Turning Back the Pages - April 30, 2026

125 years ago —
April 1901

The Canaan creamery has been incorporated with a capitalization of $50,000 and is doing an extensive business. They have recently added the manufacture of fancy cheese for which they have large advance orders.

It is said that a steam road will be built from Canaan to Clayton by the Consolidated. It is said that a large brick making plant will be erected at Clayton on the lands of the White Brick and Cotta Co.

The bill incorporating the Falls Village Light and Water Co. was passed in the Senate April 24th. The legislature also passed a bill making poultry stealing punishable by a fine of not more than $10, or imprisonment for not more than two years, or both.

100 years ago —
April 1926

Maple Tree Inn, the former Shannon Sanitarium at Falls Village, now owned by Samuel Weiner, was completely destroyed by fire early this morning. When the fire was first discovered it was apparent that the building was past saving and no outside help was called, the Falls Village fire company handling the affair alone.

Some of the women claim that it is almost impossible to buy a new spring hat unless they bob their hair, as everything in the millinery is designed for bobbed hair. There are still a few ladies who continue to retain “woman’s crowning glory” but they appear to be in the minority. One of them remarks that the present style of dress reminds one of an aviator or a deep sea diver.

50 years ago —
April 1976

There’s fresh evidence this week that neighborliness is alive and well in Salisbury. A local farmer with a bad back has his fields all plowed and harrowed, thanks to a chance remark dropped at a dinner meeting. Willard Myers, who operates a rented farm on Weatogue Road, is the afflicted farmer, and his benefactors were students from the vocational agriculture program at the Housatonic Valley Regional High School. Two vo-ag teachers at the HVRHS heard Myers mention his back problems at a Young Farmer organization dinner last Thursday night. From Friday morning through Sunday, not in the least discouraged by the foul weather, shifts of vo-ag students worked to prepare Myers’ fields for planting. In all, nine young men and women labored under the direction of teachers Walter Burcroff and George Wheeler, who took turns supervising during their time off from official duties, and student teacher Becky Brickell of Goshen. Mrs. Myers said Monday they accomplished in three days what would normally have taken her husband three weeks.

Residents of Lakeville will have to rely for a while on their stomachs and their watches to tell them when to eat lunch. The noon whistle will not be heard for an indefinite length of time, Fire Chief Peter Brazzale said Monday night. A part in the clock mechanism needs to be replaced and the 12 o’clock signal will be out of commission until the new piece arrives. A similar situation existed for several weeks two years ago. The same part of the timing device had to be replaced then too. Brazzale said the fire siren will continue to work as usual. Only the noon blast will be affected.

CANAAN — The dramatic end of an 1873 attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air was described last Wednesday to the members of the Falls Village- Canaan Historical Society. Society president Oliver Eldridge told of the end of the flight of the Graphic balloon on Oct. 6, 1873 after a stormy passage over Canaan Mountain. The balloon was forced down on Lower Road in East Canaan after a flight from New York City. The adventure had been sponsored by the New York Daily Graphic newspaper. A crew of three, Washington H. Donaldson, Alfred Ford and George A. Lunt, set out from Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn, at 6 a.m. in a brave attempt to reach Europe by air. They were traveling in a lifeboat suspended beneath a balloon 160 feet high, 110 feet in diameter and with a lifting capacity of 600,000 cubic feet of gas. The balloon crossed Long Island Sound, flew over Westchester County and up over Bethel, Conn. The winds abruptly changed and the craft drifted over Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury before traveling northwest to the Canaan vicinity. It passed so close to the earth in Goshen that the crew was able to converse with those on the ground. They declined invitations to stop for a drink of cider but left a card certifying that the balloon had been in the region.

25 years ago —
April 2001

SALISBURY — Kathleen Lauretano testified before state legislators last week and told them abuses she has seen by Connecticut State Police in recent years “have radically altered my faith in my own profession and confirmed me in the belief that no police department should be allowed to police itself.” Although she has been a state trooper since 1982, Mrs. Lauretano told members of the judiciary committee of the State House of Representatives and Senate at an April 16 hearing in Hartford, “I do not ... represent the state police today.” A civilian oversight committee is needed to police the police, she told legislators, who are considering a bill that would require such supervision for municipal police forces. “I am here to advocate that it be amended to include the state police,” she said.

CORNWALL — If any residents are thinking about donating any money to the town, a new proposed endowment fund could make it easier to contribute and also make the gift go farther. First Selectman Gordon Ridgway presented a legal prospectus to the Board of Finance at its meeting Thursday night, outlining the possible endowment. “It would allow the town, when we receive gifts, to invest them in different ways than we can right now,” Mr. Ridgway said. A recent $50,000 donation by Mary Schiefflin’s estate, designated for recreation purposes, will be used to start the fund.

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