ML041910421
| ML041910421 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Waterford  |
| Issue date: | 07/28/2004 |
| From: | Bachman R, Breadheft W Town of Waterford, CT |
| To: | Jennifer Davis, Emch R NRC/NRR/DRIP/RLEP |
| Emch R, NRR/DRIP/RLEP, 415-1590 | |
| References | |
| -RFPFR | |
| Download: ML041910421 (173) | |
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Haying in Waterford began in 1645 when settlers harvested their first West Farms crop. Farming was the town's chief source of livelihood for its first three centuries. Here haying is being done at Lakes Pond (Lake Konomoc) before the reservoir dam changed the lay of the land in 1872.
MILESTONES on the Road to the Portal of Waterford's Third Century of Independence
Waterford's town hall opened in 1984 in the former 1918 Jordan School.
Youthful scholars had wended their way to three previous schoolhouses at the Rope Ferry Road address.
An ornamental balustrade originally graced the roof of the present structure.
1~-I II I
An Illustrated History of the Town of NVA T E: R::F. O.-:R, xD By Robert L. Bachman
- With William Breadheft, Photographer of the Contem-porary Scenes
- Bicentennial Committee, Town of Waterford, Connecticut, 2000.
A U &v-'
.1 From the First Selectman A complete and accurate history of our past serves as a guiding light to our future. We are fortunate to have had the collective wisdom of the Bicentennial Committee 1995-99 mem-bers and the fine intellect and experience of author Robert L. Bachman to chronicle the essence of our community's past. The citizens of Waterford are indebted to them for their fine work.
Thomas A. Sheridan Bicentennial Committee 1995-99 Ferdinando Brucoli Paul B. Eccard, secretary Arthur Hadfield Francis C. Mullins Ann R. Nye Robert M. Nye, chainnan June W. Prentice and Robert L Bachman Adjunct Afem bers Dorothy B. Care Teresa D. Oscarson Acknowledgments One sees farther only because he is standing on the shoulders of others. The author is indebted to the research and knowledge of hundreds of contributors. Major sources have been Robert L. Bucher, Frances N1. Caulkins, The Day, Robert NM. N)e, Margaret W. Stacy, Richard B.
%ValI and the Waterford Public Library.
Especially beneficial was the enabling vision of First Selectman Thomas A. Sheridan, the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance and the Representative Town Meeting members who gave unanimous approval to entrusting the telling of the town's heritage to an outlander.
Credits American Book Exchange 66,67; AP/World Wide Photos 146; Claudia S. Bachman 111; Robert L Bachman 31,54, 62,70,91,97,99,101,102,122,135,143; Francis Balboni 153-157; Emma S. Brown 36; Robert L Bucher 56; Michael Clievis 143; Connecticut Department of Environment 106; Connecticut Historical
- Society, Hartford, CT 38 (detail);
The Day 29,47,58,62,74,118,121,124,138,146; Essex Institute 30; Evralibur vi,21,52,86,120,142,150; Laura Fitch 139; Carribell Follows 47; Fort Sumter National Monument, National Park Service 32; William E Gardner 147; Gilbane Building Co. 72; Charles B. Gunn 39; Harper & Brothers 134; William E Hoffman 40; D. Hamilton Hurd 54.
Emma Johnson xi,109; Jordan Fire Co. 26, 27; Kennesaw Civil War Museum 41; Clinton Kenyon 48,49,60,61; Carol W. Kimball 46; Mary Leland 13,88,123,124,125; Celest J.
LeMare 107,128; Loring Studios 88,119,126,147; MacDowell Colony 15; Bertha McMoran 101; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. R. W. Hyde, 1943 102; Charles Munger, Jr.,
38,39,42-45; Mystic Seaport, Inc., 60,80; New London County Historical Society, Inc., 22, 30,33,34,56,62,79; New York Tines Pictures 8; NViantic ANews 6; Northeast Utilities 70,71,73, back endsheet; Robert M. Nye 52.
Thomas Perkins 13,99; June W. Prentice 27; Robert Radway 126; Mason Record, Jr.,
12; Ernest Rogers 35; Rufus Rose 136; Saratoga National Monument, National Park Service 31; A. Vincent Scarano 145; Smithsonian Institute 31,79; Sonalysts 94,95; Southern New England Telecommunications 105; Margaret W. Stacy ix,59,12 6,127; Grace C. Stewart 126; Isaac Stuart, Life of Captain Natan lale30; Byron Thompson 128; U.S. Navy 76,77; George Wanat 86; City ofWarren, OH, 14; Waterford Board of Education 122,123; Waterford Planning and Zoning 22; Waterford Historical Society, Inc., front endsheet,i,x,l01; Sheila M. Wertheimer 108; George White 145; Nelson C. White vii,3,52,111,142; Thomas B. Woodworth 64,65.
Grants Research grants for this effort were supplied by the Town of Waterford and the Connecticut Light & Power Company. Earlier sabbatical research leaves were granted by the Waterford Board of Education.
Publication Vitae Copyright 1967, 2000, by Robert L. Bachman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Designed and formatted by Robert L Bachman.
Seventy-five hundred offset impressions on 80# gloss-coated stock with text in 12-pt semibold Agaramond type. Printed in the United States of America by Thames Printing Company, Incorporated, of Norwich, Connecticut.
Library of Congress card catalog number 98-60133.
The patriarchal copper beech tree over-looking Long Island Sound at the Water-ford Beach Park frames the 1964 Waterford High School Band playing before an ap-preciative alfresco audience.
The growing realization of the impor-tance of preserving access to the water and the refresh ing greenery of unspoiled vooded areas led to the acquisition of the park tvo years earlier.
The frontispiece for this history of Waterford shows the centerpiece of its second revolution, the towns develop-ment into a regional retail destination.
The Waterford (Ireland) crystal chande-lier-the world's largest of its making
-dominates Crystal Mall's 150 stores.
Ai
Road Map to Yesteryear I. The Lay of the Land II. Call of the Town Meeting
- 16 III. The Roads One Trod IV. Earning One's Daily Bread V. The Kindling of Home Fires VI. The Long Walk to School VII. The Warmth-of Religion
- 34
.54
- 96
- 118 le 128 VIII. Precious Leisure Ti Ime 4136 L
A.=
And n
Index, Time Line
- ' 1'50 vii I
Widening Roads
'WATERFORD has experienced dramatic change in the generation that has passed since the publica-tion of the 1967 edition of this book. Perhaps most pro-found is the sense of community identification that has evolved in the minds of its citizens.
At the same time, unparalleled growth and develop-ment have taken their toll in the loss of a once rural land-scape. Roads that served a thinly settled populace have been widened as the town became the retail destination of south-eastern Connecticut. Today, a four-lane Route 85 that began as a dirt toll road in 1800 dispatches six million vehi-cles yearly onto the paved acreage of the Crystal Mall alone.
In 1956-the same year Mr. Bachman arrived in Waterford-the town's first traffic light was installed (Clark Lane and Boston Post Road), a witness to a mush-rooming population and, in time, symbol of the changing face of the town. Joining the national urban exodus to the suburbs, thousands migrated to Waterford in the 1950s and 1960s in quest of the good life.
As the environment grew less and less faimiliar, however, the importance of preserving the town's legacy became all the more compelling. Growing interest in Waterford's past led to Mr. Bachman's 1967 treatise, written to supplement his "Yesterday's Waterford" lecture series, which featured leading authorities from throughout southern New England. A direct outgrowth of the series was the founding of the Waterford Historical Society, Inc., later that same year.
Robert NM. Nye was elected town clerk in 1991 and named municipal historian in 1993. A former history teacher, he chaired the committee w'hose application succeeded in placing Jordan Village on the National Register in 1990. Mr. Nye is currently pursuing studies in his-toric preservation.
The area's first of its kind, Super Stop
& Shop opened its 1.3- (later 1.8-) acre, 18 checkout-counter, store at 117 Boston Post Road in 1985. The one-stop store occupied the site of the razed 1970 Barker's (later King's) department store building. The Stop & Shop chain has been Dutch owned since 1996.
When the Waterford Plaza was built in 1970, Stop & Shop occupied the 0.74-acre portion at the extreme right, replaced by the NHD hardware store from 1985 to 1998.
(Holding these tvo pages at right angles to each other creates the best pano-ramic perspective of the plaza.)
viii
AS THE PACE OF DEVELOPMENT increased, so did the awareness of the need to protect the town's heritage. West Farms Land Trust, incorporated in 1973, currently oversees 506 acres of open space. In 1987 the town's first municipal historian was appointed. The town enacted a delay of demolition ordinance in 1992.
That same year Friends of Harkness was organized to help preserve the deteriorating mansion, named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Jordan Village received National Register designation in 1990, followed by the former Seaside Sanitorium in 1995. Townwide historical and architectural surveys were conducted in 1996 and 1997 as well as an archaeological assessment survey in 1998.
THE PRESERVATION and conservation of Wa terford's cultural and natural resources are critical to its continued well-being as a community-and are so recog-nized in the town's "1998 Plan of Preservation, Conserva-tion and Development." The period buildings, the stone walls and unspoiled open space are tangible links with history-connections with the past that need to be remem-bered.
If indeed history is "the rock from which we are hewn," as essayist Paul Greenberg contends, then the new edition of An Illustrated History is required reading as the town looks ahead to its bicentennial in 2001 and beyond.
Within the pages of this mature edition, the mapping of Waterford's heritage unfolds.
-Robert M. Nye, March 2000 Both sea and land harvesting began centuries before European settlers ar-rived. This nineteenth-century scene at Keeney's Cove had undeveloped Sandy Pt.
(Oswegatchie) in the background. The peninsula has also been called Pine Neck.
ix l
It would be easy to describe the town of Waterford at the turn of the earlier century when this "trick" photograph was taken of the general store/post office at 101 Rope Ferry Road. It was a farming community then, with a few small paper mills in Quaker Hill and two major granite quarries in the southern end of town. A century ear-lier it would have been even simpler:
Waterford wvas a farming town (as were two of the three adjoining towns) and had been since the 1600s.
But the last decades of the twentieth century witnessed a transformation that put Waterford on the map far beyond its borders. It had become a "powerhouse" with three atomic plants at Millstone and the choice destination for the region's shoppers. Its heritage in-cluded villages, hamlets and neigh-borhoods often defined by schoolor fire districts. Histo ha developed Jordan and Quaker Hil as villages, and hamlets such as Pleasure Beach with its former summer cottages and Gran-iteville and vanished Millstone as housing for quarry workers.
At the close of the second millennium of the era, the two shopping complexes inching toward each other on Route 1-95 and the mega grocery opportunities on Boston Post Road had displaced the adjacent city's former retail importance.
A 1967 Period Perspective STANDING ON THE THRESHOLD of the last third of the twentieth century, the most notable characteristic of the times seems to be the constant change we are experiencing. The realization that material things and values are not so static as we once believed while youngsters is one of the marks of maturity. Like the air-plane high in the sky, distant objects seem to be more sta-tionary to the observer. But the only thing that is sure, is that nothing is sure. History is not so much an epic of con-stants as it is a slight indication of the mercurial about-faces of the outlook of each new day.
In this era of the decay of many of our cities and the flight to the suburbs that has rocketed land values and taxes in such places as Waterford, one must occasionally pause to see just how we fit into the total view.
ONE MUST CREDIT past generations of Waterford residents who acted for us as conservators of the landscape. Perhaps their numbers were not great and per-haps they did not consciously consider us-but with this less sullied landscape Waterford does not need federal funds to tear things down and start over. Nor does it have the restricted viewpoint of an outdated established com-munity with its vested interest in the past. With the excep-tion of its water resources, which were purchased by anoth-er, more geographically restricted community some years ago, the town of Waterford has all the raw materials of a desirable community for this century.
At best, the printed accounts of Waterford history have been slight-one could almost say slighted. While it has been primarily an agricultural community, and later a satellite "bedroom" town, people have lived here and have done things somewhat differently from those of neighbor-ing towns.
x
THIS IS BUT THE FIRST HISTORY of Waterford-and in no way claims to be the definitive one.
I hope many questions about the community have been answered and, hopefully, that I have raised more questions that need to be answered.
History reflects the values of the day, perhaps not so readily as the model of the American automobile, which can be ascertained by its tailfins or fastback design, but at least in a similar manner. While the facts remain the same, the selection and arrangement of them is usually contem-porary with its audience.
Through the perfection of the camera, this seems to be the day of color television, instant photography and picture nonbooks. It would be a mistake for a popular history to ignore the technical development of such arts, because pho-tography does give one more insight and understanding of the distant-distant either in space or in time.
As an outlander married to a Waterford Yankee, I hope that this modest volume will open doors of the past as we stand on the threshold of the imminen't fruition of the town of Waterford. [1967 Foreword]
-R.L.B.
Reputedly featured in Ripley's Believe It Or Nor as 'the house in the middle of the road," this Quaker Hill structure had many incarnations.
It was built as a stable by Asa Wight-man for his 1824 tavern. Tradition says that horses were changed there for the Norwich stagecoaches. The clapboarded structure later became a grocery store, a post office, a 1918 "Gas & Oil's" source, a 1924 convenience store (small photograph), the publication site of the town's first newspaper (Th7e Water-ford Guardian 1956-57) and a private residence among other uses. It was razed to make way for Quaker Hill's parklet dedicated in 1993.
Overleaf: Watercolorist Burtus Brooks called upon the activities of these twin brothers-his father and his uncle-for this circa 1900 Strand/
Magonk Point area scene.
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The 1998 town database lists 21,273 acres of land holdings and 1,470 acres dedicated to roads. It does not calculate the acreage covered by water, such as under the Niantic River where the center of the channel is the town boundary.
The official Connecgticnt Register and a,,fnual("Blue Book") offers vagarious grand totals: 37.9 sq mi until 1970, 36.7 from 1970 to 1995 and 44.4 in 1996 and 1997.
Minute backyard boundary adjustments with Montville were the only changes dui the perio Demonstrating the power of the glacier, this 27-ft erratic at 16 Braman Road is a northern import. Most erratics were moved less than ten miles by the last glacier.
I. The Lay of the Land WATERFORD WAS INCORPORATED IN 1801 as the 109th town in the state of Connecticut. Almost com-pletely set off from its neighbors by 22.4 miles of coastline, its 22,743 acres (35.5 sq mi) well earn the descriptive name that it was given.
Waterford Beach Park was once kissed by Africa, and after embracing, backed awvay to admire the object of its attachment. The town's underpinning bedrock (ledge) toiled thousands of centuries to cross an ancient ocean to be able to enjoy the local unpredictable weather. Geologists speak of shifting tectonic earth surface plates.
They explain that the Proto-North American and Proto-African plates drifted toward the South Polar region 500M years ago. The African plate overtook a Japan-like landmass on its way south to the gathered continents that scientists call Pangaea ("all-lands").
Geologists labeled the victim Avalonia.
It was this land that had "the stuff that Waterford is made of."
This "fender-bender" smack made Africa a temporary neighbor for 50M years. When finally grated against the gathered continents at the polar region 300M years ago, Avalonia wvas pressure-fitted to Proto-North America. This plate-joining carried the future Waterford on the long voyage to its present northern location 50M years later. Avalonian bedrock along coastal New England locally extends northward to the vicinity of Route 2A in Montville. (It was the development of the research associated with the deep-diving nuclear submarine that enabled geologists to come to present con-clusions about this period.)
WHEN THE GLACIERS CAME, the well-trav-eled ledge had nearly 250M years of erosive wear. But the rounded shape of the land, the position of the streams, ponds and wetlands and the character of Waterford's rocky soils are a direct result of the final glacier that advanced into Connecticut around 26,000 years ago. This glacier moved southeastward over Connecticut, having previously buried all of New England-including Mt. Washington-under thousands of feet of ice. By about 20,000 years ago, the gla-cier was building the moraines of Long Island, and the sea nvas low-ered by about 300 ft. Ending a brief stay, the glacier retreated north-ward about 17,000 years ago. With its retrenchment, glacial melt-water created an inland lake, whose formation eventually helped determine the Waterford coastline. The lowlands between terminal-moraine Long Island and Connecticut were flooded with fresh water that spilled out of the lake at the Race.
2
Eventually, by 15,000 years ago, the lake drained and the resurging ocean rose to form Long Island Sound. Lesser moraines-the frontal accumulation of earth scrapings left by glaciers-remain in Waterford. A 200- to 500-ft band of boulders dots the landscape across the top of the town near Miller's Pond. This 13-mile-long Ledyard Moraine has a slightly SW-NE axis, as does the minor moraine at Manatuck Hill along Boston Post Road. The waters of the melting glacier created streams that flowed to ponds and lakes forming deltas. The flat tops of these deltas are now represented at the former airport and adjacent gravel pits as well as at Fog Plain and Jordan Plain. The town's rivulets, such as Hunts Brook, Nevins Brook and Oil Mill Brook, date back to runoffs from the melting glacier.
A "raisin pudding" residue of a few feet of rocks, sand and silt covered the bedrock when the glacial ice finally left Waterford. About two-thirds of the surface of southeastern Connecticut was composed of such unsorted till. About one-fourth to one-third was stratified; that is, sand and gravel were carried by water and deposited in lay-ers. The mantle was thin or absent on hilltops and other places where the ledge was exposed. All in all, a lot of material was left behind.
DAMMING OF STREAM BEDS formed ponds, as did former ice blocks buried in the glacial till. Many of these bodies of water have filled in to form wetlands. These marshy and swampy areas are among the most valuable resources of the town.
These gifts from the glacier store huge quantities of water, recharg-ing ground water reservoirs as unrequited Waterford and Africa con-tinued to drift apart, an inch a year.
Glacier-made barrier Long Island gives protection from the powerfull Atlantic pounding, but terrific forces are still unleashed by storms. This period photograph shows a more serene Sound at White Point.
3
OUTCROPPINGS of rock did not stop the growth of vegetation following the retreat of the last glacier. In bogs near Cross Road and at Gallows Lane, radiocarbon tests of peat sam-ples from as far down as 20 ft indicate that 13,500 years ago the first trees to invade the barren landscape were spruce and fir, which usu-ally are found in more northern, colder regions. After a few thousand years, as the climate became warmer, there wvas a decline in these trees as pines took over. Radiocarbon dating indicates that pine forests dominated the area about 8,000 years ago. With further cli-matic change, the trees of today-oaks, hickories, birches, maples and hemlocks-eventually replaced the earlier pine forests.
The arrival of the Indian in the Northeast about 10,500 years ago brought about a striking modification in the vegetation. While fishing and hunting played an important role in the lives of the coastal Indians, an agrarian 1,300-year-old kernel of corn wvas found at Mago Point. These aborigines lived in more or less permanent set-tlements of dome-shaped structures covered with bark or skins.
Around each village lay the cornfields that the men had cleared by fire and stone ax for the women to plant. Even with the undocu-mented traditional fish to fertilize each hill of corn, beans or gourds, the soil soon became exhausted and new land had to be cleared. In addition, these first settlers set forest fires in order to clear the under-brush and make walking easier, give better grazing for game and facilitate hunting of game and enemy.
ALONG THE SHORE, except for the swvamps and other remote areas, the landscape was dominated by scattered large fire-resistant trees, which gave the countryside a park-like appear-ance. Probably oak-hickory and oak-chestnut dominated the uplands with pitch pines on the sandy plains. "Oke is the chiefe wood in southern New England," declared Capt. John Smith in 1616. The European settlers' pioneer harvest was from the established indige-nous hay found in the open areas of Fog Plain and (Upper)
Mamacock in 1645, the year of their arrival. Fields that the Indians had cleared and cultivated on Great Neck were eagerly sought by the first planters. The settlers continued to denude the land, so much so that in 1659 the local authorities prohibited the cutting of trees within four miles of the meetinghouse. The years 1815-20 marked the peak of cleared land in the state, with all but 27 percent under cultivation.
By 1901 the woods had reclaimed farms to cover 45% of the state, growing to 63% by 1955. Fifty-nine percent of the state was covered by some form of forestation in 1985. This pattern can still be seen, with bullbriers connecting the red cedar, black cherry, aspen and birch covering much of the land more recently abandoned from agricultural purposes.
The aborigines came from inland Con-necticut to dig clams along the Niantic River. It is conjectured that they stopped at Clam Lane (map, p. 11) to reserve them by drying, leaving Se shells that gave this no-longer road its name.
Boulders were still being removed in the spring of 1966 from the barnyard of the former almshouse at 21 Gurley Road, which had been continuously farmed since Samuel Waller's time in 1691.
4
-6 1.
UNCERTAINTY shrouds the details of the earliest dwellers in what is now Waterford. While there is no evidence of human life in the local area before the glaciers retreated for the final time, no dates can be set for the coming of the Indians. The New England coastal region-roughly Boston to New York-is regarded by scholars as the most densely populated section of eastern North America in aboriginal times, with what is now the state of Connecticut perhaps having the largest concentration. But it must be quickly pointed out that at the outside only about 6,000 Indians lived in the future state, and most scholars quote a much smaller number. For the most part the Indians of Connecticut (their word for "long tidal river") lived along the coast and rivers.
The Nehanticks (Niantics) hunted and fished from the Connecticut River eastward to the vicinity of the Narragansetts, who lived in what is now Rhode Island. Not long before 1600 another group from the larger Algonquin (Delaware) tribe, of which all northern Indians were members, came overland from their native upstate New York through Massachusetts to the local area.
THESE PEQUOTS ("DESTROYERS") grabbed the area from what later was the city of New London eastward, divid-ing the Nehanticks into eastern and western branches. Their domi-nance ended in 1637 with their massacre by the European settlers at their stronghold near the west bank of the Mystic River. Not always peaceful, there wvere many quarrels between the Pequots and neigh-boring tribes. Another Algonquin group from future upstate New York had settled earlier in what was later the town of Montville. This related tribe became locally known as the Mohegans.
Indian artifacts found near Miller's Pond included the mortar (above top) and the heads of various weapons above right. The second-from-left stone could be either the blade for a knife or a spearhead. The pieces of the ceramic bowl pictured directly above were found at Millstone Point in 1959.
The potter would have taken a woven basket and lined it with clay. After first sun-drying it to avoid cracking, it was baked in a fire.
6
For most of the time of unwritten history it was the Nehanticks that occupied the future town of Waterford. Many of the details of early settlement were learned incidentally when excavating for town sewer lines. In conformance with the state Coastal Management Act, the town required a survey prior to construction. Archeologists list-ed 21 informative sites by 1997.
A buried midden-a pit in which the Indians dumped their garbage-was found in 1983 off Niantic River Road at Mago Point.
The find, including a kernel of corn dating back 1,300 years, was the earliest discovered year-round state coastal settlement. Local subsis-tence included agricultural crops. This was in the period when Connecticut Indians began settling down to a sedentary way of life.
Another hamlet that existed into early colonial days was located north of the Boston Post Road near Stony Brook, where the natives had fish weirs. In 1657 Sachem Uncas, the Mohegan chief, fled to the fort there (map, p. 37) to escape marauding Narragansetts, according to Frances M. Caulkins, doyenne of area historians.
NEHANTICKS HAD NO LAND of their own by 1672 and were placed on a 300-acre reservation in what was later East Lyme. Their final state can be summarized by a protest sent to the General Assembly in 1789 by the Mohegans:
"The Times are Exceedingly altered, Yea the Times have turned everything Upside down, or rather we have Changed the good Times, Chiefly by the help of the White People, For in Times past our Fore-Fathers lived in Peace, Love and great harmony, and had everything in great plenty. When they Wanted meat they would just run into the Bush a little ways with their Weapons and would Soon bring home good Venison, Raccoon, Bear and Fowl.
IF THEY CHOSE TO HAVE FISH, they Wod only go to the River or along the Sea Shore and they would present-ly fill their Cannous with Variety of Fish, both Scaled and Shell Fish, and they had abundance of Nuts, Wild Fruit, Ground Nuts and Ground Beans, and they planted but little Corn and Beans and they kept no Cattle or Horses for they needed none-And they had no Contention about their Lands. It lay in Common to them all, and they had but one Large Dish and they could all eat together in Peace and Love-but alas, it is not so now, all our Fishing, Hunting and Fowling is entirely gone."
The final Native-American settlement in future Waterford was at Pepperbox Hill, later surmounted by Niles Hill Road. The Pequot residents of what was earlier called Old Forte Hill were displaced when Great Neck was divided and apportioned among the English settlers (map, p. 56).
SOVEREIGN NATIONS Indian gambling casinos and tribal wealth came to the area in the closing decades of the twentieth century.
Route 32 (a raffle started its prede-cessor turnpike two centuries earlier) and 1-395 through Waterford carried traffic to the 1996 Mohegan Sun casino located in a recycled former defense plant in Montville. Gamblers coming west traversed Waterford where the rival Mashantucket-Pequot tribe pur-chased 223 Quaker Hill acres in 1994.
Two-lane rural roads on the east side of the Thames River carried 45,000 daily to the Mashantucket cast-no metropolis with buildings towering as high as 17 stories. In 1998 the*
two casinos employed over 16,000 in service jobs, making them the largest source of area employment.:
7
JADRIAEN BLOCK was the first European to set eyes on what is now Waterford, or on Connecticut for that matter.
The year was 1614. His Manhattan-built 44-1/2 ft Onrust
("Restless") replaced his original vessel that had burned the year before. Leaving through Helle-gatt (Hellgate) he discovered "a beau-tiful inland sea" now known as Long Island Sound. Exploring along the Connecticut coast he entered the Connecticut River, which he traversed to present-day Hartford, establishing the claim for the Dutch who built a fort there in 1633. Continuing his easterly course back in the Sound, he charted the local shoreline before anchoring at the mouth of the "River of the Siccanams," the Thames of today.
Failing to exploit this head start, the Dutch had only minute toe-holds in Saybrook and Hartford when they wvere displaced by the English in 1633.
Later that year a force of five small English shallops, under the command of Capt. John Underhill, put out from Saybrook to pun-ish the Pequot Indians for the murder of two traders on the Connecticut River. As they sailed eastward along the local coast the Indians gathered along the shore. Running along the waterside, they shouted: "What cheer, Englishmen? What cheer? Are you angry?
Will you kill us? Do you come to fight? What cheer, Englishmen?
iWhat cheer?" Their questions remained unanswered, for the men landed on the far shore of the Thames River after spending the night at anchor on the river.
The first Europeans to actually set foot on local soil were Capt.
John Mason leading Capt. Daniel Patrick and 19 of his Plymouth, MA, company-together with their Mohegan allies-back overland to Saybrook after the massacre of the Pequots at Mystic in 1637.
MASSACHUSETTS issued a grant "at or near Pequott" to John Winthrop, Jr., in 1644. It probably didn't hurt that his father was the first Bay Colony governor and had continued to be reelected there for 12 terms. Son John traveled through future Waterford the following year to look over his grant near the mouth of the Thames River. The marshes and meadows at Upper Mamacock (Quaker Hill) were mowed by John Stebbins and Isaac N~illey and at Fog Plain by Cary Latham and Jacob Waterhouse before that 1645 year ended.
Living in wigwams until their own houses were built, the settlers at Pequot (formally named New London in 1658) laid out 38 home lots. They perpetuated their English ways by living in a compact vil-lage and having their more distant farm lots surround the town.
Thus was planted the continuing difference between Waterford and New London: The one the village of restricted size and the other the large farm lots supplying the village.
Adriaen Block discovered Connecticut in his little 16 -ton Onrustin 1614.
His voyage proved that Long Island was not a peninsula as then believed and that the inland sea's north shore was an excellent place for future settle-ment. A later Dutch captain declared that Connecticut was a fine place for plantation and trade."
The seven-foot model pictured was given the Port of New York Authority to display in the World Trade Center by the Port of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
8
WEST FARMS (WATERFORD) plots were estab-lished in 1651: "It is agreed that there shall be a common field fenced in; the fence beginning about Green Harbor, and to run through the woods to Robin Hood's Bay Jordan Cove]." That win-ter (1651-52) the allotments on Great Neck were systematically laid out and divided by lot. Striving to be fair, the person who drew the mowing lot nearest the town plot was given the woodlot the greatest distance away. This was the way things were done back home in East Anglia (a region NE of London), where Winthrop and many others had come from. Arranged in eight tiers, these long, narrow strips were divided into plowing and mowing lots (p. 56). All swamps, out-croppings of ledge and such that would lower the strip's usefulness gained appropriate widening of the holding. Land north of the fence was divided into inner and outer commons.
Because salt hay was a ready-made food for the cattle the set-tlers had brought with them, salt marshes were considered to be prime land. The marshes near the harbor's mouth were referred to by their Indian name of Quaganapoxet and were given chiefly to the members of the Cape Ann group from Gloucester, MA, as an induce-ment to settle in 1650. Allotment of additional West Farms land was made after these first, more limited grants.
FOUNDER WINTHROP was not too modest to amass some of this traditional Old World form of wealth. He was given 600 to 700 acres at Millstone Point in 1651 and the entire 450-acre water course of Alewife Brook (Hunts Brook) with the priv-ilege of erecting mills, making dams and ponds, cutting timber and taking up land on its banks in 1653. Family did matter. Mrs.
Margaret Lake-probably the sister of Mrs. Winthrop-was given a liberal grant that same year at Lake Konomoc. "Mrs. Lake hath given her in the woods west from the town at a plaine, by a pond called Plaine lake, 300 acres of upland with meddo by the pond and the pond." Later this body of water was to be called Lakes Lake and still more recently Lakes Pond.
John Prentis had a farm adjoining Winthrop's, chronicled Caulkins. She went on to write that north on the Niantic River were the farms of Hugh Caulkins and William Keeney; at Pine Neck (Oswegatchie), the Rev. Richard Blinman and "rounding the head of the river," Isaac Willey. The west bank of the Jordan Cove was grant-ed to Obediah Bruen, who had George Harwood's land adjacent.
Robert Parke had a valuable grant at Poquiogh (Pleasure Beach) and next to him were the three smaller grants of the three Beeby broth-ers. The first mention of Jordan is in a 1663 land grant: "George Chapple hath given him six acres of land for a house-lot betwixt the neck fence and Jordan river, part of it buting on Jordan river."
Waterford granite from the Great Neck farm of John T. Hicks was the base for this statue of John Winthrop the Younger, whose Waterford landholdings of almost two square miles were his largest west of the Thames River. This Be a L. Pratt creation was dedicated in 1905 in the city of New London.
Winthrop, the Connecticut governor from 1657 to 1676 except for 1658, ob-tained the colony's charter from Charles II in 1662. Winthrop's famous document had a second West Farms landowning patentee, Obediah Bruen, listed among the 19 influential Connecticut leaders on the parchment.
9
Perambulating the bounds is an age-old British way of reviewing town lines. It was observed earlier in colonial days, but in 1769 Timothy Greene of New London printed Acts and Laws of His Afajestys Colony of Gonnecticot in New England in America. After this title there was little room for much else, but space wovas found for an "Act...for ascertaining the Bounds of Towns
...Two or more Persons shall be the Selectmen of Each Town be appointed to renew the Bounds once in every year..... Here the 1997 Vater-ford Board of Selectmen stop at the former site of Comstock's mill, which marked the new 1839 boundary.
PRESENT BOUNDARIES of Waterford and its earlier neighbors are not as they were originally laid out. The origi-nal vague boundaries of the first settlement of Pequot were from Westerly, RI, on the east to Norwich on the north and Bride Brook (near Rocky Neck State Park) on the west. But after a quarrel over mowing rights to a meadow at Black Point in 1671, and following perhaps a more formally planned bout of fisticuffs-if one is to believe Historian Timothy Dwight-the western boundary was marked by Wigwam Rock off Crescent Beach and then straight north on the western side of the Niantic River.
The northern boundary was brought down to its present posi-tion when the North Parish (established in 1714) was set off as the town of Montville in 1786. This line roughly marks the southern-most claim of the Mohegan Indians. The compact 4.2 sq mi village on the Thames River was incorporated as the city of New London in 1784.
WATERFORD was set off as a separate town on October 8, 1801, with boundaries: "... beginning at the north-east corner of the city of New London where it joins the Groton line; thence westerly on said city line to a large rock on Plumb's hill, so called, about four rods west of the road leading from Norwich to New London; thence running south 37 deg. west, to a large rock belonging or lately belonging to John Ashcroft, a little to the east-ward of Cedar swamp; "from thence running south six deg. east, to the main branch of Alewife brook, or Lester's gut, so called; thence running with said brook or gut, and on the west side thereof at high water mark to the sound, to a large clump of rocks at the western point of said gut or brook called the great shore rock, and on said sound; thence wester-ly as the sound runs to the southerly line of the town of Lyme; thence northerly on said Lyme line, to the southerly line of the town of Montville; thence easterly on said Montville line, to the westerly line of the town of Groton; thence southerly on said westerly line of Groton to the first mentioned bounds...."
THE FORMATION OF EAST LYME from por-tions of Waterford and Lyme in 1839 constricted the town's western boundary to the middle of the main channel of the Niantic River, and northward just skirted Comstock's oil mill on Oil Mill Road, and then went straight to where the Waterford, Lyme and Montville lines had joined. In the late 1890s a number of New London's lead-ing residents attempted to annex Waterford, or failing that, at least a good part of it. Seeking to double the size of the city, a bill was sub-mitted to the General Assembly in 1899 to grab 4 1/2 sq mi.
The call of the first town meeting located the assembly point at the Darrowv Meetinghouse, formerly at 81 Mullen Hill Road. Its simplicity is attested by this 1835 drawing. It was built of materials of an earlier church and added on to. The chimney was for a stove. Earlier it had been heated by an open fire in a hole cut in the floor and lined with stone.
10
W Waterford's changing boundaries lor ttogether with the significant roads of 1801 are depicted on this map drawn by George Egeland
- The territory labeled A was given to help form the town of East Lyme in 1839. The two sq mi labeled B were taken by New London in 1899. It is one-third of the city's area. About 350 transferred Waterford citizens were among those who had no say.
Waterford citizens mustered arguments against what The Day later termed "a 'land grab' on the part of moneyed and influential interests" of the city. A substitute bill was signed into law in 1899 that enriched New London by half again its size, requiring a Waterford sacrifice of 90 voters (perhaps 350 citizens) and about two square miles to its more populous neighbor. This grab was later occupied by the city's high school, modern shopping areas, Connecticut College and the Coast Guard Academy.
AN ATTEMPT TO ANNEX what was left of Waterford was tried again in 1911, but the bill was overwhelmingly defeated. More recent attempts at annexation have been more infor-mal: Optioning possible watershed lands when water systems were under discussion (1963), attempting to take over the first-class Waterford Post Office (1961)-and failing that, its large-volume customers (1962)-and telling Waterford how desirable it would be for it to have a limited-access highway routed through the town to serve Ocean Beach Park (1963).
11 I
Italians are the fifth largest ethnic group in America. Some of the 48 workers listed in the 1900 census helped build the Quaker Hill trolley line. Millstone Quarry was supplied Italian immigrants by New York City brokers. The quarry's 1902 payroll lists 26-not by name-but only by number. Near the corner of Lamphere and Shore Roads a small Italian colony grew up. Many there came from the hill towns near Naples and were related or later intermarried. Frank Anthony DelPriore arrived about 1905 as a farm hired man. Joining a group living in a railroad-owned ouse, he earned his rent by keeping the kerosene signal lights lit and clearing switches of snow. Hfe was able to earn all seven days of the week by working Sundays for a Seventh-Day Baptist market gardener. That enabled him to buy the 71 Lamphere Road house where his son is pictured in its grape arbor.
FIRST FAMILIES from other lands who populated this area were originally of English (mostly East Anglian) and Welsh (the Caulkins, Keeneys, Lesters, Averys) background. None came directly from the Old World. Most British emigration to the colonies had ended before Waterford was settled. For the following two cen-turies almost all expansion was from growing families. The local colonists embraced with ardor the Biblical admonition "to be fruit-ful and multiply." Children were the colonial farms' biggest crop.
It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that many were added to the homegrown citizens. It started with the famine-induced diaspora of the Irish that was locally documented by 62 workers list-ed in the 1870 census. They.were later followed by skilled English and Scottish stoneworkers. Unskilled but hardworking Russian Finns (58 by 1900) later arrived, many settling on Quarry Road. A vanguard of only four Portuguese workers were listed in 1900, but by the 1920s there were enough locals to construct the "little" Holy Ghost Society social hall at 40 Gilead Road. French-Canadian work-ers (23 by 1900) who had been attracted to factory jobs in other towns later found Waterford more attractive. From the beginning many New Londoners found its surrounding towns beckoning.
Following WWII the stream became a torrent as life in the suburbs became financially possible to returning GIs. Down through the years seafarers found local places such as Harrison's Landing a snug harbor.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century the rural shore ambi-ence attracted summer guests. Many put down roots to become year-round residents. Most were working-class folk whom Abraham Lincoln once declared "God must love, because he made so many of them." But some had more renown. The Enders family summered for a century, beginning when impressionist artist Henry C. White induced his friend John 0. Enders to join him at the shore. His son, Dr. John F. Enders (1897-1985), wvas awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for his research that led to the polio and measles vaccines. He had earlier refused it because his laboratory assistant was not included.
His nephew, Thomas 0. Enders, was named ambassador to Canada in 1975 and served as assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. The first Pulitzer Prize resident was former Lt.
Governor (1941-44) Odel Shepard whose Pedlar's Progress, the Life of Bronson Alcott won the biography award in 1937.
Only in America. Wethersfield-born (Sara) Mae Cadwell was presiding over the one-room Lakes Pond School at the turn of the century when School Visitor Seldon Manwaring made an inspection.
Cadwell won by a nose, for Manwaring could not take his eyes off the comely educator, and backing away, reportedly closed the door on his famous proboscis. They married in 1900, and lived at the 12
family's Oswegatchie Inn, where they had a son, Philip. Near the inn one day Mae caught the eye of Commodore Morton F Plant, who was inspecting his trolley line. Mae divorced Manwaring and married Plant in 1914. Plant adopted Philip, who inherited $15 M when his stepfather died in 1918. Mae's obituary in The Day specu-lated that she had inherited $50 M.
The following year she married Col. William Hayward and they entertained extensively at his Clarendon House estate in Newport, RI. After his death in 1944 she married her fourth husband-indus-trialist, banker and economist John C. Rovensky-who survived her when she died in 1956. She left $1 M to the Lawrence and Memorial Hospital. Among her many other legacies was the Tiffany jewelry she left to her friend, the widow of William Randolph Hearst. The
$8-a-week Waterford schoolmarm was elevated to the life of the rich and famous in a single lifetime.
Irish-born James Sherry worked over 55 years at Millstone Quarry, beginning in 1855. This circa 1885 photograph shows him with his wife, Bridget. Unsullied by the general anti-Irish feelings of the time, A.J. (Albert John) Perkins married their daughter Rose in 1888.
He was the town's uncrowned 'road com-missioner" for 30 years beginning in 1902, and a founder of the Jordan Fire Company serving as its first chief.
Born at their Elm Street home (p. 99) in the lost village of Millstone were James Albert (the taller boy standing behind his father) who became the 1971-84 police chief and Sylvester (with hand on his father's knee). The latter was the 1947-55 first selectman.
After coming from Wethersfield, Mae Cadwell's first upward mobility step:
was at Lakes Pond schoolhouse pictured here. Her portrait is exhibited in Lawrence and Memorial Hospital's Hall of Philanthropy.
"EIGHTEEN HUNDRED and froze to death" was also remembered as the 1816 "year without a summer." The "Ohio Fever" epidemic that followed was one of the largest migra-tions in American history. Mount Tambora in Indonesia had erupt-ed, creating a crater seven miles wide that put 25 cu mi of matter into the stratosphere. The deflection of sun rays resulted in a frost every month and lack of "corn-growving" nights, suggesting to farm-ers that the climate had taken a permanent turn for the worse.
Waterford began sharing its citizens westward. State Historian Albert E. Van Dusen summarized the grand exodus from the Nutmeg state: "Cheap land, low taxes, but still a New England way of life, offered an irresistible combination to young couples in Connecticut tired of high prices, impoverished soil and limited opportunities." But this was not the first thought of needed emigra-tion. As early as 1680 amateur economists estimated that the colony had reached its saturation point. The then population of 12,000 had occupied all the good land and "what remaynes must be subdued, and gained out of fire as it were, by hard blows and smal recom-pence....
The town of Westmoreland as part of Litchfield County was established by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1774. Groton-born Silas Deane, an enthusiastic expansionist, was supporter of this new town of 1,922 Connecticut settlers located in NE Pennsylvania.
Yes, Pennsylvania! Had not West Farms landowner John Winthrop, Jr., obtained the Charter from King Charles II in 1662 with the Pacific as Connecticut's western boundary? Under the leadership of Zebulon Butler of Lyme, the township had grown to 5,000 when Connecticut reluctantly relinquished it to the Keystone State in 1782. But the settlement on the Susquehanna remained a religious and cultural "little Connecticut." Meanwhile Connecticut settlers moving north had declared in their 1777 organizing statement that the land there should "...forever hereafter to be called, known and distinguished by the name of New Connecticut, alias Vennont" (emphasis added).
THE PROLIFIC OVERFLOW of New England, "a million restless, land-hungry Yankees, staged the first migration toward the West," American Heritage noted. "New York State alone, in the two decades following the Revolutionary War, absorbed 500,000 new settlers and tripled its population." When New York held a constitutional convention in 1821, a majority of the 127 del-egates were either born or were the sons of those born in the Nutmeg State. "On to the Genesee!" This was the all-time major destination of Waterford emigrants, although some (or their children) were later to move to Ohio and westward. (That was the story of the author's Warren, OH, was named after Moses
\\Varren, a one-time Waterford resident and mill owner. Warren and Cleveland, OH, honor the Connecticut surveyors of Winthrop's 1662 Charter-acquired western land. Above is the designer's conception of the Midwestern city's commemorative welcoming sign.
Jordan was once called Nehantick Wayside and Durfey Hill's earlier name was Nehantick Hill. The Niantic River was entirely within \\Waterford's bor-ders when its namesake, the Niantic, was christened in 1835. This contem-porary woodcut depicts it as a land-based San Francisco hotel in 1849.
14
ancestors.) With the general surrender of inland holdings to the fed-eral government at the end of the-'Revolution, Connecticut tena-ciously held onto the Western Reserve in NE Ohio. Its 3.3 M acres-a little empire almost a million acres larger than the Constitution State itself-was sold at auction to establish a fund to support schools. (Waterford received $2.84 of largesse from it in 1997.) The purchasers hired surveyors Moses Cleveland of Canterbury and Moses Warren, a future Waterford resident. They arrived there July 4, 1796. From Ohio and elsewhere, by 1831 one-third of the U.S.
Senators and one-fourth of the House members were Connecticut-born. More recently George Potter Darrow, who was born in Jordan Village, served 24 years as the Congressman representing the Germantown, PA, area between 1915 and 1941. He later lived at 166 Oswegatchie Road.
ON CHRISTMAS DAY 1816 Charles Mallory started for Boston to find work. One of ten children and without funds, he stopped at Mystic, where he began making sails. He pros-pered. He bought a share of a whaling voyage. He bought a whaling ship. He started a shipyard. He purchased his parents' rented home-stead (formerly at 60 Boston Post Road) for them. His descendents founded the Mallory Steamship Line, and while some of the fifth generation remained in shipping, P. R. Mallory entered the family name in the battery business (later known as Duracell).*
Four Waterford goldrushers-David Austin, Griswold Avery, (John) Isham Chappell, John Keeney-spent 28 days walking across the fever-infested Isthmus of Panama jungle to save time getting to the California goldfields. Also stopping at the west coast of Panama was the ship Niantic. Christened after the river at its 1835 launch-ing (long before there was a village to be given that name), it charged
$250 a head for 300 would-be miners to crowd aboard for San Francisco, where the crew left with the passengers. The vessel's most profitable days were ahead: it was beached and became the Niantic Hotel, netting her owners a fabulous $20,000 a month.
I'M EDWARD MACDOWELL and I've come to marry Miss Nevins," announced the man at the door in 1884. He had met Marian Nevins in Germany, where she had gone to study with Clara Schumann. MacDowell was studying piano there with the aging Franz Liszt. He was to become the first highly. regarded American composer. The couple were to found the Petersborough, NH, MacDowell Colony in 1906, the nation's oldest and largest artists' retreat. MacDowell alumni have been rewarded with more than 50 Pulitzer Prizes. Many American classics such as Thorton Vilder's Our Town, Leonard Bernstein's Mass and Aaron Copland's Appalachian Springwere conceived at the Colony.
The stranger declared to the Irish maid at the door, "I am Edward MacDowell and I've come to marry Miss Nevins." The entrance was to the 15-room Southern Georgian-style mansion at 54 Rope Ferry Road. Marian Nevins' father had purchased the farm in 1854 and moved there in 1860. His wife had been born on the farm that her ancestor, Nathaniel Shaw, had begun assembling in 1762. The eventual 300-acre holding was called both "Shaw" and "Jordan" farm. It remained in the family until 1958.
It was the site of the 1884 country nuptials, and "after the wedding, they took a drive near the shore and there were swamps of wild roses." (MacDowell's most popular later composition was "To a Wild Rose.") Marian and her husband are pictured beneath a 1996 photograph of the front doorway.
15
II. Call of the Town Meeting A.ND THE FIRST MEETING of said town of Waterford shall be held at the meeting house called Darrow's meet-ing house, in said Waterford, standing east of Niantic river, on the second Tuesday of November 1801, for the purpose of appointing town officers and for other purposes; which meeting shall be wvarned by a warrant or warrants... [which] shall be posted on the school house at Jordan Plain in said Waterford, at least five days before said meeting, and in such other place as may be thought necessary...."
This call for a town meeting was not the first one that these people had read, but it was the first for Waterford. This was part of the enabling act of incorporation of the Town of Waterford that passed the General Assembly in New Haven on October 8, 1801, the town's natal day.
Undoubtedly, factions of the rural area and those of the more compact village existed before New London was incorporated as a city in 1784, but this event seemed to mark the clear delineation of the interests of the two groups. Numbering five thousand, the pop-ulation of the town of New London was almost equally divided between those in the incorporated city and those living in the rural areas of the town. The "traders and mechanics who lived in a com-pact manner" found it easier to attend town meetings and sometimes burdened the entire town for things that benefited just the more nar-rowly incorporated area.
In 1797 a fire "engine" and housing for it were authorized for city use, but charged to the town, resulting in a 150-mill tax on property even in the remote Butlertown area that never could be served by it. The city contracted for the services of physicians and pest houses when an epidemic of yellow fever raged there in 1798, and then went to the town for payment-over the protests of those not living in the city.
As EARLY AS 1726, Joshua Hempstead observed in his diary that "the farmers universally were there [town meeting],
in order to gain a vote to their mind about the schools, but lost their labor." An outgrowth of this at the annual town meeting that December was also noted: "The farmers came in roundly and the town mustered as well to match them, and a great strife and hot words, but no legal choice." Although not mentioned in the 1799 petition, support of the schools probably remained a strong source of dissatisfaction. This first petition for separation of the two segments of town was signed by 245 freemen from the rural area. Since only the men could vote, this represented almost every head of the esti-mated 330 households.
The 1946 seal of the Town of Water-ford contains representations of a mill and a yoke of oxen, which are symbolic of the rural beginnings of the town. Similarity to the style of his "Winnie Winkle" comic strip has been noted in the creation by town resident Martin Branner. Voted the best 1958 strip by the National Car-toonist Society, it wvas syndicated in over 150 newspapers before a stroke forced Branner to retire in 1962 after drawing it for 42 years.
16
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"Your Petitioners hope that Your Honors will not think that Your Peti-tioners are without any Grounds of Copansxn wol nuhrzed 0 p _
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~ *.E I~9~~V~V ~~...tion And to Enact that, that part of the town of New London which Lies without the Limits of Said City of New London, be a Distinct and Sepa-rate town...." -1800 petition.
