USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 7
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book-lined rooms imaginable. Rather than lose the original and attractively simple old mantel- piece from this room, too small as the room was expanded, they moved it to an upstairs bed- room where it presents a chcerful welcome to guests.
The living room was also enlarged into a lovely room of excellent proportions aug- mented by simple yet beautiful decorating. From the highly polished, long-barreled Ken- tucky rifle above the mantle, through the won- derful Williamsburg blue of the walls to the fascinating collection of pewter, this is a most unusual room.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox added a charming big bay window in the old parlor, which somehow points up the fine hand carving of the wood- work; they converted a windy north door into an alcove for plants; and they built a large ter- race along the eastern side, which faces on the gardens. As it stands today on Michigan Road in simple elegance behind a wall of high shrubs, the house is the embodiment of the taste and the spirit of the hospitality of its owners.
THE OBSERVATION POST
MARY H. WHITCOMB, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[March 27, 1947]
The youngest historieal site in New Canaan is a pine eircled rise on Oenoke Ridge. Known to several generations variously as Reed's Lot, Hollingsworth Hill, Elmarglaru Heights, in honor of the current owner's four daughters, and, also as Picnic Hill, though its best known name for more than a century was Canaan Ridge, it will be recorded henceforth, at least in the memory of some three hundred men and women of this region, as the Observation Post.
The beginning was not on the hill the ulti- mate site, but in the old American Legion building in Park Street, where a small group of Legionnaires met at the request of the Army, in November, 1940, to organize a listening post, as it was first called. Judge L. P. Frothingham was chosen head and named Mott S. Pettit his first assistant.
Three practice trials were held in the follow- ing year, the first in the garage of the then
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-...
Hlv.141.5 Edwin Eberman
The Observation Post
Sewell (now T. E. Saxe) home, the second and third trials north of the house, upon the hill where the view was found to be more encom- passing.
Before daylight the morning after the Pearl Harbor disaster, T. F. McQuillon turned on his radio, heard the Army broadcast the order to open all Posts, phoned Mark Stevens, his
partner in the trials, and the two men raced to the hill and opened the construction shack which the Town, a few months before, had given the Post, and which was not closed again until the order to do so came two years later from the President of the United States.
Immediately, as news of the need spread, there was a rush of volunteers and, by the end
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of the first week, teams had been formed and two-men shifts were on watch around the clock. Soon, however, as more and more men went into the armed services and war plants, it became obvious that those remaining could not maintain the Post on an efficient twenty-four hour basis and Mrs. Lynne Thompson offered to organize a group of women to help. This offer, after some consideration, the men feeling that this was not "woman's work," was some- what reluctantly accepted and on December 28 women began standing watches from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
But, as the war continued and the call on more men increased, the list of observers suf- fered and by the Spring of '42 women were filling the watches from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and when the schools closed in June, fifteen and sixteen year old boys, too young for uniforms but eager to do their part, were augmenting the daylight shifts.
By the summer of '42 the Observation Post had become a community affair. Grandmothers and grandfathers, war brides, high school boys and girls, all took their turn "up on the hill." Munition and aircraft workers, after their day's work, grocers, plumbers, bankers, carpenters, electricians, housewives, clerks, secretaries, every trade and business and nearly every home in the town had at least one representa- tive at the Post which, by this time, had long been running according to Army specifications. Two deputies had been appointed, Malcolm A. Sedgwick for the night shift, Mrs. Thomp- son for the day shift. They, in turn, had selected team captains whose responsibility it was to keep the Post alerted.
The fall of '42 brought even greater pressure on everyone concerned. Judge Frothingham, due to innumerable other civilian activities, re- signed as Chief Observer and Ralph B. Semler was appointed in his stead. The Army drafted Mrs. Thompson, by profession a writer, to orig- inate and produce radio recruitment scripts and Mrs. Newell B. Whitcomb succeeded her as day deputy.
It was clear to all that a long, grim winter lay ahead and preparations were begun to make the hill morc bearable and more efficient.
