USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 15
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The New Canaan Drug Store in the olden days was far more than a store. It was a center of the business and social life of New Canaan. In summer this social life centered about the ice cream parlor. Across the back of the main store was New Canaan's first soda fountain. It was a small affair as soda fountains go today, but it was resplendent in onyx and nickel plate.
Ordinary sodas came in half a dozen flavors. If you were in a spending mood, an extra nickel would procure that novelty, the ice cream soda. Probably the most popular summer drink for many years was the lemon or orange phos- phate-a concoction that seems to have com- pletely disappeared from the face of the earth.
The first ice cream parlor-saloon, the early ads called it-was a room at the back of the store. Later an outdoor parlor was added. Here came the housewife for a dish of ice cream after her marketing. Here could the tired business man indulge in an early form of the pause that refreshes. Here would the farmer from Dantown or Vista way sit in comfort while his horse was being shod. Here congre- gated morning, noon and night, that strange race, the summer visitors. And for many a New Canaan family a visit to Monroe's ice cream saloon was a Saturday night "must," just as regularly as that other well known Saturday evening rite.
If it was ice cream you were after, ordering was relatively simple. As a rule there were two flavors: vanilla and chocolate. Though for a brief period when fresh berries were in the market, strawberry was an added attraction.
It is probably disrespectful to write of Mon- roe's ice cream in lower case. Viewed from a nostalgic distance it should be capitalized as ICE CREAM. To start with, it was made of cream -cream bought from neighboring farms. The ingredients, as well as the soda syrups, were prepared upstairs in the family kitchen. After cooking, the materials were taken to the base- ment for freezing. For Monroe's ice cream was frozen in the good old fashioned way, by means of ice and a strong right arm. Saturday was the customary freezing day; noon the hour for the weekly meeting of the New Canaan Young Men's Dasher-Licking Club.
Even the ice was home made, in a manner of speaking, Nature being credited with an as- sist. For Monroe harvested ice both for his own use and for public sale. "Monroe's Health Ice" was probably New Canaan's first commer- cial ice supply, and its office was the drug store.
No record has been found of when either the ice business or the ice cream and soda
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business was started but it must have been well back of 1870. The "New Canaan Era," New Canaan's first newspaper, mentions in De- cember 1868 that "L. M. Monroe is laying in ice from Lake Wampanaw," and in February of 1870 the editor refers to a new ice house at Lake Anthony "so the thirsty souls of New Ca- naan can be assured of cool sodas and ice cream during the next season." In 1869 an ad in the Era exhorts the public to keep cool with Mon- roe's soda water, and mentions that the soda fountain has been renovated, indicating that it had already passed its youth.
While sodas and ice cream were the big summer items, there was a substantial traffic in "Huyler's Assorted Chocolates and Bon- bons," with a more lowly line of candy in bulk, including ever popular gum drops and choco- late creams. Other summer items, at one time or another, included golf balls, baseball bats, and a handsome line of china ware and wood ware, tastefully inscribed: "Souvenir of New Canaan."
With September, the summer visitors went back to the city and New Canaan prepared to hibernate. Ice cream was no longer available. The soda fountain was shut down, though from an urn on the counter hot chocolate could be obtained. With real cold weather, out came the pot-bellied stove. The social life of the drug store now became more of a stag affair-an early hot stove league. Here the town worthies would gather, with the stove door open for the dual purpose of letting out heat and serving as a-pfft-target. In endless conversations they would settle the affairs of state and nation, with thorough discussions as to how much everyone in town was "wuth."
One day each winter the store really livened up. December 28 was Lucius Monroe's birth- day, and a mug of hot Tom and Jerry was on tap for all callers. It has been stated on reason- ably good authority that not a few of Monroe's friends, to make sure they did not overlook their congratulatory duties, would drop in every couple of hours.
The drug store also served in the old days as unofficial political headquarters. For many years Lucius Monroe was a power in local
Democratic circles, and served as his party's town chairman. Apparently there was some sort of an affinity between this office and the drug store. Subsequent chairmen have in- cluded James J. Cody, present owner, and M. G. Gregory, now and formerly an assistant pharmacist, and a one time telegraph opera- tor.
