Turning Back the Pages - June 4, 2026

125 years ago — June 1901

A heavy storm that was a near approach to a cloudburst caused much damage at Norfolk Saturday night. The track of the C.N.E. railroad for a distance of a mile each side of the station was undermined in scores of places by the rush of swollen streams and two bad washouts occurred, delaying trains for hours. Two highway bridges were swept away, and roads were badly damaged, while even farms suffered serious injury, some entire gardens being ruined.

Miss Mary E. Robbins is in Brookline, Mass. She will be in that city several months, engaged in classifying the public library of over 60,000 volumes. Miss Robbins is considered an expert in this line and receives calls from all parts of the United States.

It costs the state $22,500 to transport the members of the general assembly and the officials, doorkeepers and messengers to and from their homes while attending session.

100 years ago — June 1926

Tuesday morning Officer Stanton became suspicious of a truck, obviously loaded with household goods, going through Salisbury. He stopped it near Salisbury School. Examination revealed five hundred gallons of alcohol also included in the load. Officer Stanton also arrested in Sharon on Wednesday a Springfield, Mass. man driving a Reo Speed Wagon with three hundred and ninety gallons of liquor on board. He was tried in Sharon.

50 years ago — June 1976

Lime Rock Park’s Memorial Day auto races drew a near-record crowd, estimated by State Police and track officials at between 25,000 and 30,000. Despite the biggest crowd in recent years, police managed to keep traffic moving, avoiding tie-ups such as those in recent years which blocked traffic for miles up and down Route 7 east of Lime Rock.

Former Col. Arnold Whitridge, a veteran of both world wars and author of Salisbury’s new town history, marched beside former Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Guido Verbeck Monday at the head of Salisbury’s Bicentennial Memorial Day parade. Parade Marshal Dick Barton followed. Many of the Salisbury veterans, some of whom had not worn their uniforms in years, also turned out to march in the parade.

SALISBURY — First Selectman Charlotte Reid reported to a selectmen’s meeting Tuesday that, as a result of a random sampling at her request, high sodium levels have been found in two out of nine wells tested in the town of Salisbury. She said that town sanitarian Joseph Pinkham found an unsafe level of salt in samples taken at Smith Hill and Ore Hill.

SALISBURY — A 1947 grader may have to be replaced at a cost of $68,000, and for this reason Salisbury selectmen voted Tuesday night to delay action on three bids to replace a 1969 truck. Selectman George Kiefer said that in view of the new crisis, the town could probably “squeeze another year out of the ‘69 vehicle.”

CANAAN — It has been nearly 58 years since the close of World War I — a half century that has seen dramatic technological advances and corresponding changes in attitudes and lifestyles. Nothing so clearly underlines the many changes in attitude that have taken place as reading the letters written home by Canaan men who served in the first global war. A scrapbook containing printed letters written by these earlier warriors was recently donated to the Canaan VFW by the family of William and Luella Blass. Mrs. Blass, a World War I bride, faithfully clipped the letters printed in the local newspaper and preserved them in the scrapbook.

Laura Perkins of the Cranford Club presented a Bicentennial quilt last Wednesday to Oliver Eldridge of the Falls Village- Canaan Historical Society. The quilt was a Bicentennial project made by club members and will be displayed in the society’s museum.

Users of the Falls Village town landfill have been invading the privacy of the residents of a house near the town landfill, according to the Falls Village Board of Selectmen. The house is leased by the town to private persons. First Selectman David Domeier told The Lakeville Journal that town residents have been disturbing occupants of the house by using the main driveway to the house and walking around its grounds. There is a separate driveway to the landfill which should be used for that purpose, Domeier pointed out.

25 years ago — June 2001

Further cuts to the Region 1 budget for 2001-02 will be made at a special meeting of the Board of Education on June 4 at 7 p.m. in the library at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. Not a single town voted in favor of the Region 1 budget last Thursday as it went before residents for a second time. A total of 1,039 votes were cast against the $10,138,757 plan and only 534 in favor.

“A Son’s Confession,” an examination of the controversial and unsolved 1973 Barbara Gibbons murder case in Falls Village, will air on the cable network A&E’s American Justice series Wednesday June 6 at 9 p.m. The victim’s son, Peter Reilly, was initially charged with the crime and later cleared of any involvement.

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