USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Readings in New Canaan history > Part 21
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In the last of the '90's rural free deliveries were inaugurated, so that residents of the outskirts of the town could receive their mail daily without making the trip to the village. But it was not until 1913 that a city delivery was started and until then the residents in town had to go to the Post Office to collect their mail from either lock or call boxes. A call box to all appearances was a lock box but could not be opened from the outside. You found you had mail in your box and had to ask a clerk at the window to get it for you. This cost ten cents a quarter, while a lock box cost sixty.
CIRCULATING LIBRARY
There was, as we have seen, an attempt at a New Canaan Library very early in the century. But here we have no record of continuous development. More than fifty years later we find another circulating library, this time combined with a reading room under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. Upon the library the patrons relied heavily to keep young men from "the haunts of vice" unless their "habits and morals were already corrupted." By 1870 the reading room, open daily, was equipped with improving magazines and nearly two hundred volumes "judiciously selected," according to the library report, for "staying the tide of vile literature which the presses are continually pouring forth. Furnish our youth," it admonishes, "with healthful
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mental aliment and the 'Last Sensation,' 'Days's Doings,' and 'Illu- minated Western Worlds' will be speedily banished from our land."
This same limited motive of improving the character of youth seems to have been still mainly operative in the establishing of the New Canaan Reading Room and Circulating Library Association a few years later. The Rev. Joseph Greenleaf recommended this method of taking young men off the streets and out of billiard saloons, and an editorial in The Messenger in the spring of 1877 even sug- gested that a refreshment stand in connection with the reading room might "do much to reclaim the erring," who might find "coffee, chocolate, sodawater, root beer and sandwiches" in combination with mental improvement preferable to "barroom or livery stable."
READING ROOM PROVIDED
Through the liberality of Osborn E. Bright, a reading room was hired in the building owned by F. M. Bliss. The Association was incorporated in the fall of 1878, but it was not until seven years later that it was able to erect a home of its own, a brick building costing twenty-five hundred dollars on the south side of Railroad Avenue. Only the upper story was occupied by the library and reading room, the first floor being rented for town offices.
The caution with which books were chosen for the new library may be inferred from the remarks on the subject written by Miss Emily St. John Bouton, a native of New Canaan, for the Toledo Blade, sentiments so striking and authoritative as to be copied by the New York Mail and Express, and recommended to "all who have an interest in the guarding of youthful morals." In choosing books for girls, Miss Bouton warns, it is important not to forget that we are choosing mental food for the future wives and mothers of the race. She recommends careful examination of whatever you "place in their hands to read." But note how this liberal-minded woman sym- pathises with the youthful desire for entertainment. "A wise dis- cretion," she adds, "will not place all stories or novels under a ban." To one story she gives this high meed of praise: "Certainly no boy or girl could read one such book without feeling the childish heart inspired to beautiful thoughts leading to pure living." Do you ask what volume could work such magic? It was Mrs. Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy."
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It was not until 1914 that the present beautiful library was erected. The prime mover in the undertaking was Albert Comstock, whose wife, Cornelia Carter Comstock, had long cherished the dream of a new library. The project of a Carnegie library was discussed but rejected and the plan was finally carried through by subscription. Mrs. Demeritt, whose interesting Revolutionary tale, "The Alarm," was one of her contributions to the fund, has told how the faithful "tea-ed and cake sale-ed until their efforts were rewarded and the town enriched by this most satisfying home for the library and the Historical Society" in its setting of greensward and towering elms on the spot where young Captain Stephen Hoyt took his bride to live over a century ago.
The first efforts to organize a bank came early in the century but "times were not ready" and it was not until 1859 that the New Canaan Savings Bank was organized, with Samuel A. Weed as first president and Watts Comstock as his successor. The First National Bank of New Canaan came six years later - only three years before the opening of the Railroad. Early in 1865 a committee consisting of Benjamin Hoyt, Noah Hoyt, the postmaster, and Selleck St. John called a stockholders' meeting for the election of thirteen directors. Mr. St. John wrote two decades later of this meeting: "Then began and ended the only strife at an election of a board that has occurred in the whole twenty years." There were eighty-eight stockholders owning from one to one hundred shares each.
In the middle of May following the establishment of the bank, the cashier, Selleck St. John, went to Washington on an expedition of which we have an interesting account, written by himself many years later. He tells us that he was directed to procure a recognition and an official permit from the Comptroller of the Currency to commence business and to deposit the bonds then held by the Bank for securing currency.
On his arrival in Washington at ten o'clock at night he was met at the depot by the only man in the city with whom he was acquainted, the cashier of Harnden's Express Company. To Mr. St. John's query as to what could be done with his securities, this man replied, "Oh, take them to our office and put them in the safe. We have a first-class one."
The "first-class" safe, however, to Mr. St. John's dismay, proved to
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be an ordinary one such as he had happened a few days before to see ripped open in 15 or 20 minutes with very little noise or difficulty. "My heart," he writes, "went down to zero." He asked how much money the safe contained. "not much as yet tonight," was the reply, "only two or three hundred thousand dollars, but probably before morning it will have a million or two. Sometimes we have five mil- lions to take to the Treasury in the morning."