The politicians would gather in the back room to compose ammunition to fire at the Re- publicans, first. At the time of the Civil War the Democratic party, as will be recalled, was opposed to the war. Presumably the party line was more or less followed in New Canaan. Any- way, one of the campaigns of the 60's brought forth this anonymous blast:
"There's a man in New Canaan who keeps lots of drugs. In the rear of the store you'll find a set of plugs. They assemble each night in that rusty old pen, Known around town as the old traitors' den."
It is to be regretted that Boss Monroe's re- ply to that one is lost to history.
For many years the drug store was also New Canaan's telegraph office. Back of a show case where the present soda fountain is located was a roll top desk. That desk was long the New Canaan office of Western Union Telegraph and Cable Co.
Sometimes small things can move telegraph offices. After the telephone came into general use, the delivery and receipt of telegrams was something of a public performance. Not so many decades ago a worthy citizen had gone on a trip, leaving his two daughters in charge of a governess. The daughters had reached the age when they yearned for social gatherings, and they apparently viewed this parental ab- sence as an opportunity not to be missed. A day or so later, the operator was repeating back over the phone, a telegram from the governess to the absent father. It said: "Come home: girls completely out of hand." Within an hour, by means of that method of communication thou- sands of years older than telegraph or tele-
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phone, and often faster, the story was all over town. Next week the telegraph "office" was moved to a back room.
It was not by mere chance that the telegraph came to be in the drug store. At one time Lucius Monroe was himself a whole telegraph company. The main line between New York and Boston, which now skirts New Canaan, once passed right through the middle of town. The wires came up East Avenue and through the driveway alongside the drug store. (At least one of the poles is still there.) This was Jay Gould's Mutual System, later incorporated into Western Union. It was doubtless a source of pride to New Canaanites to have this visible connection with those two metropolises ( or is it metropoli?), but it was of little practical value because the lines passed through without stop- ping-there was no New Canaan connection. So Lucius Monroe built a telegraph line of his own to Stamford, stringing his wires on trees and fence posts. For some time he was the owner, operator, lineman, and doubtless the complaint clerk. The date of the building of this line is uncertain but it was prior to 1869. In the Era for January 23, 1869, appears this notice:
"If the person who stole Monroe's telegraph arms will return or pay for them, he will save him- self a lot of trouble as he was seen and recognized."
Eventually Monroe's private line was ab- sorbed into the Western Union system. The suspicion will not down that Monroe had no- tions of absorbing Western Union into his line, but it worked out the other way. The keys are silent and gone now, but there are still many people in New Canaan to whom the dot-dash of the Morse was as much a part of the drug store as the smell of ipecac.
Then there was the post office. The post of- fice was never actually in the drug store, but for a long time it was practically an annex. For 30 years or more, ending around 1900, the post office was next door, in a building torn down a few years ago to make room for the First Na- tional. Here, of an evening, people waited while the postal clerk sorted the mail (some-
times there were even two sacks of it), and then crossed the alley for a dish of ice cream or a hot chocolate. And under both Cleveland administrations Lucius Monroe was post- master.
The year 1868 was a big one for New Ca- naan. That was the year that marked the open- ing of the new Canaan Railroad (See Adver- tiser, Aug. 7, 1947). In spite of the fact that Lucius Monroe was an incorporator of the new railroad company, somehow the drug store missed getting the ticket office and freight depot. However, the coming of the cars sug- gested a new line for Monroe to follow. Believ- ing apparently, that boom days were just around the corner, in the fall of 1868 he opened, in the rear of the drug store, an office for the purchase and sale of real estate, stocks, bonds, mortgages, etc. "This" remarked the Era, "is a novelty among us, one of the necessities cre- ated by the progressive activity of the town." Thus the drug store became the first of New Canaan's many real estate offices, as well as the first (and probably only) stockbroker's office.
To make sure that the public could find his busy emporium, even on the darkest night, in 1870 Monroe put up a lamp on a pole in front of the store. "This," said the Era, "is useful not only to himself but to the general public. The lamp burns gasoline, and gives a clear and good light." This was not only New Canaan's first street light, for a long time it was the only street light. When that new fangled thing called the electric light finally reached New Canaan, about 1897, the first subscribers were the drug store, the post office and the Con- gregational Church.