The 1936 Hall of Records at 200 Bos-ton Post Road was the first purpose-built town seat of overnment. Earlier the town had purchased the 21 Gurley Road farm in 1847 (and sold it in 1921) to serve as the town almshouse and leased the basement of the First Baptist Church in 1848, but town offices and records remained in private residences.
Without the approval of the city, this petition and a second one in 1800 were doomed to failure in the General Assembly. The peti-tioners of this second effort declared that "their money is at the will of said City, to be taken from them to advance the interest and serve the views of said City Interests wholly their own and Detached from those of your Petitioners, and Differing as Your Petitioners do from the Citizens of said City. In their Occupations, their manners and customs, and in the Opinions as to the mode of Conducting town business."
At a warm December 1800 town meeting the "traders and mechanics" resignedly agreed that "they would not oppose any future petitions" and a few winter weeks later signatures of 252 rural freemen from the 330 families were obtained. The General Assembly separated all the town of New London not incorporated as the city the following October 8, 1801, to form the town of Waterford.
17
Voice votes for local officials were replaced by paper ballots by the time of the Civil W~rar. The male elector was presented with two ballots (1864 examples below). The sum total of individual choice was to place a "I" beside his choice for first select-man before dropping his prep rinted part) list in the bal ot box.
The single, multiparty "Australian" ballot was mandatory by 1910. The pictured 1919 ballot (bottom) was used in the last local election that ex-cluded women voters.
A second voting district was established in 1903 wvith the Hartford Road as the dividing line. In 1967 the town was split into four districts with schools serving as polling places.
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ESTABLISHMENT of the town government in Waterford required the active participation of almost every adult male. Tythingmen (tax collectors), fence viewers, removers of encroachments from the highways and over two dozen "surveyors of highways" (who supervised the rate-payer's work on the roads) were but a few of the contested early nineteenth-century positions. Only the selectmen were paid, their "dinners and drink at the expence (sic) of the Town on Day of [selectmen's] Meeting" was voted them in 1818.
Town records reveal that Waterford followed the prevalent New England town meeting form of local government, which offers democracy both at its best and its worst. It is at its best because everyone may get up and speak. At its worst because every darn fool does. Town meetings usually prove that the initial reaction of New Englanders is to say "no" to any new proposition. But paradoxically, this negative first response often denotes progress. The "no" having been said, the issue could then be carefully examined in an unemo-tional way.
Waterford town meetings were not always unemotional.
Feelings ran high in the depth of the Depression. A 1935 meeting at the Jordan Firemen's Hall overflowed with about 80 standing outside before the open doors and others watching through the windows.
Order was perhaps influenced by the presence of a Connecticut state trooper. Voted down was a streetlight for Ridgewood Park, $5,000 for highway purposes and an extra five dollars for the outside poor.
The two items approved were the extension of liquor sales to Sundays and the establishment of a board of finance, which was expected to control wild spending. This was the period when former actor "Uncle" James Hammond would give an impassioned oration that inspired the voters' approval. Later they would ask, "Just what did we vote for?"
The drawbacks of such town meetings were delineated by Harold Nash. WX'hile the freemen were able to vote for officials, in reality they were but poorly represented by the town meeting. The business of the town was carried on by a group of self-appointed cit-izens with the time and inclination to participate. With little conti-nuity from one meeting to the next, with pressure groups for partic-ular issues and emotion-swayed decisions, state laws wisely restrict-ed the decisions made by town meetings.
REFORM BEGAN with the obligatory first no. At a 1953 town meeting, the town counsel was asked if it would be proper for the meeting to appoint a committee to investigate the adequacy of the town's present form of government. The answer was no, because the issue was not on the call of the meeting. Later that
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18
Town meetings have been held at vari-ous venues. When elections evolved from meetings to polling places, even more unusual locations were used.
The first major site was designated by state legislative decree to be the Darrow meetinghouse (p. 10). Many of the freemen attendees probably tied their horse to the same tree that they did when they brought their family to Sunday services there.
Church and state were spatially sepa-rated in 1848 when the town contributed help to build the First Baptist Church at 105 Rope Ferry Road (cover). The town had use of the basement, but was required to furnish its own stove and cleaning.
Beginning in 1893 the basement's use was augmented by meetings at the A.O.U.W. (Ancient Order of United Workmen) building at 89 Rope Ferry Road. The 1904 election was held at both the basement (the last mention of its use) and the A.O.U.W. hall. This secular site became Firemen's Hall in 1922 and served until the garage building at 204 Boston Post Road succeeded it from 1950 to 1953. Clark Lane School cafeteria at 105 Clark Lane (p. 118) was the venue from 1954 to 1971 when meetings were first called at the Municipal Complex (p. 21) at 1000 Hartford Road. Use of the Town Hall Auditorium at 15 Rope Ferry Road began in 1984.
year, a study committee recommended the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) form of town government. It was substantially defeated. A second committee was appointed and its recommenda-tion was also ignored. But an altered RTM charter was finally approved in a 1957 town referendum.
The town rightly prides itself on the independence of its 24 cit-izen boards and commissions. But the growing complexities of life created new opportunities and problems. After electing 44 first selectmen from the farm and small-business world that was Waterford, changing times were reflected in 1991 when the first experienced professional management administrator was elected.
Thomas A. Sheridan utilized the voter-approved 1994 town charter as the first now-unambiguously called "chief executive officer" to conduct periodic department-head meetings that provided a mod-icum of coordination among the various facets of Waterford town government.
i-i WTwenty-two members made up Water-ford's first RTM in 1958 when it joined five other coastal towns (Bran-ford, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich and Westport) in the selectmen--board of finance--RTM form of governance.
Standing committees have made this legislative branch more knowledgeable and have given continuity to town meetings. Clark Lane School cafeteria (pictured in 1966) was the RTM's first home.
- ~
While giving all freemen of the town a forum, the RTM effectively blocked the action of "claques"~-sometimes re-cruited from other communities-that shouted down motions from outside the overflowed meetings at the Firemen's Hall in the 1930s.
WATERFORD RECYCLES. The town hall dedi-cated in 1984 began life as the 1918 Jordan School. The 1969 town garage was built as a textile printing plant in 1957. With decals removed, retired police cruisers were first recycled in 1989 for use by other town officials. This "land of steady habits" locality participat-ed in the New England tradition of "use it up, wear it out, go with-out," even in its first public building. The almshouse purchased in 1847 was a recycled 1691 farmhouse (p. 99). Only three purpose-built municipal structures of note were authorized in the town's first two centuries: the Hall of Records, 1936 (p. 17); the town garage, 1949; and the police station, 1991.
Not only was recycling de rigueur, but unostentatiousness was mandated as well. A few exceptions that escaped were the cupola on the Great Neck School, 1930; a modest entrance porch on the Hall of Records; decorative columns on the Quaker Hill School, 1948; yellow bricks (never repeated) on Clark Lane School, 1952 and an attractive dormer window on the remodeled Hall of Records in 1996. A microcosm of the persistence of the antiornamentation her-itage, the grandeur of the dormer was quickly removed as being alien to Waterford. The resulting blank wall was later replaced by a dual double-hung window. This middle ground solution was acceptable, being compatible with the town's tradition.
A basement room and the former town garage served as police headquarters before an exception to the Waterford way was made to construct a purpose-built station. With few miscreants in early days, the town was served by constables who answered complaints on a fee basis. The going rate in the 1930s was five dollars for a long day con-trolling a circus crowd of 6,000-8,000. With a growing population, the police department was formally organized in 1958 under an act-ing chief and four new patrolmen who drove the first three town-owned cruisers. Housed in the Hall of Records basement until 1970, the department then moved to the ex-garage next door. Two contro-versial Swedish Volvo cruisers were ordered in 1983 with a full guar-antee eight times longer than those of the domestic cars then in use.
They doubled the years on the road before serving detectives three additional ones. Meanwhile neighboring Montville purchased dis-carded used state cruisers. The state-of-the-art 26,000-sq-ft Public Safety Complex opened in 1991 to serve Waterford police. In 1998 more than half of the force held college public safety degrees. Justices of peace held "porch" trials before the town court opened in 1925. It
,was limited to giving a $200 fine, six months in jail or both.
Jurisdiction was transferred to the circuit court in 1960.
PUBLIC FRUGALITY reflected private frugality, which followed the "waste not, want not" admonition from earliest Waterford recycles. The introduction of one-man automatic trash trucks in 1995 not only eliminated the cost of using three workers, but ended the hazardous task of loading the trucks.
20
colonial days. Barn sweepings were recycled as fertilizer, while house-hold scraps were fed to the chickeis and hogs. Coopers fashioned-reusable all-purpose wooden containers-the famous cracker barrel in stores and the apple barrel in household cellar caches and dug hill-side root cellar muggs. These were later joined by rows of preserves in glass Ball Mason jars. Individually packaged self-service retail-items waited until the last half of the twentieth century to have their,
I wrappings fill wastebaskets. For two dollars for the season, Pleasure Beach dwellers could have James Brigham collect their 1913 garbage for his pigs. War materiel, such as peach pits for gas masks, was col-lected during WWI. Scrap drives sought paper and metals again in the second conflict. During wartime 1943 N. B. King was hired to collect the entire town's trash. Town employees took over following the war. Bottle and paper collecting started in 1972 and one-man automatic trucks began service in 1995.
Homefront civilian volunteers used tontuks to collect mu ch-ne ede scrap material during WWI_ For years Mconservative green was the dictated color for town trucks, although the Recreation and Parks Commission's first vehicle in 1963 initiated a defiant blue livery..'
.Tables for silkscreening (stenciling)
II cloth extended the full lenghfte 350-ft New Lond on Texti1 Print Company building (above) at 1000 Hartford Roaa from 1952-67. Recycled by the town in X
1969 as the Municipal Complex (left),
it housed the town garae that serviced 212 vehicles in 1998.'The atypical shed-roofed office space was occupied in 1995.
The sole significant new general gove-rnment building in over 40 years, the 1991 police station is a striking exception to the plain-Jane syndrome of Waterford public buildings. A distinctive hip roof tops the structure at 41 Avery Lane that has a 3,400-sq-ft pillared entrance porch as well as a 1,500-sq-ft ancillary porch.
21
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The original portion of the library as it ivas utilized in 1966. The 1976 addition permitted this space to be transformed into a children's li-brary. In 1997 patrons there took out over 92,200 books, magazines, videocassettes and other materials.
This is considerably more than the best year for the entire library at its earlier venues. The juvenile materials wvere a part of the aggre-gate of 247,848 items checked out from the library's 100,000-volume total holdings.
WITH MANY MORE PATRONS than the total number of town inhabitants, the Waterford Public Library is the county's leading public facility. With 22,000 cardholders in 1997, in a town of 18,000 men, women and children, the library had annu-ally ranked among the top ten of the 174 participating state libraries in service to nonresident borrowers. This Connecticard statewide reciprocal borrowing was instituted in 1974. Such leadership did not come easily. Earlier, it was burned out of its first home, and later, the site of its first purpose-built building was covered by massive earthen overfill.
Concerned private citizens had gathered at the Jordan School in 1922 and voted to form a library association. It was formally organ-ized the following year as the Waterford Library Association, Inc.
(the Waterford Public Library, Inc. since 1961). Before it could open, fire routed its small collection from its First Baptist Church base-ment quarters. The library found shelter in a carriage shed at 90 Rope Ferry Road and "all the furnishings-including shelving, cur-24 I
tains, desks, table, chairs, 'chandelier,' rugs, as well as some books-were donated by the [executive] committee and interested friends."
Opened in 1924, its first budget got a boost when the town gave
$100 towards matching the state's $200 start-up grant.
DESIROUS OF HAVING A BUILDING of its own, in 1926 the association sent solicitation letters to 50 commu-nity members. Their response-plus cake sales and the like-prompted Mrs. W. Ellery ("Daisy") Allyn to suggest that the "Association construct a new building since it had approximately
$500 and a lot!" The Great Neck Road lot provided by Miss Anna Nevins was the site of the 1928 building donated by Mrs. Edward C.
Hammond in memory of her parents, James and Anna Chapin Rumrill. It was to serve until the state requisitioned the site in 1960 for the relocated Great Neck Road. Temporarily located in the recently vacated post office'building at 91 Rope Ferry Road from 1961-66, the library saw its use increase to over 80,000 books being loaned in 1965 alone.
Miss Ida M. Harvood was the first "paid" librarian. She received a $40 monrthly salary in 1931 to be in charge of the 1928 Colonial Mrgmina-'ns re Waterford Library building. The li-brary then had a collection of 3,925 volumes and an annual circulation of 7,123.The structure iwas given mto the town in 1961 to serve as th orda Park House on the Jordan Green.
LEADING THE WAY, the private library board supplied the six-acre site at 49 Rope Ferry Road for the first town-owned public library. With help from town and federal grants, its initial section was opened in 1966. A planned-for 1976 addition was expanded upward into its mezzanine level a decade later. Led by the oversight of a board of directors-one of the many such private agency/town marriages-the library went on line in 1979 when its circulation function was computerized.
Since 1990 the library has contributed and participated in the reQuest database that lists all statewide holdings. In '1994 it replaced its card catalog with a user-friendly computer that also'lists the library resources of Groton. Home modems accessed this listing of library holdings at http://www.waterfordpl.lib.ct.uis/waterfordpl/
dialup.html in 1996.
25
FIRES were a private problem before the establish-ment of the first local fire company. A bucket brigade was organized by the Quaker Hill Baptist minister when his neighbor's house caught fire in 1900. Jordan village housewives used brooms to put out a stubborn 1919 brush fire that required two hours to quench.
Three summer mansions as grand as their Harkness replacement were consumed by fire. The Jordan mill was destroyed at least twice (1905, 1942). At least four inns fell victim, one twice. Even fire-houses were not immune: Jordan (1936) and Goshen (1945) were both lost to conflagration.
Two hundred volunteers incorporated the Waterford Fire Co.
No. 1 at Jordan in 1921. The first fire truck was a locally acces-sorized Model T Ford delivery truck. Jordan pioneered ambulance service in 1948 and hired the town's first paid fireman in 1961.
Initially the town paid a company $25 for responding to each fire.
This met the town's statutory obligation to provide fire protection.
Payment changed to annual grants in 1932 to eliminate any linger-ing suspicions about the causes of some fires.
Community protection and pride were both enhanced when the Quaker Hill Fire Co. was conceived at a pinochle club meeting in 1927. Goshen, which formally organized its company the follow-ing year, had the first rescue boat in 1968. Quaker Hill followed suit in 1985. Oswegatchie was identified by its own company in 1932, Fire protection posed before the town hall (top). This former schoolhouse suffered fire damage in 1979. Its two predecessors were destroyed by confla-grationsin 1911 and 1918.
The town's first fire truck acquired in 1923 belonged to the oldest com-pany while the newest company (Cohan-zie) purchased the first 100-ft aerial platform truck in 1983. Crystal Mall is located in the Cohanzie fire district.
The Jordan company purchased the former O.U.W. hall (above) in 1922 that had been leased for town meetings since 1893. Fire destroyed it in 1936.
26
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the year the county mutual aid pact was formally agreed upon.
Because of wartime shortages, the Cohanzie Fire Co., organized in 1941, had to forage for its equipment. The five firehouses all record-ed additions between 1976 and 1985.
SIRENS ATOP FIREHOUSES have drawn farm-ers, shopkeepers and millworkers from their work to answer their neighbor's plight since the 1920s. The first call responder wrote the fire's location on the station's board before scrambling onto a truck.
More advantageously, following W'WII, two-way radios connected town police and fire officials, while Plectron receivers (later pagers) alerted individual firefighters. Fire calls were relayed by the police department-until a civilian fire dispatcher was 'authorized in 1976, the year the town became the first area user of the three-digit' 911 call service. Groton and New London of the local telephone exchange were able to join statewide Enhanced 911 in 1988. More than 10,500 calls on the 911 system were answered by the Waterford Emergency Communications Center in 1997. Siren calls reached but few 1998 fire volunteers who now worked-and sometimes lived-beyond the district. The now mandatory extensive training require-ment also slowed recruitment. But still reassuring were the periodic Saturday noon testings of the town's warning speakers that have alerted citizens to nuclear or other potential disasters since 1978.
Precursors to the 30 pieces of 1998 fire apparatus from a hl-century earlier (top) and 1965 (center) musters document local evolution. Prior pond, stream and well water limitations were augmented with about 1,160 fire hydrants by 1998 to help earn the town a high 31B ISO rating.
The hand-pumped 45-gallon 1914 Pleasure Beach chemical apparatus (above) would have been used an stored in an upright position. The towns first fire truc (opposite) was a marginal improve-ment: being self-propelled and boasting two 30-gallon tanks. While one was being used, buckets hand-filled the other.
27
In its first century the Quaker Hill post office traveled widely near the intersection of the Old Norwich and Old Colchester Roads. Its high point was when it was located on the hill-side, corner of the later Scotch Cap Road, in the trolley waiting room cum variety store in 1917-18 (pic-tured here) that the locals called "the shack."
The first post office was opened in 1890 by Postmaster Henry 0. Wood-worth in his tarpaper manufacturing plant at Hunts Brook on the east side of Old Norwich Road. He soon moved it to his store ("the house in the middle of the road") at 126 Old Norwich Road. Except for its brief excursion up the hill, it re-mained at this landmark until 1924, its mail sometimes arriving by row-boat before the coming of the trolleys.
Earlier FrankJ. Alexander had built a grain store next door (p. xi) that later served as a commun-ity center when purchased by the Good Cheer Sunshine Society.
Louis Ginsberg moved this structure across the road to 123 Old Norwich Road in 1924, where he raised it to build his variety store and post office underneath it.
This, too, was outgrown and the post office was moved to the Nitsche building adjacent to the Quaker Hill firehouse. The first purpose-built office at 132 Old Norwich Road dates to 1961. Community-spirited volun-teers repainted the exterior of this leased facility in 1989.
HANDLING OVER TWO MILLION pieces of mail a month from one concern is a long haul from the days when a youthful preteen assistant postmaster handled all ofWaterford's out-of-towvn mail. Both are part of the story of Waterford's post offices.
In the early days a rowboat carried the mail from the railroad to the Quaker Hill facility. Later a wealthy artist-quarry owner named him-self postmaster and served his domain for 33 years, while communi-ty volunteers-in Tom Sawvyer fashion-painted another post office.
One single-story building was even given its owvn ZIP Code number!
The story began in 1826 when James Bulkley was named post-master at his tavern (p. 30) on the later-named Veterans Memorial Green. Henry Gardner (a "blind" Gardner-spelled without an t) inherited the postmastership in 1833 when he purchased the venue.
A staunch Jacksonian Democrat, he was easily nominated.
(Postmasterships were federal political appointees until 1969.)
The mail arrived by stagecoach until 1853 when the railroad became the carrier. At that time Gardner's 11-year-old son Washington became assistant postmaster. His duties included taking the mail to the Waterford station (p. 38). Lincoln's Republican administration replaced this "Copperhead" (Southern sympathizer)
Democrat in 1861 and the post office moved to Jordan Village, where it remained-with a minor exception-till 1960.
In 1890 the post office was in the store at 101 Rope Ferry Road (p. x, 89), where it remained till 1936. Owner William Saunders served 40 years between 1889 and 1933. Leasing the purpose-built storefront at 91 Rope Ferry Road in 1942 ended the practice of the mail being an incidental part of a business. A stand-alone building at 169 Boston Post Road replaced it 18 years later. The first postal serv-ice-owned building wvas the half-acre 1992 structure at 222 Boston Post Road.
Quaker Hill obtained its first purpose-built office at 132 Old Norwich Road in 1961, while Henry Gardiner II's post office at his Millstone Point domain remained a part of the company store throughout its 1894-1946 career. Rural delivery began locally in 1904 and city delivery in 1954.
ZIP CODE number 06385 was designated for Waterford, 06375 for Quaker Hill and 06386 for National Foremen's Institute in 1963. NFI (later Bureau of Business Practice or BBP) enlarged its 1962 building at 24 Rope Ferry Road to over an acre to serve its 1986 to the early 1990s heyday when it sent out over 25 M pieces of mail each year. The New London post office tried to take over both Waterford and Quaker Hill offices, and failing that, the NFI mailings in the early 1960s.
28 I
Not a moveable feast, but a moveable address is what the Mayfair Diner be-came. Opened in 1938, the unmoved eatery caused the tax collector to be alert when addressing bills. The 1945 tax bill reached the diner at R#2, New London, while in 1946 it was R#1, Water-ford. In 1952 it was Boston Post Road, New London. In 1954 it returned per-manently to a Waterford address, al-though the 1956 bill was addressed to Station 12-a trolley stop for a trol-ley that had stopped stopping 32 years earlier. Finally in 1958 the bill was sent to the now expanded restaurant at 210 Boston Post Road. Many residents faced not dissimilar experiences.
The related undetermined beginnings of the 'use of street numbers date at least to the 1940s: but only four of the 24 fallen WWII servicemen had list-ed their next-of-kin's street number, ac-cording to newspaper accounts. It was not until the 1965 reassessments that full use of street numbers was used in official town records.
Serving rural delivery from 1927 to 1946, this 1927 Model T Ford earned A,B,C gasoline ration allotments for faithful service during WWII.
Allowing 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> for carrying mail to Hartford, this 1806 Washington, DC, National Intelligencer advertisement solicits post rider bids.
Mail pickup is piled high in this 1966 scene at the then NFI facility at 24 Rope Ferry Road, the largest single generator of outgoing mail in the ocal post offices first 165 years.
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Seven West Farms men were in Capt.
Nathan Hale's company on Long Island when he volunteered to spy for General Washington. This 1856 depiction of the procession to the gallows shows the captured Hale carrying his own coffin. Shortly afterward le would declare his famous "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
The local militia invariably trained at a convenient open field not distant from a tavern where more quality time was spent. When the tavern keeper be-came his own best bar customer, the field at the NE corner of Clark Lane and today's Boston Post Road was replaced circa 1820 by a short move to the corner dedicated in 1997 as the Vet-erans Memorial Green (pictured before 1895). Another training field was in front of Isaac Rogers house at 26 Jordan Terrace, according to an 1809 mortgage. The Samuel Prentis tavern area on the Hartford Road at Lakes Pond (Lake Konomoc) was the site of a training ground from 1800 to 1833.
The militia era ended in 1847.
~'777 7
T HE SHOT HEARD around the world, fired at Lexington Green in 1775 beginning the Revolutionary War, resounded the next day at NWest Farms when postrider Israel Bissell shouted "To arms! To arms! The War has begun!" He continued on toward Philadelphia to report to the Continental Congress. Nine West Farms men answered the alarm and left for Massachusetts. At the battle of Bunker Hill two months later, Moses Fargo's daily report lists Lebanon as the password. William Moore, who lived at 21 Gurley Road, lost his musket there and, perhaps facetiously, was later called "General" Moore. In all, the names of 77 such West Farms volunteers were compiled by Historian Margaret W. Stacy and are listed on the town's 1975 Revolutionary War memorial.
West Farms has a long history of military service. Major Edward Palmes, the owner of Millstone farm, headed the local com-panies organized for the 1676 King Phillips War "...to range the Narraganset country and harass the enemy." In 1714 James Rogers III was confirmed as captain of the West Farms train band. Able to retell his adventures until he died at age 93, James Douglass, Sr.,
served in the French and Indian War.
After capturing 13 British ships, the Connecticut navy's Defewce (pictured) later sank after hitting Bartlett's Reef on the town's coast in 1779.
NWilliam Tyack-an Indian whose family name is borne by the swamp just north of Manitock Hill-was on the payroll of the Defences sistership, the Oliver Cromuweit 30
In those days of trainbands, the "soldiery" consisted of all able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45, who were required to furnish a musket, powder horn and other accoutrements. Later the training became as frequent as four times a year and earned the civil-ian soldiers a tax credit. During the War of Independence most locals enlisted in area militia companies, but Thomas Durfey (the Rope Ferry Road hill is named after his family) and Stephen Dart are doc-umented serving in the Continental Army under George Washington.
BENEDICT ARNOLD (of Norwich) led a small force, including future resident William North, to Quebec late in 1775 to entice or compel Canada to become the 14th colony.
Unsuccessful, the following year Arnold headed the vital crash pro-gram to fell trees at Lake Champlain to build a makeshift defensive fleet.-Attracted by a bonus of eight shillings a month, Samuel Ames of future 934 Vauxhall Street and 750 others toiled, fought and lost.
(Ames served on the Trumbull, sister ship to the" pictured Philadelphia.) But it delayed the British for a season, helping to ensure the pivotal victory a year later.
"Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne's grandiose plan to split the colonies by seizing the Lake Champlain/Hudson River corridor was stopped in 1777 at Saratoga by local patriots such as Capt. Jonathan and Lemuel Caulkins. Burgoyne's surrendering over 4,000 crack British and German troops brought France into the war and eventu-al American independence. The pictured 1882 Saratoga memorial that commemorates the victory was built by Booth Brothers of -
Millstone granite.
AT WEST FARMS itself only small happenings are chronicled. The only adversaries ever to set foot there were escaping British civilian merchant seamen from the prison ship Retaliation, anchored off Quaker Hill in 1782. The British frigate Cerberus was-put in danger by a David Bushnell (of submarine fame) device while-at anchor in Niantic Bay in 1777. Attached to a hawser with floats,,;-
his "infernal" floating mine killed three when misguidedly pulled aboard a nearby captured schooner.
Eleven-year-old Benjamin Brown of Pepperbox Hill (pictured is ----
his later house formerly at 128 Boston Post Road) became a local "Paul Revere," warning that the British were coming when he spot-ted a-32-ship fleet approaching unsuspecting New London in 1781.
There were also naysayers. William Stewart (his house is at 473' Boston Post Road) had to be buried by torchlight-under the Episcopal Church in New London because of his Tory sympathies, while Pardon Tillinghast Taber of Great Neck was -jailed after being "convicted of going on board a ship belonging to the enemies of these United States."
Fr 31
K-doom MR. MADISON'S WAR" was the New England epithet for the War of 1812. Advocates of conflict cited the humili-ating British practice of stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing sailors to man their vessels as sufficient excuses for war. These practices mattered little to hardheaded New England shipowners because-like twentieth-century drug traffickers-the profits from the cargoes that got through offered bountiful rewards.
And, of course, there always would be younger sons from the farms to replace the kidnapped sailors. Of greater importance to the war advocates were the millions of Canadian acres that could be cap-tured. But the New England governors refused to use state militias other than for home defense. Local coasts were to be guarded pri-marily by mattross (home guard) militia units, which were only mus-tered for brief periods of local concern.
Vessels venturing out from port were in grave danger of being captured, especially after Commodore Thomas Hardy (Horatio Nelson's favorite captain) brought a blockading squadron off the local coast-although the packet Juno was able to sail to New York regularly without being intercepted. Having only limited forces of its own, the government offered private entrepreneurs bounties for enemy ships captured or destroyed. In 1813 enterprising New York merchants sent the booby-trapped schooner Eagle to deliberately be captured by Hardy's 74-gun flagship HMS Ramillies with its crew of 640. Taking the bait off Millstone Point, the British spent three hours trying to bring the schooner alongside the Ramillies, but the decoy's 400 pounds of explosives detonated prematurely, killing a British lieutenant and ten men without earning any profit for this capitalistic venture.
LATER THAT YEAR the sloop Roxana was deliberately beached at the end of today's Harkness Park to avoid capture by British barges. Locals so annoyed the raiding party trying to plunder its cargo that the enemy set it afire before quickly leaving.
The Americans then tried to put out the fire, precipitating broad-sides from supervising enemy vessels. Capt. Stephen Decatur was among a large group that stood on a nearby hill attracted by the activity. Farmer Rogers later declared that it was a draw: While his outbuilding had been hit, his fields had been plowed by the can-nonballs. Half a bushel of shot weighing 9 to 32 pounds was later gathered.
Although the war and blockade produced economic hardship, some local entrepreneurs profited. Matthew Rogers of Great Neck sold calves, sheep and farm produce to the enemy, according to Historian Richard B. Wall. He also described how William Champion, who lived on Durfey Hill on Rope Ferry Road, would buy livestock in large numbers to sell to the enemy and also capture FINIIIIIII Public Auction.
On Monday the 6ih June, at 3 o'c!ot1c P. M. will be sold at N antic bridge, The Hull ofthe SLOOP MARY; aist, the Sails, SpatsC Itig-ghir, Cab!te, Anchors, &c.
saved from eaid
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rf nIr!3dgc at llope.Trerryi know. re-rtig iom-lh: djrasge frceivetd by taking fire riom the sloop~ NMary._flreO by the vicrnsy ; a;id wiR'i in a'sht~i time buingood ordtr to.ptlis. The gtntle.~
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'New I.nnnon. June').% 4n 32
Topped by an air warden observation post, the Hall of Records balcony was a WWII civilian defense effort.
A second spotter post was estab-lished on the shore at White Point.
The Fort Sumter model at a Charles-ton museum depicts the original plan.
The frigate United States and its celebrated one-on-one prize, HMS Macedonian captured by Stephen Decatur, are shown just beyond Water-ford's NE corner on this 1813 map.
Their presence attracted a contin-uing British naval blockade.
Disrupting observed stagecoach tra-vel, the 1813 British dispatch declared, was accomplished when the sloop Mary was tied to the wooden Rope Ferry bridge and both were destroyed by fire. The newspaper advertisements present a second view.
and return enemy deserters who could be seen swinging from a yardarm before Champion left, pocketing the reward.
From the first shot to the last, Waterford was involved in the Civil War. The first shot of the war was fired at Charleston, SC, har-bor's Union-held Fort Sumter. The unfinished brick structure of 1861 was built'on a Millstone granite base. More stone was sent there and to Savannah, GA, when Richard H. Chapell (born on Fog Plain Road) was named federal agent to purchase eight old ships (mostly whalers) at $10 a ton and-creating a new money crop-stone at fifty cents a ton. A stream of oxen pulling heavily laden farm wagons carried this unique cargo to the docks for the final voyage of the 45-vessel Great Stone Fleet to be purposely sunk to block enemy harbors. During the war, day and evening recruitment speeches were given in the basement of the First Baptist Church. Among local recruits were Aziah Freeman, who served in. Company D, 29th Regiment of the Colored Connecticut Volunteers, and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Wallace A. Beckwith. The last destruction of the war was in the far-off Bering Sea, where Quaker Hill-born Capt. Samuel Greene and the crews of 14 whaling ships were attempting to free one of their number from the ice when the Confederate raider Shenandoah appeared. Altogether in June 1865 the raider burned 34 ships and loaded the crews, including Greene, on four spared vessels. Lee had surrendered two months earlier in April.
"FOOD WILL WIN THE WAR" was the slogan as America mobilized in 1917 for WWI. It was a time of wheat-less Mondays and meatless Tuesdays. Doughboys greeted France with "Lafayette, we are here!" Five of the 167 who left Waterford did not return. The need to conserve was again brought home by the sec-ond world war. To save gasoline, Mrs. Mary Harkness-widow of a major Standard Oil heir-bought a decades-old electric automobile and Mrs. Dorothy Ryan purchased a burro and cart. The power companys 1929.Myrock Avenue building was stocked as an emer-gency hospital. An air raid warden school at Great Neck had 150 enrollees training to spot for the GIs' four 40mm guns at Goshen Point.
Researcher William Hart names 23 local servicemen who lost their lives in WWII, one later in the Korean War and nine in Vietnam. The 1950s Cold War that followed WWII saw air raid wardens back at the Hall of Records to spot any Russian airplane that might penetrate-the DEW-line. A fallout shelter for 300 was in the 1961 plans for the office building at 28 Rope Ferry Road, while up the hill at the 159 Rope Ferry Road residence, a private shelter was dug.i Students 'practiced cowering along interior school walls, while shortly'afterward, the town evacuation plan was to be redesigned for a possible Millstone nuclear problem.
33
Colonial roads were laid out by sur-veyors such as diarist Joshua Hemp-stead. Illustrated is the original 1807 Lyme Turnpike (the basis for the US-I Boston Post Road since 1924) laid out by Moses Warren. Warren and Moses Cleveland of Canterbury are more noted for their 1796 surveying of the Western Reserve Territory in NE Ohio, where cities are named after them (p. 14).
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d h III. The Roads One Trod ROADS IN COASTAL CONNECTICUT were not only slow in development, but provided some of the roughest going for the first 250 years of the state's history. The frequent inlets and streams provided ready access to better forms of transportation by water, while the bogs, rock-strewn landscape and circuitous routes around the inlets discouraged all but the most hardy traveler. Fifty years after the first houses were built, Madam Sarah Knight described her torturous 1704 crossing of West Farms: "The Rodes all along this way are very bad, Incumbered with Rocks and moun-tainous passages, wch were very disagreeable to my tired carcass...."
The first "ways" laid out here by the English settlers radiated from the town plot (now New London) and meandered to the indi-vidual West Farms holdings. These roads were laid out by the town, which required that farmers give two days' labor annually. The trav-eled portion skirted boulders and stumps as well as the woodpiles and debris that adjacent owners found convenient to store there.
These thrifty Yankees found it cost less to put up a "pent" gate at either extremity of their property than to fence its length along the highway as the strict fence-viewers insisted upon. It was incidental that travelers found it inconvenient to remove and replace the bars as they passed each farm.
l(ING'S HIGHWAYS" or "country roads" were intended to interconnect towns. In spite of the royal name given the roads, the parochially minded farmers saw little reason to exert themselves for the sake of those in other towns. In 1669 "Wm.
Hough, John Stebbins, Clement Miner and Isaac Willey [were ordered] to lay out the King's highway between New London and the head of Niantick river." Remaining fragments of this Country Road to Lyme intertwine with modern 1-95 under the names of Phillips, Gilead and Gurley Roads and Parkways North and South. The fol-lowing year (1670) an Indian path was ordered to be laid out as a road and the Mohegan path (through later Quaker Hill) to Norwich could now be used by oxcarts.
British monarchs William and Mary granted the colonies the right to have a postal system in 1684. The original Boston post route traversed West Farms in 1693 when the first weekly post rider rode through the Country Road to Lyme, which Madam Knight, riding sidesaddle, later traveled with so much difficulty in 1704. (By the early nineteenth century, deed boundary descriptions refer to Rope Ferry Road as the later post road.) Useful only in town, carriages for travel-ers such as Madam Knight were almost nonexistent before the Revolutionary War.
34
_ The former Elijah Fox tavern on Pros-pect Hill is depicted by an artist as it was in 1876. The tavern was probably the first on the Hartford Turnpike, lo-cated just north of the Jefferson Avenue
$and Broad Street intersection. A town
-signpost was placed there in 1814 to Warn citizens of upcoming town meetings INNS WERE CNand the like.
a tThe eighteenth-century gambrel-roof (uyth Crocker House was located near the entrance to later High Ridge Drive. The dirt intersection of Clark Line and the
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Boston Post Road shows where the 1819 Solomon Rogers inn stood. It was sited where Solomon Minor had catered the previous century.
INNS WERE COMMON in the earlier days of slow and tiresome travel. The existence of about two dozen re-1900 inns (usually then called taverns) has been documented. Hempstead recorded in 1745 that the wife of Evangelist George Whitefield (one of the three cofounders of the Methodist Church) "Stop to Lodge at Solomon Minors." Later run by a second Solomon, Solomon Rogers, the original inn burned in 1819 and was replaced by ther one pic-tured. During Rogers' time, militia traiinigs were conducted at the adjacent NE corner. On such days "Old Sol" served huge quantities of Medford rum and gingerbread to the local soldiery at their annu-al musters. When Rogers reputedly "became his own best [bar] cus-tomer," James Bulkley built a competing tavern (p. 30) nearby in 1819, which Henry Gardner continued from 1832 to 1842.
CAPT. ASA WIGHTMAN was one of the several tavern keepers at the eighteenth-century [Capt. Jonathan] Crocker House, selling it in 1819. He leased the Blackfish Tavern below the Crockeri House on the Niantic River bank in 1815. -Here he spori-sored patriotic exercises on Independence Day and turkey shoots at G.
Thanksgiving. In 1824 he purchased the new building at 2 Old CoLchester Road. Wightman was elected state representative in 1819, followed by his son in 1855.
With the opening of the Hartford Turnpike at the beginning -of the nineteenth century (certainly by 1809), Elijah Fox had a tavern at the NW corner of Jefferson Avenue. An 1814 town meeting voted to have official town notices posted there. James Reid was listed as tav-em keeper there in 1822, followed by Rowland Stanton and David G.
Otis. Farther out on the Hartford Road Samuel Prentis own~ed a tavern at Lakes Pond (Lake Konomoc) between 1800 and 1833 and was fol-lowed by Capt.- Edward Morgan. It also served an adjacent militia training field.
35
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According to family tradition, stagecoach horses wvere stabled for use on the Hart-ford Turnpike at this 1752 house of Samuel Beebe, Jr., formerly located at the corner of Harvey Avenue and the Hartford Road.
The iron Rope Ferry bridge on the Niantic River (pictured here) dated from the mid-nineteenth century A steel swing bridge replaced it in 1921, which wvas in turn supplanted by a concrete one with a bascule lift in 1991.
The aged Marquis de Lafayette used this carriage in traveling through Waterford on the Lyme and Mohegan turnpikes in 1824. Mrs. Thomas Shaw Perkins wel-comed him at her 50 Rope Ferry Road house. She wvas to greet him again shortly afterwards at the door oFher in-lawvs' Shaw mansion in New London.
After a 43-year separation, Lafayette readily recognized his old friend
\\Villiam North. Gen. North, who had built his 1822 mansion (p. 58) at the site of the later O'Neill Theater, had been an aide to Gen. Von Steuben during the Revolutionary War.
F. W. Beers published this map of Waterford (opposite) in his 1868 Atlas of ANei London County. It provides one of the more detailed views of mid-century Waterford.
SECOND TURNPIKE in youthful America was established through West Farms in 1792. This privatized Mohegan Road to Norwich was so successful that during the next half centu-ry 121 franchises were granted by Connecticut to profit-driven pri-vate companies. This tax-free option was welcomed by all but the paying users. Money from a Norwich lottery authorized by the leg-islature in 1789 made possible the virtually new road from Norwich to New London. The Old Norwich and Lathrop Roads trace its route. It eliminated many windings and sidetracks to private dwellings, thus reducing the 15-mile journey from a full day to four hours.
In 1796 the proprietors of the Niantic Bridge Co. constructed a 500-ft wooden drawbridge over the Niantic River that replaced the rope ferry that had operated since the 1720 era. The flat-bottomed scow had been propelled by pulling on a rope that went through eyebolts on either shore. This first bridge, often in disrepair, was completely destroyed in the 1815 gale and was not back in service for almost a year. The state purchased the franchise in 1909 and ended tolls.
Just north of the town's NE corner a second ferry crossed to Gales Ferry from 1740 to 1900. (The Thames River was not to be crossed by a bridge until the 1889 Groton railroad bridge was built.
It was converted into the river's first highway bridge when replaced in 1918.)
INCORPORATED IN 1800, the Hartford and New London Turnpike Co. constructed a newv road west of the 1704 Country Road to Colchester (later called the Cohanzie Road, for-mally Vauxhall Street Extension since 1961). The charter for the turnpike permitted four tollgates, each charging four cents for a per-son and a horse or for any empty one-horse carts, 25 cents for a stagecoach or a four-wheeled pleasure carriage, two cents for each horse, mule or cow and a half cent for each sheep or pig. The last of this private enterprise was turned over in 1857 to the towns through which it ran. In 1807 the Lyme Turnpike Co. hired Moses Warren to lay out the town's third toll road.
36
The 8-by 8-ft Harrison's Landing station is shown in contrast to the 1895 Water-ford station on Great Neck Road. Below is an 1873 New London Northern passen-ger ticket listing all the stops.
RAILROADS were relatively late in extending their tracks to southeastern Connecticut. New London was the last city on the Sound to hear the conductor's "All aboard!" The two lines that were to serve the area were constantly mired in shaky financial straits, which resulted in numerous consolidations, bankruptcies and buyouts.
New London emotions ran high in 1847 when subscribers clamored to declare pledges toward a locally owned railroad that promised to bring inland commerce to the moribund port city. Its charter authorized the incorporators to build a railroad on the west bank of the Thames River. Grading and construction started in 1848, but the promised payments for the stock certificates came in slowly. The first trip to Willimantic in the "cars" finally came the next year. The following year the road extended to Palmer, MA, vhere a mixed train of freight and passenger cars began daily runs through Waterford on a regular schedule.
In 1860 the New London Northern succeeded the bankrupt line before the Central Vermont (later of the Canadian National Railways) leased it in 1871. Edward C. Hammond became president of NLNRR and the Central Vermont Transportation Co., which operated connecting steamers to New York. Waterford was served by four stations on this line: Harrison's Landing at Benhaam Avenue, Waterford at Richards Grove Road, Scotch Cap for a period and Bartlett's Cove at Lower Bartlett Road. Scotch Cap's and Bartlett's stations lacked the walls and identifying sign of the modest Harrison depot. Superseded, the parallel Mohegan Turnpike collected its final toll in 1849. Railroad passenger service ended in 1947 except for special events such as regatta days.
THE ESTABLISHED CONVENIENCE of water travel delayed local east-west railroad construction. Other competition was the existing New Haven-Hartford-Boston rail line. The selected 38
level-terrain route near the shore necessitated building expensive cross-ings over coves and rivers. Jordan-Cove was bridged by a 500-ft tres'tle (later replaced by earth fill and a shorter steel bridge). It wasn't until 1852 that the first shoreline passenger train arrived from New Haven.
Rails from Rhode Island first connected with Sound steamers at Stonington before later extending to Groton. Eastern connections from Groton were made by ferry from 1856 to 1889, when the first-bridge to span the Thames River finished the all rail shoreline route between New Haven, Providence and'Boston.
After an 1862 town meeting voted down the $30 for building 'a' "suitable station house," the original minuscule station on Great Neck Road (its site covered by the overpass since 1960) remained until':^ -
replaced in 1895. A second station was added at Millstone in' 1894.
Gaslights, stove heat, luggage racks for carry-on valises (trunks were in the baggage car), plush seats and han-dlebar mustaches typically character-ized this early passenger car (above).
The train's crew posed durin the era when railroads were'the' chief means of distant land transportation.
Alco DL-9 diesel locomotives (left) were a familiar sight to thousands of -
servicemen who were stationed at area bases during WWII. The early stream-liners began New Haven service in 1941.
RAILROAD TIME Local high-speed trains are not just a modern phenomenon: In the nineteenth century, trains leaving Waterford routinely arrived early at New Haven, 'hile' east-bound ones were unusually slow. Each town traditionally had its'own high noon when the sun was directly overhead at that specific locality.
- Railroad timetables were thus a jumble until the major -companies 'divided the nation into four time zones in 1883. With the ringing of church bells, Eastern Standard Time arrived locally at noon, November 18, 1883. It was implemented nationwide the following year. There had been little need for exact time before rail-road schedules dictated otherwise. Some early New England clocks had only an hour hand. Jewelry stores after 1883 advertised that they had direct telegraph connections with Washington time and that their time-pieces kept "railroad accuracy."-
'Although continued in use, both were unmanned after 1921. The 1923 timetable listed six daily stops at Waterford, and one regular and four flag stops at Millstone. Earlier in the century, liveryman Albert B.
Perkins had met 18 passenger trains each summer day. Freight sidings remained in use both here and at Richards Grove Road. Henry Gardiner II built a private siding to his Millstone quarry in 1894 for direct loading of its weighty product, while Booth Brothers continued to haul theirs to the Waterford station.
THE LOCAL ERECTION of unsightly catenary poles to support overhead powered wires was completed in 1998 as part of the electrification of the New Haven-Boston portion of an all-electric Washington-Boston Amtrak high-speed corridor.
39
RISE EARLY AND BOIL THE KETTLE. Rise early and boil the kettle. It was the first day on the job for young Thomas Rogers (1792-1856) and he wanted to start on the right foot.
Kindling a fire, he put the largest pot on the fireplace crane, filled it with water and dutifully dunked the tea kettle in it. This wvalloping breakfast boiled over, awakening his employer, who dashed through the steam-filled house to set young Tom straight. Reputedly, the inci-dent was the introduction to steam of one of the nation's premier pioneer locomotive builders. This Quaker Hill native's father had built the family homestead at 117 Old Norwich Road. After making railroad components in Paterson, NJ, in 1832, Thomas completed his first locomotive in 1837. He later built the famous General-fea-tured in a Disney movie-that Yankee soldiers hijacked behind Confederate lines in 1862. His firm built Union Pacific locomotive 119, which witnessed the driving of the golden spike that signaled the 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad-a minor Waterford role in binding the nation together.
A later inhabitant of the Quaker Hill house was Willibald Hoffman (1900-96), who purchased it in 1943 after renting it from a Rogers descendent. As a youth in Philadelphia, Hoffman quit school and rollerskated (and bicycled when he later had earned enough to purchase one) to Leeds and Northrup Company, where he worked for 25 years learning and building scientific measuring instruments. Later he designed the first flight data recorder ("black box") and built models used in designing the 1947 rocket-powered X-1 in which Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier.
When the burgeoning Thomas G. Faria tachometer firm was inundated with orders from Ford in 1963, Hoffman came to the res-cue by designing and building jig assemblies, which rapidly aligned and press-fitted components. Willibald's son NWilliam, who inherited the house at his father's death, served as a research engineer for 39 years at Seattle's Boeing Corporation, where lie designed and oper-ated systems of sensitive measuring instruments for wind tunnel pretesting jets from the B-52 to the 707 through the 767.
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The replica of the Union Pacific 119 daily joins the replica Central Pacific Jupiter during the season to reenact the 1869 landmark celebration. The completion of the transcontinental railroad bound the nation together. The "Rogers. name on the brass steambox faithfully credits the Waterford native.
. 41
WHILE THE RAILROAD ENABLED Waterford to become a nascent summer resort town and made markets more accessible, it did not revolutionize Waterford as much as the trolleys did at the birth of the twentieth century. Admittedly, the two rail sys-tems paralleled each other not only geographically-the tracks of both ran for the most part within a half mile of each other both to the north and the west-but in function as wvell. The difference was that of the wholesaler and retailer of the same product. The steam railway systems had only two or four passenger stops in the town and their freight rates seriously discouraged less than carload lots. By contrast, the electric trolleys stopped at almost every block in the populated sections and even offered rapid delivery of small parcels for a mere 15 cents.
When the Montville Street Railway completed its tracks in Waterford in 1900 on a private right-of-way-later the 1940 Mohegan Parkway (Route 32)-the Quaker Hill area was opened for immediate expansion. Several subdivisions (Thames View, Best View and Greystone Heights) were developed. Rural Waterford was now on track to becoming a suburb. The early morning milk car took the farmer's surplus milk to the city, which gave impetus to the growth of specialized farming in the town.
The "wholesaler" caught on soon. The Consolidated Railroad (NYNH&HRR) purchased this line in 1905, and in the 1908 reor-ganization called its nonsteam operations the Connecticut Company.
The 50-minute run from Norwich to New London was on 30-minute intervals. Until the 1920s, the last car from Norwich remained The open Montille Street Railway cars made frequent stops in Quaker Hill.
This circa 1900 photograph was taken at Hempstead's farm, where young Marion Ewald's parents had a summer cottage.
The trestle at Richards' Grove entrance (right) was replaced by the four-lane Mohegan Parkway bridge across Smiths Cove in 1940.
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overnight in New London and returned at 6:15 the next morning to start the next day's service.
W ITH THE GROWING AFFLUENCE of work-ing people and the reasonable cost of transportation, a ride on the; trolley became popular entertainment. Recreational spots such as Richards' Grove (p. 139) in Quaker Hill, and the company-owned Golden Spur Park, just over the line in East Lyme, became local out-ing destinations when one wasn't attracted to Watch Hill, Ocean Beach or Crescent Beach shores. Getting there was half the fun of such excursions. Speeding along the local countryside much faster than horse-pulled carriages, the open bench cars were ideal for sum-mer outings. Their wooden seats extended the width of the car, forc-ing the conductor to walk precariously along the outside running board to collect fares.
