Turning Back the Pages

100 years ago – October 1924

Messrs. Jack and Charles Kimmerle Stanley Sherwood, Harry Jones and Oliver Marston were in New York on Wednesday to see one of the world series games.

Edward Tompkins has closed up his blacksmithing business and has gone to Sharon, where he has employment at present.

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Bertone expect very shortly to open “Ye Handye Cookery Shoppe,” a home bakery and restaurant, next to the Berkshire Beauty Shoppe in the building recently purchased by Harry Miller. Their opening has been delayed by miscarriage in transportation of furnishings. The Bertones desire to make Lakeville their permanent residence and wish to express through the Journal their appreciation of the kindly welcome accorded them, and the timely assistance rendered by the various business firms. They hope to reciprocate by adding one more attraction to our thriving village.

LIME ROCK – Miss St. John, our district nurse, has gone to her home in Holyoke, on a month’s vacation.

The new road from Lime Rock station to New Milford is practically completed, and is now open for travel. It is a very scenic stretch of road and well worth taking auto trips to see, especially at this time, when the foliage is at its best.

LIME ROCK – Kenneth Athoe has resigned his position on a farm and is at his home for a while.

The Lakeville Hose Co. have received very substantial checks from Mr. N.A. McNeil, Hon. Donald T. Warner and Mr. A.O. Roberts, which are very much appreciated, and they have turned them into the fund for the purchase of a new truck and pumper.

Gasoline has taken another drop and is now selling from 15 to 18 cents in New York. The local price is 20 cents.

The Lakeville Water Co. is extending its mains to E.O. Wagner’s residence.

TACONIC – Mr. Herbert Scoville and family have moved to the city for the winter. They expect, however, to spend week-ends at Hill House during October. Harry Smith and wife are acting as caretakers in the meantime. Charles Paddock Sr. is enjoying a week’s vacation from his duties as chauffeur at Hill House.

50 years ago – October 1974

A Poughkeepsie developer was set to break ground in Canaan Wednesday for the Northwest Corner’s latest – and one of its largest – shopping plazas. A Grand Union market and an Adams discount drug store are already signed up as tenants for the plaza, due to open next spring. The new plaza will be on North Elm Street, just above the intersection of Routes 7 and 44.

Area residents this week were cautioned to be alert to any suspicious behavior by animals following confirmation that a red fox that bit a Salisbury man near State Line Road Sept. 26 was rabid. The victim, 26-year-old Thomas Robertson of State Line Road, has nearly completed a painful two-week series of injections.

A. William Olsen Jr. of Lakeville was elected president of the Sharon Hospital at the annual meeting Saturday. Mr. Olsen is headmaster of The Hotchkiss School.

Three-year-old Steven Allen Gagnon died Saturday night at Sharon Hospital, an hour after being struck by a car in front of the Gagnon home on Route 44, East Canaan. He was the son of Delores Gagnon. The driver of the car, a Bristol man, was charged with negligent homicide. The child’s death was Canaan’s sixth traffic fatality in the past year and the 13th during the same period within the six small towns of Regional School District One. All six Canaan deaths occurred in four accidents within a few miles of each other on Route 44 in East Canaan.

The Housatonic Valley Regional High School Board of Education Tuesday decided to look into certain conditions in the high school’s football locker room and coach’s office following a letter by a Canaan resident at the board meeting. Board member Dr. Peter Jordano read a letter from Louis J. Trotta of Canaan, calling certain conditions in the high school locker room “appalling.” Mr. Trotta described the shower stalls in the locker room as covered with fungus growth and soap residue while shower heads were coated with lime. He also complained of a lack of shelves and trash barrels in the coach’s locker room, and the lack of a taping table.

William Merriman Jr. of East Main Street, Canaan, has been as busy as a bee most of this summer preparing for this weekend’s opening of his new honey house. Mr. Merriman, who has been in the business of extracting honey for the past four years, is now expanding his operations. During the open house, he will display equipment needed to efficiently remove honey from the comb and package it for the consumer. Merriman has set up a centrifugal extractor that holds nine honey-filled frames, a capping machine (to remove the beeswax caps from the frames) and two 100-pound holding tanks. While he has sold his honey through area stores, he said he is doing most of his business out of his home at this time.

Kent Postmaster Eugene Bull and Housatonic Enterprises jointly announced this week that a modern postal facility will be erected at Kent Green within the next six months. Kent Green is the handsome new shopping complex being developed by Jack and Gordon Casey on the east side of Main Street in Kent.

25 years ago – October 1999

CANAAN – A hearing on a dam permit application by Phoenix Horizon Corporation was canceled last week when the developer announced it would not continue to seek the approval. The dam would have been part of a condominium style housing project planned by Phoenix Horizon for the 66 acres it owns on Sand Road. The property is now the subject of a loan foreclosure in the amount of more than $375,000.

LAKEVILLE – Katie Coons has been horsing around for most of her life and the results, by all accounts, have been magnificent. Ms. Coons, 21, recently received one of the highest ratings bestowed by the international riding organization called Pony Club. She is the first member of the Lakeville branch of the club ever to receive the coveted Horsemanship-A (H-A) rating and only the fourth member in the history of the worldwide organization to do so.

The open lane on the bridge on Sharon Station Road recently switched sides, marking the project about half complete. The $1.2 million project began in April and should be finished in the spring. Watertown Construction is doing the work.

CORNWALL – While Gary Hepprich can no longer give to his community, his family has decided to give to others in his name. Mr. Hepprich, who died in August 1998, was a member of the Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department for 25 years and for 15 of those years he was fire chief. Representatives from the family, fire department and the Board of Selectmen will serve on a committee to oversee the fund.

NORFOLK – The Mission of Tao Confucianism Inc. has purchased Deer Spring, the former Bruderhof community on Westside Road. The deal on the 48-acre complex was closed Sept. 30 for $3.5 million.

Work is progressing on a Department of Transportation project to cut back 31 feet of ledge on Church Street in Canaan to improve the line of sight on a sharp curve there. Workers are using light charges to carefully blast away the rock without damaging nearby homes. The project is on target for completion in November.