Various other business enterprises were con- nected, directly or indirectly, with the drug store. Sometime prior to 1865 Monroe became interested in what was then a great novelty: a fire extinguisher. So Monroe's drug store be- came the office of L. M. Monroe & Co., agents for the National Fire Extinguisher Co. of Bos- ton. In a sense, the drug store even had a Bos- ton office; at least Monroe did. In spite of his many local activities he found time to superin- tend the installation in many leading New Eng- land cities of the Gamewell Fire Alarm Tele-
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graph-the system still in almost universal use.
Perhaps it was this anti-fire activity that got Monroe interested in water. As early as the 80s he began preaching public water supply. In 1891 about a score of citizens, including Lucius Monroe and Benjamin P. Mead, petitioned for a town meeting to be held in the Opera House, for the purpose of "having the town build a water system." When the voters turned it down, Monroe and Mead decided to build their own water system. In 1893 a charter was granted to Lucius M. Monroe, John F. Bliss, George F. Lockwood, Benjamin P. Mead, Francis E. Weed, George M. Olmstead and E. H. Phipps as incorporators of the New Canaan Water Company. In May of that year books were opened for receiving stock subscriptions. The principal stockholders were the Meads, the Monroes and a Mr. Pardee of New Haven. In November of 1894 work was started on the dam, and before long the water system was an
accomplished fact. Lucius Monroe was the first president of the company, holding that office until his death in 1916, when he was succeeded by his son. And for a quarter of a century the office of the New Canaan Water Company was the New Canaan Drug Store.
In spite of the many side lines of the earlier days, the drug store was essentially a drug store, and as a drug store it is still there, still doing business at the old stand. Time has brought changes, of course. Western Union and the water company have grown up and have offices of their own. That home-made ice cream is now only a fading memory. Gone too, is the once familiar figure of Lucius Monroe, sitting in the front window of his store, watch- ing New Canaan go about its affairs. In his boy- hood he had lost the sight of one eye. But in spite of this handicap, little went on in New Canaan that he missed; very little.
THE CHICHESTER-ALEXANDER - OWEN HOUSE
HELEN LAIRD BAILEY, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[September 4, 1947]
In the diary of the Reverend William Drum- mond in 1772, we read that he called upon Abraham Chichester and his wife Jerusha, their children, Martha and Jerusha, Abraham, David, Nathan and Stephen. They were living on a farm which Abraham had bought in 1770 from Joshua Hait who was one of the Stam- ford proprietors. Hait owned hundreds of acres, all west of the Perambulation line, and the southeast corner of the land that he sold to Abraham is the site of the house now owned
and occupied by Mrs. Walter B. Owen. There are no records to tell us when this house was built, nor do we know the builder's name, al- though some believe that it may have belonged to the Weed family. The land to the north of the Chichester farm was owned by the Weeds and there is extant a will of one Charles Weed probated in 1759 leaving to his son Charles "The new frame house yt is now in building, together with the boards, shingles and nails already provided, and sum of £15 towards
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Edui Everman. -
The Chichester-Alexander-Owen House
his paying the workmen in finishing his bd. house." This house is probably the one now owned by Morton Adams.
We do know that the Owen house was standing in 1779 on Weed Street at the Wa- hackme junction and we find Nathan, son of Abraham living there with his wife. He was a veteran of the American Revolution for he and his father and his brothers, David and Abra- ham, fought in the battle of Ridgefield. The records show that Nathan and his wife became members of the Congregational Church in 1779.
Nathan and his descendants occupied the
house for 117 years until 1896 when the owner, Mrs. Francis Chichester, sold it to Mrs. Law- rence D. Alexander. Mrs. Alexander was a des- cendant of Mathais and Naomi St. John. Her interest in the early history of New Canaan prompted her to persuade the town to change the name Chichester Avenue to Wahackme Road. She built the large house now owned by Arthur Syzk and used the old Chichester house as a guest house. At the time of her purchase the old house stood close to Wahackme Road. She had it removed to a site northwest of its original position, the old outside kitchen and a front porch were taken off and the cellar was
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eliminated. During a brief period it served as an antique shop and a tea room and was called the Greenley Tea Room.