These light-rail trolleys did more than take commuters and fun-seekers on excursions, The granite for the first buildings of Connecticut College was transported on the same rails, as was the traprock for the first paving on the Old Norwich Road. Students rode to high school on the trolley, the town paying $1,232.20 towards their fare for the school year 1914-15. The first electric lights in a private Quaker Hill building were from the line serving the trolleys. The Shore Line Electric Railway Co. leased this route in 1913 before it faced bankruptcy and returned the cars, to Connecticut Company yellow livery. Although this was one of the few routes in the state that paid its own way, the trolleys remained permanently locked in their carbarn in Norwich, across from the Uncas-on-Thames Hospital, following their final run in 1934.
Cannonball Park on the Boston Post Road at the Waterford-New London line was the setting for this photograph documenting the first run of the New London-East Lyrne trolley in 1905. Vice President Walter R. Denison (on the running board) was also in charge of the Go.den Spur Park operated by the line.
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Blankets wvere lent to passengers on this December 1905 run to help combat the cold svhile the line was awaiting its closed trolley cars. The piers for this trestle at Keeney's Cove remain as reminders of this era of transportation.
This three-bay concrete-block carbarn facing the Niantic River Road svas next to the power substation that housed two 300KW rotary converters. Initially sup-plied by the New London Gas & Electric Co. with a 4,600-volt line, in 1911 an I 1,000-volt high transmission line from the Shore Line Electric Railway's Say-brook power station supplied the power for the converters.
The open trolley cars were stripped of their running gear inside the carbarn facing the Niantic River Road. The cars were still there in late 1923 wihen this photograph vvas taken.
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STREET RAILWAY TRACKS through Waterford from Crescent Beach and Niantic to New London were laid in 1905.
The New London & East Lyme Railway line edged the former Lyme Turnpike (later renamed Boston Post Road and US-1). It turned onto the Niantic River Road before diverging to cross Keeney's Cove.
on a pile trestle to rejoin the edge of Oswegatchie Road before con-tinuing on the road to Lyme again. Its three-bay concrete-block car-barn was erected at the 454 Boston Post Road-Niantic River Road corner.
Early schedules called for hourly headways with half-hour serv-ice offered during the summer. The basic fare was five cents. It cost ten cents to travel the two-zone width of Waterford. Commutation tickets were sold in books of 80 ($3) and school tickets in books of 25 (75C). Stops were indicated by white-painted utility poles; its Clark Lane station, for instance, was designated number eight.
The Shore Line Railway began its eastward expansion from New Haven in 1908. Its tracks joined those of the extended East Lyme concern at the Connecticut River in 1913. Later that year it took a 21-year lease on the NL&EL line. The route eventually extended east to the Rhode Island line.
W ATERFORD THUS GAINED full membership in, and the dubious honor of being a part of, probably the most unprofitable trolley company in New England. Strikes, accidents and overextension raised havoc with the line, but the most serious blow came in 1918 when Morton E Plant died. At the time of his death he owned 6,921 of the 7,000 shares of common stock, 2,898 of the 3,000 shares of preferred stock, as well as all of the bonds and most of the outstanding debentures. Service hours were restricted and lines were shortened. Later it was paired with alternating motor bus service before finally being totally abandoned in 1924. Light rail did Waterford are shown on this 1914 map of the Shore Line routes. In the heyday not have to be a losing enterprise: The Montville Street Railway line of the interurban lines, one could through Quaker Hill remained profitable to its closing day a decade transfer directly from Boston to Chicago later.
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Unusual for local mainland sites, the most convenient transportation from Pleasure Beach to shops in adjacent towns was by waterbus. F. K. Partric's Crescent served this purpose well for about a decade and a half beginning in 1905.
Usually called launches, these early motor vessels were propelled by naphtha or gasoline engines. In this case it was a three-cylinder gasoline engine.
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A WXAY 1O GO "We came when school closed, by train, with trunks for the summer. Our only transportation from Pleasure Beach was by hoat, the Crescent, which came front Pine Grove and stopped at three beaches, then went into New London landing vihere the railroad sta-tion is. It ran several times a day and lhicd about 20 people maximum. It stopped at the Dock [Dock Roadl then in good shape and owned by Booths....
-Evelyn Brossn in Collected ltemnories of Pleasure Bhe'acb by Ann Browvning I lorsinan and Ann Wright Prentice.
PUBLIC CONVEYANCES serving beyond deep-water steamboat docks and rail lines were an absolute necessity in the pre-automobile era. This was especially true if wage-earning summer people were to enjoy Pleasure Beach. Wealthy people like Henry C.
White and his friend John 0. Enders could have someone take two days to trek horses from Hartford. James A. Rumrill could have his yacht Fidget meet houseguests at the Central Vermont station. But other shore people needed public transportation of some sort. Albert B. Perkins, and later his brothers, met vacationers and their over-loaded trunks at the Jordan station with their horse-drawn carriages.
In 1899 a New London fraternal group used a four-horse bus for a day-trip outing to the Palmer House, a popular summer hotel at Pleasure Beach.
Echoing Venice, many found the vaporetto waterbus Crescent and its 15-cent fare the most inviting transportation. Originating at Pine Grove, it stopped at Pleasure Beach before continuing inshore of Bartlett's Reef (and its black lightship that stood on station until 1932) on the way to New London-then a shopping destination.
With the coming of the motor age, Perkins replaced his horses with a Model T Ford.
(In 1998 the Curtin Livery Services/Yellow Cab conglomerate of seven companies and over 100 vehicles had their 1994 garage and corporate headquarters at 176 Cross Road.)
MOTOR COACHES WERE TO BLOSSOM as quickly in the 1920s as had the electric trolleys two decades earlier.
With the coming of paved public roads, the buses could operate with more mobility and less capital investment than the trolleys anchored to their cost of rails, occasional private ways, overhead wires and such.
Informal "jitney buses"-open vehicles that held a dozen or so pas-sengers-were in operation from Nian tic to New London defense jobs during WWI. Fred A. Beckwith owned a Model T, while Michael Baldelli had a Reo. (The Baldelli family operated buses as the Niantic Bus Co. until 1927.)
46
The Connecticut Motor Transportation Co. began running on the newly paved road to Hartford in 1922. The following year Fageol buses were used on the Boston Post Road as far as the Niantic River Road, to be supplemented in 1925 with a continued route to New Haven by this New Haven & Shore Line Railway Co. Its dark gray and burgundy buses ended their runs in 1969.
Experimental bus service through Quaker Hill to Willimantic was tried briefly in 1926. The first regular service on the [Old]
Norwich Road replaced the trolleys in 1934. In 1961 the Thames Valley Transportation Co. took over the blue and silver Connecticut Co. buses on this route.
THE WAY TO GO "Who would be driving in to meet us?
In what kind of carriage would they come? Would it be the big surrey full of visitors and cousins, or the victoria with Aunt Anna and Uncle Jim? Or would they be coming in the Fidget?"
-Houseguest Mary Miller in her Under Gemini memoir on the way to visit her Uncle James A.
Rumrill in 1895.
The Second World War with its gas rationing and fuill employ-ment kept the bus lines operating to capacity. EB (Electric Boat) even ran buses in Waterford to pick up its several work shifts. Little con-cern for traffic was needed on the way to the bus stop even when crossing the almost deserted four-lane later-designated 1-95.
W ITH PEACE came the movement to more uni-versal automobile ownership and the decline of public transportation ridership. In spite of countless changes in ownership and configura-tions, none could be made profitable. In 1980 one could take a SEAT bus for the first time. These ad-bedecked South East Area Transit buses initiated handicapped-friendly subsidized transportation in the area. That same year saw a leased Rideshare Co. van carry a com-muter group to Hartford.
In 1998 the town had free portal-to-portal van service for its senior citizens and more registered motor vehicles than residents.
With resulting local riders few and geographically far between, SEAT buses mostly just traversed Waterford, offering area townspeople access to its employment and stores. In the final century of the mil-lennium, technology had revolutionized transportation at an ever-quickening pace. Stagecoaches and railroads had ushered in the twen-tieth century to be briefly followed by trolleys before motor vehicles provided century-ending ultimate independence.
Featuring drop curtains for inclement days, Fred A. Beck-with's Model T Ford jitney pioneered early motor public con-veyances from Niantic to New London.
It was detoured from its usual Rope Ferry Road route in 1917 when an unusu-ally high morning tide covered the road across the bar with a foot of water.
The first buses using the Hartford Road (left) pose before beginning serv-ice in 1922. In the 1960s the service was provided by the Short Line.
47
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GAIRGING Housing automobiles was a growth industry throughout the twentieth century.
The first horse ess carnages were open and had only seasonal use. These rich man's toys were garaged in expansive carriage sheds or in special multipurpose sport complexes built with a vehicular turntable, such as the 1909 one at the l-larkness estate.
The less afuent altered woodsheds and other outbuildings to shelter their new prized possession, the Ford Model T.
Motorcar technology by 1918 had revolu-tionized life more than computers would eight decades later. A separate "house" for the machine was necessary, placed well back from the dwelling because of fear of fire and modesty of the structure. Kits for these "boxes" from Aladdin and Sears, Roebuck & Co. became popular. Sized barely larger than the vehicles themselves, as time went on, garages became incremen-tally larger and more harmonious with the architecture of the house.
Two-car families were almost nonexist-ent when the rush to the suburbs following
\\X'VII created a housing boom. Most bare-bones GI-financed houses had "expandable attics" and yard space allocated for future one-car garages.
Specialty companies stepped in wvith stock designs that wvere assembled "on your lot." More rarely, a garage was built at grade in basements, such as eight houses between 588 and 608 Vauxhall Street that sold for the beginning price of $8,500 in the early 1950s.
With the lessening of fire potential and the growving desire for convenience, later evolutionary postwar garages were built alongside the house, only a few steps from the kitchen. A "breezeway," sometimes enclosed, later connected the two struc-tures when outdoor living and its massive masonry grill became de riguelir. The garage lengthened the long, low facade of the increasingly popular ranch-style house.
By 1998 the integral garage wvas ubiqui-tous and its multicar configuration was almost universal.
NINETEEN-HUNDRED AUGHT THREE was the milestone year that marked the beginning of automobile-con-sciousness in Waterford (a town that in 1998 had more registered motor vehicles than residents). The town's first horseless carriages were purchased that early year by summer resident Henry C. White and, at his suggestion, Dr. Thomas Rogers. The town's first auto accident occurred later that year when Dr. Rogers attempted to don his mackintosh coat while driving down Woodworth's Hill in Quaker Hill. Dust goggles were donned when the owners of these two Knox machines dared to motor beyond the town's five miles of paved roads, which represented two percent of the nation's grand total in 1904.
Registration and numbering of motor vehicles became manda-tory in Connecticut in 1903 and the 1,353 vehicles registered could have markers of any material or color. It was two years later that the state began furnishing license plates. In 1901 Connecticut passed its first speed law: 15 mph outside cities and 12 within. Drivers were also to stop their machines if they met a horse on the road; the fine for violating this law was $200.
The development of the closed car and the steady improvement of roads made driving far more pleasurable by the 1920s. By the end of that decade Connecticut drivers enjoyed some 4,200 mi of improved highways, 472 of them paved with concrete, while driving their new upscale Model A Fords. (The continued manufacturing of the antiquated extremely basic Model T almost did in its maker be-cause of the heated competition from General Motors' more advanced six-cylinder Chevrolet, America's favorite for decades.)
THE TOWN'S FIRST PAVING came in the early nineteenth century, when part of Oil Mill Road was paved with logs laid crosswise to travel, the only local documented corduroy road.
Wealthy Great Neck Road residents used oyster shells to pave the roads in front of their estates. The town began paving with water-1 48
bound crushed bluestone macadam in 1894, the year before state highway aid began.
The Connecticut state highway department (more recently Department of Transportation), established in 1895, began identify-ing local trunk roads such as Routes 32, 85 and 156 in 1908. Not until 1923 was any thought given to widening and straightening existing roads to remove dangerous curves, increasing sight lines and eliminating grade crossings at railroads and highway intersections.
Initiating experiments with the newfangled "cement" paving in 1913, the state completed the Hartford-New London cement road in 1920. Waterford's portion of the coastal US-1 was finished in 1924 with the help of federal funds. It was referred to as part of the Boston Post Road for the first time.
SIDE WAYS,1-.
.- +The twn's first sidewalk was built
- zaIle'vitte the hazardouss waiLk to Jo'rdan' School along the heaviI' traveled Bo'ston Post Road in 1959. Because 'of this Ioitgth';
inal puirpose, snowplowing began at the incepton and contiued on te 28.42 mi of 1998 walkis ;Thie towns first bicy' cle lan'e was alon'gside 1 1/2 mi of Great NNeck Ro'ad.;
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,.Center lines were painted on artein kea in rad'in t1966 @t'o laid m rotorists 'in to their own side of the thegway for the first time State and federl roads had initiated the yellow line' ide'a on the' eve ofWII 1TOWN ROADS, facing ever heavier vehicles and heavier use, were asphalted to make them more durable. In 1930 the town embarked on a comprehensive plan of paving roads. Numerous dirt roads that had never received a touch of oil, other than that shaken off by passing cars, were paved. Wild Rose Avenue, part of the Mullen Hill Road and portions of Spithead Road and Gallup Lane were among roads that were asphalt bonded for the first time.
The town's road system was augmented by privately built residential streets. These developers' roads originated when Edward Nichols and Abram Darrow extended Shore Road to open their farmland to building lots in 1888. Thus began the web of residential streets over-laid on former agricultural land. This filigree feeds main collector roads, many of which were laid out by the early settlers, who often utilized established Indian trails. The town's road system thus reflects West Farms' heritage more than the usual arbitrarily imposed checkerboard grid might.
Opposite left: The one-lung Reo truck used on the W. E. Kenyon,Cohanzie Gar-dens" farm at the later Meadow Drive location shows'the early use 'of motor vehicles on Waterford farms.
Claude Kenyon's 1910 Buick (opposite right) had multiple spare tires readily available for the inevitable flats that punctured the usual Sunday excursion.
The duster garb and goggles were a re-quirement of that motoring day.
It required a devil-may-care attitude to drive a 1906 Maxwell two-cylinder machine with its 30 x 3 1/4 in smooth tires, gas headlights and carbide gen-
'a erator with kerosene tail lamp and side lights. Unknown driver (below) is pic-tured on a Cohanzie farm circa 1908 when cars still had right-hand drive.
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TWO FOUR-LANE HIGHWAYS made history in 1940. Both utilized abandoned rail rights-of-way. The national press featured the opening of the limited-access Pennsylvania Turnpike, the grandfather of all similar American roads. Locally the grandiose-for the period-four-lane Mohegan Parkway (Route 32) spanned much of the town's eastern edge. This pioneer eastern Connecticut boulevard became more heavily traveled with the open-ing of a second Indian casino in 1996. The former trolley right-of-way thus became a thruway to elsewhere instead of having the town as a major destination. WVith the grass divider paved over and Jersey concrete barriers substituted in 1998, the new wall effectively split the Quaker Hill community in two when it was rebuilt into a utili-tarian urban roadway.
In wartime 1943 the Gold Star Bridge and the New London bypass (later named Blue Star Highway and still later a part of Interstate 95) opened. Its four Waterford lanes temporarily merged into two future northbound lanes just west of the Hartford Road and terminated at Flanders Corner, where it rejoined the existing Route 1.
Extra thickness in the concrete pavement was substituted for non-available steel reinforcement bars. The Hartford Road overpass con-struction was held up by the War Production Board-even though Late Saturday morning views of 1-95 show what 30 years (1966, 1996) had wrought. In the 1984-94 decade alone, daily traffic had increased from 36,900 to 50,600 vehicles. While the Inter-A state system constituted only one percent of the nation's roads, it carried 20 per-cent of all motor traffic.
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the materials were on site-until at-grade collisions convinced its immediate need.
(The Blue Star Highway name dates to the late 1940s to honor all military service personnel who served in WWI. This inclusiveness was altered in 1996 when the local portion was renamed the Jewish War Veterans Highway.)
A decade later in 1953 the third local four-lane highway-the Connecticut Turnpike toll road-was authorized by the General Assembly. To garner sufficient assembly votes,,the proposed North Stonington terminal was swung north to the Danielson area when it was completed in 1959. Its "park and ride" commuter parking lot at the Hartford Road was the second (by a day) that the state had exper-imentally opened. This state Route 52 became federal 1-395 in 1983.
WATERFORD became a part of the 42,000-mile Interstate system in 1963 when the Blue Star Highway's prepared-for southbound lanes were added and the new Parkway North and Parkway South service roads enabled this stretch'to become limited access. Helping to complete 1-95 from Maine to Florida, Waterford became a part of the second such link, having a portion of.US-1 that the Interstate supplemented.
In anticipation of I-95, Waterford extended Cross Road to the Hartford Road in 1958. This ensured that an overpass would be built and the Industrial Triangle land would be-more accessible. This nucleus of a north-south arterial created a toehold of independence from the earlier major roads that converged out of town. The only town laid-out-and-built road of the century, it was widened to four lanes in 1987.
Other town roads had important segments widened to multi-lanes during the last third of the twentieth century as well. Often incremental and often as a building expense for developers, three his-torical main roads were affected: Boston Post Road (US-i) from the Veterans Memorial Green eastward to the two-lane approach to New London, the Hartford Road (Route 85) from 1-395 to near the New London~ line, -where it became two lanes and the Rope Ferry Road (Route 156) as it approached Niantic.
A glance in the rearview mirror reveals what has not passed.
Route 11 from Colchester to 1-95 was "temporarily" stopped in Salem in 1972. An unused overpass and a cut through a hill a half mile beyond beckons southward to the final seven miles. In the 1960 period New London extolled the advantages to Waterford of having this limited-access Route 11 pass through the Clark Lane schoolyard, with an interchange at the Boston Post Road. It was to slice through Harkness and the future Waterford Beach Parks to end' at the Ocean Beach parking lot entrance.
Waterford had a total of 18,518 regis-tered motor vehicles in 1998: 12,488 passenger, 2,874 combination, 744 commercial, 26 farm and 2,386 other.
Connecticut had an additional 2.6M registered vehicles driven by 2.4M
- licensed drivers sharing state and local roads with out-of-state visitors.
51
52
Automobile ownership in Waterford reflected the evolution of this mode of transportation. The town's first car was this pictured 1903 Knox "driven" by three-year-old Nelson C. White. The era's horseless carriages have been char-acterized as being a rich man's toy.
Henry Ford had made eight-cylin-der upscale vehicles before putting America on wheels with his 1908 Model T. Pictured is FrederickW.
Parmelee's 1909 edition. Over 15M were sold for as little as $265 during its 20-year production.
The 1950s saw Detroit automak-ers turning out ever larger ostenta-tious chrome-plated land yachts. The WORLD WAR II WAS OVER. The formal Japanese surrender was yet to be signed, but the shooting had stopped. It was 1945. Wartime rationing would soon end and, yes,
- pent-up purchases would have to wait until factories could retool.
The postwar dreams of the GIs and those on the homefront could now be realized-the victory rewards that magazine and newspaper articles had promised. The now-surplus jeeps of the wartime news-reels would be available for a few hundred dollars' to go shopping Saturday night, to church on Sunday and plow the fields on Monday.
And, of course, most everyone would have his own fliwer light airplane.
The dairy barn of the formerWhitman farm remained during the lifetime of f 1; the Waterford Airport. This 1966 period photograph shows some of the tied-down private airplanes of the time.
In 1950 the prototp of aflyn automobile landed. When its wings, tail and a propeller were attached, it could fly. Without them, it was a roadable motorcar.
To assure his being on the ground running, Russell Corser some-how found sufficient rationed fuel to have bulldozers begin carving out two 1,800-ft runways for the Waterford Airport. Facing the northbound two lanes of a future 1-95, it eventually became home for about 30 general aviation planes. Pilgrim Airlines was organized there in 1962 to fly the area's first scheduled commercial flights to New York City. But its airport days were numbered when the New England Savings Bank purchased the land for a planned office park in 1984 before selling it to Reynolds Metals Development Co. in 1987.
Local flight' almost began in 1909 when Harold N. Palmer launched his birdlike flying machine over the water at Niantic River Road. This unsuccessful start was replaced a year later when a Boston biplane did overfly the Yale-Harvard regatta. Charles A.
Lindbergh flew along the local coastline on his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight to Paris. A chance emergency landing on the Strand by a passing pilot prompted Frank Valentine Chappell to erect a wel-coming windsock for future drop-in visitors to this impromptu land-ing field. Henry Gardiner III's 1948 Millstone Point private airstrip served him until 1971.
Volkswagen Beetle entered the American market in 1949, when two were sold. The mildly antiestablish-ment cool 'bug" -especially in win-ter-was sold to Robert M. Nye (pic-tured at Yellowstone in 1968) and almost 5M others before being sur-passed by Japanese imports.
Countering this, U.S. manufactur-ers began a downsized second line, such as the 1961 Ford Falcon pictured at Joe Venti's ESSO station at 115 Boston Post Road. The all-metal sta-tion wagon was introduced by the 1949 Plymouth, a type that character-ized suburbia until mothers began replacing it with the minivan for fami-ly taxiing in 1984.
In 1997-the 100th anniversary of the U.S. automobile industry-one out of ten new motorcars was a sport-utility vehicle. Although John and Robin O'Keefe's Jeep (pictured at Spera Soccer Field) was the exception, 19 out of 20 SUVs were never used offroad.
The 1945 Gl-now a white-haired grandparent-could buy his dream Jeep in 1998 for $37,265 plus tax and registration.
53
The 1876 house at 16 Douglas Lane (top) was only six years old when its likeness woas proudly portrayed in Hurd's History of N~ew London Couity. Crafted in wood, it is reminiscent of a typical period English manor house.
The 1651 fence built across Great Neck was the earliest attempt at confining animals. It separated the crops on the south from the commons on (he north.
Bucher placed it at 1,000 ft south of the later Rope Ferry and Boston Post Roads. Earmarks wvere used to identify stray animals taken to pounds such as that at 39 Fog Plain Road (above). Town records show that Wd. (for widow) Eliz-abeth Douglass identified hers in 1802 with "a crop off of the left ear and a half penny off underside of same ear and a half crop off of the upper side of the right ear."
Oxen were the chief farm motive power for two centuries. The 1809 assessors listed 362 oxen four years and older, but only 194 horses at least three years old. The listers found two mules. Own-ership of sheep was encouraged-they w ere diedcted from one's assessed valua-tion-and numbered 2,808 as against 758 cows and steers.
Opposite: Deeds were important to the Douglas family-Deacon William had the original grant recorded three times in the town records. Perhaps Anne Doug-lass (this is the first generation to use the double s) did not like country living, even in a new "mansion house,"
since her husband Nathan sold the land back to his brother Robert just eight years after he purchase it.
IV. Earning One's Daily Bread WEST FARMS was the earliest designation for Waterford. As late as 1957 the official Connecticut State Register still listed agriculture as the principal industry of the town. At the time of the Declaration of Independence 19 out of 20 American colonists were farmers. But this is an oversimplification. While from earliest times almost all men cultivated the land, they were also quite adept at other occupations as well. Working two jobs or more is not a mod-ern phenomenon. The family who homesteaded a Douglas Lane farm for over 330 years is a typical case in point.
In 1667 William Douglas was granted 100 acres "towards the head of Jordan river and lying on both sides, about four miles off and on the north side of that boggy swamp called Cranbury Meadow" (the meadow in front of the town complex at 1000 Hartford Road).
Deacon Douglas, a cooper by training, probably moved to the farm itself in 1680. To clear the fields and build the stone walls he undoubtedly had an exchange-labor "stone frolic," generously lubri-cated with jugs of cider. He deeded the farm to his son Robert, another cooper, who in turn deeded it in 1701 to his son Thomas, who engaged in tanning and shoemaking.
THE SHOEMAKER'S SON Robert sold "two acres and 90 rods" in 1744 to his brother Nathan, who built a "mansion house." Robert bought it back in 1751 (see deed at right) and deeded it to his oldest son Thomas in 1774. The subsistence farming of the day encouraged farmers to plant for their own needs rather than to specialize in cash crops. When Robert Douglass was deeded the farm in 1821, he operated a sawmill at the head of Jordan Brook (map, p. 37). In 1851 Robert's son, Albert Gallatin Douglass, moved to the old house. He constructed a cider mill to the west (such mills were in demand, as many households stored as many as 40 barrels for the winter). In 1876 he replaced Nathan's mansion with the extant house at 16 Douglas Lane.
Stanley G. Morgan, who married Albert's daughter Julia, moved to the farm in 1889. In 1931 their son, Judge Stanley Douglas Morgan, received title. His son S. Douglas took over in 1962 and kept a herd of 38 head of Ayrshire cattle in addition to working full time with both the state Park and Forest Commission and the state Fish and Game Department. To pay taxes on the deficit-producing land, he reluctantly sold an occasional building lot. His wvas the last dairy farm in Waterford. His sons continued to harvest hay follow-ing his death in 1994. To keep the taxed 272-acre farm intact, they opted to sell its (gravel) soil instead of its land.
54
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FIRST FARMS Earning a livelihood on General Neck (Great Neck) evolved over the centur-ies. Hunting, fishing and some farming sustained the newly arrived Pequots at their Pepperbox Hill settlement for perhaps halfa century before they were displaced by requisitioning Caucasians.
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~~In 1651 the Englishsetirbga diiin h land into tiers of hold-ngs aftero thei mode of the East Anglia a fens araof theirhomeland The con-ceptual map (insert) is based on one dra~wn by surveyor Robert L. Bucher.
Grants -ere determined by the draw-ing of lots. Almost immediately the settlers exchanged their scattered-mostly four-to teni-acre'-plstofr larger contiguhou ld s to. form The erir15 amo~de e-ter (the firstsefttler on Andrew Les-perhaps thnis uo ean resdnto the future Waterford) later became the property ofJames Rogers. His deseen.
dent, tevens Rogers (1758t1811), drew this mnaf (shown colored) as a 1784 plainfied Academy sinet t
details vary slightly from Stevens' separate listing of compass bearin and chain measurem on which it is based. Readig note: the small as seml~ed a backward Iongband£) Cof-fins mark a slave graveyard. The Rogersmly was the major local own er of slaves.loa on Farming was to occupymsoftenc acreage ungtltst ° uy most of the neck acreagiet util the early part of the tweniet 1cntury One of the town's two Piggeries was located on the neck in 1998. Nursery stock was also still cul-tivated there in a limited way The (adjusted) modern street overlay depicts what began about a century af-ter the original mapmakingwhen Edward
'W Nichols subdivided his farm. There was a growing demand by sweltering iland People to en oummer sea breezes. H-e joined felo 'fandowe Abram M. Darrowtopeuctag sites by extending Shore Roauin 1888g The then ubiquitous railroads brought in more and more people who labored the rest of the year for the rewvard of a surnmershorerespite.,Plebeian "Pl eac won out over the historic Indian Poguyogh" area name in 1914.
Modest year-round houses were built ars wellhfor thegrowing number of quar-rier wh wakeda mle astto the Booth Brothers quarry or about an equal distance to Millstone.
Theperod 8751941 marked the sum-mer resor heyday of Waterford as a prime destiainthat created employment op-portunities for local workers. Most of the cottages were "winterized" during and following WWIt and new streets and subdivisions were added in later dec-ades for new four-season houses.
iARVESTS were not limited to what was provid-ed by the soil. Not only did the farmers engage in a diversity of sec-ond occupations, but in a diversity of crops derived from water as well. Walnut Grove Farm (Waterford Beach Park since 1962) over the years witnessed the harvesting of both salt and ice-in different eras the mainstays of food preservation.
James Fennell and Gurdon Miller constructed a four-acre salt works in 1803 "lying on the south side of Lester's Gut [Alewife Cove] bounded west on Richard Jerome land; south by Long Island Sound and east and north on the Gut, Creek and Pond." This included 500 ft of the later town beach and the marsh back of it.
Only one 12 1/2-bushel annual payment was ever made on the mort-gage. It is unknown if shareholders (right) even earned that much.
The 1809 tax assessor listed neither the principals nor the salt works and its evaporation lagoons.
At an earlier date local salt production received a higher pre-mium. The Revolutionary War cut off the supply of imported salt-including the highly desired product of Turks Island in the Bahamas. The 1776 General Assembly offered a shilling per bushel fill
- 1bounty, doubling the amount two months later. Salt was advertised in the Gazette for five shillings. Two years later an offering read:
"SALT to be SOLD by the subscriber at his Works the Head of 5
Niantic River in Newv Lond, at 27s. per Bushel.-Amasa Allen," an
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inflation of 540 percent. The description of these works-located in the vicinity of 202 Niantic River Road-came from a later 1778 In the age of door-to-door delivery of '
ice, milk and farm produce, many WPaterford farmers maintained routes in 7 -
nearby less self-sufficient urban areas.
The W. R. Perry iceman looked to front windows to see a company placard turned 4-.I to show the size of the iceblock desired ;
before cutting it and hauling it up the
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- h to dropping his burden in the top of the customer s icebox. In the 1912 period of this photograph, daily delivery of milk lk'as required because of the limited coldness of the icebox. A late Saturday evening trip to the butcher shop helped ensure that the Sunday roast would i
i not spoil.-
The Walnut Grove farmhouse was built in 1822 by retired Gen. William North, an earlier associate of Lafayette and MVon Steuben. Gardiner Greene Hammond and his family posed in front of the French Empire-style house in this circa 1862 plate.
The Hammonds' seven children necessitat-ed the addition of a third story to the resi-I I
dence. The large dairy barn svas converted into a theater (p. 144) in 1966.
advertisement: "TO BE SOLD, a large and very valuable Salt Works, situated in the Western Part of the Town of New London, near the Head of Niantick River. The Works are in compleat Order for carrying on the Business of Making Salt, with a Pomp carrying the proper water by one Operation into the Vats and Pans: Ten large flat pans and Eight Pot Ash Kettles are well set in the Furnace....
-Wm. Griswold and John Graham, Wethersfield."
ICE BECAME VALUABLE as a preservative later in the nineteenth century. Walnut Grove Farm owner Edward C.
Hammond stored it in both a stone icehouse near the mansion and a further icehouse upstream on the far side of the cove. In 1916 Charles Galleher and Leverett N. Dimmock of East Neck had their icehouses filled by January. Louis Reiger had a 300-ton icehouse at 189 Great Neck Road to be filled. The largest harvester of ice in Waterford was Walter R. Perry, who built a 6,000-ton capacity ice-house in 1888-89 to serve Perry Ponds #1 and #2 "Cohanzie Lakes" (alongside a later I-95 service road) then in Waterford. He later added a 4,000-ton icehouse near the first. His company also har-vested ice from the pond on Fog Plain Road (left) at the 1997 Yorkshire Drive.
In addition to serving ice customers, Waterford had been the source of the City of New London's water supply since 1872. The Manitock Spring Water Co. has distributed bottled spring water to the area from its two hillside springs at 343 Boston Post Road since 1915.
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- aic, THE GOOD EARTH Liquid gold (petroleum) had been-sought since.1887 when James A. Boss recorded two oil drilling leases from.
Quaker Hill farmers Christopher Brown and Charles W. Payne.
He apparently failed to enjoy the financial success obtained by the multi-millionaire father of summer resident Edward S. Harkness, who was a major in-vestor in John D. Rockefeller's forma-tion of the Standard Oil Co. monopoly.
Edward and Mary Harkness gave away a reputed $800M by 1950.
CHANGE-usually slow evolutionary change-was characteristic of local farming. For the first two centuries of settlement farmers tried to raise everything they needed. "Make do, use it up and wear it out" was required of the early agriculturalists who saw little real money on a continent chronically short of hard currency. One of their biggest crops was children. It has been esti-mated that the population of colonial New England would have doubled every 13 years even without additional immigration.
With the development of transportation and the circulation of more currency, the early nineteenth century saw the decline in such subsistence-type farming. New England lost much of its population as well. Waterford did not equal its 1830 census population again until 1860. It wasn't just the 1849 gold fields, but the golden fields of grain on the way that changed the lives of local farmers. Grain, sheep and cattle could be raised there more efficiently and brought to eastern markets at a lowver price than the locals could garner from among their outcroppings of rock. Many Nutmegger farms wvere abandoned, but more significant in Waterford was the changing of "ploughlands" into mowing and pasture fields and the changing of pasture land into woodlots. With industrialization and growth of urban population, it became more profitable to raise perishables on dairy and truck farms.
WHILE MANY OF THE DESCENDENTS of the early settlers moved westward or remained steadfast in their old, uneconomic ways, others arrived with an eye for opportunity. Rufus Dimmock left Canterbury, CT, for 24 Dimmock Road in the 1840s to begin dairying-ladling milk into customers' containers in the early horse-drawn delivery days. His descendents continued doing so until 1972. Beginning in 1890 three generations of the Steward family operated a dairy farm at 177 Gilead Road (now Parkway North). They started delivering milk in bottles about 'WWI and switched to square ones with their name on them (right) in 1954 before bowing to progress in 1965. A 1993 attempt to quantify the number of 1920-60 Waterford dairy farms cited 102. Connecticut had 6,233 dairy farms in 1940. Waterford had none in 1998.
In 1870 Edward Kenyon began market gardening on ten acres on Niles Hill Road. "Cohanzie Gardens" was started by his son William Edward ("WE."). He built extensive greenhouses on the future Meadow Drive site to grow both seasonal and out-of-season vegetables that were peddled door-to-door as well as shipped on the night steamer to New York. With his business supplanted by cheap-er produce from the South and the West and the wartime shortage of coal, Kenyon retired in 1918.
Thrifty Yankees found oxen ("cattle")
"more easily conic by" than horses. Half of calves were otherwise steers to be butchered.
Farm horses essentially replaced these castrated bovines onl a few years be-fore being replaced in turn by farm motor vehicles. The days of farm horses were virtually ended by the 1930s.
Lenard Otis showed the town's last yoke of oxen at fairs into the 1960 era.
Kenyon and other truck gardeners availed themselves of such night steamers to New York as the Chester IVZ Chapin.
This 312-ft Long Island Sound steamer, built in 1899, was named for the 1878 owner of the shore site of the future Darkness estate. Onions, celery, let-luce, cabbages and beets would be taken to the New London dock before the daily 5 p.m. sailing. The produce would arrive in time or the next day's market.
60
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417i1 fi, Picked before the snow was off the ground, Cohanzie Gardens produce from the greenhouses in the background (middle left) garnered prime prices.
Commercial poultry raising replaced casual husbandry by 1900, when James Coit was so listed in the census. The last commercial poultry farm at 25 Fog Plain Road was closed by John Lombardi in 1997.
The Dimmock barn (top) was photo-graphed in 1966, near the end of the dairying era. Farming was never limited to just milk and honey" days. Chores were done without regard to their glamour or the season. Sometimes it meant loading-and unloading-manure in a honey wagon (above). The hard labor required and the allure of alternatives doomed farm existence.
61
A landmark for almost two centuries, the wooden Jordan mill (bottom right) is featured on the 1946 town seal (p. 12).
Like the Winthrop mill house that was replaced at least four times, the frame building pictured had many lives. In 1788 Christopher Manwaring rebuilt &
repaired my grist mill & Dam." An 1813 extensive itemized "Bill of Expenses of Building the Gristmill" suggests at least a major reconstruction. Threat-ened when an employee accidentally up-set a lantern in 1896, it was destroyed by fire in 1905.
It was replaced by the corrugated metal-clad grain elevator pictured on the five-pound mass-produced paper con-sumer package (below).
ALL EARLY MILLS were local. For the first two centuries of settlement a mill's customer base was constricted by the pace of oxen to a radius of about five miles. Construction of the area's first mill began in 1651 when 42 settlers-probably every available able-bodied adult male-toiled on its dam.. John Winthrop had been granted an area-wide monopoly to process grain at this mill site (overshadowed by the Gold Star Bridge since 1942).
Employing only one or two, such colonial gristmills operated intermittently when patronage and water flow were sufficient.
Winthrop established his mill's reservoir pond upstream on his Mill Pond Farm in future Cohanzie. Researcher Bucher placed the pond's dam and/or bridge about 2,000 ft north of Chapman Avenue on the road to Colchester. Perhaps it survived as the extant earthen cart bridge-more recently pierced by a large tile that carried local highway traffic by 641 Vauxhall Street until 1938. The first docu-mented use of wind power was the 1726 windmill on Town Hill overlooking the town plot of New London built by Great Neck resident Capt. James Rogers.
THE EARLIEST WEST FARMS MILL was the fulling mill established by Peter Hackley on Latimer's Brook "where the fresh stream falls into the salt water" at the Niantic River in 1693. Caulkins wvent on to write that during the same period John Prentis erected a sawmill at Nehantick (Jordan area). Her chronicle also noted that Samuel Waller and his son Samuel had permission to erect a sawmill on Lakes Pond Brook in 1713. Fulling mills washed and beat newly woven woolen cloth to remove animal grease and dirt, shrank it into a closer weave and then stretched it while drying.
When requested, the cloth was also dyed. Hackley built a second fulling mill (in 1694, according to Caulkins) at or near the junction of Jordan and Crooked Brooks on unowned land SE of future Ellen Ward Road. A 1735 deed located John Stebbins' sawmill at that site.
His millpond was upstream at the hollow SE of Fog Plain Road at the future Boston Post Road. Hempstead "fetched a Ld of poor Bords... from Jn'o Stebbins Saw mill" in 1731 for the Jordan grist-mill then under construction.
In the 1920s the extant 4 Mill Lane brick factory was built by George Bathgate, who employed up to 70 to take woolen fleece through all steps to finished upmarket tweeds (later worsted). It was, indeed, a machine-age replacement for the homespun-era's 'From sheep to shawl."
The metal-clad mill partially burned in 1919. It was said to be burned be-yond repair in 1937 before its phoenix-like days finally ended in 1942 (above).
THE ACRIMONY THAT DEVELOPED over the unreliability of the Winthrop mill and its management caused a town meeting to end its monopoly in 1709. "Liberty [was granted]
to set up a grist-mill upon the falls of Jordan Brook, where it falleth into the cove.;. [but] none of the Inhabitants of this Town shall at any time be hindered from washing their sheep at the aforsd place as formerly...." But it wasn't until 1732 that the mill was con-structed. This rival mill helped lessen the local oligarchic control then prevalent in the New England economy and was a victory for the local farmers, many of whom were to soon throw off the yoke of the religious oligarchy as well.
In various permutations, the mill served the area for almost three centuries. Folklore historian R.B. Wall told how many New Londoners would divide a half bushel of corn equally on either end of a bag and tie it in the middle before throwing it over their shoulder to trudge to the pioneer Jordan mill to have their burden ground into cornmeal. The modest wooden mill house burned in 1905 to be followed by a multistory corrugated metal-clad structure that was augmented by a brick addition in the 1920s. Upmarket woolens were made there until 1955. It was briefly considered for an "industrial-strength" chicken coop before serving a multitude of transitory high-tech concerns.
FOUR CLOSELY GROUPED MILLS occupied the lower reaches of Latimer's Brook where it fell into the Niantic River, the site of Hackley's pioneer effort. Phillip Tabor's 1741 deed.
granted him a site there "where the sawmill formerly stood." Nearest to the saltwater at a later date was a turning mill (40 Boston Post Road, East Lyme) where implement handles and later baseball bats were turned on lathes. Immediately upstream was a sawmill followed by a-fulling mill, offered for sale in 1821 by Moses Warren, who claimed that the machinery cost more than $2,000. Last upstream of the four before Flanders four corners was a gristmill. Their sites were ceded to help form East Lyme in 1839.
There were numerous other West Farms mills besides those described here. But even to quantify them is difficult. Extant docu-ments refer to them only in passing. Such phrases as "on which the old sawmill once stood"-or an incidental citation as the source of products such as boards-often fail to even mention details such as dates of existence and locations. Many were just transitory inciden-tal enterprises. Near the end of the homespun era Major Henry Potter operated a fulling mill at the 1694 site of its Hackley prede-cessor. Potter lived in the extant house at 278 Boston Post Road. But his enterprise can be dated only by surviving customer receipts beginning in 1827 and ending in 1846.
For over two centuries a watermill was sited on the NW corner of later-named Oil Mill and Gurley roads. As early as 1698 an up-and-down sawmill stood there.'At some date before 1781 it was replaced by a gristmill. In 1812 it was offered for sale as an oil mill. Its working days ended in 1906.
With furrows on its edge, its mill-stone (below) was used in a vertical position to grind flaxseed and cotton-seed. Water was added and heated to distill the mash into linseed and cot-tonseed oils. Later, paint pigment was added to the product line. It was sold in
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woe.e mn miniature wooden kcegs.
Cottonseed and linseed oils were not the only oils extracted. Fromn 1906 to the mid-1930s C. S. Reynolds oper-ated a birch mill on his farm. The Veterans of Foreign Wars bought the 382 Boston Post Road corner lot there in 1957. The deed repeated earlier verbiage by placing its site at Newv Haven Turn-pike & Hicks Hill [Spirhead] Roads."
-The mill was just east of the extant VFW building. Here birch brush was distilled. The bir'ch oil extract was packaged in two-gallon cans that were then crated. This case oil was taken to the Jordan railroad station for, shipment to Cincinnati, OH,'where it was refined.
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Lz WATER, WIND AND ANIMAL POWER were the only supplements to manpower before the coming of steam tech-nology. An ample supply of water, especially swift flowing with a great fall, was much sought after in colonial days. All these elements were found northward on the steep gradient of Alewife (Hunts)
Brook. Recognizing the brook's potential, John Winthrop was granted his request for this watercourse in 1653 with permission to locate a sawmill there. Apparently a mill was not built until after Joseph Smith bought 1'/2 acres on the road to Nonvich in 1721 and obtained permission to erect grist and fulling mills. His newly con-structed dam spoiled by a flood, Smith sold out to Joseph Bolles in 1724 with no mention of a mill facility.
The Bolles family was to operate a watermill there for 132 years. Joshua Hempstead patronized its gristmill as wvell as John Henderson's fulling mill on the northern end of Pilgrim Road ("the highway to Henderson's fulling mill") in 1742. The Miller family obtained their interest in the brook the following year ws hen Jeremiah married Margaret Winthrop. Descendent John S. Miller was taxed for a gristmill, fulling mill and sawmill in 1809.
BARELY A GENERATION after the Industrial Revolution began in England, its influence came to America's shore.
Englishman Samuel Slater brought over the monopolistic secrets of cotton spinning machinery etched in his memory (the sole way to avoid harsh British preemptive laws). He erected the new nation's first factory-an extant textile mill in Rhode Island-in 1793. In a not dissimilar fashion, the same year Yorkshiremen Arthur and John Scholfield introduced wool yarn technology to the infant republic.
John's 23-year-old son Thomas established Connecticut's first satinet 7
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The Robertson mill (above left) was later called the Mohican Paper Mill when it was still approached by a private way since named the Old Mill Road. The former Scholfield wool factory that Robertson transformed into a second paper mill was upstream to the left and was served by a third dam.
Woodworth leased a site "berveen the reservoir pond belonging to John Robert-son and lhis] mill-dam" from the Miller family to build a wax paper mill in 1871. (Pictured above right in 1872.)
64
textile mill on the local brook in 1814, producing 800 yds of cloth in 1820. Thus Waterford played a modest pioneer role in the birth of the American Industrial Revolution that heralded thebeginning of the eventual end of the homespun era.
John Calvert's exploitation of the wind with a 62-ft wheel that powered his gristmill was documented by the 1880 census. He operated his windnmill six months a year with the help of three employees, each receiving 50 cents a day. Calvert owned land at Old Norwich Road and Gallows Lane. The latter received its appellation for being the site of the 1753 public execution of Sarah Bramble for murdering her infant child.
PAPERMAKING BEGAN in the 1830s when the W & J Bolles firm began using the family millstones to pioneer the area's first such facility. The Bolles connection ended when Oliver Woodworth bought the paper mill in 1856. Oliver's son Nathan and grandson Thomas continued manufacturing paper there until 1931.
Canny Scottish acumen was displayed by the founders of the two adjacent paper mills.; John and Carmichael Robertson started, making paper just upstream from the pioneer mill in 1851. This was just six years after they had arrived from Scotland with but $15 in their pockets. The partnership manufactured the nation's first tissue manila paper, later imitated byWoodworth. Carmichael left the firm in 1866 and John purchased the former Scholfield factory to its west.
The valley's two paper companies each employed about 12 to 15 workers and both used rope fiber and recycled paper for their raw material. Woodworth later carted his paper across the Norwich road, where he coated it to make tar paper. By 1900 steam had supple-mented his water power to enable year-round -fill operation.
The frame Woodworth paper mill (top center) was begun by Oliver Woodworth (standing on the extreme left in this 1871 picture). Its extant foundations can still be traced on the hillside at 100 Old Norwich Road.
Its interior (directly above) was photographed in 1922-23 when a new beater was installed. The beater puilverized raw material fibers more efficiently than the run of millstones had earlier. Papermaking ended there in the depression year of 1931.
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Before the 1938 hurricane destroyed the docks (left), riprap and other quarry products could be directly loaded aboard heavily laden vessels drawing 16 ft. Stone was handled by a yard rail system (above) beginning in 1894. A 4,500-ft spur replaced the earlier con-necting siding in 1966 to handle the heavy construction loads for the nuclear power plant. This early photograph of the main quarry (below left) was taken vhen oxen and horses were still haul-ing the quarried stone. Millstone had a commercial advantage with its proximity to deep wvater, later sup-pFemented by a railroad connection.
The Booth Brothers quarry was a mile from deep water.
Pictured below right is the Millstone office just before its destruction in 1966. The building also housed the post office and the company store, where employees could charge purchases against their earnings.
After two centuries during which WVa-terford was occupied almost exclusively by native-born townspeople, immigrants added diversity when they came to work in the quarries. In turn came the Irish, Swedes, Finns, English, Scots and Italians. The non-English-speaking were identified by a numbered brass disk worn around the neck on a narrow strip of leather. The pay ledger list-ed them as Italian #27, etc., when re-cording shanty boardinghouse deductions.
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ADVERSITY had to be overcome in many ways for Waterford residents to survive on the limited natural resources offered by the rocky terrain. The stumbling block for some became the stepping-stone for others. The poverty of the soil between the outcroppings of rock on the often tilted land suggested that these granite extrusions should not be ignored. So it was that quarrying became the mainstay ofWaterford industry for almost two centuries.
The largest and most continuously used quarry was on Millstone Point. In 1651 John Winthrop, Jr., laid claim to the 600-700 acres east of the sandbar at "Nehantick Hill." Quarrying was first men-tioned in a 1737 lease that reserved "the sole privilege of taking off mill stones."
The southern 138 acres were sold to Benajah Gardiner in 1788 and remained in the family for six generations until 1951. Its first major working began when Warren Gates leased most of the quarry BOOTH BROTHERS QUARRY Aberdeen, Scotland, was the birthplace of the developers of the second largest quarry, this one located at 186 Great' Neck Road. Eighteen-year-old William Booth began as a stonecutter at Mill-stone in 1864. Brothers Francis and John followed, working at first in Westerly. Four more came later. Booth Brothers supplied the granite and built the 154-ft Saratoga battlefield monument (p. 31) in the 1880s. William entered into a partnership with Palmer-his for-mer employer-in 1888 before buying him out.
When Gardiner refused to renew Booth's Millstone lease in 1890, "Kin " William moved to a 70-acre Great Nec site that he later purchased from the Dimmock fam-ily in 1894. The eventually 729-ft long quarry was a source of fine-grained monu-ment-quality stone in contrast to Mill-stones somewhat coarser building product.
I in 1832. Following a contract with the Harlem railroad using a workforce of about 15, granite was quarried to help build forts from Newport, RI, to Mobile, AL. Simultaneously, many other small firms also quarried there. A former Gates employee, John B. Palmer, began a second major firm in 1862. Gates and 'Palmer each employed over 100 by 1881. In the mid-nineteenith century, the two men and their workers built homes on Rope Ferry Road. The hamlet appropriately became known as Graniteville.
