Turning Back the Pages - August 14, 2025

125 years ago — August 1900

A shoemaker, Mr. Stephen Galfe, has opened a shop in Robert’s old store.

Peabody, the well known scientific optician, will be at L.P. Hatch’s drug store, Millerton, N.Y., Aug. 22, 23, 24, 25. Examination free.

LOST — July 11th, somewhere between the post office, the depot and Bostwick Hill, a black leather pocket book with silver mountings, containing a small sum of money and three keys. Finder will be liberally rewarded by returning same to Mrs. W.H. Kenyon, Lakeville.

A new iron foot bridge will soon replace the present wooden affair over the brook near the Scoville Library at Salisbury. The bridge is to be furnished by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co., and will be a great improvement to that section.

A small deer was seen one day recently in the rear of William Raynsford’s house. Deer have been seen in this vicinity at different times during the last two years, but never quite as near a residence before as in this instance. It is well for hunters to remember that there is a heavy fine and imprisonment for killing any deer or even frightening them till the year 1904.

Mr. Treat Sanford of Waterbury spent a few days last week at Ira Traver’s returning home Monday. While here Mr. Sanford had excellent luck at fishing and showed our reporter five nice bass that would probably weigh three pounds apiece. Mr. Sanford uses the lightest kind of tackle for the sport of the thing — “Just to give the fish a chance” he says and some days he says he intends to use a piece of linen thread for line. He fishes to see how much science he can use and the more difficult the fish to land the more he enjoys the fun.

Yesterday morning while Patrick McCue was driving up from the depot his horse became frightened and ran away. When rounding the corner near the bank, the wheels struck the stone hitching post, around the tree, and the wagon was quite badly wrecked. Patsy was unharmed and the horse escaped injury. A rig standing in front of the bank had a narrow escape from collision.

100 years ago — August 1925

LIME ROCK — Mrs. Lorch has a home full of city boarders.

SALISBURY — George Parsons and family and Paul Parsons and family motored to Northampton on Saturday leaving Misses Hazel and Ruth Hendricks there for a two weeks visit with their grandmother.

William B. Rudd, after fifteen years service with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. except for a period of war service in France on July 1st entered the employ of the Union Switch and Signal Co. at Swissdale, Pa., where he is specializing on the development of car retarders, this being brakes operated from the ground and used in the classification yards on railways. The device is a pneumatic brake which works on the ground alongside the rails to slow up or stop cars that are being switched around yards to make up trains. It saves the labor of many men who are known in railroad practice as car riders.

ORE HILL — Moxie Rowe from New York is visiting his mother Mrs. Victoria Wevatoski.

RADIO USERS — Don’t waste your money buying new tubes. Save your used ones, take them to Puff’s Radio Headquarters. For 60 cents each Puff’s experts will make them as good as new. Tests before and after renewing will be made before your eyes.

50 years ago — August 1975

His Honor Anthony Stocken, 715th mayor of Salisbury, England, paid a visit to his city’s namesake in Northwest Connecticut over the weekend and pronounced himself charmed by the New England architecture as well as the fine summer weather. During several busy days Mr. Stocken and his wife Pauline managed to check in at the White Hart Inn, attend the Sharon Playhouse, attend a cocktail party and official luncheon in their honor, tour Salisbury, attend church, inspect the ambulance service and the ski jump and visit several private homes.

The Lakeville Hose Company had an unexpected and unsuspected guest at the firehouse for 10 days or so. When the firemen returned from a call one night in July, Mike Fitting caught a fleeting glimpse of a cat in the shadows. He didn’t give it much thought until an ad for a lost cat appeared in The Journal the next week. Mike tried calling the pet’s name around the building, without success, but when the cat’s owner went to the firehouse, a very hungry and scared Siamese appeared from one of the firetrucks. It’s entirely possible, Mike says, that the stowaway rode undetected on the big vehicle all the way over to Falls Village for its firemen’s parade, and back.

Northwest Connecticut has long been notorious for its rattlesnake population, but 1975 seems to have been contributed more than its share of sightings of the reptiles. In recent weeks at least 7 snakes have been sighted in the Canaan/ Falls Village vicinity, with 4 of the sightings in the past 2 weeks. Three of the snakes have been sighted in areas where snakes have not been found for years.

Canaan town officials have received a final insurance payment on equipment damaged in last November’s town garage fire. The check for $414 covers damage to the town’s payloader.

Dr. Thomas Livingstone will open an office at Kent Green in Kent on Monday. He is a graduate of Lycoming College and the Fairleigh-Dickinson University School of Dentistry. Dr. Livingstone and his wife live in Sharon.

Starting with next week’s edition of The Journal, Ruth Epstein will assume the role of Kent correspondent. She replaces Paul Dooley who has been with the paper for 2½ years and has resigned to assume a more active role in local politics.

A group of concerned neighbors in the Macedonia section of Kent gathered recently at the home of Eugenia Evans to discuss ways and means of slowing traffic on the road between the entrance to Macedonia Brook Park and the village of Kent on Route 341.

25 years ago — August 2000

SHARON — W. Hudson “Hud” Connery Jr. believes the infusion of capital and the expertise of Essent Healthcare personnel can save Sharon Hospital. Speaking Monday evening at the first of several community forums scheduled to discuss the impending sale of the hospital to Essent, Mr. Connery, the firm’s CEO, gave assurance to the standing room only crowd. “We will bring the capital that’s needed to grow and reduce operating expenses,” he said, adding “the operating expenses needed to be reduced are not related to patient care.”

KENT — When the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe’s petition comes before the Bureau of Indian Affairs later this year, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is likely to be left behind. Last week the BIA denied a request by the Schaghticoke that its petition for federal recognition be considered simultaneously with that of the Golden Hill Paugussett. The Schaghticoke contend that simultaneous consideration is necessary because the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe, based in Bridgeport, may have stolen a portion of the Schaghticoke’s genealogy and is attempting to use the lineage as its own.