The Town, spoken for by its First Selectman, Clarence E. Costales, contributed another con- struction shack which was added to the first one. The Legion voted $150 towards joining and weather-proofing the two buildings and individual and unsolicited donations of money, material and labor poured in as the Town de- termined that the Post, though strictly a civ- ilian and volunteer organization, would to the fullest extent cooperate with its military pre- ceptors. Citizens gave all manner of necessary equipment, large and small; lightning rods, in- sulating material, a coal stove to heat the room below, an electric heater for the glass tower (erected on the southwest corner to further vision), a reliable clock, a telescope, even an old raccoon coat for use when observers had to stand on the catwalk that went around two sides of the tower. The night shift was worked out on a two hour rotation plan, and many a weary commuter tried desperately to "make up" sleep on crowded trains, after a very cold night. However, a fine feeling of cooperation and usefulness prevailed at all times. The Post was such a real solution to the ever present question, "what can I do to help?"
In the spring of '43 the First Interceptor Command decided that planes should be re- ported by complete official identification and a "Recognition Course" was started. John P. Farnham, who filled the Army's requirements for instructors, took the training course and, in April assumed his duties as Recognition Of- ficer. By June New Canaan was officially a Rec- ognition Post.
The New Canaan Post was three times cited for its reporting of planes in distress and re- ceived several commendations for alert han- dling of both routine and emergency condi- tions.
Radar was perfected and ready to take over plane detection in the fall of '43 and on the night of October 8, the President ordered all Posts closed. The New Canaan Chief phoned the night deputy who went up to the Post to tell the 10 p.m. to midnight shift that they could leave. Then he phoned the day deputy, the men due for the midnight shift and T. F. McQuillon, all of whom were at the Post in a
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few minutes. Mark Stevens was in the Atlantic on anti-submarine patrol and the group in the shack agreed that Mr. McQuillon should for- mally close the book that he and his one time partner had begun. The other observers pres- ent signed "off watch" for the last time as one of the first two "on watch" banked the fire in the stove, turned off the light and snapped the padlock on the door.
The last entries in the Log read:
S. W. Carr
Off Watch 11:15 p.m.
G. N. Robinson
Off Watch 11:15 p.m.
Sydney B. Self
Off Watch 11:15 p.m.
N. B. Whitcomb
Off Watch 11:20 p.m.
Malcolm A. Sedgwick
Off Watch 11:20 p.m.
Mary H. Whitcomb
Off Watch 11:20 p.m.
T. F. McQuillon
Off Watch 11:25 p.m.
THE RICHARDS-SEYMOUR WADSWORTH HOUSE
DAVID R. HAWKINS and MRS. JANE BARRY, Authors
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[April 3, 1947]
The house at present owned by Seymour Wadsworth, and occupied by his family, was the seat of the Richards family for the century embracing the period from the last of the French and Indian Wars through the Civil War. Situated at the foot of Bartlett's Ridge on the North Wilton Road, the house is presum- ably the original dwelling erected in 1762 or soon thereafter by Captain James Richards (Senior), with extensive improvements added subsequently.
The map in the 1944 Annual of the Historical Society showing the proprietary division of the common land in Canaan Parish lists John Bart- lett et al. as holding land on Bartlett's Ridge in 1726. Subsequently, on October 25, 1739, he took his "pitch" (i.e., participated) in the last division of the common land as a result of which the old common propietorship was liq- uidated. Bartlett, evidently a person of conse- quence, lived in Norwalk and did not settle on the Ridge which bore his name. On his death his holdings passed to his son, Samuel.
In 1762 James Richards, who was perhaps of
Stamford origin, bought the entire holdings of Samuel Bartlett, located principally on the . ridge to the north of the house, for the sum of £1600. Embracing 270 acres this is probably the largest land transaction which ever took place in the neighborhood. Old Squire Rich- ards, as he later came to be known, was a man of means and settled there with the idea of per- manence. He lived on the place from 1765 un- til his death in 1810, and his farm reached a high state of development. The Squire lived to be 87 years of age, surviving three wives all named "Hannah.'
The homesteading map of Canaan Parish about 1772 (appearing in the 1944 Annual of the Historical Society) in all probability erro- neously interchanges the respective locations of the houses of James Richards, Senior and Junior.
Jesse, one of the younger sons of James, sen- ior, carried on the main farm and evidently re- built the house in great measure. A cornerstone on an added wing carries the date 1812, with which the distinctive external architecture of
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Edwin Elerinan
The Richards-Seymour Wadsworth House
the house as it now stands is closely consistent. The central portion of the house, however, is obviously of a considerably earlier date.