In 1888 Henry Gardiner II, a successful artist and member of Paris Beaux Arts, took direct control of the quarry as the leases expired. He introduced steam and compressed air tools, added a rail-way spur and post office in 1894, built an Elm Street village to house workers, provided a school in 1901 attended by as many as 46 schol-ars and garnered a Millstone railroad station in 1894. He reputedly employed 400 on the eve of the 1900 industrywide strike.
An all-encompassing industry from quarrying, carving, transporting and road building to construction was developed by William. Starting in Waterford, the Booth Brothers and Hurricane Isle Granite Company expanded to ten New England quarries with 500 employees.
The firm upgraded a local pentway into two of the best roads in town (the future Quarry and Dock Roads) paved with crushed rock. Oxen'provided the trans-porting power at first, but were replaced by a steam tractor that was retired in 1916. From its Pleasure Beach-dock, granite' was trans-ported by company'schooners. '
King William was frugal by heritage.
He purchased a small steam locomotive for yard working (on the tracks pictured above) that had served the New York ele-vated system before electrification. When he served an ox killed by a dropped stone at dinner, one employee refused to cat his "fellow *worker."
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OLDER THAN THE PYRAMIDS. Quarried stone was used even earlier in construction. Locally, cut stone build-ings date to John Winthrop's 1648 house (New London) and the Rogers house at 11 Magonk Point Road, possibly built before the end of that century. The pioneer 134-ft Groton obelisk wvas begun in 1824 and the 220-ft Bunker Hill monument's cornerstone was laid by Lafayette the following year. In 1832 the renowned Millstone landmark joined in what would be a century of extensive New England quarrying. Their quarry product, the aristocrat of building materials, was widely used in constructing fortifications, buildings, monuments and, later, paving blocks.
The mania for building harbor forts-following the embarrass-ments of the War of 1812-thrust the waterside Millstone Point operation onto the national scene. This first major Connecticut commercial quarry also utilized the Sound and the Hudson River to carry its product to help build the majority of West Point Military Academy's structures for over a century.
THE BASE OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, the Grand Central terminal, the foundations of the Supreme Court building (designed by the architect of Seaside) and the United Nations building all rest on Millstone granite. Its paving blocks were used at Mexico City's grand square, following the 1840 pioneer New World paving in Boston. Power equipment was used by Millstone, Booth Brothers and the more modest Flatrock quarries, while four smaller quarries at the turn of the century retained manual hoists and cutting.
The heyday of the American "stone age" market came to an end during the WWV1 period. Undercapitalization, strikes and changes in fashion all were detrimental, but the real "killer" was the advent of the wider use of concrete. Chicago built a 16-story stone building in 1891 with massive exterior weight-supporting walls reputedly 15 ft thick at their base. But the handwriting was on the wall seven years earlier when the Windy City had raised the world's first skyscraper with only a steel supporting frame and light curtain walls.
Locally, the 1872 Lake Konomoc earthen dam had a concrete spline (p. 22). The 1905 trolley barn (p. 42) and the 1907 Harkness mansion (p. 107) were both cloaked in concrete blocks, while the 1920 Hartford Road became the town's first "cement" road.
Ironically, the later power plants at Millstone rest on about 400,000 cubic yards of concrete. The 1938 hurricane delivered the coup de grace to the local quarries. Booth Brothers' pumps were unreachable beneath deep water and the operation shut down in 1940. Flatrock followed in 1941. Though the docks and some 20 buildings were destroyed at Millstone, the quarry limped along until 1963.
A cut-granite foundation supported the elaborate concrete block 1905 "workman's temple" at 436 Boston Post Road. Values then featured new man-made material, while burying the very traditional one it copied. Henry Beebe (listed as a mason in the 1900 census) owned the land. With the details of a mansion, beaded mortar joints separated the numerous molds of man-made blocks. Quoins, sills and lintels were of brownstone color in contrast with the granite-colored body of this masonry masterpiece.
Opposite: Millstone quarry in 1966, just days before it was bulldozed.
The former quarry was opened to the Sound to become an environmental-ly friendly substitute for the huge cooling towers otherwise required.
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I 69
M ILLSTONE POINT-1 14 acres, including the landmark quarry-was purchased in 1951 for a coal-burning plant by the consortium of Connecticut Light & Power, Hartford Electric and Western Massachusetts Electric companies. The quarry could not have been purchased earlier. Probably fearful that his Paris-based son might dispose of the site from afar, the father of artist Henry Gardiner II entailed the land to the oldest male heir for three gener-ations, after the British mode. Meanwhile, the intended fossil-fuel plant was built in Middletown.
In 1962 the power companies reviewed the Waterford location for a possible atomic-fueled facility. Additional acreage 'was pur-chased by the consortium (the future Northeast Utilities) from sixth-generation quarry owner Henry III to form the required 500-acre nuclear power complex site. This, incidentally, reverted the holding close toWinthrop's original 1651 land grant. The town closed 6,300 ft of Millstone Road and ended responsibility for the site's Elm Street and Depot Road in 1965.
The first concrete was poured in 1966 to welcome the world's largest nuclear reactor container, which was barged 2,500 miles from its Chattanooga, TN, fabricator. The footing for this 655-ton, five-and-a-half-story reactor vessel necessitated blasting a 32-ft-deep, 22,500-sq-ft excavation in the granite before a base could be poured.
Modern machinery accomplished in two months what had required decades in the adjacent quarry. The seaward end of the 1,300-ft quarry was opened to make a cooling pool for the Niantic Bay water used to bring exhaust steam back to liquid. In turn, the warmer water was discharged into the quarry at rates up to 1,865,000 gal-lons per minute. The 660,000 kwv Millstone I went online in 1970.
"Yesterday's Waterford" lecture series participants visited Millstone I un-der construction in 1967. The nu-clear reactor containment vessel's upper portion loomed in the back-ground. The vessel's head was at ground level in the left foreground.
The Chattanooga barge brought a second container to help generate an additional 870,000 kw when Millstone II began service in 1975.
A third trip enabled Millstone III to furnish 1,154,000 kw when it was started up in 1986.
MILLSTONE GENERATED nearly a half-billion dollars in host-town tax revenue by 1998. The town had not always had such assistance. (Millstone was taxed $18.91 in 1830.) For three centuries its taxpayers had eked out a meager living from the hard-scrabble soil. The economy could not even support their children, for only one child could inherit the farmstead. The others went to sea or emigrated westward.
The tax base deficiency became worse after WWII. From 1945 to 1965 seventy-seven million American children were born: The baby boomer generation had arrived. While New London's popula-tion-about three times that of the suburb-kept its status quo, Waterford's more than doubled. Urban parents moved to better their children's education. From 1951 to 1982 Waterford built four schools and 15 additions. In spite of only a rudimentary infrastruc-ture-and scarcely any tax base apart from residential-the town was a wonderful place to raise children, but not taxes. With the com-ing of the power plants, the town's infrastructure could be developed.
The town faced declining assessments of the maturing power plants even before the 1998 electricity deregulation law promised the need for more tax base diversity. Unshared was the town's ground zero location for potential life-threatening nuclear hazards.' Citizens were reminded of this by frequent Saturday noon testings' of the emergency warning system.
Millstone's three turbines are housed in separate turbine halls that stretch a total length of approximately 900 ft.
Water from the Niantic Bay-arriving through the three intakes in the fore-ground-cooled the used steam to liquid form and controlled desired temperatures.
.T 71
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_l _:_7 The aerial view of the 1994 five-story
.tI William B. Ellis Technical Support Cen-ter shows an urban WVaterford that was a far cry from its not distantbucolic past. The building housed 800 of Mill-stone's 2,300 employees.
TIME MAGAZINE's 1996 cover story about the Millstone I power plant was the blow that struck the Nuclear Regulatory Commission squarely between its myopic eyes concern-ing its part in jointly ignoring its owvn safety regulations. NRC's problem was its impossible split assignment to simultaneously assist the new industry and ensure its safeness. Northeast Utilities' short-sighted goal wvas to maximize immediate stockholder and executive suite compensation.
The long-festering dichotomy came to a head in 1992 when Senior Engineer George Galatis discovered that NRC regulations were being ignored when radioactive fuel rods were transferred. He knew of no backup system to prevent a serious boildowvn if anything wvent wrong. Although Galatis was warned by a co-worker that he would be "dogmeat" if he reported the problem, he spent three unsuccessful years in appealing to NRC and NU about their illus-sionary compliance.
Finally in 1996, NRC ruled that the three Millstone reactors could not be used before "problems with safety systems, procedure and regulator violations and harassment of employees who raised safety concerns were solved," summarized The Day. NRC Chairwoman Shirley Ann Jackson faulted NU's institutional megawatt fever operation as "pervasive noncompliance." NU's incomplete review of never-restarted Millstone I identified 16,000 issues. The firm listed nearly 2,500 technical and procedural 72
unknowns in Millstone III, the newest and supposedly least affected reactor.
To CORRECT THE PROBLEMS that cut across virtually all operations, nearly 3,000 contract workers joined the local workforce of 2,500. After the expenditure of nearly $1.3B for the recovery effort and to buy replacement power, Millstone III returned to generating electricity in 1998 and Millstone'll in 1999.
Unresolved was the unintended warehousing of spent nuclear fuel stored in the pool of Galatis' concern. For over 25 years the burden had been fobbed off on the involuntary host town and company, although the law committed the desultory Department of Energy to remove the radioactive material by 1998.
Millstone I's 30- by 40-ft spent fuel-rod pool housed 3,000 assemblies of bun-dles of 62 rods in 40 feet of water.
It was here that Galatis observed the questionable transferring of radioactive rods in overly large amounts and in too short a time.
Such pools were built for only the transitory storage of the nuclear rods.
The federal government committed itself for their permanent care by 1998. NU customers prepaid $175M that was divert-ed to help create an illusionary balanced federal budget.
Northeast Utilities built the first of
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23 pole platforms for ospreys in 1967 to replace an earlier nest on a derelict
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quarry tower. Officials counted 141 nests built by Connecticut hawks in 1998.
Like fabled Brigadoon, the nineteenth-century village of Millstone disappeared almost overnight in the 1960s when the nuclear power site replaced the tree-shaded Victorian community.-
Almost as quickly, the lost village had appeared eight decades earlier.
It boasted a post office, a school, a store, a railroad station, Scottish inhabitants and work for 400. It is the promise of Brigadoon that one day in' the future-with the last radioactive particle removed-such a village may well reappear with unrivaled vistas and sandy, beaches cooled by salty sea breezes.
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ANY TALE OF THE THREE COASTS that almost surround the town of Waterford would include the initial sailing from there of the nation's first-launched Coast Guard cutter.
A local shipyard built a small fishing smack that twice ably rounded Cape Horn-the graveyard of countless vessels with much larger dis-placements. Anchored on the east and west by the fresh waters of the Thames and Niantic Rivers-separated by the town's Long Island Sound shore-the town's 22.4-mi coastline supported several ship-yards whose output sailed the Seven Seas. In the early 1700s ship-building flourished in the town later aptly called Waterford. "Sloops had been built not only at New London," Caulkins reported, "but at Pequonnuck and at James Rogers' Cove (Poquyogh)." This was at modern Pleasure Beach.
A second site was at the town's Beebe Beach (234 Niantic River Road) on Keeney's Cove. "...Saving always & reserving at the west-ern end of said 6 acres a convenient place for building yard & land-ing where the wharf is erected & a sloop hath been lately built..."
restricted the 1741 conveyance deed from John Curtiss to Timothy Brooks. A 1753 Hempstead diary entry noted that "Mr. Follitt the Shipwright Dyed last Night. he hath built Several vessels in this Town & out to Nihantick River where he Died at T. Manwarings. he came from Boston a few year Since."
The next mention of this venue is in 1791 when the unfinished hull of the nation's first Revenue Service (forerunner of the Coast Guard) cutter to be launched was brought to the Niantic River to be outfitted. The bill for this fitting and rigging of the Argus totaled
$131.07, according to author Florence Kern. The second cutter to be commissioned, this sturdily built local product outlasted the other nine cutters that Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton had The lobster boat Wenture (Capt. Charles N1. Edwards and sons) and the water boat Helen (Ambrose Lester) are being finished at Jordan Cove, circa 1899. Peleg Church also had a boatshop there where he built small sailboats and rowboats.
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ordered to help enforce the collection of the nation's first federal taxes. Badly in need of funds, but having just fought a war over tax-ation, the only tax that Congress could agree upon was one on imports.
JASON BECKWITH, JR., the first known of the local shipwright clan, purchased a half-acre of the site in 1800. Six of his sons followed him in the trade, a dynasty 'that was to be in shipbuilding for three generations. During the War of 1812 he con-cealed partly finished craft from the British ships in Niantic Bay by camouflaging them with cut saplings. He hid one fishing smack so high above the high water mark that it remained abandoned there after the war. Such craft varied in length from about 30 to 55 ft and had one or two masts. Only 35 tons, the smack Energy, built there in 1824 by his son Elisha Beckwith, was taken fishing and sealing by a youthful Mystic-area crew around stormy Cape Horn at the south-ern tip of South America and back in 1831-33. This was an ultimate test for seaworthiness. About the middle of the century the Beckwiths built a bark for the southern trade, the largest craft made in the vicinity. (The Coast Guard Eagle is bark rigged.) Not having siifficient depth at the yard to launch such a ship, the firm laid her keel in Miner's Bay on the opposite side of the cove. The extant Beckwith homestead that originally overlooked the shipyard was' later moved to 9 Locust Court and was subsequently owned by historian Margaret W. Stacy.
The year 1848 may have been the shipbuilding heyday for the clan. The Keeney's Cove location built possibly its last vessel.
Gurdon, Elisa and "Deacon" James left the cove and went up to the Head of the River to start a second yard on 'the East; Lyme side.
Jason, Daniel D. and Ezra S. were building in New London, where the following year the 55-ft Groton steam ferry Mohegan was launched. Before construction ended at the Niantic River, it was a common sight to see oxen patiently pulling heavy loads of ship tim-ber from Montville, Salem and Colchester after having 'started as early as two in the morning. As many as 15 to 20 men were employed in the yards the year round.
HARRISON'S LANDING on the Thames River 0
became the site of wooden shipbuilding when Benjamin Stark, Jr.,"
purchased land from George Harrison in 1882. Among the three-masted schooners that he built there was the 150-ft, 411-ton Mary-H. Brockway in 1891. It became stranded and lost on a Bahamian island in 1902. Reputedly all the ironware needed for the vessels built at Mamacock was formed on the site by a blacksmith by the:
name of Shut. A century later all the physical remains of the enter-prise had been obliterated except for a well.
'MIND YOUR CHIPS" The tools of ship carpenter Winthrop Beebe (1816-1880) are pictured in front of the house at 15 Oil Mill Road, which family tradition says he built. It is east and across the channel from the site where he helped build the Belle of the Bay and other vessels.
Craft built upstream from the bridge at the Head of the River were slipped under the bridge at low tide to have their masts stepped on the downstream side as part of their fitting out A relative of Winthrop's, Azariah Beebe, who was one of the signers of the petitions of 1799 and 1800 for the separation of Waterford from New London, also worked at the yard.
R. B.Wall wrote that he liked to talk as he worked, whether or not he had an audience. A man of tremendous energy and strength, he once miscal-culated and fell to the ground 20 ft below with a limb that he was cutting, but escaped unhurt.
On another occasion his dug well ran dry and he placed an explosive and fuse in the ledge at the bottom to dee pen it. He carried hot coals from the house to light the fuse, and made haste to leave. But the blast was too quick for him. The ladder, with Azariah on it, was lifted up and fell back in a shower of rocks.
He was found standing at the bottom of the well, trying to reestablish a new footing for his ladder. He did admit that things had been sort of lively for a minute or two.
A fellow shipworker once accidentally dropped a hammer on Azarial's indomita-ble head. His admonitory response was to "Mind your chips."
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"16 OF JANUARIE 1648: it is agreed by the Townsmen of Nameeug that Samuel lothroup and Thomas Miner shall have libertie to set up a weare at quangon poaxit & to make any huse or improvement of the river for to take fish for fouer yeares from this day & time above mentioned..." recorded the early town fathers.
Since this early Alewife Cove grant at the future Waterford Beach Park, fishing has been important along the three shores of the town. For over two and a half centuries one would usually be correct to greet any approaching adult male near the shore area as "Capt.
Harrison's Landing, with the submarine base in the background, was an appropri-ate home for this sea chest. Inscribed "Elihu Harrison, His Chest, barn Sep-tember the 20 1813," it later belonged to the settlement's founder, George Harrison. Area town records fail to disclose the birthplace of either Elihu or George.
The party fishing boat Mijoy returned from a successful 1966 day trip to the dock where the iron Niantic Bridge (p. 36) once stood. This was the fourth boat to bear the name. The hull of the second, a former rum-runner, is on the extreme left. LeCount's widow replaced an earlier house with the 1881 residence pictured on the Waterford shore.
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Rogers." Perhaps the last of the clan to be active in commercial fish-ing were the Brooks twins (p.xi), born in 1825. Rogers descen-
'dents Ephraim and Ezekiel continued to fish until they were in their eighties. When the youths became full-fledged fishermen there were a dozen or more smacks harbored at Millstone. The men who owned and manned them lived in the Great Neck and Jordan areas. They fished at Block Island and Nantucket for cod and at Montauk for sea bass. Summers they caught porgies in Peconic Bay and mackerel at Sandy Hook.
Hook and line were used and the fish were carried live in wells to the Fulton Fish Market in New York. Later the twins went to Georges Bank with relative Thomas Rogers in a schooner smack.
The halibut caught in the 10- to 14-day cruises were preserved in ice.
With the coming of the railroad and the opening of an area market in New London in '1853, most of the smack owners found it more profitable 'to take their catch there. The last commercial fishing ves-sel of the Jordan area was sunk by the 1938 Hurricane. Capt. Ira A.
Edwards harbored this powered craft at Millstone Cove.
THE THOUSAND ACRES that the Niantic River covered outproduced the earnings of the same area of nearby farm-land. The New London Gazette told how on a single 1811 night four men caught 9,900 pounds of bass with a small seine net near the Straits Bridge.' Niantic Bay was also the 1847 homeport to 32 com-mercial fishing vessels. The bay attracted sport fishermen as well. In 1868, while on a fishing trip with a group of his friends-including famous jeweller Charles Tiffany-Josiah J. LeCount was so'enam-ored over a Waterford river site, that he bought it, wooden Niantic Bridge and all.
But it'was the scallop for which the river was justly famous.
During the depression days of the 1930s the flats came alive with this succulent seafood. Trucks backed to the water's edge to buy any amount at two dollars a bushel. The bonanza helped put groceries on local tables. But this' wholesale removal of seed scallops and all-together with the giant tides of the 1938 Hurricane-took its toll and restrictions became necessary. In 1966, for the first time in history, no scallops at all could be gathered.
A reminder of the importance of fishing to Quaker Hill is Harrison's Landing at the foot of Benham Avenue that was named after Capt. George Harrison.'While fishing for bluefish off Block Island in 1872 he rescued seven crew members from the storm-tossed schooner Metia. A later seafarer who began living at the land-ing in 1928 was Capt. Lawrence H. Malloy who started as a cabin
'boy at nine. His oystering, which began when he was 13, continued for over 60 years. His 40-ft Annie carried him to oyster beds apart from his leased Thames River sites.
77
STEAMSHIP PIONEER Stevens Rogers, sailing master (roughly executive officer) on the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was born within sight of the sea at Goshen Point on the later Harkness State Park in 1789. A creeping incoming tide and a dozing baby-sitter were responsible for Stevens' first voyage. It hap-pened when the boy and a servant were both dozing in the warm Great Neck sun-young Stevens in an open rowboat drawn up on the beach, the elderly ex-slave on the sand nearby. The boat drifted out as the tide came in, leaving the sleeping boy unaware of his ven-turesomeness. An incoming vessel sighted the bobbing craft far from shore. Knowing the boy, the captain returned him to shore before the baby-sitter knew of his disappearance. Following attendance at the one-room Great Neck school, Stevens was a reluctant scholar at his father's Plainfield Academy alma mater. (Some of his father's Plainfield homework is on p. 56. A more recent Great Neck student there was Nelson C. White, born in 1900.) However, young Stevens' interests were not in books, but the sea.
RUNNING AWAY FROM SCHOOL at an early age, Stevens was twice captured by the British during the War of 1812 and imprisoned first at the infamous Dartmoor Prison, then briefly at Nova Scotia. Before the war he had thwarted their peace-time attempts at impressing him into the British Navy by having an This model of the SSSavannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, is at the Smithsonian Institute.
The 109-ft ship-rigged (all three masts had square sails) vessel took a month for the crossing. ter smoke-.
stack was angled to keep embers away from the sails. tiler paddle whecls; 7 x......- 'c~^~~Ri\\iA were collapsible, which enabled them to be stowed inboard in rough seas.
78
American flag and eagle tattooed on his arm. Like several other Waterford men of his time, he became master of several ships. In 1818 his distant relative-and future brother-in-law-Groton-born Moses Rogers, asked him to be sailing master on a new vessel under construction in New York. Stevens was responsible for rigging the sails and spars of the vessel that was being referred to as the "steam coffin," for this vessel was the SS Savannah, the first steamship to attempt an Atlantic crossing.
Equipped with a single engine of about 75 hp, the 109-ft vessel (151-ft including bowsprit) had paddle wheels that could be folded like a fan and stowed on deck in case of a storm at sea. This unwieldy solution made the vessel more seaworthy in heavy going, but at a great cost in efficiency. Even her owners were afraid of her. They shipped their freight on a rival ship, while the Savannah's maiden voyage to her Savannah, GA, homeport was weighed down only by ballast. The principal owner, William Scarborough, never persuaded his wife to even board the vessel; but then, too, he didn't go on any voyage on it either.
BEREFT OF CARGO, the technological marvel left Savannah for Liverpool in 1819. The "teakettle" crossed the Atlantic in 29 days and 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br />, only about 100 hours0.00116 days <br />0.0278 hours <br />1.653439e-4 weeks <br />3.805e-5 months <br /> of it actually under steam. At Liverpool the successful pioneer ocean steamship was put on sale. "Empress of the Sea" British pride forbade their buying any-thing nautical from the upstart nation. In Sweden the king was inter-ested but, without cash, wanted to barter hemp and iron. Three days of demonstration cruises around the Russian St. Petersburg harbor for members of the royal family and others resulted in the czar mak-ing a generous offer, but it required the captain and crew to remain as part of the deal. No deal. With "all hands employed taking in coal," they soon departed for home.
While the 320-ton ship had been under steam for 239 hours0.00277 days <br />0.0664 hours <br />3.95172e-4 weeks <br />9.09395e-5 months <br /> since leaving Liverpool for other European ports, "neither screw, bolt, nor rope-yard parted, although he [Stevens] experienced very rough weather." To save the cost of expensive coal, the financially unsuccessful ship reportedly came home entirely under sail. Later-with the engine removed-the vessel was very profitable as a domes-tic coastal sailing packet. It carried full loads of passengers who would not have wanted to be caught dead on her when she was a steamship. Her namesake, the nuclear ship Savannah, launched in 1959, did not fare any better as a moneymaker. But her fuel would provide steam for more than the 100 hours0.00116 days <br />0.0278 hours <br />1.653439e-4 weeks <br />3.805e-5 months <br /> that 75 tons of coal and 25 cords of wood had earlier, permitting her-to go 3'/2 years and circle the equator more than a hundred times before refueling. Also, both pioneer experimental ships served in the rising tide of faster and better sea transportation.
79 Stevens (a family surname) Rogers was probably born in this house at 301 Great Neck Road. It was extensively remodeled as the Quaganapoxet Golf Clubhouse at the end of the nineteenth century. Edward Harkness reputedly used it as a guest house; More recent-ly it became a part of Camp Harkness.
Several Stevens Rogers' belongings in the collecion of the New London County Historical Society display his life.
His later-year portrait shows him in Masonic regalia. In back of the lap desk received from Robert Fulton is the inaccurate engraving most frequently used to illustrate the likeness of the SS Savannah.
The gold snuffbox was given to him by British Lord Lynedock, who said that he was forced to exclaim that he blamed "no man born in the United States for, being proud of his country, and were [he]
a young man, [he would] go there [him-selfi." It was 150 years later that the British maritime historians finally acknowledged that the Savannah was in-deed the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Ii PA CICEWOK IT Ij The wooden City of ANev York that was instrumental in rescuing 214 from the Narragansett in 1879 had an external "hog frame" to stiffen her back and typical matched boilers on her guards just forward of her paddlew.heel boxes.
SEAFARING OPPORTUNITIES galore are what Waterford has traditionally afforded. From floating kegs, coastal schooners, whalers on three-year voyages to captaining Long Island Sound steamers-with a hint of earlier piracy thrown in for flavor
-residents have taken advantage of the nearness of navigable waters for over three centuries.
It would take a big man to span all of these activities. One res-ident was large enough to cover all of them but the piracy bit. Capt.
Horace C. "Pop" Lanphear by judicious dieting and plenteous exer-cise could keep his weight down to a mere 300 pounds. At ten he went to sea as a cook for nine months at two dollars a month. The following year, 1837, his wages were raised to five dollars. The year after, he spent ten months fishing on Capt. Gorton Berry's smack.
Capt. Ezekiel Rogers paid him seven dollars a month the following ten-month season. So it went until he finally bought and captained his own Commerce.
Lanphear's whaling days began in 1844 when he signed on with Waterford native Charles Mallory's Robin Hood. During the 34-month voyage the ship stopped at the Society and Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands besides seeking prey along the western coast of 80 M
South America and the northwestern coast of North America. It was the first to hunt whales in the Okhotsk Sea that borders the east coast of Siberia. In one three-month period the Robin Hoodtried out 3,400 barrels of whale oil and 85 tons of bone.
Pop returned to more local waters to skipper sloops and schooners, as in 1856-57 when he was captain and part owner of the schooner Orlando Smith, running between Boston and Philadelphia, touching at New York. In 1857 he turned to steam and was the first to command the steamer Commodore. He purchased his "Pleasant View" farm at 37 Lamphere Road in 1877. While skipper of the City of New York, Capt. Lanphear spotted the blaze of the Narragansett through the fog after its collision. He spent three and a half hours picking up survivors who were clinging to boxes, planks and any-thing else that would float. All in all, he saved over'200 lives that 1879 night.
While captain of the City of Boston he broke all speed records between New York and New London, making the run' in' six-hours and five minutes. He won a silver ice pitcher in another contest near Great Neck in 1882. This was a rowing contest; the craft were half whale oil hogsheads (barrels). All of his craft were not that m'odest:
Lanphear was the first to command the iron City of Worcester, "with'-
out exception the most elegant boat on the Sound." While Pop never had an accident with his steamers, the City of Worcester under a later pilot became stranded on Bartlett's Reef in 1890. The captain's son Horace chose to command a railroad locomotive instead of a'ship.
Upon occasion this Waterford native was named to 'engineer President Grant's special train.
PIRATES IN WATERFORD? Dead men have told tales, but they were probably just that, tales. In his younger days Richard Morgan had been mate to Capt. Israel Rogers, who com-manded vessels engaged in the West Indies trade. In 1798 "Black Dick` purchased a house at 106 Rope Ferry Road (the extant struc-ture was moved to 41 North Road in the early twentieth century).
He sold rum without allowing it to be drunk on his premises and expected customers to leave as soon as their wants were: supplied.
Tradition says that Morgan was a scoffer of religion, blasphemous in his utterances and that the righteous shunned him as a thing unclean. He asked credit of no one and men wildly estimated his wealth in the thousands.
At his death in 1839 men with picks and shovels sought his reputed buried treasure along the shores of Jordan Cove. He report-edly had boasted that he had buried his gold where no man would find it. Many believed that he buried it below tidewater. Those who had futilely striven to'ascertain its location came to the conclusion that he had told the truth.
81 Capt. Horace C. Lanphear's seafaring career spanned the age of sail and steam and typified the various marine occupations that were open to nine-:
teenth-century Waterford sailors;
- c
SERVING THEIR COUNTRY was a task that the people of Waterford have performed both in uniform and as civil-ians. Although the only peacetime military installation in Waterford was the very modest U.S. Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory test-ing station (p. 69) established at Millstone quarry in 1965, many residents have served in area facilities. According to a 1966 school survey, 450 parents were civilian employees at area military installa-tions, 910 were employed in constructing submarines and 131 of the students' fathers were in uniform. It was the time of the Cold War with communism.
The credit for establishing the Groton naval facility, which became the largest submarine base in the world, belongs to John R.
Bolles, who was born at his ancestral Quaker Hill homestead in 1810. Little was done by the Navy after the land was accepted in 1868 other than berthing retired Civil War hulks. Twvo brick build-ings were finally constructed in 1872, one of which more recently served as the headquarters of the base commander. In 1898 the Thames Naval Station had a coal-loading facility added, but this function was short-lived. Four G-class submarines with their tender, the monitor Ozark, arrived in 1915. (The decommissioned G-3 was to founder off Pleasure Beach in 1919.) The station wvas designated a submarine base in 1916.
American submarine construction began in Connecticut in 1775 when David Bushnell built his one-man undersea craft, the Turtle. (Niantic Bay was the site of his floating mine experiment two years later.) Modern submarines trace their origin to the launching of the SS-1 Hollind in 1897. The officials of the company who built this first submarine to be accepted by the U.S. Navy formed the Electric Boat Co. in 1899.
An engine-building subsidiary of the company moved to Groton in 1911, finally laying the keel of the first submarine there in 1924. The first diesel engines built there for submarines were installed in the Nautilus and the Seawoif in 1913. These names were to be repeated for the first two nuclear-powered undersea craft built in Groton almost a half-century later. Among the other firsts that the firm introduced into American submarines were the workable periscope, the all-welded hull, the perfected use of the storage bat-tery and the combination of battery and internal combustion engine for propulsion.
The buildup preceding WWII increased the numbers employed by EB and, for the first time, large numbers of Waterford residents crossed the Thames River bridge to work in this defense facility.
They helped build the two record-holding American submarines of the war: the USSFlas/er, which sank 100,231 tons ofJapanese ship-ping, and the USS Tautog, which sank the greatest number (26) of For 51 years the 483-ft USS Waterford (ARD-5) was part of the scenery across the Thames River at the submarine base. When deactivated in 1997, it was the second-oldest ship in active service (surpassed only by the 1797 USS Constiturion ("Old Ironsides").
After bein launched in 1942, ARD-5 sen'edin the South Pacific before coming to Groton in 1946. Built for WXVIl destroyers and submarines, the vell-kept floating drydock had the wrong dimensions for later-built craft. The town and crew adopted each other. The repair-trained crew refurbished O'Neill Theater structures, for example.
82
enemy vessels. This major contractor delivered 74' boats to help strengthen the American undersea force that sank 214 enemy mer-chant vessels in operations against the Japanese. EB was the largest area employer for half a century.
MOST OF THE WARTIME EMPLOYEES went back to peacetime occupations following the successful end of the war. The south EB "Victory" yard was sold in 1946 to Chas. Pfizer
& Co., which developed both a drug manufacturing plant (employ-ing 1,000 in 1998) and a research facility (employing 3,000 in 1998). Pfizer spent $1.7B on research and development in 1996, mostly in Groton. Among the Waterford employees at "Charley Pfizers" was Dr. Lloyd H. Conover, who led the development of tetracycline in 1952.
"Underway on nuclear power" was transmitted from the bridge of the EB-built Nautilus in 1955. That marked the first ever use of nuclear energy for propulsion. Her keel had been laid in 1952 by President Truman and the vessel was christened by Mamie Eisenhower, the first wife of a president to sponsor a submarine.
Thus began a renaissance in the construction of submarines that was to employ as many as 25,000 workers at the firm that received orders for 34 nuclear-powered submarines by 1967. But the end of the Cold War was a negative peace dividend for Connecticut. Electric Boat's problem was that it had but one product (submarines) and but one customer (the Navy). By the end of 1997 it employed fewer than 10,000 with the expectation of continuing lower numbers.
Diesel-powered submarines of the WWII era occupy most of the docks in this early 1960s photograph of the U.S.
Naval Submarine Base in Groton. Docked near the top is the ARD-5, later to be namned the Waterfordin 1976. Across the river from the nation's nuclear undersea training facility is Mamacoke Island and Smiths Cove. Quaker Hill was only 350 yards away from base dockends, which was an easy water commute for Chief-Warrant John H. Hart when he purchased a house at Harrison's Landing in 1919.
- Other Quaker Hill residents who worked at the submarine base availed themselves of the water commute as well.
83
With three daughters to see through college, newly retired submarine Com-mander David R. Hinkle had planned to work at the area Naval Underwater Sys-tems Center, but opted to form Sona-lysts (SONar anALYSTS) in 1973 to do what the Texan knew best: sonar. His wife Muriel took on the business end in addition to running a household.
Their first contract was with General Electric in early 1974. Fortunately this nondefense contract did not re-quire government security clearance.
Obtaining such clearance was one of the largest obstacles for the fledgling com-pany, located until 1977 in a guest house (pictured below with the Hinides) in the backyard of their home.
Security problems were not new at the 79 Spithead Road residence. Seeking relief from the paparazzi, Tonight Show originator Steve Allen and television celebrity Jayne Meadows were married there in 1954 (p. 146).
Later the Department of Defense twice singled out Sonalysts to receive the coveted Cogswell Award for the company's industrial security program. It was one of five out of 1,800 New England defense firms to be so recognized in 1996.
RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP could characterize the Sonalysts corporation as well as the submarine force that it was founded to service in 1973. While continuing to advance its risoll d'tre concern with underwvater sound, the company raised its periscope sights skyward to furnish its expertise as high as the inter-national space station as well. During the final quarter of the twen-tieth century both nuclear submarines and space exploration wvere the leading edge of futuristic technology-the sphere to which Sonalysts was anchored.
After embarking as a cottage industry in 1973, a permanent home was made for 20 employees at 215 Parkway North four years later. A former Sealtest ice cream distribution center, the site was augmented to six buildings on a 70-acre campus by 1998. The employee partners had grown to number nearly 500 in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of activity in offices worldwide. The opera-tional experiences of 140 former military personnel, with 25 of their number having served as commanding officers of nuclear sub-marines, balanced the academic excellence of the personnel.
Sonalysts could be compared to an iceberg in that the major weight of both is underwater and out of sight. Three-quarters of its efforts fall under restricted military secrecy or arcaneness. Formed as a naval research and development facility, the company has kept acoustics as a core specialty. Sonalysts developed total environment (air, land, sea) programs for use at all command levels, applicable for all warfare specialties and utilized in command centers around the world. The firm vorked in operations analysis, systems analysis, combat system design, prototype and pilot program design and pro-duction, test and development support, tactical development and documentation, training, trainer development, computer simulation and war gaming.
UNCHARTED WATERS wvere entered when Sonalysts used its synergy to apply its sonar expertise to civilian use.
A patented acoustic system rvas developed to keep fish out of under-Sonalysts' computerized weather system was developed when hired by the Air Force to lessen the hazardness of human-itarian airdrops in Bosnia prior to the Dayton Accord in 1994. The mountainous terrain created extremely localized fleet-ing conditions. The partners essentially turned their undersea knowledge skyward to invent the wXstationTM weather system.
Sonalysts has since sold the system to United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Tower Airlines, U.S. Special Forces, Cross Air of Switzerland and others.
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SLIM CROPS and slimmer-still cattle-plus a Puritan ethic encouraging material showing of wealth as a sign of being among God's elect-fostered residents to turn to trade at an early date. What little surplus the settlers could gain from their farms was supplemented by fish "salted and dried stiff as oak boards, fish pickled in brine, fish reduced to train oil, fish fresh and fish rancid,"
which brought profit to those who caught them and to those who transported them, according to historian Louis B. Wright.
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I, Enoch Morgan started a general store at 1214 Hartford Road in 1848. This page from his account book gives an idea of the kinds of things handled. The extant building dates from 1868 and the Morgan family continued the store until the paving of the Hartford Road in the early 1920s made it easier for their customers to shop in New London themselves.
Of necessity, bartering was the Yankee way of life, and the farmer might have modest surpluses of Indian corn, rye, oats, cheese, tallow, lard, flaxseed, hoops, staves, mules, horses, cattle, sheep, veg-etables, cider and parry (like cider, but made from pears). This country pay" Nvas exchanged for such "West Indian" goods as rum, molasses and sugar; and "European" goods such as cloth, crockery, glassware, powder, shot, guns, bar iron and wines. Colonial trade was just that: usually goods for goods, although the ledgers recorded amounts in pounds, shillings and pence. Even the ministerial tax was actually paid in kind.
Thomas Stedman-who lived near the Niantic River as early as 1666-was the master of a tiny coastal vessel of the type that reached its local heyday before his death in 1701. The master of such vessels was generally part owner of both craft and cargo as wvell as being his own factor, agent and tradesman. He went from landing to landing bartering, frequently changing the course and the expected duration of his voyage. He may have had a boy or man helping him. If a man, 86
he, too, probably had his own private "venture" from which he tried to profit. As a result of such trade, Connecticut in 1760 was com-pared "to a cask of good liquor, tapped at both ends, at one of which Boston draws, and New York at the other, till little is left in it but lees and settlings."
The most profitable voyages to more distant shores were usually to the West Indies. To the "proper account of John Prentis, Senior,"
who had a farm west of Jordan Cove, was transferred the John and Hester in 1678 that both Prentis and his son John were to command.
Large for its time (90 to 100 tuns), half interest in the craft was sold to William Darrall of New York for £222, IOs. ("payment to be made in NewYork flour at 15s. per cwt. and pork at 50s. per barrel"). Even before this, in 1675, John, Jr., had left to command the bark Adventure in the Barbados trade. Such passages usually varied in length from 18 to 30 days. Ownership "informalities" in obtaining the valuable deck cargo of horses resulted in at least two local larceny convictions during -this period. Researcher Bucher speculated that the small stonewall-enclosed fields on Clark Lane originated as hold-ing corrals for horses awaiting shipment.
RETAIL STORES on any scale were slow in devel-opment. Homespun was only gradually replaced by store-bought.
Such emporiums had to await the evolutionary development of spe-cialty in earning a livelihood. Neither could rural West Farms' small scattered population support viable retail establishments. Historians have estimated that the travel of most farmers was limited by chores, poor roads and the efficiency of a team of horses to about a five-mile radius of the home. Probably the first retail store-certainly the first to advertise-was run by Richard Durfey and Nathaniel Palmer, Jr.,
at the new Rope Ferry bridge before the partnership was dissolved in 1798. It served both West Farms and the east parish of Lyme. By 1809 there were six "merchants or traders" listed in the assessors' account. Taxed were Jedidiah Brown, William Darrow, Ezra Keeney, Richard Morgan, G. Paul Smith and Job Tabor. Ezra Brown was assessed $10 as a clothier.
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NiW.L ndon,'Sriiember~i Th'afe pei ions 'bo,a§re'iidebt-i ed, aricrze filfey reqoritccdio call.at.the florf of the fubfcriber, ntid.fetzle their An advertisement for perhaps the first grocery store in Waterford I
appeared in the Sept. 20, 1797, Con-necticut Gazette. It indicates the importance of "country pay' as do the account books of the Morgan store even a half-century later.
WITH TWO NEW STORE BUILDINGS as part of the young Jordan Village, Waterford had its first business district-if such a minuscule number qualifies. Ebenezer Darrow purchased his store lot at 97 Rope Ferry Road in 1850 and con-structed one of the many au courant Greek-Revival-style village buildings. Three years later Leander Lewis acquired the unfinished corner store (pp. x, 89) two doors down at 101. Clerking at the base-ment grocery of Griswold Steward (his future father-in-law) at 26 Jordan Terrace had been the 18-year-old Darrow's introduction to the infant shopping area.
87
4
ALL ROADS had led to the neighboring city's State Street shops earlier in the century. Later the same roads became escape routes to greener pastures for urban out-migration and new shopping destinations, not unlike what was occurring elsewhere in the nation. The reversal took little more than a decade. The growing popularity of the automobile was the vehicle for change.
Grandmother's adage that there could be too much of a good thing came from such experience.
The twentieth century began with continuing dependence upon outlying general stores now seasonally supplemented by shops for shore visitors. The new trolley-riding Waterford shopper was soon outnumbered by farmers driving past the general stores to the bright city lights in their black tin lizzie Fords. When they had to choose, people bought cars before they bought bathtubs. For, after all, one can't drive to town in a bathtub. New London's expanding retail district stayed open late on Saturday nights. There fellow isolated Waterfordites could congregate under the bright sidewalk streetlights. It was the roaring twenties. How could one keep them down on the farm?
Following the lean thirties, WWII was profitable for New London businesses. Stores remained open on Friday nights as well, to help Rosie the Riveter spend her new defense-worker paycheck.
With the coming of peace, people had unspent money and pent-up wants. Many urbanites used their first cars to flee the closely spaced double-decker tenement houses. The open spaces of Waterford and GI-bill home ownership beckoned. The grand exodus from New London left behind the vitally necessary retail shops. The locally owned State Street emporiums (many now with Waterford pro-prietors) attracted increasing traffic seeking the rare curb parking space. More serious shopping was siphoned to Hartford and its G. Fox store parking garage. Growing escape from limited down-town stores and horse-and-buggy era streets led to the construction of the 1956 New London strip shopping center near Waterford's border at the new bypass (later 1-95) highway.
CONSTRUCTED IN INSTALLMENTS, Water-ford's first modest shopping center began in a 106 Boston Post Road courtyard setting in 1960. Waterford Hardware store had'opened earlier at 26 Boston Post Road in 1948, followed four years later by the town's first pharmacy (p. 94). Built near the border of the two municipalities, the town's first supermarket opened at the Waterfall Shopping Center at 40 Boston Post Road in 1964. The A&P and two department stores anchored this' major shift in shopping desti-`
nations. Traffic was on the road to head from the city to the town.
Roles had been reversed.
Opposite: The town's first depart-ment store, the 33,000-sq-ft Genung's, opened at the eastern end of the Waterfall Shopping Center in 1965. It became part of the Howland group in 1970. It was later purchased by the Steinbach chain, which declared bankruptcy in 1999.
In comparison is the 924-sq-ft Saunders general store (below) seven decades earlier. Miss Lena Darrow posed with her dressmaker in the 101 Rope Ferry Road store (p. x) that Leander Lewis had acquired unfinished in 1853.
Behind the counter was Mrs. Rosa Saunders, whose husband had run the post office there since 1889.
Waterford's first supermarket is pic-tured under construction. Anchoring the western end of the Waterfall Shopping -
Center, its 16,000 sj ft and nearly 1,000 parking spaces replaced the area's earlier supermarket at Broad and Huntington streets in New London.
The urban 10,000-sq-ft store boasted the area's first off-street parking lot in 1949. It replaced prior neighborhood chain rocery stores that had perhaps two clerks behind the counter. These small facilities often had the full "The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co." name across their modest store fronts.
In 1977 the Waterford A&P was enlarged to 33,000 sq ft in the center's vacant W. T. Grant space. Because even this selling area became too small, the A&P closed in 1996.
89
MOUNTAINS OF EARTH were moved in chang-ing the local landscape into a regional shopping destination. Forty feet was taken off the top of a Hartford Road hill-removing almost 70,000 cu yd of granite to make room for the 2.4-acre 1996 Home Depot building. Waterford thus joined the Atlanta-based firm that had almost 480 outlets in 35 states, each carrying 40,000 to 50,000 items.
Shaw's opened the town's third grocery supermarket in 1997 at the former site of the Benjamin Brown/Maggie Wicks house (p. 31) at 128 Boston Post Road.
The 1.5-acre building housed a Bank of Boston branch, a pharmacy, photo shop and a dry cleaners. Waterford was the British-headquartered, Massachusetts-administered chain's ninetieth New Eng-land store. It carried 6,000 store-brand items among its offerings.
It was during the depression year of 1930 that the first supermarket opened. Lifr magazine noted that by 1958 supermarkets were not only meeting "old demands at lower prices, they also cre-ated new demands, thereby creating new agriculture, new industry-and newv lina standards.
The towvn's first supermarket was the 0.4-acre A&P at the Waterfall complex in 1964 that had followed the people who moved to Waterford. Stop & Shop replaced its New London store in 1970 with a 'new large economy size" 0.7-acre outlet at the Waterford Plaza. (NHD hardware of Stoughton, MA, occupied half of this venue 1985-98.)
Outgrown, Stop & Shop moved closer to the Clark Lane side of the plaza in 1985. The 1.3-acre building (p. viii) was the Boston chain's first "super" store in Connecticut. Filled with 52,000 items, it was further enlarged when the company became part of a Dutch grocery firm in 1996.
The tvo Boston Post Road supermarkets-together with BJ's-total 4.1 acres compared with neighboring East Lyme's total of 1.1 acres, Montville's 0.7 acre and New London's 0.7 acre.
On the pasture land where a generation earlier dairy cows had grazed contentedly behind stone walls, shoppers now gazed at fields of discount name-brand merchandise enclosed by concrete-block walls. The all-American sameness of "big box" blandness had arrived. Local color had been exchanged not only for the ubiquitous Interstate highway system, but for its off-ramps as well. National corporate behemoths replaced the individuality of former local enter-prise with understaffed endless aisles of wares and parking.
Answering the need for accessibiity',for the: nobwnecessa'r automobile, Waterford's location made iA the region'sretair-the close of the twentieth century. Suchradica-change in'sholppig '
patterns left a wake of reassessment. The empty main street ortoje-'
fronts of neighboring towns multiplied here there was no'cone,-"
ient access to acres of parking.
THE SHELF LIFE of latLe twentieth-century d-'
poriums can be quite ephemeral. The 2. 3-acre structure at 42 Great-Neck Road was built to serve the 1,500Lwholesalecustomers~oLERL'
Distributors. It was billed as perhaps the most automated wholesale food distribution center in the local part of the nation. One man could unload a railroad car in 22 minutes. But a short four years later the business was liquidated. Only four of the original 75 grocery, stores that it supplied were still in business. It was down to 600-700 customers overall. The building served as a warehouse until 1996.
Then Defender Industries created 100 jobs manufacturing, whole-saling and distributing boats and other marine products at this 42 Great Neck Road venue.
Wholesale Depot, Inc., a Natick, MA, firm, declared bankrupt-cy in 1994 and closed its locally successful Cross Road Shopping Center outlet. The Caldor chain was forced into bankruptcy in 1999. Such Darwinist "survival of the fittest" setbacks continue to occur in a competitive economy.
tv,'R Distributors 2.3acrew is pictured under construction iii 16 The 117th'Caldor stor'icopcned m1988 at'the'Cross Road Mall-1z.the nations 133rd mai to Dbeso naine'LTs 1T9-h -
acre stord th'e Wholesale'Dejo and Hoyts Cinema 9 were the dohwnsized actuality of the 1978 piop6sed Waterfor Square com-plex'that was to 'employ 3,200 'and have' a:4 G.- Fox deparitent store.& o U
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93
EARNING ONE'S DAILY BREAD has markedly changed over the centuries. Looking back at breadwvinning from the contemporary vantage point-a century or two later-reveals remarkable accommodation to changing times. In the homespun era of 1798 perhaps 19 out of 20 West Farms residents made their living from the land. It has been estimated that the typical farmer and his wife each toiled an average of 76 hours8.796296e-4 days <br />0.0211 hours <br />1.256614e-4 weeks <br />2.8918e-5 months <br /> a week (probably occupying all available daylight hours) at the farmstead. And although no bread was baked on the Sabbath, even on that day the wood fire and live-stock had to be fed.
The other 5 percent of the 1798 breadwinners were millers, innkeepers, a bridge toll collector, the proprietor of the new general store and the many who depended upon the sea for their livelihood.