Mr. St. John was "partly pacified" by the knowledge that two clerks slept beside the safe, and as all the banks as well as the Treasury were closed he accepted the inevitable and retired to his hotel. When we reflect that it was the same Selleck St. John who suffered agonies of self-examination when his conscience lashed him into the despised ranks of the Abolitionists we can understand that he could not light- heartedly cast off his responsibilities, but on the contrary passed a sleepless night and was back before sunrise next morning. We can imagine the relief with which he deposited in the Treasury the funds entrusted to him.
G. A. R. PARADE
He was conducted through the vault and was interested to see that it was "piled full of greenbacks," containing up into hundreds of millions. These greenbacks were about to be disbursed in payments of General Sherman's army. His men were arriving hourly in prepa- ration for the Grand Review, after which they were to be paid off and disbanded. Our townsman remained to watch the parade of "the grand and faithful soldiers of the republic who - had aided in crush- ing the mightiest and wickedest rebellion the world ever saw." Thus speaks the voice of New England in 1865.
After watching the parade for seven hours, our traveller was soon on his way to Connecticut, hungry for something FIT to eat. Not content with this implication, he adds the later comment of a certain senator: "The truth is, the southerners are not more than half civi- lized anyway, and not even that in the way of cooking and eating." This vindictive tone from a man who is said to have lived by the Golden Rule suggests that even the warmest supporter of Abraham Lincoln must have fallen far short of his ideal of "charity toward all and malice toward none."
Mr. St. John's feeling toward Lincoln's successor in the Presidency
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was another attitude shared no doubt by many of his countrymen. He remarks that in connection with his sightseeing trip in Washington, he "passed and repassed the White House many times, but had no interest or curiosity to enter. It was then occupied by Mr. Johnson, and I had no desire to make his acquaintance."
The Washington commission satisfactorily executed, the bank received in June (1865) authority to commence business. As the building was not to be ready until the first of July, the formal open- ing was deferred until then. A few depositors, however, were received before that time, and the very first depositor was Justus Hoyt.
ROBBERS IN 1870
The chief sensation in New Canaan's banking history was the at- tempted robbery in 1870, when the bank was about five years old.
One night early in March Constable Norbert Bossa, having made an inspection of the building, was just leaving when he was seized from behind by two men and handcuffed. The constable managed to drag his two assailants into the street and to arouse by his yells the occupants of the old Ayres house opposite. Thirty or forty years later they would promptly have telephoned the police but on that March night of 1870 the onlookers, dismayed by the arrival of four more robbers on the scene of action, shivered at the window, con- vinced that discretion was the better part of valor. Leaving one man on guard at the door, the malefactors dragged the constable back into the bank, quieted his outcries by gagging him and tied him to a chair. At two-thirty in the morning the town was aroused by the sound of an explosion. The robbers had sent in their own alarm by dynamiting the brick vault. Only the captive constable, however, remained to receive the startled citizens who rushed to the scene. The dynamite had disposed of only the outer door of the vault, and the robbers, foiled by the inner door, had made their escape, none the richer for their exploit.
The fugitives were thought to be members of a New York gang who had come from Ridgefield by horse and wagon. They evidently made their escape that night through the pastures which at that time lay between South Avenue and Old Stamford Road, for they had taken down the pasture bars to facilitate a dash toward the south. The
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only "clue" ever discovered was not illuminating: a woman's rubber.
After this experience and other attempted burglaries, the citizens formed the Mutual Protective Association and made armed coopera- tion serve the purpose of modern bank protection. In 1913 when the present bank was erected, the old wooden building was moved to the north side of Forest Street where it still stands, porch and all.
In tracing the history of the old houses we often find that they have been destroyed by fire. This was inevitable in the absence of any fire- fighting organization or apparatus.
HOOK AND LADDER COMPANY
In The Era of March 26, 1870, we find mention of the Hook and Ladder Company's first service on the preceding Sunday evening in extinguishing a blaze in the Comstock and Rogers Building. Three years later the Quinnipiac Hook and Ladder Company Number 3 was formed, with Captain B. D. Purdy as foreman, F. M. Bliss as assistant, W. E. Raymond as secretary and Alexander Law as treasurer.
The town, however, does not seem to have waked up to the impor- tance of this department until a fire in 1876 threatened wholesale destruction. Starting in the barn of the Birdsall House it spread to the adjacent livery stables, carriage factory, and saloons and as far as the house on the north side of Railroad Avenue. The rubber buckets "proved handy," but axes belonging to the Hook and Ladder Com- pany could not be found, probably because the members had taken them home to chop wood.
"THE GULF STREAM"
This disaster called attention to the necessity of village water works, and when a new company was organized five years later, with Editor F. E. Weed as president, wells were dug for the use of the new engine, "The Gulf Stream," purchased from Stamford. This first fire engine equipped with a hand pump, was housed in a build- ing which was located just where the Wayside Cross now stands, and which afterwards was moved down on Locust Street below the Veterans' Club. The second engine house, with a belfry, was erected on Forest Street north of Johnson's Garage.