Cap'n Jesse Richards was prominent in town affairs for many years, being Selectman from 1805-1807. He died in 1839, predeceased by three of his seven children. His widow Clarissa, the children's stepmother, received one-third of his real estate, including one tract "with my dwelling house." In his estate were large land holdings, as well as a carriage and black marc, left specifically to his wife. Jesse's sons, Lewis and Ebenezer, were his executors, and after
their mother's death in 1854, sold the home place to Sturges Northrop.
Mr. Ed Bouton knew Mr. Northrop and tells of the diligence with which he farmed and timbered his land for fifty years. He died in- testate in 1907, and his estate was distributed to his widow, his son Charles, and his daughter Carrie N. Briscoe. The present road bearing her name was cut through for access to the northern acreage of the estate.
The home place passed through various hands, until Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth bought it in.
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It should be noted here that the Richards family went the way of so many other once prominent families here. In the town directory of 1887-1888, there is only one Richards listed: John, a blacksmith. John's father, Rufus, was left out of his father's (Cap'n Jesse's ) will, though Rufus'es children were provided for by leaving them in trust the house immediately east of the home place, the present Watson Lee house. And John is the last of the family whom we can trace.
The homeplace is outstanding among its contemporaries in the neighborhood for its large central hallway extending from the front to the rear of the house on both the first and second floors and for its drawing room on each side of the hallway. Unusual features in this locality are the relatively high ceilings and the palladium window in the second floor hallway over the front door. The old doorways, win- dows and mantelpieces are fine examples of their period. The original hand-hewn beams are still exposed in the attic and cellar. The original kitchen fireplace, which is noticeably high, still stands in the room which has now become the library.
Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Wadsworth have done much to restore the old house to its origi- nal stateliness. One reason why this house con- tinues to stand today as a fine example of a colonial house which grew to a larger size in the Federal period is revealed by an examina- tion of the strong foundations and cellars.
To the rear of the house is a large barn group which has interesting associations, dating from the early farming activities of the Richards family, through their use by a subsequent ten- ant in breeding trotters for the Danbury Fair, and culminating in their present use as a gym-
nasium and theatre for St. Luke's School. So far six performances, complete with stage scenery and spotlights, have been given by the boys in the Wadsworth barn.
In the June issue, 1944 of the "New Canaan Historical Society Annual," there is a most in- teresting account of Haynes Ridge, as it was called in the old days, and of the Wadsworth family in particular. We wish we could reprint it but must be satisfied to quote it in brief. "The name Wadsworth is as Connecticut as the 'Charter Oak' which a Wadsworth christened," for a collateral ancestor, Captain Joseph Wads- worth was present at the time of the charter's disappearance. It seems that at the same time Captain Wadsworth disappeared, so did the charter, but it was discovered safe within the great oak later.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth's ancestors have played distinguished roles in both Con- necticut and New York history. Keeping the tradition of service alive, Mr. Wadsworth, ac- tive officer in the 12th Regiment of the New York National Guard, has for several sum- mers issued a rather unique invitation. About seventy-five men and fifteen officers, coming out by truck from New York, have made camp on the rolling pasture back of the Wadsworth home.
For two days they execute maneuvers, caus- ing the hills to reverberate with gunshot, and are royally entertained by the Wadsworths, and such friends who are lucky enough to be invited to the show in the old barn, with New Canaan's Paul Webb leading the singing. Needless to say, it is a fine thing, in this long childless house, to notice the four Wadsworth children, Catherine, Ellen, Dyer, and Cor- nelia, enjoying all the fun.
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SELLECK'S CORNERS CHURCH
VERA C. HALSTEAD, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[April 7, 1947]
Strange it is, to think of this quiet corner as once teeming with life. Situated in the north- ern part of New Canaan close to the New York line and adjoining the community in that State, called Jumptown in olden days and now known as Scott's Corners, Selleck's Corners is formed by the crossing of the Pound Ridge Road by West Road and its continuation, called Barne- gat Road on the north side. Distinguished by the small white church standing on the north- east corner, it got its name from the Selleck family whose numerous members owned homes hereabouts. Samuel Selleck, whose home stood on the southwest corner was the grandfather of Mrs. Holly Slauson of East Nor- walk, and uncle of Frank Selleck of Scott's Corners, my informants, both alert octogen- arians, whose fathers, Edwin and Sands, re- spectively, were co-founders of the church with Samuel. But before there was any church, there were many houses and families and much activity along the old road.