The Baptist minister earned his living on his farm. His predecessor had been a fisherman. Occupational training was gained at home at the spinning wheel or behind a plow. In addition to this home schooling, the boys might attend school between harvest and plant-ing seasons. The girls sometimes attended a neighbor's Dame school, where they learned social behavior and how to embroider a sampler.
Commuting to work was limited to walking to a back field to harvest hay. Often the only excursion of the week was going to meet-ing on Sunday. Peddlers had started to come to the door with pots and pans as *vell as spices. These Yankee peddlers traveled the new nation sharing welcomed news and gossip. Connecticut received its Nutmeg-state nickname after some itinerants reputedly substituted wooden imitations for valuable nutmegs.
"THE BUTCHER, THE BAKER and the candle-stick maker" of the nursery rhyme helps describe the 1898 Waterford marketing landscape. James Perkins ran a butcher wagon from his North Road store. Quaker Hill resident Richard Ladley delivered bakery products. Yet to be identified is a local candlestick maker. The stay-at-home housewife depended upon such deliverymen to furnish many of her purchased essentials. Supplementing them were the town's several general stores and New London's stores selling millinery, hardware, Sunday-go-to-meeting suits and other goods.
Sixty-four percent of the 1898 local workforce was still in agri-culture, although now with more specialization in dairying, aug-mented by the first commercial poultry farm and two market garden farms. The farmers and their hired hands were now joined by domes-tic servants and quarry, mill and storekeeping employees. The 1898 housewife packed her wage earner's wire-handled dinner pail six times a week for his ten-or more-hour workdays. New food tastes and cultures were introduced by immigrant laborers who now made up 42 percent of the Waterford labor force.
I----- 1. __, -,0-7 II In, 1.,
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II The first prescription of the town's first pharmacy (top) was filled in 1952, when the Waterford Pharmacy (center) opened at 134 Boston Post Road. (This was also the site of the towns first bank in 1963.) The business closed in 1998 when its proprietor went to work at the competing CVS chain drugstore.
The towsn's first office condominium (above) was set in place in 1984 at 567 Vauxhall Street. It was the town's first three-story modular building.
94
Local Industrial Age employees commuted to their workplace on foot. Women worked outside the home only until they were mar-ried. Their employment was limited to being a schoolmarm or work-ing in an out-of-town'textile factory, where they usually boarded in company housing. The girls' side of the segregated schoolroom now seated as many as the boys' side in the now-lengthened school year.
By 1998 THE INFORMATION AGE had sup-planted the Industrial Age. Factory employment had been downsized to enhance profits by utilizing computer-controlled automation, consolidation and cheaper overseas labor. Corporate farming had largely replaced family-owned farms nationally. A solitary working farmstead-at 23 Lamphere Road-survived in 1998 Waterford.
The growing employment was in service jobs. Seventy percent of mothers worked outside the home. Their children att'ended pre-and after-school offerings, with 80 percent of the 1998 high school grad-uating class accepted by schools of higher learning..
In an era when the bottom line was the bottom line, it was ironic that it was now an almost cashless economy. The direct deposit of earnings and direct bank payment of mortgages and utilities resulted in a return to the colonial age's limited use of currenc But instead of the meager earnings of that time, wages in 1998 were the highest in' the nation's history. The occasional need for walkabout actual cash was available from the local bank's automatic teller machine. Eight of the ten 1998 banks were located on the "Bankers Mile" eastern end of the Boston Post Road.
Cash was not required for mega chain store purchases either.
But these overabundant retail outlets were threatened by the increas-ing competition from the Internet. In the 1998 Christmas season alone network shoppers spent an estimated $8B. This was triple the amount of the previous year. While credit cards could pay for such 800-number and Web orders, beyond the plastic and modem was the necessary delivery system. The local enablers included 211 vehicles at the 1955 SNET garage at 578 Vauxhall Street that serviced the telephone lines to transmit the order. The purchases 'were delivered by 30 local United Parcel Service trucks that had been based at 976 Hartford Road since 1987. The state highway there was maintained by some of the 19 Department of Transportation trucks housed since 1972 at 20 Industrial Drive.
It had taken but little more than a generation for the town to go from cowchips to microchips. After a hard day at the office-and an extra-slow commute home-the harried 1998 mother may have ordered out pizza-a family favorite. Planning ahead, she may have popped prepackaged-ingredients into her microchip-programmed breadmaker to serve her family hot fresh bread the next morning-a convenience earlier generations might have envied.
Lumber was unloaded from 101 rail cars in 1997 to help stock United Build-ers Supply (UBS)'s five yards in three states. The railroad siding had earlier served the Quaker Hill paper mills.
This 45 Richards Grove Road venue first sold lumber and hardware in wartime 1944. Then named Dart & Bogue, it supplemented, and then replaced, the coal yard on Lower Bartlett Road purchased that year from the widow of the surviv-ing partner.
After two changes in ownership, and a disastrous fire in 1985, the'Richards Grove Road concern became part of UBS (a Westerly, RI, firm) the following year.
The earlier coal yard, which employed two delivery trucks, dated back at least to 1913 when the site was purchased by the Thames River Lumber Co. In 1946 the coal yard venue was sold to the American Propane Co. for use as a dis-tribution center for bottled gas.
The former coal yard railroad siding site at 35 Great Neck Road had been pur-chased earlier in 1941 by the Hendel Petroleum Co., another distributor of bottled gas.
The Tidewater Oil Co. purchased 17 acres on' Scotch Cap Road in 1918 and constructed a petroleum tank farm there.
Its liquid products were received by barge until 1962.
95
96
A SMOLDERING EMBER, carefully carried from the neighbor's hearth, kindled the fire that warmed the pioneer dwelling. Before it went out generations later, the stoking of this fire was to require denuding acres of woodlots. This was not the only spark carried from existing hearths, for in New England, especially, the home is the stronghold of tradition.
Although authorization was given John Winthrop, Jr., to build a house on Hunts Brook in 1653, the first evidence of a house being built in West Farms came a decade later in Jordan: "George Chapple hath given him 6 acres of land for a house-lot betwixt the neck fence and Jordan river, part of it buting on Jordan river." "He hath now built" was recorded the following September when Clement Miner applied for a house lot next to it. Tradition declares that the stone house at 11 Magonk Point Road was built during the same period by James Rogers, Sr.
As elsewhere in the colony, the movement to the land gathered strength during the last third of the seventeenth century. Farmers in "urban" centers, such as the newly named agricultural village of New London, sometimes migrated because of religious differences. The daily commute to distant farms was a factor. In addition, seaports were more likely to be touched by fears of such ills as the plague that killed as many as 7,000 in a single week in London before that city burned in 1666. Aboriginal paths were becoming enabling crude roads. By this time, too, the threat of Indian raids had diminished.
INVARIABLY THE SETTLERS-almost entirely from England and chiefly from the southeastern part of that coun-try-had lived elsewhere in New England before becoming local res-idents. Winthrop, for example, was from Massachusetts among many other places; Chappell came from Wethersfield about 1649 and Rogers from Milford between 1656 and 1660.
By the time houses were built in West Farms, they were also English in design, with modifications from experiences in earlier New England settlements. Trial and error had eliminated English thatched roofs, wattle walls exposed to the elements (as in half-timbered Tudor construction) and soon the overhang of the second story (the garri-son colonial of today), all design elements modeled after structures from England's restricted walled towns.
This left the basic English rural cottage of East Anglia with its heavy oak framing, riven-oak clapboards, oak flooring and oak roof shingles (quickly replaced by longer lasting white pine in the colonies).
The carpenters used skills that they had been taught-to work with materials that they were familiar with, using designs that had proven workable over the centuries-to build the first houses in what is now Waterford.
I1 II Walled-city Yorlks millennium-old Shambles" (top) demonstrates the origin-al raison d'etre for the second-story overhang of buildings that Americans call "garrison colonial."
East Anglian half-timbered houses line the main street of Lavenham, Suffolk (above), where the Winthrop fortune be-gan. A few miles away is Groton, the birtplace of John Winthrop, Jr. This agricultural parish of 1,545 acres pres-ently holds a population of about 250.
The first fireplaces were almost as large as the English' models whose ingle-nooks provideda seat even inside the opening. Typical of seventeenth-century West Farms fireplaces was this one (oppo-site) in the Peabody house of unverified antiquity at 105 Great Neck Road. The beehive (often incorrectly called Dutch) oven was in back of the fireplace.
Later masons built them at the side of the opening.
97
'NEITHER SILVER NOR GOLD DO1IHEAVY' New England farmin'duiring iz. first two centuries of Europe'an, settl ment rarely led to the amassing f large fortunes.
Few were born with silvet spoons in their mouths. Farm acreage that wasi accrued usually had to be divided amolg the numerous children. But faim families did eat and sleep well as the3 earhed their hon-est daily bread.
The home was the omicile of colonial status symbols. To us pewter instead of horn and wood ("n-e are")
at the table was a step upward, as 'as the u limate use of silver instead of pew er. The sual colo-nial way to keep surplu capitaYwas to have coins made into use siltfrware. The coins and silver were oaefluevalue.
During one of X dhznon's visits to Connecticut, he was gien aroken pewter spoon with which to it rad and milk.
His host had to send o t t get a silver one, which was finally fou dt the minister's house. As late as 180 o y one person in Waterford wvas taxed f dning silver.
Surviving at all co be precarious. An 1815 prenuptial ag ent gives some insight into the days short lives and no social security.
1 rWhereas ve, l.ames Beebe of Waterford and Saraha pman of Lyme, New London Cou Propose and have agreed to Enter int tl Marriage Relation and to provide ny further misun-derstadind' b tw o rselves and our Heirs haymac e ciite i
nto the fol-lowing re~znei, ~s s
that after MrfarriijdtSa-its tobr oved to the Residf~fs. James andw carry with her tl zperty' she isj psse d of and of vhich incentory is to ken, made and tl by 'such'jperso r persons as sd. Ja and Sar~li sfi' ee uppon and in cyc ! S xsla tbide hir sd.
Husgl~Jl4s* i
,rece jack said prop-erty rdFdsn~
sd entory but sd.
James tl not e holden for the Natur D
o
~rt of sd. Inventory and is atie a
that if sd. James should dfl~ o S wife, she is to have a home in JZ sWflouse durng her widowv-hood and also the Use of a Cow during sd.
Term of time."
Background image: This circa 1840 coin-silver tablespoon, inherited from Water-ford farming ancestors by the author's wife, wvas cast by silversmith John Proctor Trott in Newv London.
SURVIVING COLONIAL PERIOD HOUSES, and surviving photographs of others, chronicle this valuable archi-tectural heritage. Remnants from the past three centuries, these pio-neer dwellings provide a twentieth-century glimpse of West Farms-era domiciles. These early homes miraculously escaped conflagration in spite of many open fireplaces together with the practice of candles being carried up steep, narrow stairs to the bedchambers above. Of the estimated 250 houses built by 1800, perhaps ten percent have survived both the insistent bulldozing for interstate highways and the neglect that has increasingly overtaken outmoded structures.
These surviving patriarchs are distinguished by four style variations, although there may have been other unheralded types as well. Their numerical survival rate does not necessarily correspond to their orig-inal popularity. The age shared a common inherited method of rugged framing that has helped these structures endure centuries of New England weather.
The oldest surviving house was built by horse corser (trader)
Samuel Waller in 1691. It now stands forlornly at 21 Gurley Road, its sturdy oak post-and-beam framing evoking the half-timbered exam-ples of the merry old country. This framing method was to persist into early twentieth-century barn raisings. Heavily constructed, its 1 5-inch-wide "summer" beam spans the ceiling to support the floor above. When raised by the building party, wooden treenails pegged the frames together.
Not unlike old barns, the interiors of the first houses were left unfinished. As time went on, hand-expanded lath was nailed to the studding and the walls Nvere plastered. (An exception was the 1758 house now representing its schoolhouse days on Jordan Green.
Without studding, its lath was nailed directly to the vertical sheath-ing.) The only seventeenth-century example of the four surviving end-chimney houses, its east lean-to addition probably came after the 1726 deeding of the farm to Joshua Moore, Jr., Mrs. Samuel WYaller's son from a previous marriage. Adding a fireplace flue to the chimney stack constructed with little or no clay mortar would not have been difficult.
THE ORIGINAL WINDOWS would have been small hinged casements with tiny diamond-shaped panes mounted in lead mullions. Undoubtedly this fenestration was later replaced with larger double-hung vertical "colonial" windows with somewhat larg-er rectangular panes separated by wooden mullions. Such windows became common about the time that Moore was deeded the house and again in the twentieth century.
The Moore farm became "the poor farm" when the town pur-chased it in 1847 to serve as the town almshouse. This first town-owned building (it remains the oldest public building in town) 98
V a
1 U
.-ji
A 11
-'-'U received a brick addition with a barred windowed room to house the unfortunate. Replacement two-over-two pane Victorian windows were installed before the farm was sold in 1921.
It was left unpainted for much of the twentieth century. Waller would have been at home with this care. Few, if any, Connecticut houses were painted before 1700 (and many not until the 'end of the nineteenth century). When they were painted, the colors were likely red, yellow or blue, usually with a milk or buttermilk base. A 1748 map of New Haven, which designated the color of each house, shows many painted red or blue. White paint did not come into general use until the Revolutionary War period.
CENTRAL-CHIMNEY HOUSES shared a com-mon first floor plan whether story and a half or full two stories in height. The huge chimney stack necessitated that the entrance hall (then called a porch) be squeezed between two rooms and an extremely steep twisting stairway. Across the back (usually north) side of the house was the kitchen with its continuous fire. A larder at one end of the kitchen was matched at the other end by a tiny "borning" room, hardly large enough for a cot. This basic floor plan persisted for two centuries. The public-accessible 1839 house built to shelter Widow Lydia Beebe and her infant son (p. 102) demon-strates its continued popularity.
Their rooflines distinguished the three styles from one another.
The two-story colonial gable-roofed (right and p. 36) and gambrel-roofed (pp. 35, 101) houses permitted full use of the second-floor bedchambers. The popular story-and-a-half Cape Cod'style was a more modest version, with its-gable eaves coming to the top of the ground-floor windows. Seven capes-mostly built in the decade fol-lowing the 1792 opening of 'the Mohegan Turnpike-survive at numbers 4, 24, 54, 95, 117 (p. 40), 135 and 196 Old Norwich Road.
With different interior configurations, capes remained the most pop-ular house style of the latter half of the twentieth century.
This 1966 photograph (above left) of the town almshouse shows the Moore addi-tion and the brick poor farm wing par-tially destroyed in the 1938 hurricane.
Such a facility dates to 1825, when it was voted that "the house of Capt. Robert Douglass" on Douglas Lane be rented as the town workhouse. The retrofitted shingled walls and lower level one-over-one windows were probably added after its 1921 sale.
-This half-timbered end-chimney smug-glers cottage (top) in Kent, England, predated its American counterpart by a century or more. Its large casement windows and hung clay-tile exterior are of more recent vintage. The overhanging second story (the British would call it the first floor) had numerous local copies in twentieth-century raised ranch dwellings.
The two-story patriarch of the former Elm Street (above) at Millstone had its central chimney replaced by two slim brick ones built to serve stoves.
99
Adversity sometimes exposes basic inner-workings. The fire-ravished Hatch house, formerly at 901 Vauxhall Street near Hunts Brook Road, revealed several facets of colonial architecture. The post and beam framing had studs to support both sheathing and plaster walls. Less used was vertical planking to which the clapboard was directly nailed on the ex-terior and the hand-split lath on the interior (such as on the 1758 house-later used as a school-now on Jordan Green).
The 1966 photograph shows the fieldstone chimney stack that served four or five fireplaces. It also boasted a smoke chamber in the attic that utilized smoke from the flue to cure meats.
1776 MARKED not only the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence but, of almost equal importance, it began an age that altered many established ways in this land of steady habits. In 1784 slavery was on its way towards abolishment when the General Assembly voted that no negro or mulatto child should be "held in servitude beyond the age of 25." Meanwhile, in 1801 the people of West Farms refuted the "establishment" of the city of New London to gain their civic independence. Continuing the egalitarian movement, voting restrictions were generally relaxed, enabling nearly all adult males to vote. In 1818 the favored position of the established state church was lost in the new state constitution of that year. (And, finall-.---almost 150 years after it became the law of the land-Connecticut even ratified the Bill of Rights in 1939!)
But not everyone was victorious. The 1781 burning of the vil-lage of New London by Benedict Arnold caused many to flee to the old Miller house where "General" Jeremiah Miller opened his dairy and larder to feed the hungry refugees in the shade at his Old Colchester Road landmark. (In 1958 Dogwood Drive was built over the site when the house was taken down.) Pickett Latimer, whose house was the first to be burned in the town plot, built his new jerkin-roofed house far enough into the country to avoid such future disasters. (Its foundation at 753 Vauxhall Street later supported a 1948 dwelling.) A few years later, in 1798, more fled to what is now Waterford to escape the yellow fever epidemic rampant in the city.
AN ECHO OF IMPERIAL ROME downed Benjamin Franklin's championing of the turkey as the emblem of the new nation. In 1782 the Roman emblem was Americanized with the selection of the bald eagle. Its image was immediately added to most homes: carved in wood, painted and etched in glass, painted on pot-tery, printed on paper and stitched into needlework. Spiritually asso-ciating themselves with ancient Rome, the citizens of this newv republic readily accepted the neo-Roman art forms of the revival that spread through Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century.
English and American architectural handbooks popularized this antique style that Scotsman Robert Adam, inspired by the discover-ies of Roman art at Pompeii and Herculaneum, had introduced to England in the 1760s. Encouraged by Thomas Jefferson, who pat-terned his design for the Virginia state capitol after a Roman temple, Americans built simple and dignified houses embellished with clas-sical details.
Federal fireplaces-and in 1809 Waterfordites were taxed for 567-became smaller in opening, with delicately carved cameo-like Adam mantels. The construction of the house frame itself became lighter, although its major members remained of hewn oak and were 100
The Deshon-Allyn exterior had formal balance, not only on the facade, but on
..J all four sides. The five-bay front had a center entrance and two windows care-I fully balanced on each side. What was unusual is that the other three sides echo this same configuration--each with XC, =a Center doorway flanked by two windows on either -side. Corner quoins complement the formality of the period's details.
The slightly bowed roof of the re-puted seventeenth-century Miller house (below) contrasts with the rare jerkin-roof of the Latimer house (bottom).
-~."
-Both played'a role in demonstrating
____________________________________________________________W est Farms as a desirable place to be.
framed in the traditional manner. The roof pitch was less steep, a columnar entrance porch was introduced and fanlights and sidelights were frequently employed in connection with the front entrance, which became the focal point of the facade.
MOST OUTSTANDING of Federal houses built in Waterford was the one commissioned in 1829 by whaling entrey-s k
i preneur Daniel Deshon. In 1802 his father had purchased eight acres with house and barn on Bolles Hill. It was to this frame house in 1826 that Deshon brought his bride Fanny, the daughter of Senator George Thurston of Hopkinton, RI. Apparently it was inadequate for the entertaining that the daughter of a senator would do, so the stone mansion at 613 Williams Street was erected.
k The austerely beautiful mansion was built of local granite, with a large central hall and four corner rooms on each of the first two floors. Fireplaces on the outside walls served each of these eight rooms. In what was probably the first house in town designed by an architect-whose name unfortunately is not recorded-careful attention was given to such details as the Palladian window over the front door with its carved wooden ornamentation. Many elements of this most substantial mansion built in Waterford before the twenti-eth century closely followed the early American bible of building, The Country Builder's Assistant by Asher Benjamin, first published in 1797.
101
In contrast to the au courant 1829 Deshon Federal mansion, most Waterford houses remained grounded in the past.
The 1839 Beebe-Phillips house at 286 Boston Post Road (moved to the Jordan Green in 1974) duplicated houses built a century earlier, except that it provided more second-story headroom.
Erected on a $60 small lot, young newly widowed Lydia Beebe, whose hus-and was lost at sea, took in sewing in exchange for firewvood to keep her infant son warm.
Her modest bare-floored cottage, no doubt fiurnished with hand-me-down family pieces, wvas in keeping with this Baptist churchwoman's selfless outlook Such an outlook was echoed by a con-temporary request for a "plain Methodist front door" for the 83 Rope Ferry Road dwelling under construction.
The wvood-shingled exterior was an early twentieth-century retrofit. Like later century asbestos, aluminum and vinyl siding offered in turn by salespeople, shingles promised beauty, insulation and no need of painting.
Opposite: Deshon and Allyn with their vhale oil profits could order ready-made furniture from Nev York. The 1833 Joseph Meeks and Sons broadside, of which a portion is reproduced here, offered many fine pieces. The Lyman All)n Museum furnished the Deshon-Alla house with the nine-ft Empire secretary (orginal price $120) and the dro lettable offeredd in the broadsile.
"THE SUBSCRIBER offers for sale that substan-tial, well built and finished stone house, erected in 1829 43' square, cellar under the whole, 2 stories, each 10' in the clear: Barn, carriage house, large garden, young orchard of selected fruit, a choice well water that has never failed, a good market at the door, and about 7 acres of land adjoining. Situated about I mile from the business part of New London, on the Turnpike road to Norwich.... may be pur-chased if wanted, terms accommodating. Apply to Daniel Deshon on the premises."
Mrs. Deshon was to entertain in the mansion only briefly, for this advertisement appeared in the Gazette in 1834, a year after her death. Apparently there were no immediate takers, as the ad ran for months. In 1851 Deshon finally sold the house to his former employee, Lyman Allyn, for $7,150. The austere Federal dwelling looked dreadfully bare to the eye of this whaling merchant, so a wide veranda (removed in 1931) was built around three sides of the dwelling. Such verandas were to shade the interiors of many houses during the last half of that century. Like Deshon before him in 1845 and 1846, Captain Allyn wvas a Waterford representative to the General Assembly in 1860.
Unlike these two whaling merchants, most Waterford residents didn't subscribe to "laying up treasures on earth" and were rarely in a position to do so. In 1809 the town boasted one wooden-wheeled and two steel-and-brass-wheeled clocks, 20 ounces of silver plate, one gold and 29 silver watches (no, 30-Richard Jerom[e] forgot to list his and paid a "fourfold" tax on it). Farmers' sons could expect little more than land from the dowries of farmers' daughters.
Although from earliest times rich mahogany furniture graced the houses of merchant princes and plantation owners along the eastern seaboard, few of these masterpieces were ever owned in Waterford.
Windsor chairs and other country pieces in more plebeian oak, birch, maple and pine were the lot, with perhaps an excellent copy of a Newport or Philadelphia piece fashioned in cherry by a joiner in Colchester.
ANIERICA'S first indigenous architectural style was the Greek-Revival. With minor exceptions, local construction came between 1840 and 1860 (but mostly in the 1845-55 decade).
Extant examples reveal the style to be of more American origination than its name implies. The favorite local interpretation was identi-fied by a two-story gable-end facade with an off-center entrance.
This side hall floor plan had been much used for city town houses on narrow urban lots. Pilaster corners were featured that imitated attached columns. Windows were traditionally doublehung six-over-six paned. Such was the earliest part of the Nevins mansion (pp. 15, 102
117) that Nevins's father-in-law Thomas Shaw Perkins built in 1820. Although pioneered by this time in New Haven, where Perkins had attended Yale, this was extremely early for this area.
Local architectural surveys in the 1990s counted 69 Greek-Revival houses remaining from nearly a century and a half earlier.
In the two decades prior to the Civil War, about 15 percent of then existing homes were built in this frequently radically differefnt style. The same forces that turned Nehantiack wayside area into a thriving Jordan Village created the boom.' Most notably,' the indus-trial and accompanying transportation revolutions encouraged more profitable specialization. Deadend subsistence farming gave way to larger dairying enterprises to supply growing urban-centers. Quaker Hill paper mills, originated to serve area consumers, could now ship their product on the new railroads. Six new Greek-Revival dwellings in Graniteville (176 to 249 Rope Ferry Road) helped house quarry workers whose labors graced the entire East Coast. Local residents could now shop, attend the new pillared Greek-Revival church and catch the train-all in growing Jordan Village with its 11 new Hellenistic houses.
The "rocks and rills and templedhills" of the 1832 song "America" referred to the nation's Greek-Revival houses such as this prototypal knoiltop example at 139 Great Neck Road.
ELECTRIFICATION Rural Waterford w-n nthe fore-front of being..wifidfor electricity. The 1900 troIji line through Quakeziltlrvith a lipfir at the waiting.statiyhere (p. 28) nh local beginning. The mView had some cot-t'ages ired in 1911.and about that time theo'Woodworth pa'per tnilX becagihefirsr lusiness to be l hted.~jThat sne year saw the town install streethsghs at trolley stops along the Bostcin PosqtRoad and on Rope Ferry Road to-the foot of Logger Hill.
When-o'dnecticut Light and Power Co. bgan in 191Z lighting was thesnly.
ajior.'se-made of clectriciwin-homes, on farms and by buisinesse~s;o's of the town had service!b36-e cpd of the 1920s.
Pleasure cH'chma '
vwired in 1914.
(IU>1966/light bill; totaled $1.40.) The Shore Line trolley corn 3an mpensated Cohanzie farmers five dollars a" pola for its 1915 transmission line that was connected to the Montville lpvoerhouse when it became operational in 1919. The town's first'wired school,Ithe 1915 Quaker Hill building was not conncted until the fol-lowing year. While the Iewport "Breakers" had efectric lights in '195, plans wvere not.
drawn for the nefnldihsti 1907 Harkness mifiasioztiil'1924.--
light cp-tanies hard a'sdli;gjofiodo e-haverisumers~go jeyond just ha~ving electric light? CL&P opened' istore at 278
.MaifVgtreet in Niantic to hold demonstra-tions and sell appliances. It was 1920 before electric washingpnadhines and vacu-urn deaners approtached the million mark; in the nation. The electric refrigerator, introduced in 91p4, preached the millionua mark in 1929. Th'e electric range reached its first million sales two years later.
i Phased in during the 1960s, the local primary wires ani 'transformers were changed from 4,160 t4L13,200 volts, which4 increased capacit~y without otherSlocal~
alterations. The CL&P service hiildiiat i 611(MfyrockAveriue d ates to 1929.MA wet is be~ing a
consurner, Waterford became aJ
'pfroducer of electiicit~4when the Millstonl lnatomizc power'lant went on liin 1970 VOICES of many kinds influenced home life dur-ing the Victorian era. Named after the reigning 1837-1901 British monarch, it was a time of overdetailed architecture, overfilled rooms and feigned genteel behavior and manners of speech. Ladies did not have arms or legs, but limbs. Their place was in the home, and hus-bands were to be called "Mister." The horsehair sofa in the parlor-a room reserved for weddings, funerals and unexpected visits by the preacher-was carefully maintained by a daily featherdusting.
Continuing Old World influence reigned over local architecture in an ever-quickening changing pace. The Greek-Revival forerunner, which had whetted romantic interest in the long ago and far away, welcomed a following parade of cosmopolitan styles. Usually trans-lated into wood by American builders, the period dwellings loosely imitated European examples. The eclectic copies varied from repli-cating Italianate (33 Great Neck Road) and French Second Empire (p. 145) styles to merely adding early English cottage details (253 Great Neck Road).
The houses were usually characterized by fussiness, verticality and yesteryear reminders of romantic foreignness. Whimsey was wel-comed. Exterior symmetry was no longer sovereign and various roof profiles crowned the high-ceilinged domiciles. They were often embellished by "gingerbread" carvings and roof brackets from the woodworkers' new shop equipment. But most new construction remained the more simple vernacular with only windows, and per-haps an entrance detail, following the fads.
Beginning with the 1800s, stoves were to replace fireplaces as the primary method of heating, and many chimneys were stylishly slimmed to indicate modernity and to help the coal fire draw better.
By the end of the century, central heating began to replace black heating stoves in some of' the more affluent homes. Presiding over every kitchen was an ornate cast-iron cookstove. Other labor-saving devices included the handy wooden water bucket and dipper, a bar-Mid-century French Second Empire sale is represented by this "outstanding 189 Great Neck Road house. Bracketed eaves, mansard-roofed tower with empty "clock face" wvindows and the gingerbread-bedecked verandas identify the period.
rel to collect rainwater for washing clothes and the earth-floored cel-lar to keep foodstuffs cool.
The nation's 100th birthday party in 1876 prompted the grand-son of Betsy Ross to recall the family story of the sewing of the first flag. A twice-recast bell became the' Liberty Bell. It was an occasion to both celebrate the country's new technology and cast beginning importance to things of the past in a national exhibition.
ALEXANDER Graham Bell's invention of the tele-phone-first demonstrated at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876-was connected to an exchange switchboard for the first time in New Haven two years later. The local area exchange had about 120 subscribers when the Southern New England Telephone Co. reorganized in 1882. One of the first long-distance lines-from New York to Boston-spanned'the town in 1883. Even earlier, Connecticut towns and cities had been connect-ed by about 1,000 miles of intertown trunk lines. There was at least a scattering of telephones in rural Waterford as early as 1888.
Local dialing began replacing "hello girls" in 1928 when four-digit numbers served the Waterford/New London/Groton exchange area. With the incremental implementation of the state-203 area code in the 1970s (subdivided by the 860 code in 1996), 30M national subscribers could be dialed.' Following 1928 there was a five-digit local number, and then a Gibson prefix was added that was replaced in turn by all numerals to service the ever-increasing demand. Logger Hill received the first underground conduit in 1963. The first buried residential service was at Colonial Drive in 1966. A decade later Waterford pioneered the area's three-digit 911 emergency number. The first fiber-optic cable was laid -under the Niantic River in 1987. The advent of telemarketing encouraged the purchasing of answering machines by 60 percent of the nations households and the cordless telephone sometimes entertained neigh-bors just as the party line had a century earlier.
The wall telephone of the 1890s loomed somewhat larger than the cellular ones of a century later. The side crank was used to gain the attention of the opera-tor. Its use alerted party-line snoop-ers as well. The habit of calling util-ity poles telphone poles-handed down the generations-originated because that function preceded other uses by decades.
E. G. ROBERTSON:& CO., Investment Bankerssas.ofrd,_ck One MII1llon Five Hundred Thousand Dollars Loaned Without Loss.
130 NEW LONDON DIVSION.-
0 The 1888 telephone directory listed six Goshen Point residences on party line 62. The number following the Rin-dicated the number of rings identifying each subscriber. Lindley H. Chapin's house occupied the site of the future Harkness mansion. James A. Rumrill's house faced it. The Goshen Farm house was at 253 Great Neck Road. Its occu-pant ran the Rumrill farm. The Red House Farm belonged to (yachting)
Commodore David Banks. (Lloyd Road was named for his son.)
SWATERtFORD.
62-3 Borland J. N. Dlr., residence.
62-4 Chapin L. H., residence.
62-6 Emery Fred., residence, Goshen Farm 62-5 Filzgerald P. H., residence.
71-5 Gallup James A., residence.
62-2 Pendleton IV. E., -residence, Red HouseFarm 62-12 Rumrill J. A., residence.
60--2 The White. Gates Granite Co., residence; 29-2 Woodwortli O., paper mill.
I
The floor plan and artist's sketch of the Rumrill house (right) appeared in an 1879 issue of American Architect and Building News. Niece Mary Miller.
remembered the Arts and Crafts-style cottage as 'it stood capriciously shin-gled and clapboarded and painted in vari-ous shades of red and green....- a cross between the Kremlin and a cuckoo clock" A-t in her Under Gemini memoir. Pictured below is its extant carriage house and a close-up of its detail. The 1895-1903 Chapin house is shown at bottom.
Opposite: Celest -. LeMare ("C. J.")
shows his wife the 1966 gardens under his care. He was named grounds manag er by Harkness in 1938 and continued as the supervising park ranger for the state before retiring in 1971.
Vaulting was retained in the breakfast room (left) wvhile the living room (right) is pictured after remodeling.
F OUR PALATIAL SHORE MANSIONS and their three spectacular conflagrations highlighted the local golden age of opulence. Paterfanilias Chester W. Chapin started in stagecoaching, raduated to steamnboating (p. 60) and then into railroads. Reputedly the wealthiest person in Springfield, MA, this railroad baron divid-ed his recently purchased Goshen Point land between his son Abel and son-in-law James A. Rumrill in 1878. According to the deeds, their houses had already been built. Abel's 40-room cottage (21 fam-ily bedrooms, nine servant rooms) faced his brother-in-law's equally opulent three-story one to the wvest.
The first fire to light the sky was started by an exploding oil lamp on the third floor of the Chapin house in 1894. Replaced the following year in the Colonial Revival style then in vogue, the new shingled mansion featured a 32-by 26-ft entrance hall and 18 fire-5 x
~eplaces.
It burned in 1903.
Three years later the land was sold to William 0. Taylor, who began construction of the 32-room Eolia mansion that continues to grace the breezy shore point. Conscious of the fire hazard, exterior
-i
-,l walls were constructed of twin interlocking concrete blocks. (The Rumrill house that had faced all three mansions fell victim to fire a 4i t
.1 decade later.) Taylor apparently suffered a financial reversal and his sis-ter-in-law and her husband, Edward S. Harkness, took over the estate in 1907 and finished the house. They added the 1909 garage/servant i
apartments/sport complex-that provided rooms for billiards, bowl-ing and squash as well as for eight horses-before extensively remod-eling the house in 1924. The Italianate exterior was simplified, the house was wired for safer electricity and vaulting was removed from some of the ground-floor ceilings.
R 991 106
%WWII 12,j Z7
ROOTS Mrs. Mary Stillman Harkness's famill was firmly rooted in \\W'aterford. Although she herself w.as born in Mystic, her family had tilled Great Neck soil for nearly three centuries. Her grandmother, Charlotte Rogers Greenman, became a member of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church in 1832. Her eat-randfather, David Rogers, willed the land for its 1860 building (p. 132).
The Harknesses continued the agrarian tradition. Their large herd of prize Guernsey cattle-together witl chickens, turkeys, pheasants, vegetable gardens and produce from the 6,700-sq-f 1922 greenhouse-supplied household needs shared with the 42 outside workers. When the family w as not in residence, flowers, vegetables and other items wvere taken twice weekly to their New York mansion.
At the annual New London-Windham Counties Guernsey Breeders Association fair they enjoyed hot dogs and judging ^vith the locals while sharing their estate. Harkness was not the only gentleman farmer along the shoreline. Mary Miller tells how James Rumrill showed off to a houseful of guests by demonstrating a horse-drawn hay rake on the very same land. Both his Chapin neighbor and his son-in-law Edward C.
Hammond (p. 59) boasted dairy herds on their estates.
Mrs. Harkness opened her gardens annually for Waterford Public Health Nursing Service fund-raisers. Both she and her husband opened their purses as well. She had inherited from her ather, the general counsel of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and her husband from his father, the chief financial backer of John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Co.
She gave $30,000 to purchase the ances-tral Stillman factory in 1931 for the Mystic Seaport site and replaced the belfrey of the family church blown away in the 1938 hur-ricane. Her husband gave away over S200M during the 1930s depression decade.
Collectively they carefully gave away a reported $800M.
PERHAPS because she had no children of her own, Mrs. Mary Harkness pioneered a rehabilitation program for youth-ful polio victims by starting a summer seaside rest home. Her estate's easternmost farmhouse was remodeled in 1920 to welcome 30 stricken children-ranging in age from four to 12 years-from the New York Orthopedic Hospital. They were Mrs. Harkness' guests from the end of April to mid-October and could return each year until they outgrew the age group. Supervised by Miss Etha Pearce-a former WWI military hospital nurse in France-a staff of six nurs-es, several teachers and seven kitchen helpers operated the "Dorcas House" program until WWII barracks and artillery occupied the shore in 1943. To help combat the children's loneliness away from home through the years, Mrs. Harkness made a point of visiting her young guests, often accompanied by her husband. In addition, rail and local transportation from New York was provided for monthly parental visits.
The 325-acre Goshen Point estate was wvilled to the state at Mrs. Harkness's death in 1950 with the proviso that it be used in a manner beneficial to public health. Modifying her forerunner effort, a pilot summer day camp program begun in 1952 "to test the waters" demonstrated the need for specialized recreation for the handicapped. Rustic cabins were added and the program exponen-tially expanded following the General Assembly's 1953 enabling act.
On a year-round basis Camp Harkness served both term resident guests of all ages and others with annual day passes.
The camp's private handicapped-accessible 700-ft beach served this first state park in the nation designed and operated for the hand-icapped. Formally separated from the Harkness Memorial State Park in 1976, its 102 acres were granted to the Department of Mental Retardation. The Rogers house (p. 79) served the preschool handi-capped for two decades as the "Little White School House" before its transformation into a group home for the handicapped in 1979.
DESIGN WORK on the U.S. Supreme Court building wvas interrupted to accept the commission to create the Seaside Sanitorium at 36 Shore Road. Nationally acclaimed Cass Gilbert, after designing three state capitols and serving as consulting architect for the 1931 George Washington Bridge, poured heart and talent into the planning of his local French Tudor Revival master-piece. Built partially on land formerly owned by Erasmus Smith (a leader in the construction of the 1883 Brooklyn Bridge), this 1934 landmark, topped by a flche spire, was the first purpose-built chil-dren's tuberculosis facility in the nation. This disease, the scourge of nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution Britain, became a serious contagion problem in early industrial America as wvell.
108
The prevalent strains of the disease in children seemed to respond to rest and prolonged exposure to the sun. The Seaside com-plex was designed to provide such heliotherapy. The young patients' attire was limited to shorts and halters to garner maximum benefit from the sun. The only apparent concessions to winter weather were hats, gloves and wool blankets. Beds were placed outdoors on the building's terraces where school classes also met.'At other times, learning took place along the seawall after its completion in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Advancement in medical science reduced the number of patients to 40 by 1958, and the few remaining tubercular children were moved to Uncas-on-Thames Hospital in Norwich.
Renamed the "Seaside State Geriatric Hospital," its first new patients to 92-year-olds-occupied the vacated buildings when it became Connecticut's first state hospital for those over 65 in 1959.
A former army doctor, Supt. John P. Bachman, was to oversee 90 clients there. The experiment ended as mass institutionalization for adults was on the decline. This phase was replaced in 1961 when Fred F. Finn was appointed director of the "Seaside Regional Center" for the mildly to severely retarded from ages 2 to 60. Having such local facilities closer to the families, together with small group sup-port in sheltered life and workshop experiences, enabled many to graduate from institutional care. The Department, of Mental Retardation established client cottage-type units at the 17-building complex. Eventually,' group homes and private placement in area towns replaced the institutionalization of the handicapped. In 1997 the empty facility closed.
Talented young counselors supervised the handicapped around the clock at Camp Harkness (a ove). The counselors and:
handicapped alike come back year after year to enjoy the hospitality origi-nated by Mrs. Harkness in 1920.
Seaside's signature structure is the
- 1934 Stephen J. Maher building (above right). This landmark featured exten-sive southern balconies and terraces to capture all the direct sunlight possible for its youthful residents. A close look will reveal the many beds that provided them their place in the sun while recuperating.
109
01 1.so, 7
4 10 'W" *44
.I
- 4Y The "central heat" of almost every Waterford house in 1925 was the parlor heater (left). Its bulk and ap petite for fuel dominated the winter home scene.
Below-. A rare photograph taken during the 1938 surprise storm. The wind-driven high tide that whipped the coast-line set adrift the pictured boathouse at 22 New Shore Road.
With countless trees bowled over, Great Neck Road (left) was the hardest hit town arterial road.
Reminiscent of English half-timbered manor houses, this 165 Boston Post Road residence (right) was later replaced by a 1967 bank building.
110 U
PARLOR HEATERS were still the major mode of heating during the first third of the twentieth century. The round' isinglass-door heating stoves of the Victorian era were being replaced by jacketed circulating heaters. Children put on their flannel night-wear warmly screened by the heater, while their parents' rising hour was dictated by the need to replenish its ever-devouring firebox.
Erupting clouds of dust from coal scuttle pourings had almost replaced firewood's dropped bark debris of an earlier day. The new-fangled gravity furnaces in the basement (still called "cellar" then) were practically identical with the heaters upstairs. Heat wafted upward from their large iron gratings in the living room floor. This heated the generation's new houses that were usually. either single-storied homes ("bungalows") with exposed rafter ends of their usually hip roofs with their narrow facades towards the street or cube two-story "American foursquares," such as the stone one at 93 Boston Post Road.
Stovewood in ample abundance was available in the pre-oil-burner age after the 1938 hurricane blew in. Local major hurricanes (West Indian for "big wind") occurred as early as 1675 when a storm felled both crops and trees. Probably the strongest blow occurred in 1815 when 10 to 12 feet of water washed over the Niantic River bar (then a part of Waterford), taking away both tree covering and mass.
The barometer in the 1938 hurricane dropped from a near nor-mal 29.72 noon reading to a low 28.49 inches by 4:45 p.m. This drastic, sudden drop in atmospheric pressure was accompanied by official 120 mph winds before the recording equipment was blown away. Waterford had one of the estimated 500 deaths in New England. Houses and trees were toppled, especially near the shore.
The boathouse at 22 New Shore Road was set adrift and the com-mercial fishing boats at Millstone Point were destroyed.
Damage to farmers was represented by the losses of Franklin Steward of Gilead Road (later Parkway North): His sheds were down, his house was badly damaged and only part of his barn remained standing. Exposed foliage, withered from the effects of the salt spray and wind, stood in' strong contrast to the green of more sheltered hol-lows. Plastered wet leaves turned the front of the white First Baptist Church green.
In the clear blue sky days that followed, gasoline' stations re-sorted to coupling foot-powered jacked-up bicycle wheels to operate otherwise powerless gasoline pumps. A hundred electric linemen came from as far away as Detroit (by boat to Buffalo) together with telephone repairmen from a half dozen states to replace fallen lines.
Crosscut saws cleared the denuded landscape where there was a lin-gering reluctance 'to replace downed trees near structures for several decades.
-DRIFTING SNOW-
-Six week 'earlier te grounhg ad seen 'no s w
hado 'and baseall spigtraining a
well avne
'~The hot favoritesvwere the"NwYr
'. Xpro-ac ing squal
- 2'S lhf
-.se i nnocent 'enou j:st a
'Mr Snow shoeaer bithe' the time 71:the storm ended;' over'40 to'5 inc-ofd seen now had blantd the ste On New Haven's Whitney Avenue. aJ drift towered 53 ft high. It was the' '
':celebrated Blizzard 'of18.
-'When' people wer'able to get outrk
-again, it was discovered that two small
~brothers;- -LeGr~and,' ~4, and 'Glurdon'-
<Chppll9,were not with the 'other',
-,parent as each believed, but were lost' soinewher in the drifts. A search 'was
-Jorgaizd, and aftei 22 hours2.546296e-4 days <br />0.00611 hours <br />3.637566e-5 weeks <br />8.371e-6 months <br />;- 65-year-
.old and partially blind [John]. Palmner.'.
4--Caulkins".;-(picttired):~poking'an found the buried boys huddled against the stone wr l that forsi-ely stood in fo nt ' of so the ' later -Speedhowi. sBoth Xlived injo' their 80s. `s Records show even
W highery wvhite
'drifts in the "GreatSnow of 1717w h
vOn Long Island the "'w was over sect t
'o'nd-story windo'wsills and completeI re covered ne all house. oall
'cibovhe d,'-ern o,'n smrdn joshua ', Hempstead. observed, in hi o
diaiy that "he snow is drove insm places 10' to ' 12 fe de Grandfather a
wac righevd So' were
- '(somtimes) deeperinfth o days 111
CENSUS POPULATION 1800:
New London and West Farms 5,150
[1810:
New London 3,238]
1810:
Waterford 2,185 1820:
2,239 1830:
2,477 1840:
2,329 1850:
2,259 1860:
2,555 1870:
2,482 1880:
2,701 1890:
2,661 1900:
2,904 1910:
3,097 1920:
3,935 1930:
4,742 1940:
6,594 1950:
9,100 1960:
15,391 1970:
17,227 1980:
17,843 1990:
17,930 SUCCESSIVE DECADES sometimes bring quite different happenings. Such were the middle years of the twentieth century. They began with the holding pattern of the decade-old financial depression. Survived the dislocations of a worldwide war.
Witnessed one of the greatest migrations in the nation's history.
Profited from a great upscale change in living standards. And ended with a wrenching clash of generations and values. The ever-quicken-ing pace of transition was demonstrated by the rapidity of the peri-od's growth: It had taken 130 years for the town to double its initial 1801 population. With the coming of outlanders, this in turn was doubled only 20 years later, by 1950. Added to by the 1945-65 boom in babies-and in spite of the geometric numbers required-by 1980 the population had virtually doubled yet again.
Few houses were built during the Great Depression. Survival came first. Existing structures were put to fiull use, especially during
\\VWII. The upstairs of existing dwellings together with empty houses lacking modern facilities were rented to defense workers and servicemen's families. Modest uninsulated summer cottages were "winterized." This trend continued during the immediate postwar years. Of course, any great influx was expected to be temporary, as was argued by many when talk of building a fifth elementary school (Clark Lane) began.
Utilizing veterans VHA financing, modest cape houses with unfinished "expandable attics" and two-bedroom single-story "ranch" houses were built in anticipation of the continued small income and family size of depression years. The first building inspec-tor was appointed in 1948 with an annual salary of $90 and a
$1,217.50 budget. The following year he received a raise to $500.
Almost 60 years of auctioneering had been conducted by Albert B. Perkins, Sr.,
when this 1966 photograph was taken. He continued his lifetime occupation at the 12 North Road venue until a fev months before his death in 1971.
This New England custom had persisted from the early days when an auction usually meant the forced sale of belong-ings wvhen one was unable to pay thee customary balloon mortgage. To day it more likely represents die breakupof a household after a fruitful life.
Household items of all eras were of-fered under the auctioneer's hammer, and items of Waterford's heritage often began life anew by helping to furnish a new home in the community.
Expectations might have been quite different if a venture cham-pioned by union-backed Governor Chester Bowles had materialized.
In 1950, together with other outsiders, he proposed building a steel mill in Waterford. Eminent domain would take 240 or more prop-erties between Camp Harkness and the Jordan Cove. It would impose 12,000 newcomers onto infrastructure-shy rural towns. But the proposed furnaces were never lit. Instead, the eastern sky bright-ened in 1951 with the word that EB would play an important role in the construction of the first atomic-powered submarine.
Minimal domiciles were soon outmoded by the onslaught of larger postwar families supported by well-paying defense-related jobs. The population growth also reflected the national mass flight from cities, which reversed the century-old farm to city movement.
By the conforming 1950s period, the standard shake-clad ranch was built with three or four bedrooms-usually at the expense of a sepa-rate formal dining room. Local building permits reached a peak in 1955 (377) and 1956 (417). Zoning was implemented in 1954 and the state building code in 1959. Necessitated by individual well and septic systems, minimum lot sizes were raised to a half acre in 1966.
Housing starts in the 1960s averaged a more manageable 70 a year, most of them in the $20,000-plus bracket. The ranch-style house became more elongated; its long, low facade and roofline appealed to many. The antithesis of the Victorian era's accent on the vertical, its two-over-two pane windows even had horizontal mullions to echo the effect. The "raised" ranch with its base story half aboveground became the most popular variant of the split-level. With the econo-my of such added space, not only had formal dining rooms reap-peared, but family rooms for more informal living and entertaining supplemented them. The different orientation of second-and third-generation foreign-born coming from the cities of New England gave Waterford a somewhat less parochial outlook. But the local "Swamp" Yankee minority maintained more than its share of influence. In 1952 foresighted members of both groups looked ahead when the firm of Harrison, Ballard and Allen published the first town plan.
Subdivision houses became more upscale, with attached garages for the necessary two cars. While father took one car to work, mother chauffeured the young to Little League games and dancing classes.
Daughter's twin cashmere sweater sets and circle pin were ban-ished to be replaced by denim bluejeans and a tie-dyed -tee shirt.