In 1932 Mrs. Alexander's heirs sold the pro- perty to Harold Phelps Stokes who had the old house remodelled into the present charm- ing residence. For a few years it was rented to various families until 1940 when it was pur- chased by Mrs. Owen who has occupied it ever since.
The old house has sheltered its several fam- ilies for approximately 170 years and it is in- teresting to consider the different traditions that have come under its roof. First were the Chichesters, New England farmers who tilled the soil and whose sons defended their coun- try during the war against England. Then Mrs. Alexander, whose roots were in New England but whose life had been spent in the south. Her father was a St. John from the Silver Mine Valley, who left here as a young man and achieved wealth and distinction in the south. His daughter returned to search the records of her family history and stayed to build a fine mansion on New England soil, in the tradition of the great Mississippi plantation houses. One of the treasures of the Historical Society is a small saucer made to commemorate the launching of the Mississippi river boat, the Orline St. John, named for Mrs. Alexander.
These were the traditions she brought and to the town she gave her time and ability. She was one of the founders of the Historical So- ciety and of the New Canaan Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. These are only two of the many far reaching things that she did.
The house has known the influence of the south a second time in the presence of Mrs. Owen who represents the finest traditions of that part of the country. She was born Melanie Bisland in Mt. Repose, near Natchez, Miss., on her paternal grandfather's cotton plantation. The plantation was part of a property deeded to her great grandfather, John Bisland, by the Spanish government in 1767 at which time the region was known as the Province of West Florida. Subsequently her family moved to New Orleans where she spent her girlhood and where as a young lady she was chosen Queen of one of their famous balls. She was married in New York and lived abroad until the out- break of the first World War when she re- turned to New York and later came to New Canaan to live. Like her predecessors in the house she too has given most generously of her time and ability to the betterment of the community and her home is a delightful re- flection of all the fine people who have lived in it.
THE NORWALK DAM
M. FARMER MURPHY, Author
MELBOURNE BRINDLE, Artist
[November 20, 1947]
Norwalk Lake Dam spans the valley of the Silver Mine River about 100 yards north of North Wilton Road where this highway be- comes a causeway over the upper end of the Grupe reservoir. It rises 75 feet above the val-
ley floor and when completed in December, 1946, represented a gestation period of 30 years or more. At least that long ago the Norwalk au- thorities began to talk of building another re- servoir at or near this site, the discussion being
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Allowsas Brindle
The Norwalk Dam
serious enough to keep owners of property ad- jacent to the proposed location in a state of anxiety for many years as to what was going to happen to them.
First excavations for the dam were begun in the last part of October, 1945, and after it was finished on December 6, 1946, the gates were closed, the flow of the stream was backed up and when the water began to run over the spill- way on Washington's birthday, 1947, it had submerged 80 acres of land and several hun- dred thousand words of local tradition. For the region which is now a lake and the land surrounding it had been in the 1800's and be- fore a scene of activities vital to the life of the community. And, according to stories handed down, industries located here had extended their influence during the Revolution by pro- ducing important materials for the Continental army.
Buried under the waters of the lake are the sites of two old mills and the dam and mill- race of a third. One mill located near the New York state line was built toward the end of the
18th century by one Michael Lockwood and little information about it seems to have come down. A second mill a short distance down stream was built by Michael Lockwood's son, Michael, Jr. According to stories told by those who were already "old settlers" at the begin- ing of this century, this was a smelter where iron ore carted from the Tilly Foster mine in New York state was worked. It is told that the ore was drawn by ox teams which took a week to make the round trip, the owner of a team receiving $5 for each load. A special piece of embroidery to this tale is that in this mill were forged some of the links in the great chain which the Continentals strung across the Hud- son at West Point to prevent British ships from sailing further up the river.
The third mill, also built and operated by Michael Lockwood, Jr., was located on the east side of the river just north of the bridge on North Wilton Road and about 100 yards below the new dam. A stone dam for this mill blocked the river a quarter of a mile upstream and the mill-race ran along the east bank to discharge
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its water into the well housing the mill wheel. The abutments of the old dam were still stand- ing when work on the new dam began and the mill-race could be plainly followed until it was obliterated by excavating operations. How- ever, a part of it remains and the wheel pit still stands almost complete.
