the “enemies” list, was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

The Reynolds Aluminum Company was in Canaan last Friday to shoot a television commercial advocating the recycling of aluminum products. Several area persons were included in the production. The star of the commercial will be young Robby MacArthur of Millerton, who is shown riding from a farm into the village center carrying a bagful of aluminum cans. A mobile Reynolds recycling center is in the village. More local persons are shown collecting the cans and loading them into the huge trailer.

The red caboose located at the front of the Canaan Union Depot will begin another phase of its history this weekend when it is opened as a shop specializing in antique dolls and toys. The new shop, Claire’s Caboose, will be operated by Claire deManbey of Norfolk. Mrs. deManbey said she has collected old dolls for a decade, but that this is her first venture into business. Other items that will be sold include coins, cast iron and tin toys and a collection of pre-World War II comic books.

Siamese zucchini squash was discovered in the garden of Luann Hamel over the weekend. Mrs. Hamel said that it was the first such aberration she has seen.

A Sharon father of three is willing to give up one of his eyes if it will help him find someone to love and care for his children. Camille Careme, a stone mason contractor, is divorced and has had custody of his children for three years. In that time, he siad, he has not been able to find anyone to live at his home and care for his children. He said he is not looking for a housekeeper. His plan is to do something nice for a blind girl by giving one of his eyes so that she will do something nice for him by caring for and loving his children. Mr. Careme admitted there was no guarantee that because a blind girl was given sight she would be good with his children. “It’s a chance I have to take,” he said.

The Planning and Zoning Commission Monday unanimously approved a zoning permit for Neoweld Corporation to construct a new plant off Route 7 in Cornwall Bridge. The new 46,000-square-foot plant will be built on approximately nine acres, two miles south of Cornwall Bridge and fronting on Route 7. The plan is to move the present manufacturing facilities, now located in three separate buildings, into the one location.

Construction has started on a new facility for Morgan Motors of Canaan. Owner Morgan Schafer said this week that he hopes to move his Ford dealership into a new building on the Ashley Falls Road by November.

25 years ago – August 1999

Marguerite “G” Gulotta, an oncology nurse and Canaan native, will participate in the 26.2-mile marathon in Dublin, Ireland, in October as a member of the Leukemia Society of America Team in Training. She has pledged to raise $4,000 for the society’s research for a cure for cancer.

Nancy Boyles of Lakeville was doing private duty nursing at Rose Haven retirement home in Litchfield when a fast-moving twister came through Saturday, loosening a transformer which fell on her Subaru Legacy parked outside, totaling it. Mrs. Boyles, luckily, was not inside, but she watched it happen.

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