Grunge had begun. It was the late 1960s and "generation gap" was added to the nation's vocabulary. The antiestablishment baby boomer leaders admonished their rebellious followers to "Burn your draft card" and "Don't trust anyone over 30." These untrustworthy elders were the survivors of both the Great Depression and WWII who probably had mortgaged the family homestead to pay for their offspring's college education.
Housing construction remained strong through the 1960s. One of the 90 resi-dential building permits issued in 1966 was for this house at 12 Colonial Drive.
Typically it featured a two-car attached garage. The overhead electrical wires were temporary; this Theodore Senkow development was the town's first to have buried utility wires.
113
The site of the AHEPA senior housing at 95 Clark Lane had been an undeveloped part of a school ground until it was utilized as a storage area for school buses. Its access on a SEAT bus route and proximity to shopping made it particularly more valuable for adult living.
High on a [very] windy hill with pano-ramic views of the Niantic Bay, the Bayview Health Care Center has served since 1989.
The height was first called Nehantick before being renamed Durfey after the colonial family who lived there.
HENRIETT BAD aged father-something between 'splendids'lItiowi Dig house or going to a nursing home-NMf indiitii M a
d such decisions. According to the 1990 census;, aterforl6ad the largest 4
percentage (18.5) of citizens over 64 in the 18-tw,4'itht9O6 percent heads of households living iniowner-occupied housing.,.,
Mrs. Barrett resolved to find 'butionIn wi elel sltond 4
ihh epo nine Waterford-East Lyme churches -founddew aens Inc Being a twin herself, the name camteailyAsfirst40 ii'itts f s fe affordable elderly housing were lbuilt-in-East ;Lyiie in -1977-r<4 Waterford delayed building its 4 ukisba3Mr tl 1985, due in part to an unresolve dolict overthe ueoffe funds. Such housing could not b limited tosenior4 -citizens bu't would include the disabled, possibly eveyn younger drug addicts and alcoholics. The dilemma was part i~lresolved when "thetownsup 114
plied land at 95 Clark Lane for the Greek AHEPA fraternal organi-zation to build the three-story brick-yeneered building that opened in 1995. Federal aid permitted restricting residents there to those 62 or older.
Housed in a purpose-built section of the Crossroads Presbyterian Church, the Shoreline Adult Center has provided a day-care program for 30 elderly participants since 1988. Three of the four residential health care centers have survived various name and ownership changes. The 1959 Twin Pines Nursing Home at 171 Rope Ferry Road became the Mary Kenny Nursing Home, then Canterbury Villa, which was followed by Waterford Health and Rehabilitation Center and more recently by Optimum Care. It was one of 128 nationally (plus 27 in the United Kingdom) run by a New Mexico concern.
The 1965 Waterford Convalescent Hospital (later Greentree Manor Rehabilitation Center) at 4 Greentree Drive, Quaker Hill,
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~meals program dates to.7 N
1979 whePcardie's i5,. PiAf dfe s<was iisdd,-addiig
-Meals on JWhe&ls deliveryfto ihYlimehobund the follo ingyeai :
j4>v*Grandchildren hhdfneeds as well,.which'were addressed by the Yohervices Bur'
'that b Jix1992. 'Its-progr ms 'suppored
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- - I; >.
F positive1 ieiopmentc a -diverse societ with actities ranging i
tasfrom babj-siting chssrtotYinkeetall-me trips:.Counseiing for
-family and Private prob1ems was alsoiprovided. As ;an information resource center, it offered a-gathering place for youths and for young -
parents to share their experienses"I 1V I
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A TIME CAPSULE Rope Ferry Commons-the town's first condominiums at 54 Rope Ferry Road
-was begun in 1983 on the site where West Farms' first documented house had stood. Pioneer George Chap ple's 1664 structure was later joined by a second dwelling erected on the same land by his grandson, John Daniels, Jr., be-tween 1714 and 1734. Nathaniel Shaw purchased the 14 acres on which this newer house stood in 1762 to begin his eventual 300-acre Jordan farm.
Nathaniel's grandson, Thomas Shaw Perkins, inherited theJordan farm and built the 1820 nucleus of the future Nevins Mansion at 50 Rope Ferry Road for his bride, the daughter and grand-daughter of Connecticut governors.
Erected in the then avant-garde Greek Revival style, its facade displayed a temple-like gable end towards the road with pilasters gracing the corners. A side-hallwvay entrance and six-over-six-pane shuttered windowvs completed its classical pedigree executed in wood.
Its first addition (the two-story ell in the foreground of the photograph)-
with its Victorian two-over-two windows
-was probably added before Perkins' son-in-law, David H. Nevins, purchased the farm in 1854. Dorothy Horton, nurse to the last surviving member of the fam-ily (Anna Nevins, who died in 1958 at the age of 96), said that Miss Nevins told her that the older part had been moved from back in the field.
Probably before taking up permanent residency in 1860, Nevins re-fronted the house with a southern Georgian Revival facade, with dormered attic rooms for the four Irish servants listed in the 1870 census. Nevins declared to the can-vasser that he wvas a retired broker with real estate valued at $75,000 and had
$140,000 in other assets. The house had w'hat appeared to be just another closet door hiding a nail-studded one that opened to a steel-doored safe. This was sus-pended above a cistern into which it could drop if a fire occurred.
Almost a century had passed since daughter Marian's (p. 15) 1884 wedding in the brick addition's library when the first concrete foundation wvas toured for the first condo unit. The barns, sheds and even the tiny brick playhouse with its additions were but a memory. Eventually 154 apartments wvere added. Alarmed over the threatened des-truction of the mansion, Marjorie C.
Hazard raised a public protest. A pri-vate conversation following a historical society trustees meeting convinced the developers to save the landmark The original 1820 section was removed. Five apartments were created in the mansion, with seven more in a 1986 addition.
GROWTH WAS MEASURED in residences rather than in residents; in diversity rather than in population. The final decades of the second millennium witnessed the virtual ending of the town's parochial rural past and reflected the national mobility that relegated the local old Yankee stock to a tiny minority. The 1980s added more housing units than people. By 1998 over 7,000 house-holds were listed in the 911 emergency response database. Two-income families became the norm. People lived longer. Family size shrank. Individual elbow space lebenuraunm grew. All these trends contributed to a different Waterford in a different nation.
While the outlines of many former farms can be traced in the boundaries of earlier housing developments, later developers were forced to use more ingenuity. Challenging sites offered interesting rewards, although it was more expensive to design and utilize them wisely. Cluster planning-with set-aside open space permitting smaller lots-began with Trumbull Road's Governors Landing in 1968. A former gravel pit (a portion of Twin Lakes Drive), a former auto salvage yard (part of Hickory Lane) and a steep hillside Jordan Commons with 156 of the town's 550 condominiums) together with some rear acre "flag" lots illustrate the point.
Late century developers faced the usual booms and busts of eco-nomic cycles. Less noticeable than an unfinished towering skeleton of a commercial building was the bargain sale of an unwanted house.
Before later recovering, the local negative Cold War peace dividend saw the 208 residential building permits of 1987 decline to 38 hous-ing applications two years later. A less speedy recovery was the earli-er 1921 Ridgewood Park development that remained mostly vacant until after WWII.
HOUSES AND HOUSING SPACE had grown larger. By 1990 homes of six or more rooms were characteristic of 64.5 percent of the town's homesteads, while at the same time 60 percent of households consisted of only one or two members.
Renting was difficult, for 97 percent of housing units were owner-occupied. The 1966 eight-unit Leary apartments at 161 Boston Post Road and Manitock Village's 36 units at 302 Boston Post Road (1982, 1987) were the town's first purpose-built apartment houses.
The closing decades of the century displayed no single domi-nant architectural influence. From economical vinyl-clad raised ranch and modular houses trucked from out of state to the out-standing replica of the Federalist past at 72 Great Neck Road, the growing diversity of building styles reflected the lessening influence of regionalism. Seemingly, housing's most unifying feature was the growing use of factory-made components topped by vinyl-clapboarded chimneys.
116
VAmiI A. Twin Lakes Drive off Vauxhall Street. B. Jordan Commons condominiums on Boston Post Road. C. Additions and subtraction at the Nevins Mansion. D.
168 Parkway South, a victim of the late 1 980s economic downturn, "pushing up daisies."
VI. The Long Walk to School THE ARRIVAL OF A DEFINING MOMENT does not always occur in a straight fashion. Often much reluctance and even controversy marks the journey. The opening of the yellow-brick Clark Lane School in 1953 was such a moment. The first school with a non-area name, its readily accessible central location (although bordering New London and less than a mile from the ven-erable Jordan school site) positioned it to serve a larger all-town need. Its changing first quarter-century role was to necessitate six additions. Perhaps unbeknownst at the time, it marked the first small, albeit hesitant, step toward an independent all-town school program.
Community identification wvas heretofore primarily associated with the eight-grade school or fire district in which residents lived.
Social gatherings at the school or firehouse together with fairs at Goshen and Cohanzie helped create a district sense of community.
(In 1998 this identity continued especially strong in Quaker Hill.)
Although its name was infrequently used, Waterford served as the state-mandated taxing agency that financed the district schools and other minimal services. Most of the residents' mail bore the name of any one of three adjoining towns. The municipality lacked even a town hall until 1936. It was not surprising that in 1950 the town voted 1,512 to 594 to retain seventh and eighth graders in the tradi-tional district buildings rather than use the 47-acre $11,250 site at Clark Lane for an all-town junior high school.
ir..
F ii L.
.I
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'~A 118
The 1952 ceremonial laying of the Clark Lane School cornerstone (left) began an unprecedented three decades of new school buildings and additions.
Clark Lane was "where all the town students met together for the first time, at a period in their lives when rapid growth changes affected the development of rela-tionships with their peers and adults,"
declared its 1964-92 principal, Harold Goldberg (below left).
The self-contained sixth-grade wing (bottom) was added in 1995 both to address the vicissitudes of this age group and to share the seventh-and eighth-grade special facilities of the building.
Clark Lane (like the earlier Jordan School pictured bottom right in 1961) served as an elastic recipient of middle school vagaries.
Declaring that it was only a momentary demographic glitch, some even questioned the need -for any new construction to house the burgeoning enrollments then on double sessions. (When 118 additional enrollees sh wed up in the fall of 1952, a four-room addi-tion was made necessary before initial construction was completed.)
Other naysayers erroneously overpriced the golden-yellow bricks at up to six times the perfectly respectable customary red ones.'
The cornerstone was laid at 105 Clark Lane in 1952 for a single-floor nondistrict elementary school with the town's first gym-nasium (67 by 44 ft) and a purpose-built self-contained kindergarten classroom that featured a heated floor. Overcrowded K-6 classes from the four district schools were bused to Clark' Lane, which housed the first'purpose-built library (a cafrteria'alcove that served until replaced by'one 14 times larger in 1973).
AN ALL-TOWN junior high school program replaced the elementary classes in 1954. Such mutations were to con-tinue to characterize this facility at the vortex of town schools.' This usage reflected the temperament of its early-adolescent students with their individual uneven growth in physical, learning, social and cul-tural development. The pivotal school pioneered the teaching of junior high French in 1959 and later Spanish as well. Learning this Gallic world -language was aided by having a French-speaking homeroom.
In 1991 the -"'Junior" high school was replaced by a les's deriva-tive middle school. The sixth graders, who joined in 1995, lost their recess but gained access to shop, living skills, music and art in spe-cially equipped classrooms.
The example of this first all-town school paved the way for a later'tax-friendly superior town high school (temporarily housed there for four months in 1956) planned for the unused south portion of the site and adjoining farmland.
119
Acoustics expert Harold Nash witnessed the ceremonial breaking of ground (be-low) for the town's first high school.
The Naval Underwater Sound Laboratory executive (and future technical director) and fellow lab researchers spearheaded the effort to upgrade math and science offerings above what had been provided out of town.
Concentration was challenged for years as additions (1962 at right) were built.
A RISING TIDE of new affluence lifted America, beginning in the 1950s. After sharing a decade of economic depres-sion followed by a decade of world conflict that saw 15M Americans in uniform, the nation welcomed an unprecedented time of growing affluence. This was challenged by totalitarian communism abroad and a later cultural and generational revolt at home. Vith more eco-nomic security, the small families of previous decades of limited opportunity were replaced by larger families, resulting in a growing need for school expansion. This need was greatly exacerbated by the large in-migration of newly economically empowered urbanites seek-ing better schools for their growing families.
Waterford's expanding student body necessitated the construc-tion of four new schools and 15 additions between 1953 and 1982.
By comparison, the previous three decades had required only one replacement school (Great Neck in 1930) and one addition (to Quaker Hill in 1948). The most notable change was the building of the town's first high school in 1956. Earlier, tuition (beginning in 1897) and transportation (since 1909) had been paid by the town for students to attend three area private high schools. Two of these were replaced by the New London High School when it opened in 1951.
Citing overcrowding, ninth graders were refused continued admis-sion there in 1956. (If there had been a continuing agreement offered-like the East Lyme-Salem one of 1998-future joint high school integration of the two towns might have resulted.)
The initial meeting of the high school student council convened in the Clark Lane School library (above). The high school was on double sessions at that facility until its own permanent build-ing was completed four months later.
The 1959 aerial photograph (right) shows its first addition-at top center-that was required when it became a complete four-year secondary school that year.
The expandable 24-room Waterford. High School building at 20 Rope Ferry Road was occupied in January 1957 with grades 7-9 in attendance.
UPWARDLY MOBILE PARENTS, gung-ho teachers and "You don't know just how good you are" leadership were the initial enablers. Added was the pristine newness of an insti-tution in which one could make one's mark. These-together with the national challenge of the space race-combined to produce an overachieving climate for much of the high school's -first decade. It was also the time of strict discipline. Girls were sent home if their mandatory skirts didn't fully cover their knees.
The awakening nation's plunge into science and math educa-tion after the Soviet launch of the 184-lb Sputnik into orbit in 1957 was joined locally with talk of extending the school day by an hour.
Five foreign languages (Russian, German, Latin, French and Spanish-the latter two still fully available in 1998) were offered.
Included in this expansive period was the creation of a student pub-lication. It was the first magazine in the world to distribute news of JFK's election victory in 1960 (before classes the next morning). The student editor, who wrote the article that accompanied Kennedy's cover photograph, was taken by Congressman Chester Bowles and local National Democratic Committeewoman Beatrice Rosenthal to meet the candidate.
The latter 1960s saw the national beginnings of America's youth turning their focus elsewhere-to the introspection era of the me generation. With the growing affluent and less austere life (for the first time in history hand-fired heating and the taking out-of ashes had ended) more children became affordable for parents. Not having experienced the deprivation of the unifying Depression, the single-minded dedication of war years and the shortages that fol-lowed, many youth assumed an "I didn't ask to be born" attitude.
Learning for later life was set aside by an indulgence in the quest for instant gratification. Matching the era's inflation of prices and cheap-ening of goods was the inflation in school grades. It was the Age of Aquarius.
Increasingly, schools were expected to resolve all the growing social issues besetting the nation. Such intrusion was at the expense of the school day in an ever more complicated world.
GROWTH IN FACILITIES Schools, year of construction, with addition dates italicized:
Clark Lane 1953, 1953, 1960, 1965, 1973, 1987, 1995.
Cohanzie 1923,1956, 1972.
Great Neck 1930, 1956, 1988.
Jordan 1918,1926, 1956(closed in 1979).
Oswegatchie 1965.
Quaker Hill 1915, 1948, 1956, 1988.
Southwest 1958, 1965.
Waterford High School 1957, 1959, 1962, 1968, 1982.
GROWTH IN ENROLLMENT The initial 1956 high school enroll-ment was 612 in three grades (7,8,9).
Becoming a four-year 9-12 school in 1959, it graduated its first class of 161 the following spring.
Later graduation classes fluctuated.
from a high of 330 in 1972 to a low of 120 in 1995. In 1998 it graduated 151.
The enrollment varied from a high of 1,365 in 1976 to a low of 621 in 1992.
Total K-12 enrollments in the final third of the century varied from a high of 4,511 in 1967 to a low of 2,198 in 1989.
Town enrollment census in 1998 had 1,364 in K-5, 725 in 6-8, 785 in 9-12 and 77 in preschool and Headstart classes for a total of 2,951.
In addition, 59 attended area tech-nical schools, 17 were enrolled in other out-of-town schools and 19 were home schooled.
-j Three of the four school buildings added in the second half of the twentieth.
century served elementary students,-
incuding Southwest at 51 Daniels Avenue
-(above) and Oswegatchie at 470 Boston Post Road (left). Unlike the three older elementary schools extant in 1998, the three were constructed to supplement existing educational facilities.
121
-ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS were ~the ~firstl public:
placs oflearingfor brth the towni~a"n'd-its ~s-t-u'dent-s. Oye her I
they were alled in' tun quarter,` common, dsrc'id~m a
schols Bsk~Cols'f earning;,and,expectds~ beairwr if ~metic.'
An;.examination' of te-several b~uildinigs'tttseieth i!
Jodnareao ofers a7lesso indrtAe d'SIevelopmenitoflleeetr SC 00-pus 6ars :of seriRope iier I
eryRoad institution -eVolved from alsmtalll ne-iodriure ooln t;-o' n18-cls'-ro-heingh 'ce'nte-r-beforeclosln-g
_n199
_'~,,~-
-,;The inost recen't Jordiiisn use n~179 hail'a~ezohfd li6a~i~6
'shoolhosl
~
1 Rp FryRodhs liest'dal i
'94.Rsn rh'thwnecasesv of its pre ecessor inie 4918,o e.h then argestscoln onrcevd twjwddtin in12 adaagdigfaturing an assembl roxi 15 an'lst~rr nvt'es'seaDbY this buiildinig The soohbuchh 6r61 hhganklei'-d i Quaker Hill wt h
sering, "of cocoa-An" 190 -,!ythe newy formied Waterford Pbi HelhNursing"Srvc (1920-96)XIt',4becamea.4townwide chol when
~ seventhand.eighi-7graders ~imiiated jumior there in--1953 :Reverting ~t~
-grade~elementary.hihslase lowing yea, its most,;vCd,`r-osj w
eA6 (he' 1960s whenclasses
w'f~onutd eveihlheiiidit6rid n X.11.Wt eclining.
The ~preserved house (above),was original-erlment at the close o'f the ba~by~boorn perioidjorda'ns scoo days bgilnn~ t some 'undetermined later'date,-:.
enddwtaterufil sen neart 25 RopelFerr fi Roadains1758 blIy_ in 1 97 9
-i' wi hen thee tjordanscolutl15 disused century-old house was HEiD HREtefrtshoswelca
_movedi to157.BostonPost Road..
-fis"Ivyt It wa replced tat yea~r by a purpoe nteJra ato etFrsi 4tnaiiol au eatc built two~ romsoo ol to ht I~ted e
at th asenend of the laite-r-town hail W~sd Jra)wsiiteNc n
eatc ector whnWs
%sh tal op ~YRad am 6frtdvded 6'*
cholditrct in 1-1724 IJn 173 As-rostrucitre (mhidye rigt Fdws nto ree itid 3
suppi4lanted this vandalized building in a schoolhuse,wa ifidiiectl imentioned NWo Rp erry Road 1911 After its 'destruiction b ie t'
'~
col
,,,in turn 'was' iu~p-is~ded in 191i8 by the adteJra ilod ihnbe o h ua erd extanit eight-classr~oom buiildirig bottom iilvsardb thos ite, New"Ln d0 nlith l scool right).~ This final strutr eevd
~
~
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aditions in 1926 and 1956.':The school niaster's 1year' sometimes h-a'd-to pe'apprtoedtiti
,h grounds (p.-147) 'w'eiecinicrenlentall'y Thexolos tte E-re~fRp eryR~dadGlu t:z'ended weutwiid ovrth' year 7z".'
4-7~H;Lane
-doc~um-e hte-din" a 1749 eds e
te(cer h' P'the eJ'Sd&B I a r trudge'di i~ihis'Logr H-il site6. Th ais(eiin'f saate Jrdndsi is in 179)have-""
been in ~existence before,then6 V,~'
179, suiu~ll'rnys~7 Si'
'5 4
i C:y
1A i'A school; dasThe 10noiceof te initial WaterfordiwAmetn d
tobe postedonthe sch oo ouse tJ Durin tis perd meetings -were hel in htltl schoohueo I "3" thI escoooue:n the' Ropve Ferry. Road iwrote. historian-R _~B. 'Wall &,entiry later Te district s 15anulmeetigamtatheHoe[mpss
-ddedNW O'cupied as a School Hpu'se'in jo~rldt 'District" '
proposed,1823 schoolhouse was to be.
la.d'6fElia s Perkns
[grandaher. of Mrs' D H Nevins].'? oi ihe Nor h"side of t e
rodla~dng.
thh eR~pefry; between eh houses no cupied by.,
Nathan r
& aHenry Clark Fu ler, docuIentaton may be cantt b-eca*p some siteswere on the rat o
Sa-ins einsfaimily loida n ic The preser-edga brel-roofed house :(on-the Jordan G reen snce 1Y 972)'-served ' asbchoo Lfor' an un rb2'jerio'd -befrte con firmed eof 8758 by jedidiaih B rown (Robert L:-LBucher),'it~stands as,the to'W-ns oldest extant'schoolhouse
- 1 andlsecond ldest ic
,ud cb uilding.
a.Itwsladii'15byth'5ws6irs t
oinroomcho"lx2.
1L Thsstructure wa~s aefr' ls w toiji anas xthbikh ho olhouse.n 'aniiua rent'of si cents'was'required'by'David H
- 1.
2 J-3 evins or--he one-acre -slte at' '.,Terry'od--Te'"nr 1
dAepartmeiit"'
d thi-u'pjper floor-.-,Its boy-s"de-libeirately.,stomped
- on the steps to dslo-ge irt mto ihe school s communal water buck 2,-
e d,..'ladle underneath.. To educate them in moe civl de me
--Mis'sLesnaBrookwas hird
-at eight dollars a week in '9 Fire con-k
'suned the struicturein -1911.'i.
C~ONSoLiDATION 1into rne toXvidzcho districtin 1898-2-along wrth wimproved acce resued i the con tsrUCtion f few-butirI gramma sichooldbuidings The fi rst to~wk-buliilt school -w~ as s ed i 9 o~test fi~rcnl F tdes3tioyd predecessoxToo,years laterth six-roomischooi was for Amally reor izgdaintoa modern gadedgproam:rio'rt 6his stu ~
dents advanced at theirownpindividua or small grouppace.'The first.
Parent-Te cher Ass ocitions bean at Jordan and Quaker',H-i Jn y1 e
r is structu wa tn.nde'siry'ed by, cnfla ae eirsteght rooms ofthextant building.-,
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BOOK LEARNING had to take a back seat for the pioneer European settlers. Their first priority nvas survival. The second priority was to tame the wilderness. Caulkins, the progenitor of local historians, presumed that mandated schooling was estab-lished in the New London town plot in 1678 and placed the first town schoolhouse on Hempstead (corner future Broad) Street in 1713. The first schools operated perhaps three months a year in any available space, primarily in private homes. Lyme, the neighboring town to the wvest, utilized a tavern in 1680 with the barkeep as the schoolmaster.
The eighteenth-century Connecticut schools were essentially Congregational parochial schools. They opened with prayer and a reading from the Bible. Saturday afternoons were devoted to learn-ing the Congregational catechism. The only textbook-carefully handed down in the family from child to child-was the crudely printed 80-page New England Primer that was full of religious teach-ing (for the letter A: "In Adam's Fall, We sinned all") with the cate-chism at its end. Not until the 1818 state constitution ended their legal domination did the favored Congregationalists find it necessary to establish Sunday schools.
Robert Bartlet (single t) willed his estate to "support a school where the poor of the town might be instructed." This legacy in-cluded 250 acres on the Thames River at Bartlett's Cove (named for him) and five parcels of land on Great Neck. But New London diverted the money in 1713 to support its mandated Latin prepara-tory school for entrance to Yale and Harvard. This inheritance-plus a share of the meager revenue from the rope ferry and a fund From Pennsylvania lands sold by Connecticut-was thus usurped by the village dwellers. Only after prolonged heated debate was half of the revenue reluctantly shared with the farmers in 1724.
THREE SCHOOL DISTRICTS were established that year among the farmers: [Great] Neck & Nehantick, West and Northward. The first mention of a Neck and Nehantick school site was in 1725 when a four-rod-square lot was purchased on the east side of the fourth tier (map, p. 56) on later-named Pepperbox Road.
A 1737 deed noted that access to a second schoolhouse *vas reserved just north of Rope Ferry Road on the wvest side of Jordan Brook.
Another building on Rope Ferry Road at Gallup Lane was obliquely referred to in 1747.
Stated dates are not always the full story-as students might argue. The majority of school site-acquisition deeds for over a cen-tury described the location as "on which the school now stands."
The land on which the Nathan Hale schoolhouse in New London was built was obtained six years after Capt. Hale's final regret.
The one-and two-room district school era ended locally wvhen four of the six new Great Neck School (top) classrooms were first occupied in 1930.
The 165 Great Neck Road building re-placed the extant 1870 two-room Granite-ville facility, which was later leased to the Boy Scouts in 1947.
Also dosed w-as the circa 1854 East Neck brick structure (right) at 170 Niles Hill road, built seven years after the derelict Pepperbox meetinghouse was pulled down. The site was a patently informally transferred. It ad been privately owned since 1939, but the Baptists made its original release official nearly a century later in 1951 with a quitclaim deed.
Also superseded was its 1850 Greek-Revi-val predecessor (bottom) with its pre-1912 46-star flag. The overhead stove-pipe helped distribute the last bit of heat to the gender-segregated scholars.
The 1857 white Spithead schoolhouse opposite the end of Mullen Hill Road (right) replaced the apparently adjacent 1808 structure destroyed by fire. The year it ceased service is unknown. Per-haps trolley fares were furnished for at-tendance at Jordan School after 1911.
The incomplete terse documentation of most oft e one-room schools is frag-mented at best. What hasn't been lost may well remain in local attics.
A stop-frame portrait of 1868 district bounds is noted on the map on page 37.
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V-1 124
-1 Conversely, Jordan mill's site and proprietorship approved in 1709 was not utilized until 1732.
Because of his "great Love and Esteem [he had] for Learning,"
Pain Turner donated a magnanimous 16-by 22-ft plot in 1752.
--Probably this site was located opposite 155 Great Neck Road where Wall described an ancient schoolhouse in 1915. Its replacement was built on the Cato lot at the extreme SE corner of the future 1930 schoolyard. East Neck separation was granted in 1801-the year of the town's independence-and an 18-by 20-ft lot on the east side of the later-named Dimmock Road "on which'the school now stands" was purchased in 1812. It was succeeded by the extant brick "Pepperbox" school that overlooked the earlier site.
A brick structure served Durfey (earlier Nehantick) Hill on its eastern crest on land leased in 1836 opposite a private cemetery. It, in turn, was replaced by the extant two-room Graniteville school located below the hill at 239 Rope Ferry Road. The Millstone schoolhouse was provided by Henry Gardiner II from 1901 to 1918 for a token dollar a year.
The Spithead district was carved from parts of Nehantick and West districts in 1808 and built opposite the west end of Mullen Hill Road. Established as early as 1794, the Head of the River school was located at 1 River Road in later East Lyme (Stacy). By that year West Farms had ten of Connecticut's 200 school districts.
The extant 1930 cupola-topped school at the corner of Goshen and Great Neck roads served virtually the same area as the pioneer 1725 Neck and Nehanrtick district had originally.
ICHABOD CRANE-like "boarding around" was provided for the teacher from as early as 1756 in the North West school to as late as 1856 at the Smith school. 'Stacked wood (or
$5.50 a cord option at Jordan in 1815) had to be supplied or the student was seated in -the coldest corner. These in-kind costs plus a tax levy and probably tuition (until 1868) were supplemented by a state subsidy from the sale of Western Reserve land.
Citizens with means sent their offspring to private schools, thus diminishing local support even further. In the 1840 period, black-smith Reuben Moore conducted a school in the former Solomon Rogers tavern (p. 35). Lavinta Munger taught a select school at 15 North Road following 1864. David H. Nevins (p. 117) sent his daughter Marian to her aunts' private school in New London.
Contrarily, a school for out-of-town exceptional children origi-nated as a rural summer camp at 78 Hunts Brook Road in'1929.
Four-season capacity was added to Camp Waterford in 1942, and Waterford Country School became a nonprofit institution in 1969, later becoming filled with just Connecticut youth.
125
Built in 1915, the bluff-top austere-looking Quaker Hill School (top left) replaced two earlier one-room district structures. The more familiar pillared-entrance addition facing the Old Norwich Road at number 118 dates to 1948. just orth of it the first to serve the area was raised in 1749.
The 20- by 28-ft Smith Joint District it schoolhouse (above), also superseded in
~
1915, was shoehorned in between the Union Cemetery and the Lathrop Road on a20-ft site in 1847.
The second schoolhouse that the early twentieth-centur building replaced was the greatly modifid extant one at 50 Old Norwich Road. Itw~as built in 1858 about 240 ft north of its predecessor, near she earlier dividing line between the middle and lower commons (Bucher).
The Cohanzie School (below) was built at 48 Dayton Road in 1923 for $65,000.
It replaced four schools: the 1861 brick Gilead School (far left above), the one-I
.4 126
room "Peter Baker" one located on far northern Vauxhall Street (below), the Lakes Pond brick building (p. 13) to-gether with its two-room 1870 Cohanzie predecessor (left). Built on the east side of the Country Road to Col-chester (Vauxhall Street Extension since 1961), the site is under I-95 pavement.
As early as 1919 Maude Radway would bus students from the overcrowded two-room building to the Jordan School af-ter her husband Guy Radway finished using his truck (bottom left) on his milk route. It was possibly the town's first school bus.
Of uncertain vintage, the oldest known Cohanzie schoolhouse was the lower left two-thirds of the extant residence at 643 Vauxhall Street (nearer above left) that was moved from the opposite side of the street when replaced in 1870 (map. p. 37).
All this was far removed from the 1998-99 school year that saw every classroom wired for their 1,152 school computers.
d st rd 1THE COMMONS north of the Great Neck fence had scattered holdings granted 'to various town freemen during the early years of settlement. Boundary descriptions on the deeds were usually vague. Perhaps facetiously, Stacy declared that the location cited on one grant concluded "if you can find it.", Settlement was uneven, with navigable water-accessible areas being the first choice.
In 1726 the Quaker Hill land "Southward of Alewife [Hunts]
brook" was granted "parish [taxing] privileges" by the General Assembly. -Hempstead noted that when he laid -out the Old Colchester Road (the second in the town with that destination) to alewife coave" (sic) 'in 1750 that it was "6 Rod N wd of the Schoolhouse." The district was divided in 1770 when the North East (future Smith Joint) District purchased a 13-by 18-ft plot near the east side of future Route 32. The right to dismantle two old school-houses was given in payment. Its final building was built on Lathrop Road in 1847 "where the old [school]house now stands."
Meanwhile The Quaker Hill District soon abandoned its orig-inal site. Its later buildings were built southward 'on what was later the Old Norwich Road. The two district schools closed in 1915 when replaced by the extant Quaker Hill School, which housed the town's first kindergarten in 1948.
The nineteenth-century schoolmarm who worked for -less was preceded by the eighteenth-century schoolmaster who began' the winter term customarily in November after the crops were in. A spring term followed, taught by a woman for girls and the younger boys. These home-based Dame schools taught acceptable 'social expectations and the ABC's. The winter-and spring-term designa-tions persisted locally to the 1949-1950 school year.
THE 1923 COHANZIE SCHOOLHOUSE re-placed four district schools. Hempstead paid the initial West school committee £ 7-5s-Od in 1726. The first building stood on Cross Road at.the later I-95.- The 168 Parkway North site of the extant "Gilead" schoolhouse was purchased in 1819.
The first split from the West Society was authorized -by the General Assembly in 1743.- North West inhabitants were taxed six pence on the pound two years later to build its school. On Christmas Day, 1773, they voted to replace it "near whearthe old one stands."
A west Lakes Pond district was established in 1770 and was formal-ly separated a decade later. Its first facility was located near 156 Butlertown Road. It fronted the relocated road on the south in 1787 instead of previously north. The red brick building at later Lake Konomoc was built on land leased in 1838.
-The "Cohanzy" district was formed between 1780 and 1794.
The two prior facilities of the extant Cohanzie schoolhouse survive, recycled into a house and the brick veneer on Miner Avenue.
127
A private chapel, Our Lady of Good Counsel, was erected in the late 1880s at the future Harkness estate site by Lindley Chapin in memory of his first wife. In summer use until Chapin's death in 1896, the small chapel's altar cloths and vestment trim were made from his late wife's laces. The three children of his second wiFe were all christened there by Archbishop Corrigin of New York. Chapin's daughter Kathe ne, born at the Gos hen Point summer mansion in 1890, later married Francis Biddle, attorney general under FDR and a judge at the Nuremberg trials follow-ing WWII.
In 1813 his early relative, naval hero James Biddle together with Stephen Decatur-had watched a Brit-ish naval skirmish from the adjoining Rogers farm. This period paint-ing here portrays the chapel in dark green with red trim. The chapel was located west across the drive from the later Harkness garage.
The attractive chancel of St. Paul in Chains Church witnesses the celebration of a wedding mass. The promised beauty of the house of worship's exterior waited 34 years for the 1998 addition of its spire, which towered 126 ft above the vround.
This example of New England architecture arguably is the most attractive church in a dozen towns. Its park-like loca-tion atop Logger Hill would please the early colonists who chose 'beacon on a hill' sites for their meetinghouses.
VII. The Warmth of Religion PEOPLE FROM VARIOUS RELIGIOUS and cul-tural backgrounds have come to the American shore, many wel-comed by the Statue of Liberty built on a base of Millstone granite.
During West Farms' first three centuries these seekers of a better life found local houses of worship to be exclusively Baptist. This changed dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century when urban parents of the baby boomer generation took advantage of GI Bill financing of suburban life following WWII. While retain-ing their homeland faith, they became-sometimes unwillingly-more acclimated to a new culture. In an otherwise alien world, they sought to keep alive old-world traditions regarding their places of worship. Some out-of-state newcomers, who came to work in the local chemical/industrial/military sector, wished to continue their back-home ways of worshipping as well.
It wasn't always easy for the new arrivals. Prejudice against Roman Catholics had been brought from England (where they were excluded from civic and military offices until 1829). A residue of this antipapacy was displayed locally in 1815 when the Jordan school dis-trict's annual meeting was called for ChristMASS Day. The area's first Roman Catholic church was artfully built between two New London Protestant residences for protection from arson in 1843.
Called St. John's (such names had been familiar for New England Episcopal churches for over a century), it was replaced by St. Patrick's in 1855. This name, in turn, reflected the origin of newly arrived congregants. The 1876 replacement was named St. Mary's Star of the Sea, which appellation unabashedly proclaimed a unique pillar of the faith.
The great migration of many of its communicants to the sub-urbs following WMII resulted in the formation of a-separate Waterford parish, St. Paul's, in 1960. The Waterford' Catholics showed complete fifth-generation cultural assimilation in 1964 by erecting a traditional colonial-style New England edifice at 170 Rope Ferry Road that differed in architecture from its urban old-world Gothic mother church.
Incorporated in New London in 1904 for'Polish-.speaking parishioners, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church was later guided through two drastic transitions by Father Leo S. 'Sutula,'a first-gen-eration American. His 1964-98 pastorship provided continuity for both the forced move to a Quaker Hill location' at 63' Old Norwich Road in 1973 and the generational change to a parish that had become both English-speaking and half descendent fro'm :other'C-ancestry by 1998.
ELSEWHERE IN TOWN,' the
'Crossroads Presbyterian Church presented a different facet with its amalgama-tion of first-and second-generation local adherents and newer arrivals from Presbyterian backgrounds. For 23fyears (1966-89) it put ministry and mission before bricks and mortar by.worshipping at various venues until a complete church plant housing a senior day-care center was built at 70 Cross Road in 1989. The denomination',
-joined a Plan of Union with the New England Congregational'asso:-
ciations from 1792 to 1837.
The'1915 bell fro m the former church "Mary, Queen of Poland, pray forgaus" isJoinedp by the relocated stain d-glass windows in the theerwise con1tem-porary Quaker Hill edifice. Its,
- mhitheatrici seating focuses on he silvery crucifix suspended behind the sim-tle altar, both ifrom above by a ofartes light.it rch abov b a teThe Polish heritage is represented by.
aPolish dinner and dance during the
~Easter season and Polish carols and op/atki at Christmnastime'.-
T'
~
on yi chrlit organ in town.
chancel choir, under the direction of Dr. Roberta IBitgood, FAGO, UhM, in prvt eidne.Wterford-
-ntv lnMcNeely coiistriici ed his first orga in1966whe hewas 14. This 1989 McNeely opus 54 was built with,-
the assistance of Paul Joseph as part of the original church plant..;
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A WATERFORD WELCOME was extended by many of its religious institutions to worshippers from greater dis-tances than adjacent towns. Some adherents came as refugees from wvar-torn foreign lands. The highways that served the town as a regional retail center also provided easy access to the regional wor-ship centers of many faiths.
The gold dome surmounted by a cross that distinguishes the church at 41 Cross Road is a reminder of such edifices in the Holy Land. This Middle-Eastern Byzantine architecture is appropriate for St. Ann Melkite Catholic Church, where custom and tradition resemble those of the Greek Orthodox church, but recognize the Pope as its leader in faith. Local congregants' families were mostly from the Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine region. One of only 25 in the nation, this local church was founded in New London in 1929. It moved to Waterford in 1978 "to follow the people" to a larger edifice and parking lot to serve this growing Greek-rite Roman Catholic church.
WATERFORD'S FIRST SYNAGOGUE was built in 1979 at 29 Dayton Road. In 1960 five couples met to begin a local Reform temple, as the nearest ones were then in Providence, New Haven and Hartford. The congregation met in various Groton and New London locations before purchasing the Waterford site in 1974.
Named Temple Emanu-EI in 1961, its burgeoning membership spurred the congregation to end its itinerant ways. Having the largest Jewish religious school in eastern Connecticut, it utilized the nearby Cohanzie School until an education wing was added to the synagogue in 1997 to better serve its 250 households.
Set back from the street on a knoll, the Kingdom Hall at 8 Lancashire Court blends into both the neighborhood and its treed site. Built in 1981 by Jehovah's Witnesses, the California-style struc-ture replaced an earlier hall at 815 Hartford Road, built in 1956, where parking space had become a problem. The new site had room for more than 70 automobiles.
A 65-ft steeple with a 16-ft spire crowns the hilltop setting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 12 Dunbar Road; In the 1920s only five or six Mormon families lived in the area. A formal branch was organized in wartime 1942. A chapel building fund, begun in 1954 with the selling of bagged peanuts, was initiat-ed by then branch president Kimball Young, a great-grandnephew of Brigham Young. The first two building phases of the local chapel were completed in 1963, the final phase in 1970. By 1972 atten-dance had so increased that 600 members split off to form the Groton ward, which continued to worship in Quaker Hill until its own chapel was built.
130 Rabbi Aaron Rosenberg holds one of Temple Emanu-El's torahs, which contain the first five books of the Bible.
Consecutive portions of the scriptures are read each Sabbath from thehand-lettered parchment scroll.
The contemporary-style synagogue has a striking stucco exterior. Inside, the sunken-sanctuary design was cho-sen to create warmth, intimacy and flexibility.
St. Ann's Melkite Church (below) is reminiscent of period Middle-Eastern Byzantine worship places where the church originated The California-style architecture of Kingdom Hall (bottom) is a contrasting contemporary place of communal worship.
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Education came first for the Seventh-Day Adventists in Waterford. After meeting informally in private homes in the 1920s, Adventists erected a modest 16x28-ft church schoolhouse at'312 Boston Post Road during the Depression years of the early 1930s. A larger school was built in 1967 at 152 Bloomingdale Road.
Dependent upon tuition'fees in addition to tithing, the day school closed and in 1986 the building was dedicated to worship services.
OVER A CENTURY BEFORE diverse houses of worship were erected, bereaved members of many faiths sought Waterford for the final resting place for their departed relatives. Mid-nineteenth-century ways combined honoring the dead with Sunday afternoon excursions-to stroll picturesque rural pastoral cemeteries.
Transportation was available: Burr's Buses in New London adver-
'tised a seasonal h orse-adrawn service to the Jefferson Avenue ceme-teries in 1885.
Sylvan Cedar Grove Cemetery on Prospect Hill was consecrated in 1851. Remains were'moved to this scenic Waterford site from New London's Second Burial Ground and even from the "Antientist" Burial'Ground. But it was years before blacks could be buried there:
Gravestone researcher 'Clarence Faulk's relatives were therefore buried in Jordan Cemetery. The West Neck Cemetery on Great Neck Road and the Lakes Pond Baptist Church Cemetery on the Hartford Road each included African-Americans who served in the Union forces in the Civil War; namely, Joseph Ross Hendrahand and Aziah Freeman.'Cedarr Grove was joined in 1869 by St.` Patrick's (later renamed St. Mary's) Cemetery across Jefferson Avenue, on the north-ern slope of Prospect Hill. In 1997 William 0. -Taylor, -former, publisher of the Boston Globe, had the remains of his ancestors, removed from Cedar Grove (in New London since 1899) to the for-mer family hom'esite at 305 Great Neck Road.
Ranging from small family plots to large cemeteries, the town was dotted with such memorials to its human heritage. The largest sepulchral 'place was 'the 35-acre Jordan Mutual Cemetery at 240 Boston Post Road. The 1826 inscription on the headstone of Daniel Prentiss probably indicated the year of the first interment. Begun as a family enterprise by the Chappells, son-in-law Frank Rose had the fieldstone main entranceway built in 1914. His son, Rufus (p. '146),
mowed the lawn and 'dug graves as a youth. Rufus sold the family interest to the Jordan Mutual Cemetery Association in 1932.
Congregation tAhavath'CChesed and '.Congregation Ohev. Sholem established Jewish-cemeteries at nearby 273 Boston Post Road in
-1893. Three period Baptist-burial grounds were at 171' 'Niles Hill
- Road (1730), 78 Mullen Hill Road (1777)'and 1135 Hartford Road
- (1850). The Church Cemeteriy at 37 Lathrop Road was named for the Capt. Edwin Church family, who are among those interred there.
131
II THE TOWN'S FIRST CHURCH was not in Waterford. Meeting House Hill ("Antientist" Burial Ground area) overlooking the hamlet that became New London was the site of the county's first church. A beating drum called the first worshippers to a converted barn in 1651. There they welcomed Rev. Richard Blinman, wvho had brought his flock with him from Wales via Massachusetts. It was an age when town meetings chose the minis-ter, collected taxes for his hire and settled pewv seatings. Family, social position and age determined where one sat for the long Sabbath morning and afternoon preachings. The men sat on one side by rank apart from their distaff on the other side, who were equally conscious of position. In wintertime the parishioners resorted to taverns or private houses to thaw out during the "nooning" interval between the two unheated meetinghouse services.
By the time the local area was settled, the fiery Puritan zeal of the earlier generation had been banked. Faced with declining mem-bership and apathy, the Connecticut Congregationalists instituted a second-class membership in 1662 for the unconverted. Although not able to partake in communion, upright citizens could now have their children baptized-a prerequisite for their future membership. Full members continued to need regeneration ("born again") and make a public declaration of personal faith. This Half-Way Covenant move-ment probably helped influence the local growth in membership from 12 male and 21 female members in 1688 to a total of 141 by 1708. (The First Church of Christ in New London ceased collecting nonmembers' ministerial tax and shed town control in 1727.)
CHALLENGING CONTRARINESS came from the children of the largest payer of the ministerial tax. The town charged wealthy James Rogers, owner of the southern half of Quaker Hill and much of Great Neck, one-tenth of New London township's total assessment. He had joined First Church in 1670 and his chil-dren had been baptized. But his sons John and James were rebaptized by immersion by Rhode Island Seventh Day Baptists in 1674, the remainder of the family the following two years. Such local Sabbatarians were members of the Westerly (Hopkinton) church for over a century until the Great Neck group became an independent church in 1784. Second of that denomination in Connecticut, it was again one of two serving the state in 1998.
Twvo Rhode Island Baptist elders came to New London in 1677 to baptize son Joseph's wife. When warned by constables to select a more private place, layman son John took it upon himself to defy both civil and church law and baptized her himself. This began John's defiance and his sect, the Rogerenes (almost all were Rogerses or their relatives), evolved. They differed from the orthodox of the The first Sabbatical meetinghouse was jointly built with the First Baptists in 1730. Located at 170 Niles Hill Road, it wvas followed by their own ed-ifice (above) at 199 Great Neck Road in 1816. Sold for $50, it was moved across the road to 212 when replaced in 1860 by the larger one (top) at 206.
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day mainly in being against organized religion with its "hireling" clergy, meetinghouses and special days of worship. To them prayer was a private matter between man and his Creator and it was a sin to use medicine and the services of a physician. While they were silent in their prayers, they wvre'just the opposite in proclaim'-
ing their distaste for institutional religion. The in'-your-face civil-disobedience demonstrators of their day, the Rogerenes would drive rumbling' carts by the rmeetinghouse during worship services,' chop wood on the'doorstep outside or even push'a wheelbairo'w down the church aisle to hawk farm produce during a service.-
The Rogers family members-especially'Johii-cnourted arrest so frequently (he spent almost a third of his life in jail) that it became almost impossible for the-town to find a constable that would 'face arresting them. This was especially true after Jamnes' Rogers' wife threw scalding water after one constable who was rollingea barrel of beef away from their Great Neck house for the nonp ment of the ministerial tax. John died of smallpox in'1721 at hisihouse near more recent Be'ham Avenue. His land was named Quaker!Hill in derision by his detractors, equating him with the early ranting Massachusetts' Quakers. His son declared that John "did publicly in'print oppo'se the Quakers in those main principles wherein they differ' from other sects."
(The first Quaker meeting came to Waterford in 1985 when it purchased the 1929 Oswegatchie Chapel at 176 Oswegatchie'Road.)
ABRUPT RENEWAL characterized the revivalist Great Awakening that 'began with the preaching 'of Jonathan Edwards in 'his Northampton, MA, church in 1734. Hempstead wrote that "there hath been the wonderfull'w6rkof God made Evident in the powerfull Convictions Conversion of Divers persons in an Ektreordinary manner 'which 'began at the' preaching of Mr.
[Jedidiah] Mills" locally in 1741. More influential was'the extremist James Davenport from Long Island. He converted man'y but earned the violent opposition of others.
These "New Light" converts were opposed by the "Old Lights" Iwho wished to continue listening to erudite sermons addressed to the intellect. A New Light group gathered around Noah Hammond, and the erection of the frame of a meetinghouse was begun on his 40-acre farm near Fengers Brook (on the later'Boston Post Road). In an attempt to stem the changes, the General Assembly in 1742 pro-hibited even ordained ministers from preaching outside their own
- parish and closed the ministry to all but graduates of Harvard and Yale Colleges. (In 1998 about a fourth of the First and a third of the Second Congregational Church members were from Waterford, the only Connecticut town where a Congregational spire had yet to pierce the sky.)
Elder Zadoc(k) Darrow is buried in the Howard Cemetery at 78 Mullen Hill Road across from the site of the meet-inghouse where he served nearly all his very long life. The 1788 "Darrow" meetinghouse (p. 10) was replaced by one at 105 Rope Ferry Road in 1848 (see cover). Both Elder Darrow and Elder Nathan Howard were converts in the 1740s Great Awakening revival and came to the Baptist persuasion by way of the New Light movement from Church of England and Congregational backgrounds, respectively.
- : dAthough the Rogers family was elarge r(o~ne~soii fr ~the Izogerene=
foundrhd 20 children-i ncluding 2:
-Ei~zabeths;'2 Johns, 2 Jonathans and 3 >amuels), :many emigrated west-:
'wird. Two Sabbatarian ministers led
-"parts-of their flock to Chenango <
CountNY, n.1807-and the 1833 S period, for example. The 1998 tele-phone directory, elisted,;only 14.