According to papers of the New Canaan Historical Society, from which many of the statements in this article are taken, this mill was a saw mill, grist mill and woolen mill. It was taken over by Carmi Lockwood, son of Michael, Jr., around 1830. Later Carmi Lock- wood had Curtis Finch as a partner and still later Finch took possession of the property. From the best available information the mill must have ceased operations 75 to 80 years ago. Until quite recently the stones of the grist mill that ground the grain lay about near where the old mill stood. The crumbling cellar walls of a half dozen abandoned dwellings are to be found within half a mile of the old mill as well as several ancient houses still standing and occupied, thus giving evidence of the life that once clustered about this useful enterprise.
Norwalk Lake is the fourth reservoir to be constructed by the First Taxing District of the city of Norwalk in order to maintain an ade- quate water supply for the city. The first built, Grupe reservoir, bears the date 1871; Scott re- servoir, situated over the New York state line in Lewisboro, came many years later, and Brown reservoir, also in Lewisboro, was con- structed in 1909-10.
When filled to capacity Norwalk Lake will impound 550 million gallons of water, which is 150 million gallons more than the capacity of the other three reservoirs combined. The close to a billion gallons capacity of all four reservoirs is considered to be a year's supply for the city of Norwalk, daily consumption being about three million gallons.
The overall length of the dam at the top is 1,012 feet, its height above bed rock is 105 feet and above the ground level of the valley 75 feet. It is nine feet wide at the top while at the deepest section of the base the width is 77 feet. The elevation of the flow line, that is, where
the water comes over the 200 foot spillway, is 370 feet above sea level. The spillway is de- signed to permit a flood flow of 8,000 cubic feet of water a second.
The cost of the dam was approximately $950,000, which happens to represent one dol- lar for every 1,000 gallons of the total capacity of all four reservoirs which is 948,000,000 gal- lons. When completed the dam was imme- diately put into service without more ado, but on April 13, 1947, there was a formal dedica- tion at the site. Commissoner William J. Pow- ers of Norwalk, presided over the ceremonies and every one who had had any official con- nection with the building of the structure - and some who hadn't-spoke their pieces to a gathering of several hundred persons and into a microphone for electrical transcription for the benefit of posterity. Hence any future biog- rapher of the dam will not have the difficulty in gathering complete and exact information about it that hampers those delving into the history of dams of 75 and 100 years ago.
A bronze tablet placed on the concrete para- pet of the dam at its eastern end bears this inscription:
CITY OF NORWALK FIRST TAXING DISTRICT NORWALK LAKE DAM 1946
Commissioners
William J. Powers John D. Milne
Charles E. Sutton Henry H. Hefferan
Robert J. Lahey District Clerk
Buck, Seifert & Jost Consulting Engineers
John E. Riordan District Engineer
E. W. Foley Associates Co., Inc., Contractors
Although erected at a point almost half way through the 20th century, Norwalk Lake Dam
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symbolizes the dividing line between the two ways of life. This divergence began to appear in the latter part of the last century. Then the simple forms of power were being discarded in favor of highly developed, complex forms. New sources of energy were discovered and developed and the whole industrial system was rapidly mechanized. The small stone and earth dams of the Lockwood mills were built by hand labor, or ox teams, stone-boats, crow- bars and block and tackle. Progress was slow and painful. Even in the construction of the Brown reservoir as late as 1909 no machinery of the type now in universal use was employed. The excavating was done with plows, scrapers and horses.
A vast chasm separates these two worlds. Stone-boat drawn by oxen looks across to gaso- line driven truck; block and tackle to giant crane, steam-shovel, compressors and transit mixers; working day of dawn to sunset to one of eight hours. Not only the Lockwood dams, but also Grupe, Scott and Brown reservoirs stand for a fixed past which is beyond recap- ture, in sharp contrast to Norwalk Lake Dam representing the fluid present with all the gad- gets and contraptions of a machine age. But while outmoded in form and dress the older
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