Closer to the corner where the church now stands, Samuel Selleck and his son, Edwin, had a little red cooper's shop and were very proud of the barrels they made there. Edwin's house stood a little to the north of this. Opposite the church site on the west side of the road stood Oscar Scott Brown's grocery store while later, on the southeast corner, sheds for the church- goers were erected.
Sands Selleck had lived near his father, Thomas, and his grandfather's old homestead on Trinity Pass before 1841 when he built the basket "factory," in later years so well known to tourists and but recently abandoned. At that time there was just a cart path in and no road to Selleck's Corners except the round-about one of Barnegat Road. In 1845, when he had four children, he built his house across from the basket shop and it was he who got the road
between the two corners and beyond to Fancher's Road put through about 1850.
Nearly every house was a basket factory, or rather the members of every family made bas- kets and they were sold at the grocery stores or shipped from the factories, often having been selected and graded by "Blind Charlie" (Sco- field). In demand all over the country, not or- dinary baskets were these, but masterpieces of fine skill, an art fast dying out. Eighty-five- year-old Frank Selleck of Scott's Corners, son of Sands, is the last of the basket masters and he sadly says there is no one to carry on.
Pennoyer and Saville also had a basket fac- tory on West Road near where Mr. and Mrs. Roessle McKinney are building now. Richard Pennoyer's house with a grocery store at its front door stood nearer their former home but closer to the road.
Not far from here stood a small white house where Joe Selleck's widow lived alone. Her un- solved murder (although a wayward son was suspected) seventy years ago makes a perfect mystery story with its gruesome details. No doubt this made interesting conversation for New York folk who came, in the nineties, as Summer residents to the popular Schneider boarding house, a big gray building along here, demolished within recent years.
Where West Road became Barnegat, houses were close together. Beyond Brown's grocery store were the homes of Cyrus Dan, Jacob Woodman, George Jones, Wilson Dan (now MacAllister Lloyd's ) and Lanson Munroe. On the east side beyond the church site and ceme- tery were Benjamin Weed, Charles Jones, Clay Brown, brother of Isaac, the Methodist preach- er at East Woods, Anson Bartow, two old Miss Dans, Joe Barton up the lane. William Dan, Miss Schnidiker and Miss MacNelley. All these families made baskets for their living except
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Gavin Eleman -
-1947
Selleck's Corners Church
"Uncle" George Jones who was the clock tinker and Joseph Barton who had a shoe shop up the lane.
There were so many children in the neigh- borhood that Edwin Selleck decided to open
his house for a Sunday School for them and his own. The Methodist Church in New England had had its beginnings in nearby Dantown at- tended by Dans, Sellecks, etc. Soon it was de- cided that they needed a church here too. In
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1851 the Sellecks gave the land for church and cemeteryª (every lot now full) and Samuel and his son, Edwin, and brother, Sands, founded the church which was built with the help of all the neighbors giving a day now and then. The congregation grew and prospered. Singing forms an important part of Methodist worship so soon Edwin went to Norwalk and bought a little melodeon for his daughter, Sarah. He carried it back and forth between his house and church. Later it was replaced by an organ which Mrs. Lulu Harris, daughter of Sivori Selleck and niece of Frank, played for many years. The church would be crowded, holding as many as one hundred and fifty people at a time. Edwin Selleck was its first preacher and Sunday School superintendent.
The camp meeting ground, just beyond Sam- uel Selleck's toward Pound Ridge, was the
scene of great revival meetings lasting a week at a time with preaching day and night. People came from considerable distances to stay the whole time. Food was served and Frank Sel- leck remembers his part as a small boy in sell- ing lemonade at three cents a glass.
The church service still goes on Sunday afternoons at three o'clock, conducted by the Rev. Joseph D. Quillian who serves also churches at High Ridge and Pound Ridge. Of the old members, Sellecks, Ogdens, Browns, Dans, Scofields, Searles, nearly all are gone and of the old families on Barnegat Road only one is left, Samuel Valien and his son, Clyde, but in September on Selleck's Day, all that is left of the old clan and their descendants collect and the little church is filled to overflowing once more.
* This cemetery is cared for by the Lake view Cemetery Association and is in excellent condition.
ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT CEMETERY
HALSTED H. MYERS, Author
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[ April 17, 1947]
On Denslow Road (lower Laurel Road), north of its junction with Canoe Hill, there is a hill- side cemetery where the dead of Rock School District were buried. There are about 190 graves there, including 25 Richards, 23 St. Johns, 17 Hoyts (spelled also Hait), 16 Smiths, 14 Benedicts, nine Lockwoods and five Fer- rises.
The land was owned by the Indians until 1640 when a land speculator, Captain Daniel Patrick, bought it. Then, in 1651 it became part of the Common Land of a Norwalk group of settlers. Finally, about 1755, Matthew Hait who was occupying the property at that time, released it for cemetery purposes, receiving
other land elsewhere from the Norwalk pro- prietors. In 1761 came one of the terrifying visitations of smallpox, and Job Lockwood, who lived across the road from where the Macraes now live, died from it and was the first to be buried in the new cemetery.
It is somewhat of a mystery why such bury- ing grounds as this one were established as for some 25 years there had existed a Meet- ing House and church burying ground in Canaan Parish. It may have been that those who did not subscribe to the legalized theo- logy of the day, and those who as "Covenan- ters" were granted rites of the church (bap- tism, marriage, death) only through an ar-
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IN MEMORY
MEMORIA
DAVID LOCKWIRD
CHARLES LACKET
&
1000 1857
10
In Memory of - Mrs HANNAH BENEDICT Wife of M! NEHEMIAH BENEDICT who departed this Life Decem 6" 1783 in ý 59 Year of her Age
Such as you are I lately was Such as I am you soon shall be ! Improve your flying moments, then! Since you must quickly follow me .
Eduru Eberman 1947.
Rock School District Cemetery
rangement known as "the half-way plan," felt inclined to have a burial place of their own. (There was no Lakeview public cemetery until November 3, 1868).
At any rate, amongst those lying in Rock School District Cemetery are James Richards with his three wives, all named Hannah, his granddaughter, Miss Diana, and her two
slaves, Benjamin and Grace (Grace with tattoo marks by which she expected to be recognized by her Congo people in the hereafter); also Daniel Chase, a Methodist Society member; and others who will be written up in Mrs. Les- lie Young's paper on School District No. 2.
The particular stone selected by Mr. Eber- man for his sketch invites reference to a book
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written recently by an outstanding Connecti- cut man who has frequently participated in New Canaan's civic projects. Odell Shepard, (recently Lieutenant Governor of Connecti- cut, author of a current popular novel, "Hold- fast Gaines") wrote his unique philosophy of gravestone ornamentation in a book entitled "Connecticut Past and Present."
He wrote under the heading "Sermons in Stones," that he believes "the whole develop- ment of the New England headstone follows and reflects the changing attitude toward death of the people for whom they were made." To the early Puritans, death was the "King of Terrors." Its fittest emblem was a skull and cross-bones "suggesting only decay of the body, with no hint of the soul's resurrection." Most of the stones decorated accordingly with a skull and cross-bones are found in Massa- chusetts.
Before the Connecticut Colony was 50 years old, however, the faith of the fathers was changing and "cheerfulness was always break- ing in." This led to a second form of symbolic sculpture, the emblem of death and resurrec- tion: wings springing from a skull, (such as you see above on the headstone of "Hannah Benedict, Wife of Nehemiah Benedict, Decem- ber 1783).
Next came the third development: the skull changed to a cherub's head (or cherub super- imposed upon a skull), further softening the conception of death and what comes after. By the middle of the 18th century this had be- come the dominant form, most common in Connecticut.
Due to the practice of ordering tombstones from a distance, and sending a rough sketch of what was wanted, (which was easily mis- construed), some curious additional symbols resulted.
By 1790 a few people, even in Connecticut, were accumulating a little wealth, and "life seemed more interesting than death, and pos- sibly more important." Headstones were dec- orated with the urn and cypress, a fashion borrowed from France during the "Anti- Christian period of the Enlightenment." It was a new style upon which the bored stone- cutters could try their art.
It is a shame that more of these historical works have not survived. Ignorant "restorers," who remove lichen from the stone crevices let in the frost chiseler, and the earthworm has caused the ground to creep up year by year about the unbroken stones so that some have sunk four or more feet. Let us do what we can to preserve those still remaining intact.
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