- ~- Waterford Rogers households-not
- all necessarily descendents 133
Henry P. Haven founded the Gilead Sun-day School in 1836 and served as its superintendent for 40 years. He re-organized the Lakes Pond Sunday School in 1857. Half-brother to Historian Frances Caulkins, Haven was a partner in a firm that sent over 200 vessels in pursuit of whales, seals, and sea elephants. This "prince of whales" willed the money to the city of New London which built its public library.
SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH in Connecticut was organized in West Farms in 1710 by Valentine Wightman of Rhode Island after he had founded its mother church in Groton in 1705. For the following two and a half centuries only Baptist churches were to be found in Waterford. His young friend, Stephen Gorton, was among the visitors who conducted meetings in local homes before a meetinghouse was built at 170 Niles Hill Road in 1730. (The later Pepperbox meetinghouse tall for its size with a tall hip roof that resembled the condiment container-was also jointly owned with the Seventh-Day Baptists before being pulled down in 1847.) Named its pastor in 1726, Gorton had a very successful early ministry, attracting members from Lyme, Saybrook, Wallingford and elsewhere to join the local faithful. But the coming of zealous New Light converts (such as Philip Tabor, who was arrested in 1743 for throwing Gorton and his Bible down a hill) caused dissension. Gorton's detractors accused him of being "low and irregular in his [moral] habits" in 1766. Found unproven, the following year he wvas accused of Socinianism. His church split, Gorton left in 1767. This first West Farms church ended its days not later than 1771.
S COURGE OF THE STANDING ORDER, Baptist dissenters were considered to be deckussd troublemakers by the old families, commercial interests and the government-supported Congregational church. These disruptive Baptist churches personi-fied grassroots democracy. Local church membership meetings voted on everything concerning the parish: beliefs, policies, finances, mem-bership, clergy qualifications and selection. Everything. These incu-bators of hands-on democracy later intrigued renowned observer Alexis de Tocqueville (who only viewed Waterford from the Sound in 1831). Such democracy was practiced byWest Farms Baptists long before young Tom Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Originally called "The Second Baptist Church in Waterford," it Dvas renamed The Quaker Hill Baptist Church in 1944. It was built at 144 Old Norwich Road for $1,000 in 1835. It was moved forward and turned 180° in 1986. The horse sheds in the background were typical of mid-nineteenth-century rural churches, including all four Waterford Baptist churches.
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Like him, Baptists were for separation of church and state. They lived the poor-but-independent yeoman farmlife he championed.
Their self-sufficient small holdings created economic independence from oppression. The confluence of West Farms' livelihood,' religion and political interests reinforced each other and resulted in the town's independence that came in 1801.
The year 1748 (Zadoc Darrow said 1742) marked the begin-ning of what was later called the First Baptist Church. New Light,'
Baptists and New Light Congregationalists of Noah Hammond's' church coalesced with regular Baptists to form the 'new interest.
Many of the 16 original members had been baptized as infants and were adamantly against believers' baptism by immersion-the sine.
qua non of the Baptist persuasion. Such mixed backgrounds contin-ued until 1792. Meetings were held at Deacon John' Beckwith's house. Official recognition as a Baptist church in 1767 ended the threat of Congregational church taxation. Elder Nathan Howard, a fisherman, was called to lead the infant church about 1752. At his death in 1777 he was followed by Zadoc Darrow, who gave the group the 'small plot on Mullen Hill Road in 1789 "on which the meetinghouse (p. 10) now stands," as it probably had for decades. By 1794 the church had 295 members and had outposts led by former slave Budge Smith and others in such places as the Pepperbox meet-inghouse and New London-whose latter members formed a'sepa-rate church in 1804. On the church's centennial in 1848 the more substantial edifice (cover) was dedicated at 105 Rope Ferry Road.
In the 1790s Zadoc Darrow conducted outpost services in the Lakes Pond (Lake Konomoc) area. From about 1812 to his death in 1830, Jonathan Ames pastored a church on the east side of that body
'of water. Meetings were held in the 13x20 ft Peter Baker schoolhouse (p. 126) on Vauxhall Street. Later meetings were conducted at the brick schoolhouse (p. 13) on the west side of the pond. There 21 men and 19 women from the First Baptist Church organized them-selves as the Lakes Pond Baptist Church in 1842. During the winters of 1843 and 1844 they constructed the 1144 Hartford Road edifice.
Baptismal services were conducted at the pond until New London,
transformed it into a reservoir and its customers -did not want 'to "drink the sins" of the baptized.
Eastward in the unchurched area surrounding Smiths Cove another church was developed. Organized as the Second -Baptist Church in Waterford in 1835, Frederick Wightman ministered at the first service in its new building (and 12 years later atthe final one at the Darrow meetinghouse). He was a descendent of the founder of the town's first church, as was Palmer G. Wightman, the 1843-46 pastor. In 1890 the Wightman dynasty was honored by a ten-foot monument in the Union Cemetery dedicated to these pioneers of the Baptist faith'.
Pictured is the Gilead Chapel being carefully taken down board by board in 1969 for reassembling at East Had-dam. Two centuries earlier the Ham-mond church had been taken down and reassembled as the Darrow meetinghouse
- at 81 Mullen Hill Road.
Construction of the Gilead Chapel at the NW corner of Foster Road and Park-way North was finished after the death of Haven in 1876. His Sunday school had met in the wooden schoolhouse and its brick replacement (p. 126).
Other community chapels were Cohanzie, 556 Vauxhall Street (before 1872 to 1923); Evangelical Free Church, 6 Johnson Court (1932-47); Oswegatchie, 176 Oswegatchie Road (1929-85); East Neck, 171 Niles Hill Road (1898-1959) and Pleasure Beach, 172 Shore Road (1908-35).
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Generations of Hartford Road wayfarers have seen a silent-witnessing illumi-nated "Jesus Saves" sign on the Lakes Pond Baptist Church. This succinct upfront declaration of the faith of the church is shared with all passersby.
135
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LEISURE-TIME activities capitalizing on the more rural advantages of the town have been enjoyed since the beginning of the settlement. The paucity of soil and the Puritan ethic helped dictate the practicality of such productive activities as cornhuskings, barn raisings, quilt-tyings, family book-reading and-later-spelling bees; nevertheless, they were looked forward to with great anticipa-tion. Such recreation in colonial Connecticut was not so segregated by age as it later became.
The last half of the nineteenth century witnessed the gradual relaxation of the strict Sabbath observance, with the genteel game of croquet gaining popularity in the 1860s and boating (rowing) becoming popular with the young swains for Sunday afternoon out-ings. When seasonal work was less demanding, properly chaperoned hayrides and skating could be enjoyed by the more daring. During the mid-nineteenth century the area that would later become Waterford Parkway North was a brief bucolic rival of New London's Water Street for the sailor's pay. To improve its image, the school dis-trict serving that area was renamed Gilead-"because it was beyond Jordan."
SUMMER WATER PLAYGROUND for swelter-ing inland visitors came to the forefront during the six decades that began during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Such enjoy-ment was initiated shortly after the War of 1812 by Longfield Coxe and his two daughters, who enjoyed boating on the Niantic River while savoring blackfish dinners during their stay at Asa Wightman's tavern. Later Mago Point, Dingleville and Pleasure Beach developed for people who saved all year for a cooling coastal respite, while the Goshen shore attracted those of new wealth.
But it was the Oswegatchie Colony at the headwater of the Niantic where a summer enclave of achievers of national and inter-national repute formed. "Squire" John W. Manwaring began offering hearty farm dinners and lodging to workers from the quarry across the river in East Lyme before it closed in 1873. He soon began boarding "city" people as well. Borrowing its name from the quarry, "Oswegatchie" House was expanded by Seldon Manwaring after the death of his father in 1907 when he enlarged the inn and added cot-tages. Toward the turn of the century, families came for the summer, with the working husbands joining them on the weekends for such activities as boating, dancing, bathing (in "five-piece" swimsuits),
putting, tennis and bridge. President Woodrow Wilson came to Connecticut in 1916 to visit his ill sister, who rented an Oswegatchie cottage where Wilson's elder daughter Margaret spent three summers (1916-18) studying with voice instructor Ross David.
The inn burned in 1935 and Seldon's son, Philip Manwaring Plant, moved the final surviving cottage to its former site, 5 Plant For 30 years Clara Turner and her hus-band, "Uncle Jim" Hammond, whom she married in 1905, toured throughout the East playing leads in such plays as "The Girl of the Golden West" in vari-ous stock companies.
Overleafi Rufus Rose (p. 146), grand-son of the Frank M. Roses pictured boating on Jordan Cove, was renowned for riding his motorcycle to work as a member of the Connecticut General Assembly during his 1963-73 tenure.
138
Drive. He planned to share it with his famous actress wife, Constance Bennett.
WHIMSICAL AND NOSTALGIC cottage archi-tecture was favored by summer pe6ple such as the Savage family, who recalled England when they built what neighbors dubbed "Mostly Hall" on the corner of Plant Drive. It featured a large'two-story, old-world hall with heraldic decorations. The Barnard family built thatch-roofed "Petite Normandie" at 153 Oswegatchie Road.
George Grey Barnard was a world-renowned sculptor who' collected massive parts of European medieval monasteries brought home as "souvenirs." They became the core of the Metropolitan-Museum of Art's 1938 Cloisters (whose exterior is constructed'of Millstone granite). In 1945 the family sold the adjacent house at 151 Oswegatchie Road to" Rhodes scholar Frank Aydelotte',' who' was Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, NJ, where Albert Einstein was an associate.
Trolleys permitted 'Minuscule-lot
, ~
city, dwellers to enjoy the open air at Richards' Grove pavilion and picnic rocatnion (Cove View Drive area) wvas
~ ~4' also the stop for submarine base liberty
.boats, whose ailors could also catch
-trolleys from there to cities north and south. The Navy sponsored summer danc-es there during WNW and enclosed the pavlionad aded astov ino918 Thederlic stucurebured n 927.-
Oswegatchie House resort was at its
~height when this circa 1910 photograph i
ws taken. A separate dormitory was t~~Y
-provided to house the guests' maidcs and chauffeurs.. The inn was supplied with fresh produce from its farm. The-comnin of Prohibition rmarked the begin-ning o the end of this enterprise.
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BARTLETT'S POINT, at the town's extreme NE corner was the starting line for the first Yale-Harvard regatta on the Thames River in 1878. This continued to be the starting or finish-ing line in alternate years for this first intercollegiate athletic contest of any kind in America. The race attracted thousands of spectators in the pre-WWII years, creating massive traffic tangles. Waterford formed a special force of 18 race-day constables in 1925 to patrol its roads. Compensation for the day's work was the summer uniforms they wore.
From its local beginning, the four-mile race course was followed on shore by specially constructed railroad flatcars with canvas-canopied bleachers. Robert B. Chappell, Jr.-of 11 Strand Road since 1958-was for years the lone passenger on the pre-race run of the locomotive, which familiarized the excursion crew in the details of following the contestants along the Waterford shore. As a regatta committee member from 1942 to 1974, he continued the family involvement of his uncle-Frank Valentine Chappell, Yale '98-who served on the committee from 1899 until his death in 1962. Frank was a resident of 214 Great Neck Road from 1925 to 1946. Town resident Reuben Richards was an oarsman for the Harvard crew in 1951 and 1952. From circa 1962 to 1967 (the station cannot fully confirm the years) Hartford television station WTIC used cameras at Black and white television followed the 1966 Yale-Harvard regatta with a better view than enjoyed by earlier multimillonaires on their pre-VrWI palatial yachts. Scores of more modest boats followed the famous races through the 1970s.
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eight land locations plus a ninth on an accompanying launch to tele-cast the varsity race on Channel 3.
The Oswegatchie Yacht Club, Inc., was formed in 1893 in the NW corner of the town with 22 identical sailboats that' were regu-:
larly pitted against each other in summer races. A-new street-since named Hardwick Road-was built to the Thames River in 1917 to serve the Greystone Boat Club (land records call it the 'Thames Boat Club), whose river-front land was purchased earlier that year by Cassie S. Hardwick. She later built the Greystone Heights Clubhouse at 3 Northwood Road in 1919 for teas, social events and presentations such as a fashion show featuring newly stylish batik attire. This is not to be confused with the Cinderella Inn, located on Cinderella Lane. Considered to' be the "inn" place for wedding receptions and New Year's Eve celebrations, it was destroyed by fire in 1950.
KNICKERBOCKER trousers and tam o'shanter golfing attire was first 'worn locally when Col. A. C. Tyler' and some of his Pequot Colony cohorts created the Quaganapoxet (supposedly Indian for salt marshes) Golf Club in 1897. They used the venerable Stevens Rogers farmhouse (p. 79)-which'more recently served the handicapped program at Harkness-for its clubhouse. Problems arose. The small membership of men who had taken up the game late in life was soon surpassed by teenagers new to the sport. Pre-motorcar accessibility was another problem. The final blow to the club came when -a wealthy member presented a bill for extensive improvements that the membership thought was his private contri-bution. These pioneer nine-hole links would later become part of the Harkness estate, although Edward Harkness built 'his'private nine-hole course'elsewhere on the rolling lawn between his'mansion and the Sound.
In 1925 a group of golfers, primarily from out of town, pur-chased land on Lamphere Road. They opened the first nine holes of the New London Country Club the following year' with some'tem-porary greens with rock piles as special hazards.' The club became a standard 18-hole course in 1956. A 1930s driving'range on Bost6n Post Road at Clark Lane was followed 'in 1966 by the Golfland Driving Range at 370 Willetts Avenue.
Public tennis couris date from-1968 at Waterford High Scho'ol.
Since then -16 courts have been built at five park and schoolground locations. In' 1973 private enterprise offered year-round play at:6 Fargo Road where seven indoor tennis courts were constructed in a building covering over an acre. Its name, management and'offerings have varied. In 1979 two of the courts were converted into eight racquetball courts.
.The New London Country Club putting green is in constant use during the golfing season. Here Mrs. George E.
Rowley perfects her skill in 1966.
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. i The bathing attire of these circa 1908 serving girls, gathered here on their afternoon off near White Point, was somewhat more complete than those in the 1964 scene below. The Connect-icut law forbidding males to wear top-less bathing suits was frequenly challenged in the latter 1930s.
Growing concern about the im ortance of preserving town access to the water was answvered with the 1962 purchase of the Waterford Beach Park Its 95 acres featured a 1,200-ft noncommer-cial beach, fronting on Long Island Sound.
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A different utilization of horse-power was at the Waterford Speedbowl, where by the 1990s, 4,000 spectators watched the 40 or so annual events and (depending on wind direction) thousands more may have listened.
K PLING WAS WRONG. The twain-East and West-did meet. It was at 1077 Hartford Road when Morgan Chaney purchased his 224-acre spread atop Konomoc Hill in 1923.
(Its ranch house was within a hundred miles of the Western frontier when it was built in 1745.) Chaney, a descendent of New England sea captains, had gone to Texas as a boy and lived there for a score of years, traveling among the rodeos and roundups. His C Lazy Y Ranch came to support up to 250 horses as the riding academy for Connecticut College and as supplier of artillery horses and mounts for the National Guard at Niantic. The most spectacular years were from 1923 to 1938. After a month of shows at Madison Square Garden, Chaney's rodeo circuit riders would stop at the ranch before going on to another roundup in Boston.
On occasion, for 50 cents, one could spend "An Afternoon in Southwest Texas" seeing trick and bucking horse riding and roping before enjoying a western barbeque. Houseguest Tom Mix gave Mrs.
Chaney his pet trick palomino horse when his circus played in town in the 1930s. Other houseguests were Will Rogers and Western author Rex E. Beach. The largest crowd-about 3,000 in 1938-proved to be the last one, as later that year the hurricane leveled the barns. The Chaneys' daughter Regina (Nena)-who had attended 142
Cohanzie School-married international polo player Bart Evans.
They maintain a second spread in the Big Bend region of Texas.
UNDOUBTEDLY early dirt roads often became impromptu drag strips ("I betcha my horse can beat yours") between' horses or horse and buggies. But the first formal horse races were held at the Oak Grove Track. John George Burckle purchased a Clark Lane farm in 1865 and laid out the half-mile track. In 1889 he sold it to Nicholas Stenger. Carnivals and other attractions were held there by the new owner. A 50-car train brought the Strates Shows with its 60 amusement rides in 1967. Aided by federal funds, the town purchased the farm in 1979, making Stenger Farm Park a 95-acre haven of dedicated open space.
Pony rides were offered at Davis Field on the NE corner of Clark Lane and Boston Post Road in the 1930s. Young Herbert Davis could keep a penny when he sold rides' for ten cents or three rides for a quarter. The 1930s also brought the Barnum and Bailey,
'Colman Brothers and Downy Brothers; circuses. Typically, 1934 circus trains brought in a show complete with 1,400 employees and -
n elephants, camels, zebras and horses-enough to form a mile-long parade. Ricky Nelson was the featured performer at the first (and last) Southern Connecticut State Fair held at the Speedbowi in 1980.
The stockcar Speedbowl had opened in a filled-in swamp at 1090 Hartford Road in 195 1. The 1/3-mile oval was assured success on its opening day when 7,500 braved a 20-mh wind blo'wing blueston-e dust in their faces.
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The 1980 accompanying article covered.
i Athe Cowdray Park C allenge Cup event, which required the stabling of over 2>
-400 of the players' ponies.
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I No ONE would dare write a play with such coin-cidence, but the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center occupies the land from which O'Neill was driven as a youth by its irate owner.
O'Neill immortalized his pursuer as Harder-Harker in Long Day's Journey Into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten.
It was young Waterford native Yale Drama School graduate George C. White who in 1964 conceived the idea that' the decaying mansion Edward C. Hammond's son had sold to the town two years earlier should become a memorial to the playwright. O'Neill had spent boyhood summers not far from the Walnut Grove Farm. After help from local volunteers, the first annual National Playwrights Conference was opened in 1965 as a five-day exploration of the present-day playwright's position, ending' fittingly with a reading of the third act of Moon for the Misbegotten. O'Neill's Harder-Harker was a combination of Hammond and his more wealthy neighbor, Edward S. Harkness, whose only shortcoming was his'wealth, not his demeanor.
W ORK IN PROGRESS is the char'acterization that best describes what happens at the O'Neill Center. In a mutu-ally beneficial manner, experienced professional actors perforinVthe scripts of new authors. After digging post holes-during the day, young 1966 volunteer Michael Douglas was asked to pull himself up a 50-ft mast via a bos'n's chair to man the lighting platform.
Associated with the center are directors, mentors and neophytes who move on to the professional arena. Many new playwrights were later to "win Pulitzers, Tonys, Oscars and the Nobel Prize," reported The Day in 1993.;
The National Theater of the Deaf, initially housed at O'Neill in 1967, earned a Tony a decade later, while the center itself was awarded the same honor two years later. More recently the facility served as an umbrella for ten artistically autonomous projects. One of these was the National Theater Institute, whose 13-week intensive program had been associated with Connecticut College since 1970.
As the Cold War neared its end in the late 1970s, founder George C. White led the way toward opening up communications with Communist Russia and China through O'Neill-sponsored the-atrical exchanges. Although the theater gained national and interna-tional renown, its host town which provided its venue, continued to feel slighted.
Sound is often windborne to O'Neill from the Summer Music program at adjacent Harkness Memorial State Park. Thousands have been attracted to its large music tent and surrounding lawns. Local, national and sometimes international musicians-such as the Canadian Brass-have performed there since its 1984 beginning.
Opposite: Finishing touches on the 1966 outdoor amphitheater were being made as practice or the production of Bedford Forrest began. Lloyd Richards directed this premier of Joel Olian-sky's play.
Nineteen-room Victorian mansion "Sunnyside," pictured at its original site at 324 Great Neck Road, was built by the Ironside family in 1877. Moved across the road to the O'Neill Center a century later, it was renamed the White house in tribute to Nelson C. and Aida White in 1997.X George C. White showed Sarah
("Fergie"), Duchess of York, around the center on her 1988 visit (at bottom).
She sat in on a Creative Arts in Edu-cation class for children from the Great Neck School.
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FAMILY CLOSENESS was assured by the limited dim glow of the solitary kerosene lamp (later electric) where mem-bers gathered to pore over the mail-order "Wish Book." Such home entertainment became popular following the introduction of parcel post service in 1902. Many detailed letters to Santa Claus were inspired by the catalogs. The books offered something for everyone:
Sylvester Perkins ordered a Wardway Ready-Cut house (for 14 Avery Lane) from "Monkey Wards" (Montgomery Ward & Co.). Long before it opened a Waterford store in 1984, Sears, Roebuck & Co.
was a source for automobiles-the Allstate-in the 1950s. The final disposition of old catalogs was "around the corner" at the end of a path.
The windup 78-rpm Victrola phonograph (record player) began to be replaced in the 1920s by the crystal radio with its ramshorn A1j i speaker. On a clear night one might even draw faraway Chicago sta-tion WGN. The 1930 Silvertone radio ordered from Sears might have a newfangled lighted dial, but wouldn't get WNLC until it came on the air in 1936. A new Waterford transmitter increased the sta-tion's power in 1961. Its studios joined the 90 Foster Road facility in i1963. WNLC was supplemented there in 1970 by FM station rj\\IYD.
FAMILIES BEGAN HUDDLING around the light of the cathode tube after yagi television antennas started sprouting from roofs of more affluent local residences in the early 1950s.
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, oPioneer classic programs.Studio One, Robert Montgomery Presents and Philco Playhotse had scripts by Noel Gerson, who purchased a Eluding the paparazzi, TV star Steve Allen managed to marry Jayne Meadows in relative peace at the 79 Spithead Road home of her uncle, Noah McDo7vell, in 1954. Actress Jayne (left) was 7I best known on television as an I've Got a Secret panelist. Allen originated most features of the late-night talk show genre. He wvas the first host of the Tonightshow in 1953. Audrey N)
Meadows received the 1955 Emmy Award for best-supporting actress for playing opposite Jackie Gleason.
The Howdy Doody show employed Rufus Rose to handle marionettes and play an occasional voice part from 1952 to -
1960. He and Margo Rose created 30 guppet characters for the landmark
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house at 286 Niantic River Road in 1966. He scripted the first infomercial in 1948. Rufus and Margo'Rose's Blue Fairy marionette series, which later won the Peabody Award for best children's program, pioneered color at the Chkiago flagship' station WGN in 1958. Earlier, the puppeteers traveled150 to 200 miles a day putting on shows such as Snow White from 1931 to 1952 (except-during WWII).- Several puppet movies were filmed at their 1943 home at 24 Avery Lane, which had as its core a 150-seat puppet theater. Cable television received its local franchise and began wiring in 1971, and 25 years later 7,129 homes (95.46%) were connected by 144.3 mi of coaxial cable and about 50 mi of fiber-optic cable' Blue-collar naysayer Bruce Springsteen dismisses resulting reception -as' "57 channels and nothing on."
Oswegatchie and Waterford High School students modeled some of the thousand sports items offered by the Jayfro Corp.
catalog from its 1972 (2.5-acre) build-ing at 976 Hartford Road. Founded by Waterford physical education teacher John Kroll, the firm's first leading product was a steel-chain basketball net invented by school custodian Louis Pelletier of 32 Monroe Street.
Use and maintenance of playgrounds (as at the Jordan School in 1961) had a long history of formal and informal coordination between the Board of Education and the Recreation and Parks Commission even before the 1984 water-shed playground maintenance agreement was codified.
Waterford had a double play as the home of two major-league second base--
illy pickp gmesin he hllo acossthe there and Wet to play 1,054 major-league mes five difrent cubs.
In 1954 rookie year, he was thrilled to be playing in his first World Series.
He wore Yankee pinstripes in his second series in 1961. He later managed the Minnesota Twins from 1981 to 1985.
- John Uack) Bums played second base for the Detroit Tigers in 1903-04 be-fore serving as the 1933-48 Waterford postmaster.
WORLD TELEVISION followed the Olympic exploits begun in local playgrounds. An Olympic finalist at Montreal in 1976, long-distance runner Janice Merrill-Morin (WHS '74) twice won Pan American gold medals and won another behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany in 1982. At the Madison Square Garden AAU meet in 1976, Jan was the first to win national cham-pionships in -both the mile and-an hoour later-the two-mile dis-tances. Bethany Calcatera-McMahon represented the nation in the luge in the Winter Olympics at Norway in 1994 and Japan in 1998.
She practiced sledding on the Cohanzie schoolground hill while a student there.
-Featured in the transition from bare-knuckle prizefighting to the modern'use of boxing gl6ves in the Gay Nineties was Waterford native "Iron Man" Austin D. Rice. The Day estimated that between 1890'and 1910 he fought about 150 major bouts and perhaps as many lesser ones against virtually all the leading feather and light-weight boxers.
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WATERFORD WEEK celebration and community reunion began in 1978, and by 1997 its annual parade and myriad other activities could barely be contained in an 11-day week, requir-ing 14 venues dispersed over the 35.5-sq-mi town. The coming together of the town in observance of the nation's bicentennial was the impetus for this annual event, implemented by volunteer com-mittees with logistical support from the Recreation and Parks Commission. Such volunteer efforts have long characterized the town.
The private Waterford Recreation Association (WRA) was organized in 1950. Its swim program began in 1952 with ballroom dancing classes added the following year. The private WRA directors were sworn in as Recreation and Parks commissioners in 1956. The commission has supported independent efforts as well as initiating its own. The Waterford Community Band-privately organized after a 1979 Waterford Week solicitation-came under the aegis of the parks department three years later. Earlier the private Oswegatchie Girls Fife and Drum Corps, supported by Philip M.
Plant, marched at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
1984 WAS MORE THAN an Orwellian year in Waterford. Following a failed referendum for a stand-alone commu-nity center in 1974, the high school built several of the lost facilities:
a fieldhouse, auditorium and pool. A formal contract made "Rec &
Parks" the clearinghouse fi)r all nonschool scheduling of events at the school sites, which permitted a greatly enlarged program in 1984. It wasn't a "build a field and they will come" syndrome, but the answer to pent-up needs that opportunity now fulfilled. By 1997, 178 pro-grams were scheduled, utilizing 53 indoor and 41 outdoor areas. The more recent community partnerships have been illustrated by the "YMCA Without Walls" summer day camp held at the Civic Triangle since 1985 and the "Prime Time" before-and after-school childcare program instituted in 1987 that utilized middle and elementary school facilities.
FIVE LITTLE LEAGUE teams played in 1953.
The league suited about 600 players in 1997, many of whom also played in the soccer program, with about the same number. The Waterford Soccer Club began in 1977 and was recognized two years later by the Recreation and Parks Commission. A local Boy Scout troop was started in 1912. The Pequot Council was organized in 1918 with Edward C. Hammond as vice president until 1936. Girl Scouts from nine area towns were organized into a council by 1917.
A two-week day camp was held at Jordan Mill Park by Troop 140 in 1962 and 1963. In 1998 about 300 Girl Scouts were members of 23 Waterford troops.
The pivotal year 1984 saw the addition of a dog obedience training class to "Rec & Parks" offerings. In 1993 the opportunity to take an AKC Canine Good Citizenship test to earn that title for one's pet companion was added.
Opposite: Outdoor drive-in screens had become dinosaurs even when their gigantic T Rex dimensions would seem perfect for Steven Spielberg'sJuras-sic Park and The Lost World spectacu-lars. The Waterford Drive-In dates to 1947. When displaced by the WVater-ford Plaza in 1970, it was moved eastward for its last active years.
Local commercial movie showing began in 1927 when silent films such as The Sea Hawk were screened weekly at the Osw egatchie Inn pavilion. The single-screen storefront \\aterford Theater at the plaza opened in 1970 for the short life of its lease.
Seating 2,000, Australian-based Hoyts Waterford Cinema 9 multiplex opened in 1987 at the Cross Road Mall.
"Rec & Parks" issues permits for use of town tennis courts and offers swim programs for Waterford residents starting at six months of age. All can thank Dr. Dorothy Leib, then chairperson of the Board of Finance, for the suggestion of adding the pool, "since New London hadthree."
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Index Note: Numbers in bold face refer to illustrations.
A ls and Laws of His Majestyi Colony of Connecticut in Aew Engla;ud in America. 10 Adam, Robert, 100 Adrenture, bark, 87 Aeschynite, 92 Africa, 2. 3 African-Americans, 125,131,135 Agriculture, i, x, 4, 7-9, 16, 19, 20. 22, 27, 32, 33,42, 49, 53, 54, 56, 57, 57, 58, 60, 61, 60, 61, 72, 94, 95, 97-99. 103, 108, 111, 116, 127, 135, 139, 143 AHEPA, (Greek fraternal organization), 114, 114,115 Air Force, 84 Airplanes, 53, 53 Airports, 53, 53 Air warden observation posts, 32, 33, 33 Alewife Brook, (Lester's Gut), see Alewife Cove Alewife Brook (North) -
see Hunt's Brook Alewife Cove, 10. 58, 59, 76 Alexander, Frank J., 28 Algonquin (Indians), 6 Allen, Amasa, 58 Allen, Steve, 84, 146, 146 Allyn, Lyman, 102 Allyn, Mrs. W. Ellery, ('Daisy"), 25 Almshouse, 4, 17, 20, 98, 99, 99 Ambulances, 26, 27 "America,' song, 103 American Heritage magazine, 14 American Propane Co., 95 Ames, Jonathan, 135 Ames, Samuel, 31 AMIF Maxim, 85 Amistad movie, 85 Amtrak, 39 A.O.U.W'. Hall, (Ancient Order of United Workmen), 19, 26, 26 Annie, workboat, 77 Apartments, 116 Appalachian Spring, 15 Area, of town, 2 Agsa, revenue cutter, 74 Arnold, Benedict, 31, 100 Ashcroft, John, 10 Atlantic Ocean, 3, 53, 78, 79 Atlas of New London Count,% 36, 37 Austin, David, 15 Automobiles, vii, 20, 26, 27, 26, 27, 47-51, 47-52, 53, 60,61,89,90,95 Avalonia, 2
- Avery,
, 12 Avery, Griswold, 15 Avery Lane, 21, 146, 147 Aydelotte, Frank, 139 Baby boomers, 71, 112, 113, 120, 122, 128 Bachman, John P., (Dr.), 109 Bachman, Robert L, viii Bahamas, 58, 75 Baldelli, Michael, 46 Ballots, 18, 19, 18 Bank of Boston, 90 Banks, 90, 94, 95, 110 Banks, David, (Commodore), 105 The Jordan Millpond has reflected Rope Ferry Road passings since 1732.
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Baptists, 94, 102, 124, 128, 131-35, 132-35 Barker's Department Store, viii Barnard family, 139 Barnard, George Gray, 139 Barrett, Henriett, 114 Bartlet, Robert, 124 Bartlett's Cove, 38, 124, 140 Bartlett's Reef, 30, 46, 81 Baseball, 63, 115, 147, 147 Basketball, 147 Bathgate, George, 62 Bathing, 138, 140, 142, 142 Bay Colony -
see Massachusetts Bayview Health Care Center, 114, 114 Beach, Rex E., 142 Beckwith, Daniel D., 75 Beckwith, Elisa, 75 Beckwith, Ezra S., 75 Beckwith, Fred A., 46, 47 Beckwith, James, ("Deacon"), 75 Beckwith, Jason 11, 75 Beckwith, Jason III, 75 Beckwith, John, ("Deacon"'), 135 Beckwith shipyards, 75 Beckwith, Wallace A., 33
'Bedford Forrest," 144, 145 Beebe, Azariah, 75 Beebe Beach, 74, 75 Beebe, Henry, 68 Beebe, James, 98 Beebe, Lydia, 99, 102 Beebe-Phillips house, 98, 99, 102, 102, 122 Beebe, Samuel, Jr.. 36 Beebe, Winthrop, 75 Beeby brothers, 9 Beers, E W, 36 Bell, Alexander Graham, 105 Belle of the Bay, vessel, 75 Benham Avenue, 38, 77, 133 Benjamin, Asher, 101 Bennett, Constance, 139 Bering Sea, 33 Bernstein, Leonard, 15 Berry, Gorton, (Capt.), 80 Best View, 42, 104 Bicycle lanes, 49 Biddle, Francis, (attorney general), 128 Biddle, James, (Capt.), 128 Bill of Rights, 100 Birch mill, 63 Bissell, Israel, 30 Bitgood, Roberta, 129, 129 BJ's, (store), 90, 91, 90, 91 Blackfish Tavern, 35, 138 Black Point, 10 Blinman, Richard, (Rev.), 9, 132 Blizzards, 111 Blockade, 32, 33, 33 Block, Adriaen, 8 Block Island, 77 Blue Star Highway, 50, 51, 50, 51 Bloomingdale Road, 131 Board of Finance, 18, 19, 148 Boating, 137, 140, 141 Bob's, (Store), 91 Boeing Corporation, 40 Bolles Hill, 101 Bolles, John R., 65, 82 Bolles, Joseph, 64 Bolles, W., 65 Bolles, W & J, 65 Booth Bros. and Hurricane Isle Granite Co., 31, 39, 46, 57, 66-68, 67 Booth, Francis, 67 Booth, John, 67 Booth, William, 67 Bosnia, 84 Boss, James A., 59 Boston, 6, 15, 34, 38, 39, 45, 53, 68, 74, 81, 87, 90, 105 Boston Globe. 131 Boston Post Road, viii, x, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 28-3 1, 34, 34-36, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 54, 59, 62, 63, 68, 89, 90, 94, 95, 102, 104, 110, 111, 116, 117, 121, 122, 131, 133, 141-43 Boundaries, town, 10, 11, 11, 17, 43, 51 Bowles, Chester, (governor, congressman), 113, 121 Boxing, 147 Boy Scouts, 124, 148 Braman Road, 2,2 Bramble, Sarah, 65 Branford, 19 Branner, Martin, 16, 16 Brennan, Terrence W, 92 Brewery, 142 Bride Brook, 10 Bridges, 33, 39, 42, 42, 44, 45, 62, 75, 94, 108 Brigadoon, 73 Brigham, James, 21 British, 12, 30, 60, 75, 78, 79, 90, 97, 99, 100, 104, 108, 110, 115, 143 Broad Street, 35, 124 Brooks, Burtus, xi Brooks, Ephraim, xi, 77 Brooks, Ezekiel, xi, 77 Brooks, Lena, 123 Brooks, Timothy, 74 Brown, Benjamin, 31, 90 Brown, Christopher, 59 Brown Evelyn, 46 Brown, Ezra, 87 Brown, Jedidiah, 87, 123 Bruen, Obediah, 9 Bucher, Robert L, 54, 57, 62, 87, 123, 126 Buffalo, (NY), 111 Buick, 48, 49 Bulkley, James, 28, 35 Bunker Hill, 30, 68 Bureau of Business Practice, (BBP), 28 Burckle, John George, 142, 143 Burgoyne, John, (Gen.), 31 Burns, John, (Jack), 147 Buses, 45-47, 47, 126, 127, 131 Bushnell, David, 31, 82 Butcher, 58, 94 Butlertown, 16, 127 Butler, Zebulon, 14 C adwell, [Sara] Mae, later Manwaring, Plant, Hayward, Rovensky, 12, 13, 13 Calcatera-McMahon, Bethany, 147 California, 15 Caldor Department Store, 91, 91 Calvert, John, 65 Camp Harkness, 79, 79, 108, 109, 109, 113, 141 Camp Waterford, 125 Canada, 12, 31, 32, 145 Canadian National Railways, 38 Cannonball Park, 43 Canterbury, CT, 15 Cape Horn, 74,75 Casinos, gambling, 7, 50 Cattle, 9, 32, 36, 54, 60, 86, 108 Caulkins family, 12 Caulkins, Frances Manwaring, 7, 9, 62, 74, 124, 134 Caulkins, Hugh, 9 Caulkins, Jonathan (Capt.), 31 Caulkins, Uohn] Palmer, 111, 111 CaulkinsLemuel,31 '
Cedar Grove Cemetery, 131.
Cedar Swamp, 10 Cemeteries, 57, 127 Census, 60, 61, 65, 68, 112, 116, 121 Centennial Exposition of 1876, 105 Central Pacific Railroad, 41 Central Vermont Railroad, 38, 46 Cerberus, British naval vessel, 31 Champion, William, 32 Chaney, Morgan, 142 Chapell, Gurdon, 111 Chapell, Richard H., 33 Chapin, Abel, 106 Chapin, Chester W., 106 Chapin, Katherine, 128 Chapin, Lindley H., 105, 128 Chapman Avenue, 62 Chapman, Sarah, 98 Chappell, Frank Valentine, 53, 140 Chappe, [ohn] Isham, 15, 131 Chappell, LeGrand, 111 Chappel, Robert B., Jr., 140 Chapple, George, 9, 97, 116 Charles, Prince of Wales, 143 Chas. Pfizer & Co., 83 Charles 11 (king), 9, 14 Charleston, SC, 32, 33 Charter of Connecticut, 9, 14 Chattanooga, TN, 70, 71 Chenango County, NY, 133 Chester W Chapin, Long Island Sound steamer, 60, 60 Chevrolet, 48 Chicago, 45, 68, 146, 147 China, 41, 145 Christmas Day, 15, 127-29 Church, 10, 19, 53, 94, 100, 114, 115, 128-32, 128-35, 134, 135 Church Cemetery, 131 Church, Edwin, 131 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 130 Church, Peleg, 74 Cider, 54 Cider mills, 54 Cincinnati, 63 Cinderella Inn, 141 Cinderella Lane, 141 Circuses, 20, 143 City of Boston, Long Island Sound steamer, 81 City ofNetw York, Long Island Sound steamer, 80, 80, 81 City of Worcester, Long Island Sound steamer, 81 Civil War, 18, 28, 32, 33, 40, 41, 82, 103, 131 Clam Lane, 4 Clarendon House, 13 Clark, Henry, 123 Clark Lane, viii, 19, 30, 35, 35, 45, 87, 90, 114, 115, 119, 141, 143.
Clark Lane School, 19, 19, 20, 51, 112, 118-20, 118-20 CLazy YRanch, 142 Cleveland, Moses, 14, 15, 34 Cleveland, OH, 14, 34 Cloisters, 139 Coal yards, 95 Coastal Management Act, 7 Coast Guard, 74, 75 Cobbling, 54 Cohanzie 26, 26,27, 36, 49,'49, 59-62, 104, 121, 126, 127, 126, 130, 135, 143, 147 -
Cohanzie Chapel, 135 Cohanzie Fire Co., 26, 27, 26, 118 Cohanzie Gardens, 49, 49, 60, 61 Cohanzie Lakes, 59 Cohanzie Road, 36 Cohanzie, School, 121, 126, 126, 127, 130, 143, 147 Coit, James, 61 Colchester, 36, 51, 62, 75, 102 Cold War, 33, 82, 83, 116, 145 Colonial Drive, 105, 113, 113 Commerce, vessel, 80 Commodore, Long Island Sound steamer, 81 Common lands, 9, 54, 56, 127 Commuting, 43, 51, 83, 94, 95, 97, 113 151
Computers, 25, 85, 95, 127 Comstock oil mill, 10, 63, 63 Concrete, 48-50, 68, 70, 106 Condominiums, 94, 94, 116, 117, 117 Confederates, 33, 40 Congregation Ahavath Chesed Cemetery, 131 Congregational chlurches, 124, 129, 132-135 Congregation Ohey Sholem Cemetery, 131 Congress, 15, 30, 75 Congressional Medal of Honor, 33 Connecticut, 8, 18, 25, 34, 36, 48-51, 60, 68, 73, 82, 83, 86, 90, 92, 94,98-100, 105, 108.
109, 124, 125, 130, 132-34, 138. 142 Connecticut College, 11, 43, 142, 145 Connecticut Co., 42, 43 Connecticut Fish and Game Department, 54 Connecticut Gazette, 58, 87, 87 Connecticut Light & Power Co., 70 Connecticut MlotorTransportation Co., 47, 47 Connecticut navv, 30, 30 Connecticut Park and Forest Commission, 54 Connecticut River, 6, 8, 45 Connecticut State Reister and Manua 2, 54 Connecticut Tumpike, (Routes 52,1-395), 51 Conover, Lloyd, (Dr.), 83 Consolidated Railroad, (NYNH&HRR), 42 USS Constitution. Frigate, 82 Continental Army, 31 Continental Congress, 30 Convalescent Hospitals, 114, 114, 115 Cooperage, 21, 41, 54 Copland, Aaron, 15 Corrigan, -,
(archbishop), 128 Corser, Russell. 53 Cotton, 63, 64 The Country Builderls Assistant, 101 Country Pay, 86, 86, 87 Country Road to Colchester, 36, 62, 127 Country Road to Lyme, 34 Courts, 20, 22 Cove View Drive, 139 Coxe, Longfield, 138 Cranberry Meadow, 54 Crane, Ichabod, 125 Crescent, waterbus, 46, 46 Crescent Beach, 10, 44, 45 Crocker House tavern, 35, 35 Crocker, Jonathan, (Capt.), 35 Crocker, Nathan, 123 Crooked Brook, 62 Cross Road, 4, 46, 51, 91, 127, 129, 130 Cross Road Mall 90, 91, 91, 92, 148 Crossroads Presbyterian Church, 115, 129, 129 Crystal Mall, iv, vi, viii, 26. 92, 92, 93 Curtin Livery Services, 46 Curtiss, John, 74 Dairying, 22, 53, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 61, 90, Time Line 94 Dame schools, 94, 127 DanielsAvenue. 121 Daniels,JohnJr., 116 Danielson, 51 Darien, 19 Darrall, William, 87 Darrow, Abram M., 49, 57 Darrow, Ebenezer, 87 Darrowv George Potter, 15 Darrowv. Lena, 89, 89 Darrov,Meetinrgouse, 10, 10, 16, 19, 133, 135 Darrow, William, 87 Darrow, Zadoc, (Elder), 133, 135 Dart & Bogue Lumber Co., 95 Dart, Stephen, 31 Dartmoor Prison, 78 Davenport, James, (Rev.), 133 David, Ross, 138 Davis Field, 143 Davis, Herbert, 143 Tle Day, 11, 13, 22, 72, 92, 145, 147 Dayton Road, 92, 126, 130 Deane, Silas, 14 Decatur, Stephen, 32, 33, 128 Declaration of Independencc, 54, 100, 134 Deeds, (real estate), 34, 54, 55. 55, 62, 63. 98, 106, 122, 124, 127, 141 Defence. naval ship, 30, 30 Defence industry, 82-85, 84, 159 Defender Industries, 91 DelPriore, Frank Anthony. 12 DelPriore, Willianl, 12, 12 Denison, Walter R., 43, 43 Department of Defense, 84 Department of Energy; 73, 85 Department of Transportation, 49, 95 Department stores, viii, 89, 88, 89, 91, 92, 91-93 Depot Road, 70 Depression (1929-41), 18, 77, 112, 113, 120, 121, 131 Deshon-Allyn house, 101, 102, 101, 103 Deshon, Daniel, 101, 102 Deshon, Fanny, 101, 102 Detroit, 53, 111 Develoements, (real estate), 57, 113, 116 DEW-line, (Distant Early Warning), 33 Dimmock (family), 60, 61, 67 Dimmock, Levcrett N., 59 Dimmock Road, 60, 125 Dimmock, Rufus, 60 Dingleville, 138 Disney Studios, 40 Dock Road, 46, 67 Dogs, 64, 108, 148, 148 Dogwood Drive, 100 Douglas Lane, 22, 54, 99 Douglas, Michael, 145 Douglas, Nathan, 54 Douglas, Robert, 54 Douglas, Thomas, 54 Douglas, William, 54 Douglass, Albert Gallatin, 54 Douglass. Anne, 54 Douglass, Elizabeth, 54 Douglass, James, Sr., 30 Douglass, Julia, 54 Douglass, Robert, 54, 99 Dunbar Road, 130 Duracell batteries, 15 Durfey Hill, 14, 31, 32, 67, 114 Durfey Hill school, 125 Durfey, Richard, 87 Durfey, Thomas, 31 Dutch, 8 Dwight, Timothy, 10 E;gle, (Coast Guard bark), 75 Eagle, schooner, 32 Earmarks, 54 East Anglia, 9, 12, 57, 97 Eastern Standard Time, 39 East Lakes Pond school, 126, 127, 135 East Lyme, 7, 10, 11,22,43,45,63,75,90, 114, 120, 125, 138 East Neck, 59 East Neck Chapel, 135 East Neck School, (Pepperbox school), 124, 125, 125 Edwards, Charles M., (Capt.), 74 Edwards, Ira A., (Capt.). 77 Edwards, Jonathan, (Rev.), 133 Egeland, George, II Einstein, Albert, 139 Eisenhowvcr,.krs, Dwight D., 83 Electric Boar C., (Division of General Dynamics Corp.), 47, 82, 83, 113 Electricity, 33, 43, 44, 73, 104, 104, 106. III 113, 113 Elementary schools, 1 18-127, 118-127, 148 Elij;ah Fox tavern, 35, 35 Ellen Ward Road, 62 Elm Street, 13, 67, 70, 99 Emergency Communications Center, 27, 71, 85, 105, 116 Eminent domain, 22, 113 Emmy award, 146 Enders, John F, 12 Enders, John 0., 12, 46 Enders, Thomas 0., 12 Energ smack, 75 England, 64, 97, 99, 128, 139
'Eolia" -
see Harkness mansion Episcopal church, 31, 128, 133 Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center, 144, 145, 144, 145 Evangelical Free Church, 135 Evans, Bart, 143, 143 Evans, Regina Chanev, 142 Ewald,,\\arion, 42, 42 Fairfeld, 19 Fairs, 60, 118 Fallout shelter, 33 First Farm European Allot-Harvest ments 1645 1651 Roger-Waller First First enes Recorded Formed House Post House 1677 Built Rider
_ 1663 1691 1693 I
I I
1625 Europeans B6-5et Peool 1 637 i I I
65 Connect-Fi~rst.
!6 o
jcutnne KIrns951 First Charter Highwy5 Mirs 1662 1669 1693 152
Fargo, Moses, 30 Fargo Road, 141 Faria, Thomas G., 40 Farming -
see agriculture Faulk, Clarence, 131 Federal Period architecture, 100-02, 101, 116 Fengers Brook, 133 Fennell, James, 58 Ferries, 36, 39 Fidget, yacht, 46, 47 Filene's Department Store, 92, 92 Finn, Fred E, 109 Firemen's Hall, (Jordan), 18, 19, 26, 26 Fireplaces, 96, 97, 98, 100, 100, 101, 104, 106 Fire protection, 16, 26, 27, 26, 27, 71, 85, 105, 116 Fires, 16, 24, 26, 27, 26, 27, 32, 33, 48, 62, 62, 97-99, 106, 122-24, 139, 141 First Baptist Church, (1748- ), 10, 17, 19, 24, 33, 103, 111, 135, cover First Baptist Church of New London, 135 First Congregational Church, 132, 133 Fish, 4, 6, 7, 57, 75-77, 76, 77, 86, 94, 135, 138 Fishing smacks, 74, 75, 77, 80 Flasher, submarine, 82 Flatrock Quarry, 68, 92 Flaxseed, 63 Fleet Commandcomputer video game, 85 Flight data recorder, 40 Florida, 51 Fog Plain, 3, 4, 8, 62 Fog Plain Road, 33, 59, 61
- Follitt, Mr., (shipwright), 74 Ford, Henry, 53 Ford Model A, 48 Ford Model T, 26, 26, 29, 29, 46-48, 47, 52, 53, 89 Forests, 4, 60 Forts, 7, 8, 32, 33, 33, 68 Fort Sumter, 32, 33 Foster Road, 92, 135, 146 Fox, Elijah, 35 France, 31, 33, 70, 104, 108 Freeman, Aziah, 33, 131 French and Indian War, 30 French-Canadians, 12 French Empire-style architecture, 58, 58 Friends of Harkness, ix Fulling mills, 62-64 Fulton Fish Market, 77 Fulton, Robert, 79 Gardner, Washington, 28 Garrison Colonial-style architecture, 97, 99 Gasoline rationing, 33 Gates, Warren, 67 Genera4 (locomotive), 40, 41, 41 General Assembly, 7, 10, 14, 16, 17, 22, 35, 51, 58, 100, 102, 108, 109, 127, 133, 138 General Electric Co., 84 General Neck -
see Great Neck General stores, x, x, 86, 87, 86, 87, 89, 94 Genesee River, 14 Genung's Department Store, 88, 89 Georges Bank, 77 Germantown, PA, 15 Germany, 15, 147 Gerson, Noel, 146 G. Fox and Co., 89, 91, 92 GI-bill, (veterans), 89, 128 Gilbert, Cass, 108 Gilead, 138 Gilead Chapel, 135, 135 Gilead Road, 12, 34, 60, 111 Gilead School, (formerly Morgan), 126, 127, 126 Gilead Sunday School, 134, 135 Ginsberg, Louis, 28 Girl Scouts, 148 Glaciers, 2, 3 Gleason, Jackie, 146 Gloucester, 9 Goldberg, Harold, 118, 118 Golden Spur, 43, 77 Gold Star Bridge, 50, 62, 159 Golf, 138, 141, 141 Good Cheer Sunshine Society, 28 Gorton, Stephen, (Elder), 134 Goshen Fire Co., 26, 27, 118 Goshen Point, 33, 78, 105, 106, 108, 128, 138 Goshen Road, 125 Governor, 9, 113, 116 Governors Landing, 116 Graham, John, 59 Grand Central Station, 68 Granite, 9, 31, 59, 63, 66-68, 66-69, 70, 101, 101 Graniteville, x, 67, 103 Graniteville school, 124, 125 Grant, Ulysses S., 81 The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 89, 89 Great Awakening, 133 Great Brook -
see Latimers Brook Great Neck, 4, 7, 9, 31-33, 38, 54, 56, 57, 57, 62, 77, 78, 81, 108, 122, 124, 125, 127, 132, 133 Great Neck Road, 25, 39, 48, 49, 59, 67, 79, 90, 91, 95, 97, 103-05, 110, 110, 116, 124, 125, 131, 132, 140, 145 Great Neck School, 20, 78, 120, 121, 124, 124, 125, 145, 145 Great Stone Fleet, 33 Greek Orthodox Church, 130 Greek Revival-style architecture, 87, 102-04, 103, 116,124 Greenberg, Paul, ix Greene, Samuel, (Capt.), 33 Greene, Timothy, 10 Green Harbor, 9 Greenman, Charlotte Rogers, 108 Greentree Drive, 115 Greenwich, 19 Greystone Boat Club, 141 Greystone Heights, 42 Greystone Heights Clubhouse, 141 Gristmills, 62-65, 62 Griswold, William, 59 Grocery stores, x, x, 87, 89-91, 90 Groton, 10, 25, 27, 36, 39, 68, 75, 79, 82, 83, 130, 134, 159 Groton, Suffolk, England, 97 Gurley Road, 5, 17, 30, 34, 63, 98 Hlackley, Peter, 62, 63 Hale, Nathan, 30, 30, 124 Half-Way Covenant, 132 Hall of Records, 17, 17, 20, 32, 33, 33 Hamilton Alexander, 74 Hammond, Edward C., 38, 59, 108, 145, 148 Hammond, Mrs, Edward C., 25 Hamond, Gardiner Greene, 58 Hammond, James, 18, 138 Hammond Meetinghouse, 133, 135 Hammond, Noah, (Elder), 133, 135 Hardwick, Cassie S., 141 Hardwick Road, 141 Hardy, Thomas, (Commodore), 32 Harkness, Edward S., 59, 79, 106, 108, 141, 145 Harkness, Mrs. Mary Stillman, 33, 59, 108, 108, 109 Harkness mansion, ("EoliaZ), 48, 68, 104-06, 107, 141 Harkness Memorial State Park, ix, 26, 32, 60, 78, 79, 79, 106, 108, 128, 145 Harrison, Elihu, 76 Harrison, George, (Capt.), 75-77 Harrison's Landing, 12, 38, 38, 75-77, 77, 83 Hart, John H., 83 Hart, William, 33 Hartford, 8, 29, 35, 38, 46, 47, 89, 130, 140 Hartford and New London Turnpike Co., 36 Hartford Electric Light Co., 70 Hartford Road, viii, 18, 19, 21, 30, 35, 36,47, 49-51, 54, 86, 90-92, 95, 115, 130, 131, 135, 142, 143 Harvard College, 140 Harvey Avenue, 36 Harwood, George, 9 Harwood, Miss Ida M., 25, 25
- Hatch, 100, 100 Haven, Henry P., 134, 134, 135 Hawaiian Islands, 80 Hayward, Mae -
see Cadwell Hayward, William, (Col.), 13:
Hazard, Marjorie C., 116 Head of the river, 75 Head of the River School, 125 Hearst, Mrs. William Randolph, 13 Ii i
I i
i G
i ales i
Gallehe II Gallows I
Garages l
Gardinl Gardin(
Gardint I
Gardne f
Gardne l
oichester (auxhall)
Dad t04 I
I Baptist (700 Church i
1710-71 s Ferry, 36 r, Charles, 59
- Lane, 4, 65 Lane, 49, 122, 124
- ,19-21, 46, 48, 89, 113, 128 er, Benajah, 67 er, Henry 11, 28, 39, 67, 70, 125
- r, Henry III, 53, 70 r, Billy, 147, 147 r, Henry, 28, 35 First School-house.
Extant Jedidiah Brown First -
Militia Company 1714 172,5 Jordan Mill 1732 Nine Answer Lexington Alarm 1775 17-50 153
Helen, water boat, 74, 74 Hempstead, Joshua, 16,34 35, 64,74, 111, 127, 133 Hempstead's, 42, 42 Hempstead Street, 124 Hendel Petroleum Co., 95 Henderson, John, 64 Hendrahand, Jo.%eph Ross, 131 Hicks Hill Road, 63 Hicks, John T., 9 High Ridge Drive, 35 High schools, 43, 95, 119-21, 120 Hinkle, David R., (Cmdr.), 84, 84 Hinkle, Muriel, 84, 84 Hoffman, William, 40 Hoffman, Willibald, 40 Hollind, (SS-]), submarine, 82 Holy Ghost Sociery, 12 Home Depot, 90, 90, 92 Horses, xi, 18, 36, 43, 46, 54, 58, 60, 61, 66, 86, 87, 106, 108, 134, 142, 143, 143 Horton, Dorothy, 116 Hospitals, 13, 13, 33, 108, 109, 109 Hot lunch program, 122 Hough, William, 34 House of Representatives, 15 Howard Burying Ground, 131, 133, 133 Howard, Nathan, (Elder), 133, 135 Howdy Doody, 146, 146 Howland Department Store, 89 Hoyts Water ford Cinema 9, 91, 148 Hudson River, 31, 68 HunterlKillercomputer video game, 85 Hotnefor Red October, 85 Hunting, 57 Hunts Brook, 3, 9, 28, 64, 65, 97, 127 Hunts Brook Road, (formerly Fire Street), 100, 125 Hurd's History of New London County, 54 Hurricanes, 66, 68, 77, 99, 110, 110, 111, 142 ice, 2, 3, 58, 58, 59 Icebox, 58 Icehouse, 58, 59, 58 Impressment of sailors, 32, 78 Incorporation of town, 16, 17 Indians, 4, 6, 6, 7, 34, 50, 97 Indonesia, 14 Industrial Drive. 95 Industrial Revolution, 64, 65, 108 Industrial Triangle, 51 Infrastructure, 22, 22, 23, 71, 113 Inns -
see taverns Institute for Advanced Study, 139 Internet, 25, 95 Interstate highways, 34, 47, 50, 51, 50, 51, 53, 59, 89, 90, 98, 127 Irish, 12, 12, 15,66, 116, 128 Ironside family, 145 Israel, 130 Italians, 12, 12, 66, 104, 106, 107 Jackson, Shirley Ann, 72 ames Rogers Cove -
see Jordan Cove Japanese, 53, 83, 147 Jeep, 52, 53 JdIerson Avenue, 35, 131 Jefferson, Thomas, 100, 134 Jehovah's Witnesses, 130, 130 Jerome. Richard, 58, 102 Jewish cemeteries, 131 Jewish War Meterans Highwvay, 50, 51, 51 Jitney buses, 46, 47, 47 John and Hester, merchant vessel, 87 Johnson Court, 135 Jordan, 9, 14, 15, 18, 26, 28, 46, 62, 63, 77, 97, 103, 122, 123, 138 Jordan Brook, 54, 62, 63, 122, 124 Jordan Commons, 116, 117, 117 Jordan Cove, 9, 39, 74, 81, 87, 113, 136, 137, 138 Jordan Fire Co. -
see Waterford Fire Co. No. I Jordan Green, 25, 98, 100, 102, 123, 122, 123 Jordan Marsh Department Store, 92, 93 Jordan Mill, 26, 62, 62, 63,, 85, 125, 136, 150, 150 Jordan Mill Park, 136, 137, 148 Jordan Mutual Cemetery, 131 Jordan Park House, 25, 25, 115 Jordan Plain, 3, 16, 123 Jordan railroad station, 38, 39, 63 Jordan River, 9, 54, 97 Jordan School, iii, 16, 20, 24, 26, 49, 118, 119, 119, 121-23, 122, 123, 125, 127, 123, 147 Jordan Terrance, 30, 87 Jordan village, viii, x, 26, 87, 103 Joseph Meeks and Sons, 102, 103 Joseph, Paul, 129 Junior high school, 118, 118, 119, 122 Juno, packet, 32 Jupiter, locomotive, 41 Justice of peace, 20 Kency, -
, 12 Keeney, Ezra, 87 Keeney, John, 15 Keeney's Cove, viii, viii, 44, 44, 45, 74, 75 Keeney, William, 9 Kennedy, John F., 121 Kent, England, 99 Kenyon, Claude, 48, 49 Kenyon, Edsvard, 60 Kenyon, William Edward, ("WE.'), 48, 49, 60 Kern, Florence, 74 Kids R Us, retail store, 92 Killer Journal of Murder, motion picture, 85 Kindergarten, 119, 127 King, N.B., 21 Kingdom Hall, 130, 130 King Phillips War, 30 King's department store, viii King's highway, 34 Kipling, Rudyard, 142 Knight, Sarah, 34 Konomoc Hill, 142 Koop, C. Everett, 85 Korean War, 33 Ladley, Richard, 94 Lafayette, Marquis de, 33, 36, 36, 58, 68 Lake Brandegee, 22 Lake Champlain, 31 Lake Kenomoc, i, 9, 22, 22, 30, 35, 68, 127, 135 Lakes Lake -
see Lake Konomoc Lake, \\rs. Margaret, 9 Lakes Pond -
see Lake Konomoc Lakes Pond Baptist Church, 134, 135, 135 Lakes Pond Baptist Church Cemetery, 131 Lakes Pond Brook, 62 Lakes Pond School, 12, 13, 13, 127, 135 Lamphere Road, 12, 81, 95, 141 Land grab of 1899, 11, 11 Lancashire Court, 130 Land grants, 8, 9, 57 Lanphear, Horace C., (Capt.), 80, 81, 81 Lanihear, Horace Palmer, 81 Lasham, Cary, 8 Lathrop Road, 36, 127 Latimer, Pickett, 100, 101, 101 Latimers Brook, 62, 63 Lavenham, Suffolk. 97 Lawrence and Memorial Hospital, 13, 13 Leary apartments, 116 LeCount, Josiah J., 76, 77 Ledyard Moraine, 3 Lee, Robert E., 33 Leeds and Northrop Co., 40 Leib, Dorothy, (Dr.), 148 Leisure activities, 138-49. 136-49 LeMare, Celest J., (park ranger), 106, 107
- Lester,
, 12 Lester, Ambrose, 74 Lester, Andrew, 57 Lester's Gut -
see Alewife Cove Lewis, Leander, 87, 89 Lexington, 30 Libraries, 24, 25, 24, 25, 119, 120, 120, 134 Life magazine, 90 Lightship, 46 Lincoln, Abraham, 12 Lindbergh, Charles A., 53 Linseed, 63 Liszt, Franz, 15 Litchfield County, 14 Little League, 113, 148 Liverpool, England, 79 Lloyd Road, 105 Locomotives, 39-41, 39-41, 81, 140 Locust Court, 75 Logger Hill, 104, 105, 122, 128 Lombardi, John, 61
'Long Day's Journey Into the Night," 145 Long Island, 2, 3, 8, 30, 30, 111, 133 Long Island Sound, vi, 2, 3, 4, 8, 38, 58, 68, 74, 141, 142, 142 Long Island Sound steamers, 38, 39, 60, 60, 80, DECLARA-TION OF Mohegan INDE-Turnpike WATERFORD 1776 1792 INDEPENDENT 17 l
l 1801 Significant Beebe-Millstone Phillips Quarrying House Seventh 7
Baptists Organize 1784 Hartford Turnpike Co.
1800 t
o o
/Lyme Turnpike 1807 1625 Lyme 1839 tution 1818 1847 154
80, 81 Lothroup, Samuel, 76 Lower Bartlett Road, 38, 95 Lyme, 10, 14,45, 87, 98, 124, 134 Lyme Turnpike -
see Boston Post Road Lynedock, (Lord), 79 M
acedonian, (British frigate), 32, 33 MacDowell Colony, 15 MacDowell, Edward, 15, 15 MacDowell, Marian -
see Nevins, Marian Ma ' Department Store, 92 Madison, James, 32 Madison Square Garden, 142, 147 Magonk Point, xi, xii, 97 Magonk Point Road, 68 Mago Point, 4, 7, 138 Maine, 51 Mallory, Charles, 15, 80 Mallory, P. R., 15 Mallory Steamship Line, 15 Malloy, Lawrence H., (Capt.), 77 Mamacock, 4, 8, 75, 83 Manitock Hill, 3, 30, 59 Manitock Spring Water, 22, 59 Manitock Village, (apartments), 11 6 Manwaring, Christopher, 62 Manwaring, John W., 138 Manwaring, Mae -
see Cadwell Manwaring, Philip, 13, 138, 139, 148 Manwaring, Selden, 12, 138 Manwaring, T 74 Maps,11, 22, 23, 33, 37, 44, 45, 56, 57, 60, 61 Market gardening, 12, 60, 60, 61, 94 Mary, (sloop), 33 Mary H. Brockway, (schooner), 75 Mary Street, 114 Mashantucket-Pequot Tribe, 7 Mason, John, (Capt.), 8 Mass by Leonard Bernstein, 15 Massachusetts, 6, 8, 30, 38, 39, 97, 132 133 Mattross companies, 32 Maxim, Hiram 85 Maxwell, 49, 49 Mayfair Diner, 29 McDowell, Noah, 146 McNeely, Alan, 129 Meadow Drive, 49, 60 Meadows, Audrey, 146, 146 Meadows, Jayne, 84, 146, 146 Meetinghouses, 4, 10, 10, 16, 19, 128, 132-35 Merrill-Moran, Janice, 147 Methodist church, 35, 102 Metis, (schooner), 77 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 139 Mexico City, 68 Middle schools, 118, 119, 119, 148 Migrations, viii, 12, 22, 48, 60, 66, 71, 94, 97, 112, 113, 116, 120, 128, 129, 159 Mijy, fishing vessel, 76,76 Mijlfo'rd, 97 Militia, 30-32, 30, 35 Milk, 42, 58, 60, 61, 61, 127 Mill Lane, 62, 62, 85 Miller, Gurdon, 58 Miller, Jeremiah, 64, 100 Miller, John S., 64 Miller, May, 47, 106, 108 Millers Pond, 3, 6 Mills, x, 9, 16, 16, 54, 62, 63, 62, 63, 94, 95 Mills, Jedidiah, 133 Millstone atomic power plants, x, 33, 70-73, 70-73, 85, 104 Millstone Cove, 77 Millstone Point, x, 6, 9, 28, 30, 33, 53, 67, 68, 70, 71, 77, 85, 111 Millstone Quarry, 12, 13, 31, 33, 39, 57, 66-68.
66, 69, 70, 82, 128, 139 Millstone railroad station, 39, 67 Millstone Road, 70 Millstone school, 67, 125 Millstones, 63, 63, 67 Millstone, (village), 13, 39,73, 99, 99 Miner Avenue, 127 Miner, Clement, 34, 97 Miner's Bay, 75 Miner, Solomon, 35 Miner, Thomas, 76 Mix, Tom 142 Mobile, AL, 67 Modular buildings, 94, 94, 116 Mohegan Parkway, 7, 42, 50 Mohegan, ferry, 75 Mohegans, (Indians), 6-8, 10, 34 Mohegan Sun Casino, 7 Mohegan Turnpike, 36, 38, 99, 102 Mohican Paper Mill, 64, 64 Montgomery Ward & Co., 146 Montville, 2, 6, 7, 10, 20, 75, 90, 104 Montville Street Railway, 12, 42, 45 "A Moon for the Misbegotten," 145 Moore, Joshua, Jr., 98, 99, 99 Moore, Reuben, 125 Moore, William, 30 Morgan, Edward, (Capt.), 35 Morgan, Enock, 86, 87 Morgan, Richard, 81, 87 Morgan School -
see Gilead School Morgan, Stanley Douglas, (udge), 54 Morgan, [Stanley] Douglas II, 22, 54 Morgan, Stanley G., 54 Mormons, 130 MountTambora, 14 Mount Washington, 2 Mullen Hill Road, 10, 49, 124, 125, 131, 133, 135 Munger, Lavinta, 125 Municipal Complex, 19-21, 21, 115 Myrock Avenue, 33, 104 Mystic, 8, 15, 75, 108 Mystic River, 6 Mystic Seaport, 108 Naples, 12 Nantucket, 77 Narragansem Long Island Sound steamer, 80, 81 Narragansetts, (Indians), 6, 7, 30 Nash, Harold, 18, 120, 121 National Cartoonist Society, 16 National Foremen's Institute, (NFI), 28, 29, 29 National Intelligencer, 29, 29 National Playwright's Conference, 145 National Register of Historic Places, viii, ix National Theater of the Deaf, 145 Nautilus, submarine, 82, 83 Neck fence, 9, 54, 56, 97, 127 Nehantick Hill -
see Durfey Hill Nehantick Wayside -
see Jordan Nelson, Horatio, (British admiral), 32 Nelson, Ricky, 143 Netherlands, 8 Nevins, Anna, 25, 116 Nevins Brook, 3 Nevins, David H., 103, 116, 123, 125 Nevins, Mrs. David H., 123 Nevins family, 15, 15,25, 103, 116, 123, 125 Nevins mansion, 15, 15, 102, 103, 116, 117, 117 Nevins, Marian, 15, 15, 116, 125 New Connecticut -
see Vermont New England, viii, 2, 18, 20, 32, 39, 45, 60, 63, 67, G8, 84, 90, 97, 98, 111-13, 128, 129, 142 New England Savings Bank, 53 New Haven, 16, 38, 39, 45, 103, 105, 111, 130 New Haven & Shoreline Railway Co., 47 New Haven Turnpike, 63 New London, 6, 8-10, 12, 16, 27, 29, 31, 34, 36, 45, 58-60, 62, 63, 68, 71, 74-77, 81, 86, 90, 97, 98, 100, 112, 122, 124, 132 New London, (City of), 9, 9, 11, 16, 17, 22, 38, 42, 43, 46, 47,49, 59, 89, 92, 94, 98, 100, 102, 118, 125, 128-31, 134, 135, 138, 148 New London & East Lyme Railway, 43, 43, 45 New London Country Club, 141, 141 New London County Historical Society, Inc., 79 New London Gas & Electric Co., 44 New London Gazette. 77, 102 New London High School, 11, 120 New London Northern Railroad, 38, 38 New London Post Office, 28 New London Rehabiliation and Care Center, 115 New London Textile Printing Co., 21, 21 Newport, RI, 13, 67, 85, 102, 104 New Shore Road, 110, 111 New York City, 12, 32, 38, 53, 60, 67, 77, 79, 81, 87, 102, 105, 108, 128, 148 New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, 39 New York Orthopedic Hospital, 108 New York, (state), 6, 8, 14, 30, 142 NHD Hardware Store, viii, ix, 90 Niantic, merchant ship, 14, 14, 15, 104, 142 NianticBay,31,70,75,77, 82,114 Niantic Bridge, 36, 36, 76, 77 Niantic Bus Co., 46 Niantic Hotel, 15, 15 Buckle Race-track 1865 New London Land Grab 1899
.;,=
l r l I First Trolley Une 1900 I
llii I I
ii i
First Fire-truck I
1 923 I'
.I Women Gain Vote 1920 Water Reservoir 1872 16I
' :I 19 0oo First Automobile 1903 Commercial Windmill 1880 155
Niantic, (village), 15, 45-47, 51 Niantic River, 2, 4, 9, 10, 14-16, 34, 36, 53, 58, 59, 62, 63, 74, 75, 77,77,86, 105, 111, 138 Niantic River Road, 7, 44, 45, 47, 58, 74, 147 Niantics, (Indians), 6, 7 Nichols, Edward W., 49, 57 Niles Hill Road, 7, 60, 131, 132, 134, 135 911 -
see Emergency Communications Center Nitsche building, 28 Nobel Prize, 12, 145 North East school district, 127 Northeast Utilitics, 70. 72, 73 North Parish-sec Montville North Road, 81, 94, 112, 125 North Stonington, 51 North Wcst School Society, 125, 127 North, William, (general), 31, 36, 58 Northwood Road, 141 Norway, 147 Norwich, 10, 31, 34, 36, 42, 43, 102, 109 Norwich Road, 65 Nova Scotia, 78 Nuclear power, 66, 70-73, 84, 85 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 72, 85 Nurseries, 57 Nye, Robert M., viii, ix, 52, 53 Oak GroveTrack, 142, 143, 143 Ocean Beach, 11. 43, 51 Ohio, 14, 15, 34 Oil Mill, 10, 63, 63 Oil Mill Brook, 3, 10, 10, 48 Oil Mill Road, 10, 63, 75 O'Keefe, John, 53 O'Keefe, Robin, 53 Okhotsk Sea, 81 Old Colchester Road, 28, 35, 100, 127 Old Forte Hill, 7 Old Mill Road, 64 Old Norwich Road, 28, 36, 40, 43, 47, 65, 99, 126, 129. 134 Oliansky, Joel, 144, 145 Oliver Cromue (naval ship), 30 Olympics, 147 O'Neill, Eugene, 145 O Neill Memorial Theater Center, 36, 82, 144, 145 119, (Union Pacific locomotive), 40, 41, 40, 41 Onruas, boat, 8. 8 Orlando Smitl,. schooner, 81 Ospreys, 73, 73 Oswegachie, viii, viii, 9. 138, 139, 139 Osvegatchic Chapel, 133, 135 Oswegatchie Girls Fife and Drum Corps, 148 Oswegatchie Fire Co., 26, 27 Oswegatchie House, (somtimes inn), 13, 138, 139, 139, 148 Oswegatchie Road, 15, 45, 133, 135, 139 Oswegatchie School, 121, 121, 147 Oswegatchie Yacht Club, Inc., 141 Otis, David G., 35 Otis, Lenard, 60 Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel, 128, 128 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 129, 129 "OurTown," 15 Outdoor drive-in theater, 148, 149 Oxen. i, 16, 16, 33, 34, 54, 60, 60, 62, 66, 67, 75 Oysters, 48, 77 Ozark, monitor submarine tender, 82 Pacific Ocean, 14 Palmer, Harold N., 53 Palmer House, 46 Palmer, John B., 67 Palmer, MIA. 38 Palmer, Nathaniel, Jr., 87 Palmes, Edward, (Major), 30 Panama, 15 Pangaea, 2 Paper mills, x. 28, 64, 65, 65, 103, 104 Paris, 53 Paris Beaux Arts, 67 Parke, Robert, 9 Parks, vi, vi, xi, 108, 141, 143 Parkway North, 34, 50, 51, 51, 60, 84, 85, 91, 111, 127, 135, 138 Parkway South, 34, 50, 51, 117 Parmelee, Frederick H., 52, 53 Partric, F.
K., 46 Patrick, Daniel, (Capt.), 8 Paterson, NJ, 40 Payne, Charles W., 59
- Peabody, 97 Pearce, Etha, 108 Peconic Bay, 77 Peddlers, 59. 94. 95 Prdlari Progress, the Life of Bronson Alcott. 12 Pennsylvania, 14, 15, 124 Pennsylvania Turnpike, 50 Pepperbox Church edifice, 124, 134, 135 Pepperbox Hill, 7. 31, 57 Pepperbox Road, 124 Pequor, (settlement) -
see New London Pequor Indians, 6-8, 57 Perkins, Albert B., Sr., 39. 46, 112, 112 Perkins, A. J., (Albert John), 13, 13 Perkins, Elias, 123 Perkins, James Albert, 13, 13 Perkins, James B., 94 Perkins, Rose Sherry. 13, 13 Perkins, Sylvester, 13, 13, 146 Perkins, Thomas Shaw, 103, 116 Perkins, Mrs. Thomas Shaw, 36 Perry Ponds, 58, 59 Perry, W[alter] R., 58, 59 Peter Baker School -
see East Lakes Pond School Petcrsborough, NH, 15 Petitions, 16, 17, 17, 75 Petroleum, 33, 59, 95 Pharmacies, 89, 90, 94, 94 Philadelphia, 30, 40, 81, 102, 105 Philadelphia, (naval boat), 31, 31 Phillips Streer 34 Picar isAlli Puma Caf, 115 Piggeries. 57 Pilgrim Airlines, 53 Pilgrim Road, 64 Pine Grove, 46 Pine Neck -
see Oswegatchie Pipe organs, 129, 129 Piracy, 80, 81 Plainte Lake -
see Lake Konomoc Plainfield Academy, 57, 78 Plan of Preservation. Conservation and Development, ix Plant Drive, 138, 139 Plant, Mae -
see Cadwell Plant, Morton F, 13, 45 Plant, Philip Manwaring, 13, 138, 139, 148 Pleasure Beach, x, 9, 21, 27, 46, 57, 60, 61, 67, 67, 74. 82, 104, 138 Pleasure Beach Chapel, 104, 135 Plumb's Hill, 10 Plymouth, (automobile), 53 Plymouth, MA, 8 Police, 13, 18, 20, 21, 27, 141 Polih, 129, 129 Pope, 130 Population, 14, 16, 24, 32, 60, 71, 87, 112, 113, 120 Poquyogh (Poquayogh), also James Rogers Cove, Robin Hood's Bay, later Pleasure Beach Port of Amsterdam, 8 Port of New York Authority, 8 Portuguese, 12 Postal system, x, xi, x, xi, 11, 25, 28-30, 34. 28, 29,66,66,67,73,89, 118 Post Road Brewing Co., 142 Potter, Henry, (Major), 63 Poultv 21, 61, 61, 63, 94 Pounys, 54, 54 Pratt, Bela L, 9 Prentice Hall -
see National Foremen's Institute Prentice, John, 9 Prentis, John, Jr., 87 Prentis, John Sr., 62, 87 Prentis, Samuel, 30, 35 Prentiss, Daniel, 131 Prohibition, 139 Prospect Hill, 35, 131 Proro-Africa, 2 Proro-North America, 2 Providence, RI, 39, 130 Public Safety Complex, 20, 21, 21 Pulitzer Prize, 12, 15, 145 Puppetry, 146, 146. 147 Puritans, 132, 138 Quaganapoxct, 9, 76, 79 Quaganapoxet Golf Club. 79, 79, 141 Quaker Hill. x, xi, 7,8,28,31,33,34,40,42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 59, 77. 82, 83, 83, 94, 95,103,104,115,118,127,129, 130,132, 192 First 1925 Town Hall 1936 First t
9 0 High First First 4-Lane School Shopping Nuclear Highway 1956 Center Plant 1940 1960 1970 Second Town Han 1984 Police Station 1991 156
133 Quaker Hill Baptist Church, 26, 134, 134 Quaker Hill Fire Co., 26, 27 Quaker Hill Post Office, xi, xi, 28, 28 Quaker Hill School, 20, 104, 120-23, 126, 127, 126 Quakers, 133 Quarries, x, 66-68, 66, 67, 69, 73, 138, 139 Quarry Road, 12, 67 Quarrying, 57, 66, 67, 66-68, 94, 103 Quebec, 31 Radio, 27, 146 Radioactivity, 72, 73 Radway, Guy, 127 Radway, Maude, 127 Railroads, 28, 36, 38-42, 38-41, 46, 47, 50, 57, 66,67,73,77,81,91,95,95, 103, 106, 140 HAMS Ramillies, (British naval vessel), 32 R Distributors, 90, 91, 91 Reagan administration, 12 Recreation and Parks Commission, 21, 147, 148, 148, 149 Recycling, 20, 20, 21 Reid, James, 35 Reiger, Louis, 59 Religion, 96, 97, 128-35, 128-35 Representative Town Meeting, (RTM), 19, 19 Rescue boats, 26 Reservoir ponds, 62, 64 Resorts, x, 42, 43, 46, 57, 138, 139, 139 Retailing, v, vi, viii, iv, viii-xi, x, xi, 21, 28, 46, 53, 87, 86-88, 89-92, 91-93, 94, 95, 159 Retaliation, (prison ship), 31 Revenue Service, 74 Revere, Paul, 31 Revolutionary War, 14, 15, 30, 31, 30, 31, 34, 36, 58, 75 Reynolds, C. S., 63 Reynolds Metals Development Co., 53 Rhode Island, 6, 39, 45, 64, 101, 132, 134 Rhodes Scholars, 139 Rice, Austin D., 147 Richard, Lloyd, 145 Richards' Grove, 42, 139, 139 Richards Grove Road, 38, 39, 95 Richards, Reuben, 140 Rideshare Co., 47 Ridgewood Park development, 18, 116 Rieger, Louis, 59 Ripley, Robert,x Ripley's Believe It Or Not, x River Road, 125 Roads, viii, 7, 34, 92, 95, 97 Robertson, Carmichael, 65 Robertson, John 65 Robin Hood's Bay -
see Jordan Cove Robin Hood, whaling ship, 80, 81 Rockefeller, John D., 59, 108 Rocky Neck State Park, 10 Rogerenes, 132, 133
- Rogers, 68, 77 Rogers, David, 108 Rogers, Ezekiel, (Capt.), 80 Rogers family, 32, 128 Rogers, Isaac, 30 Rogers, Isreal, (Capt.), 81 Rogers, James, 57, 97, 132, 133 Rogers, James, Jr., 132 Rogers, James III, 30, 62 Rogers, John, 40, 41, 132, 133 Rogers, Joseph, 132 Rogers, Matthew, 32 Rogers, Moses, (Capt.), 79 Rogers, Solomon, 35, 125 Rogers, Stevens (1758-1811), 57, 108, 141 Rogers, Stevens, (Capt.), 76, 77, 77 Rogers, Thomas, 77 Rogers, Thomas, (Dr.), 48 Rogers, Thomas, (locomotive builder), 40, 41 Rogers, Will, 142 Roman Catholics, 128-30, 128, 129 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 128 Root cellar, ("muggs), 111 Rope Ferry, 36, 123 Rope Ferry Bridge, 33, 36, 36, 87 Rope Ferry Commons, 116, 117 Rope Ferry Road, iii, x, 15, 19, 24, 25, 28, 29,
-/.
!~i 128, 129 St. Petersburg, Russia, 79 Salem, CT, 51, 75, 120 Salt, 58, 59, 59 Salt works, 58, 59, 59 Sandy Hook, 77 San Francisco, 14, 14, 15 Sandy Point, viii Sarah, Duchess of York ("Fergie"), 145, 145 Saratoga, Battle of, 31, 31, 67 Saunders, Rosa, 89, 89 Saunders, Willaim, 28, 89 Savage family, 139 Savannah, GA, 79 Savannah, nuclear-powered ship, 79 Savannah, steamship, 78, 78, 79 Sawmills, 54, 62-64 Saybrook, 8, 134 Scallops, 77 Scarborough, William, 79 Scholfield, Arthur, 64 Scholfield, John, 64 Scholfield satinet factory, 64 Scholfield, Thomas, 64, 65 School buses, 126, 127 Schools, iii, 15, 16, 20, 33, 43, 45,49, 51, 67, 71, 73, 94, 95, 99, 100, 104, 108, 109, 112-14, 118-127, 118-127, 130, 131, 135, 141, 147, 148, 149, 159 Schumann, Clara, 15 Scotch Cap Road, 28, 38, 95 Scotland, 65, 67 Scots, 12, 64-66, 73, 100 Sealing, 75 Sealtest Ice Cream distribution center, 84 Sears, Roebuck & Co., 48, 92, 92, 146 Seaside Regional Center, 109 Seaside Sanitorium, ix, 68, 108, 109, 109 Seaside State Geriatric Hospital, 109 SEAT, (South East Area Transit), 47, 114 Seawolf submarine, 82 Second Baptist Church, 134, 134, 135 Second Congregational Church, 133 Selectmen, 10, 10, 13, 18, 19 Senior Citizens, 114, 115, 114, 115, 129 Senior Citizens Commission, 115 Senkow, Theodore, 113 Senators, 15 Service stations, xi, 52, 53 Seventh-Day Adventists, 131 Seventh Day Baptists, 12, 108, 132-34, 132 Shaw, Nathaniel, 15, 116, 123 Shaw's Supermarket, 90, 90 Sheep, 32, 36, 54,;60, 62, 63, 86 Shenandoah, Confederate commerce raider, 33 Shepard, Odel, 12 Sherry, Bridget, 13, 13 Sherry, James, 13, 13 Sheridan, Thomas A., 10, 19 Shipbuilding, 15, 74, 75, 74, 75 Shipyards, 15, 74,75, 74, 75 Shoemaking-see cobbling Shopping centers, 89-91, 88-91, 103, 114, 159 Shore artillery battery, 33, 108 Shoreline Adult Center, 115, 129 Shore Line Electic Railway Co., 43-45, 104 Shore Road, 12, 49, 57, 108, 135
- Shut, (blacksmith), 75 Sidewalks, 49 Slater, Samuel, 64 Slavery, 57, 100, 135 Smith, Budge, 135 Smith, Erastus, 108 Smith, G. Paul, 87 Smith, John, (Capt.), 4 Smith Joint-District School, 125-27, 126 Smith, Joseph, 64 Smiths Cove, 41, 42, 42, 83, 127, 135, 139, 139 Smithsonian Institute, 78 31-34, 36, 47, 51, 54, 67, 81, 87, 89, 102-04, 115, 116, 121-25, 129, 133, 135, 150 Rose, Frank M., 31, 137, 138 Rose, Margo, 146, 146, 147 Rosenberg, Aaron, (Rabbi), 130, 130 Rosenthal, Beatrice Holt, 121 Rose, Rufus, 131, 138, 146, 146, 147 Route 1, (US), 45, 49 Route 2A, 2
Route 11, 51 Route 32, 7, 49, 127 Route 156, 49, 51 Route 85, viii, 49, 51 Route 1-95, x, 50, 51, 50, 51 Route 1-395, 7, 51 Rovensky, John C., 13 Rovensky, Mae -
see Cadwell Rowe, Ann, 115 Rowley, Mrs, George, F., 141, 141 Roxana, sloop, 37 Rumrill, Mrs, Anna Chapin, 25 Rumrill, James A., 25, 46, 47, 105, 106, 108 Rumrunner, 76 Rural Free Delivery, 28, 29, 29 Russia, 33,79, 85, 121, 145 Russian Finns, 12, 66 Ryan, Dorothy, 33 sr. Ann Melkite Catholic church, 130, 130 St. John's Roman Catholic Church, 128 St. Mary's Cemetery, 131 St. Mary's Star of the Sea Church, 128, 129 St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, 128 St. Paul in Chains Roman Catholic Church, 128, 157
Soccer, 52, 53, 148 Solomon Rogers Inn, 35, 35 Sonalysts, 84, 85. 84, 85 South America, 75, 81 Southern Connecticut State Fair, 143 Southern New England Telephone Co, (SNET),
95, 105 Southern Pacific Railroad Co, 108 Southwest School, 121, 121 Spera Soccer Field, 52, 53 Spielberg, Steven, 85, 148 Spithead Road, 49, 63, 84 Spithead School, 124, 125 Sports, 141, 141. 143, 147, 148, 149 Springsteen, Bruce, 147 Stacy, Margaret, W., 30, 75, 125, 127 Stagecoaches, xi, 28, 33, 36, 36, 47, 106 Standard Oil Co., 33, 59, 108 Stanton, Rowland, 35 Stark, Benjamin, Jr., 75 Statue of Liberty. 68, 128 Steamships, 60, 60, 78, 78-81, 80, 106 Stebbins, John, 8, 34, 62 Stedman, Thomas, 86 Steel mill, 113 Steinbach Department Store, 89 Stenger Farm Park, 115, 143 Stenger, Nichols, 143 Stephen J. Maher Building, 109, 109 Steard family 60 Stevard, Franlin, IlI Steward, Griswold, 87 Stewart, William, 31 Stone, 33 Stone, Gregory, 22 Stonington, 39 Stony Brook, 7 Stop & Shop, viii, viii, 90 Stores, viii, viii-xi, 28, 73, 86, 86-88, 90-92, 89-92 Strand, xi, xii, xiii, 53, 140 Straits Bridge-sae Golden Spur Street numbers, 29 Submarine base, 76, 76, 77, 82, 83, 83, 139 Submarines, 2, 31, 82-85, 83, 113 Subsistence farming, 60 Summer Music, 145 Sunday schools, 124, 134, 135 Supermarkets, viii, viii-cx, 89, 90, 89, 90 Super Stop & Shop -see Stop & Shop Susquehanna River, 14 Sutula, Leo S., (Rev.), 129 Swedes, 66, 79 Swimming program, 148, 149 Synagogue, 130. 130 Tabor, Job 87 Tabor, Pardon T illinghasr, 31 Tabor, Phillip, 63, 134 Tanning, 54 Tautog, submarine, 82 Taverns, xi, 26, 28, 30, 30, 35, 35, 124, 125, 132, 138 Tax assessor's accounts, 58 Taxes, 18, 29, 31, 36, 54, 71, 75, 86, 132, 133, 135 Taxis, 46 Taylor, William 0. (Harkness in-law), 106 Taylor, William Osgood, (Boston Globe execu-tive), 131 Telephones, 95. 105, 105, 111. 133 Television, 140, 140, 146, 146, 147 Temple Emanu-EI, 130, 131 Tennis, 138, 141, 148, 149 Tetracycline, 83 Texas, 142 Textile factories, 62-64, 62 Thames Boat Club, 141 Thames River, 7-10, 36, 38. 39, 74. 75, 77, 82, 83,124,140,140,141,159 Thames River Lumber Co.. 95 Thames Valley Transportation Co., 47 Thames View, 42 Theater, 58, 144, 145, 145-48, 149 Thurston, George, (Senator), 101 Tidewater Oil Co., 95 Tiffany, Charles, 77 Time magazine. 72 4To a Wild Rose, I5 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 134
'Tonight" show, 84, 146 Tories, 31 Town buildings, iii, iii, 19-21, 21. 98, 99, 99 Town charter, 19 Town hall, iii, 19, 20, 118, 122 Town Hill, (New London), 62 Town meetings, 16-19, 19, 35, 123 Town seal, 16, 16, 62 Town vehicles, 20, 21 Toys R Us, store, 92 Trading, 81, 86-95, 98 Transcontinental railroad, 40, 41, 40, 41 Triton, submarine, 85 Trolleys, 28, 29, 42-47, 42-45, 50, 68, 88, 104, 124, 139 Trott, John Proctor, 98, 98 Truman, Harry S., 83 Trumbull, naval vessel, 31 Trumbull Road. 116 Tuberculosis, 108, 109 Tunnel. 92 Turks Island, 58 Turner, Pain, 125 Turner, Clara, 138, 138 Turning mill. 63 Turn pik s, 3 36, 50, 51 Turtle, submarine, 82 Tvin Havens, Inc., 114 Twin Lakes Drive, 116, 117, 117 Tyack, William, 30 Tyler, A.C., (Colonel), 141 Uncas, 7 Uncas-on Thames Hospital, 43, 109 Underhill, John (Capt.). 8 Underwater Sound Laboratory, 82, 84, 120 Union Cemetery, 126, 135 Union Pacific Railroad, 40, 41, 40, 41 United Builders Supply, (UBS), 95, 95 United Nations Building, 68 United Parcel Service. (UPS), 95 United States, frigate, 33, 33 U.S. Coast Guard Academy, II U.S. Naval Academy, 85 U.S. Naval War College, 85 U.S. Naval Submarine Base, 82, 83, 83 U.S. Supreme Court Building, 68, 108 Upper Mamacock -
see Mamacock V
auxhall Street Extension 31, 36, 48, (i2, 94, 95,100,117,127,135 Venti, Joseph, 52, 53 Venture, lobster boat, 74, 74 Vermont, 14 Veterans Memorial Green, 28, 30, 30, 51 Veterans of Foreign Wars, (VFW), 63 Victorian period, 73, 104, 104, 105, 111, 113, 116,145 Vietnam, 33 Virginia, 25 Volkswagen, 52, 53 Von Steuben, (General), 36, 58 Voting, 11, 16, 18,18,19,35,100, 118, 121, 139 Voting districts, 18 Wall Richard B., 32, 63, 75, 123, 125 Waller, Samuel, 4, 62, 98, 99 Wallingford, 134 Wal-Mart Department Store, 91, 91, 92 Walnut Grove Farm, 58, 59, 58, 59, 145, 145 War of 1812, 32, 33, 32, 33, 68, 75, 78, 138 Warren, Moses, 14, 15. 34. 36, 63 Warren, OH, 14, 14, 34 Washington, DC, 29, 29, 39 Washington, George, 30, 31, 98 Watch Hill, 43 Water, i, 22, 22, 23, 27, 34, 58. 59, 92, 113, 135 WX'ater desalination, 85 Waterfall of Waterford Shopping Center, 88, 89,
- 89. 90 Waterford. ARD-5, (naval vessel), 82, 82, 83, 83 Waterford Airport, 3. 53, 53 Waterford Beach Park, vi, vi, 2, 51, 58, 76, 142, 142 Waterford Communiry Band, 148 Waterford crystal, iv, vi, 92 Waterford Country School, 125 Waterford Drive-In Theater, 148, 149 Waterford Fire Co. No. 1, 13. 26, 26, 27 Witerford Guardian, x Waterford Hardware, 89 Waterford High School, vi, vi. 120, 120, 121.
147, 159 Waterford Historical Sociery, Inc., viii, 116 Waterford, Ireland, vi Waterford Library Association, Inc., 24 Waterford, named, 2 Waterford Pharmacy, 89, 94, 94 Waterford Plaza, viii, viii, ix, 90, 148 Waterford Post Offiee, x, x, 11 Waterford Public Health Nursing Service, 108, 122 Waterford Public Library, 24, 24, 25, 25, 115 Waterford Recreation Association, (WRA), 148 Waterford Soccer Club, 148 Waterford Speedbowl, 11, 112, 143, 143 Waterford Square Mall, 92 WaterfordTheater, 148 Waterford Water and Sewage Commission, 22 Waterford Week, 148 Waterhouse, Jacob, 8 Weather, 98, 99, 110 10, I. 1.111 Westerly, RI. 10, 67, 95, 132 Western Reserve, 14, 14, 15, 34, 125 West Farms -
informal early name for most of future Waterford West Farms Land Trust, ix Wesr Indies, 81, 86, 87 Western Massachusetts Electric Co, 70 West Lakes Pond School -
see Lakes Pond School W(c'stmoreland, 14 W(est Neck Cemetery. 131 WXecst Neck School -
see Great Neck School Wecst Point, (U.S. Military Academy), 68 Westport, 19 Wcst School Sociery, 127 Wethersfield, 12, 13, 59, 97 Wetlands, 3 Whaling, 15, 33, 81, 101, 102, 134 White, Aida, 145 Whitefield, George, (Rev.), 35 White, George C. 145, 145 White. Henry C., 12, 46, 48 White, Nelson C., 53, 53, 78, 145 White Point, 3, 33, 110, 142 Whitman farm, 53 Wholesale Depot, Inc., 91 Wicks, Maggie, 90 Wightman, Asa, (Capt.). x, 35, 138 Wightman Frederick, (Elder), 135 Wightman, Palmer G., (Elder), 135 Wightman Valentine. (Rev.), 134, 135 158
Wigwam Rock, 10 WI Wswarns 8 Wider, Thorton, 15 Wild Rose Avenue, 49 Willetts Avenue, 141
'Willey, Isaac, 8, 9,34 William and Mary, (sovereigns), 34
'William B. Ellis Technical Support Center, 72, 72 Willimantic, 38, 47 Wilson, Margaret, 138 Wilson, Woodrow, 138 Windmills, 62, 65 Windows, 98, 99, 99
-Winnie Winkle,' comic strip, 16 Winthrop gristmill, 62, 63 Winthrop, John, the Younger, 8, 9, 9, 14, 62, 64, 67,68,70,97 Winthrop, Mrs. John, Jr., 9
'Winthrop, Margaret, 64 Winthrop Mill Pond Farm, 62 Woodworth, Henry O., 28 Woodworth, Nathan, 65 Woodworth, Oliver, 65, 65 Woodworth's Hill, 48 Woodworth, Thomas B., 65, 104 Woolen mills, 62-65 World Trade Center, 8, 8 World War I, 21, 33, 46, 60, 68, 85, 108, 139, 140 World War 11, 12,21,22,27,29,32,33,33, 39,47,49, 51, 53, 57, 71, 82, 83, 89, 95, 108, 112, 113, 116, 120, 121, 128, 129, 140, 147 Wright, Louis B., 86 i
W. T. Grant Department Store, 89 X
rocket airplane, 40 Yacht clubs, 141 Yale College, 103, 124, 133, 145 Yale-Harvard Regatta, 53, 140, 140, 141 Yeager, Chuck, 40 Yellow fever, 16, 100 Yesterday's Waterford lecture series, viii, 70 York, (city), 97, 97 Yorkshire Drive, 59 Young, Brigham, 130 Young, Kimball, 130 YMCA, 148 Youth Services Bureau, 115 Zip Code Numbers, 28 Zoning, 113 The 1959-60 school year was pivotal.
With its first addition, Waterford High School (foreground) housed its first full four classes for the first complete K-12 system and graduated its first class.
The construction of the initial unit of a courtyard shopping center (surround-ed by raw earth at middle extreme right) harbingered the town's future as the regionIs retail destination.
On the foreshore of the Thames River was the en masse source of in-migration.
The Groton Gold Star Bridge (upper far left) was crossed by 1,360 of the stu-F dents'parents employed in defense jobs there during that eventful decade.
159
J -
Author with his champion Pembroke Welsh Corgi "Woody' (Amn.ICan.IBda.
ch., Can. O.T.Ch., U-UD Llandian Romp N Circumstance UD, HC, HT, Bda. CD, CGC, TD1, AAT, TT, VPA) at the historic Jordan Green.
C ONNECTICUT first welcomed the author in 1943 when he received navy orders to the submarine base in Groton. There he wrote a news column. He returned in 1956 as a member of the history faculty that opened the new Waterford High School in his wife's hometown. The former Claudia Stewart's Waterford ancestry dates back to the first settlers. The author was a Wall St. Journal Fellow at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He was named area observer by the Journal's sister publication, the National Observer. He was solicited for editorships as well as being published by the U.S.
Naval Institute Proceedings. Creator of the Toeing the Mark textbook, he served as editor and contributor to the Waterford and Independence 1776-1976 monograph. He directed the 1966-73 "Yesterday's Waterford" lecture series. An incorporator of the Waterford History Society, Inc., he was instrumental in the concept and design of its Jordan Green complex. Serving on the editorial staff of a canine magazine since 1993, he handled his champion corgi to multiple tides in three countries.