At the beginning of 1885 the "New Canaan Hook and Ladder Company, and Fire Engine Company Number I" was incorporated
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by a bill passed through the efforts of Representative Mead. Finally in the late nineties (1898) the introduction of public water by the New Canaan Water Company made the engine of no further use, as the mains gave sufficient pressure. We read that in The Anniversary Parade of 1901 the well-equipped volunteer company "compared favorably with those of Norwalk and Stamford."
BLIZZARD OF '88
No chronicle of the last quarter of our nineteenth century can afford to omit mention of the "Great Blizzard of eighty-eight." One does not need to display a long white beard like the reminiscent sur- vivors usually photographed on the anniversary to remember that fateful storm.
Beginning on the afternoon of Sunday, March the twelfth, it was not sufficiently serious by Monday morning to prevent the early train from making its customary run to Stamford, but the unfortunate travellers who made the trip were not able to return until Thursday. The snow was five feet deep nearly the whole length of East Avenue, drifted to the cross bars of telephone poles on Clapboard Hill and was piled up to a height of eight feet in places on Main Street so that it was necessary to tunnel into some of the stores. Ox teams with heavy sleds had to be called into requisition before the roads could be finally cleared. A few years ago The Advertiser published in August, presumably to afford by suggestion some relief from the summer heat, a photograph taken by Gardiner Heath right after the blizzard. It gives an interesting idea of the Main Street of nearly fifty years ago.
The liquor question is a subject of such perrenial interest that it has often recurred in tracing the fortunes of our village through the Century. But for adequate treatment it demands a chapter all to itself.
LIQUOR IN NEW CANAAN
Far from being a major issue, liquor was not even a problem in those early years when the thirsty farmer used to carry his two brown jugs to the general store for molasses and rum, and the merchant, who was also perchance a deacon or vestryman, willingly filled them, unburdened by any responsibility for the end result.
We have looked across the mill pond at the long low building where New Canaan farmers with a taste for something more potent
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than hard cider could bring that honest beverage to have it distilled into brandy.
An early industry was the making of peach brandy. Large peach orchards were planted and one lot near a spot where the brandy used to be manufactured was long known as the "still lot." The tradition that those who carried on the business were its best customers may account for the fact that this industry did not flourish long.
It was not until 1840 or later that the local conscience seems to have been sufficiently stirred to take organized measures against the curse of intemperance.
SONS OF TEMPERANCE
The tragedy of Joseph Hill must have pointed many a contempo- rary harangue of the evils of drink. Here for a moment re-enters into our story that visitor of 30 years before, who, fresh from New York, had had difficulty in finding the diminutive village while he was walking through the Main Street. Thomas Sims had evidently de- cided that New Canaan was worthy of his attention, for he had added one to its population by settling as a shoemaker on Carter Street. One of his journeymen, Joseph Hill by name, went off one day on a "spree" and came home so ashamed that he declared he would jump down the well. This was received as idle talk but the body of this victim of "Demon Rum" was found at the bottom of 35 feet of water.
A man who signs himself M. Ells, writing to The Messenger 30 years ago from Watkins, N. Y., gives this account of early reform activities: "It was but two or three years after the hard cider and coonskin presidential campaign of 1840, when the Washington Tem- perance Reform struck the town, and it was a very popular and exciting reformation. Numerous enthusiastic meetings were held in the Congregational and Methodist churches and the old Town Hall, and eloquent speakers, most of them known 'reformed drunkards' addressed the assembled people in most fervid and effective manner." What a pity that Joseph Hill's conscience precipitated him down a well instead of upon the temperance lecture platform, where he might have been as "fervid and effective" as the best.
With these concrete examples as admonition, and with rousing songs to stir the hearts, the crowd was thrilled into signing almost to a man, the pledge to drink no more "spiritous nor malt liquors, wine or cider."
L.J. Rolins
BUTTERY MILL - Built about 1714 on the Silvermine River (just above the Tavern) and still running. It is one of the oldest saw mills in continuous operation in America.
Boss Caleb Benedict, that staunch champion of temperance, would have been proud to hear the voices of his eldest son Caleb and his two eldest daughters ringing out in the hearty lines:
O then resign your ruby wine, Each smiling son and daughter! There's nothing so good for the youthful blood And sweet as the sparkling water.
And indeed the charms of the "sparkling water" seems to have been sung home to the hearts of the people, for we are assured that
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"liquor was literally stamped out for a time for want of patronage."
One outcome of this reform work was the organization of the "Friendship Division of the Sons of Temperance," which continued into the present century.
FOUR SALOONS IN TOWN
Those must have been slim times for the would-be "wets," but by the Civil War period there were four saloons in town, the "chief purveyor of booze" being the New Canaan Hotel. This hostelry had begun its career about 1840 under a man named James Lucas, and had now been remodelled and named the Birdsall House. Across the street in the old Academy building, we have already seen Dandy Dick Jones, sporting his high hat and handing drinks across the bar. A third "purveyor of booze" was on the south side of Elm Street (Railroad Avenue) and the fourth was Bartholomew's on the south side of East Avenue, which seems to have been the saloon known as "The Red Onion," once the home of Caleb S. Benedict, that stal- wart singer for temperance.
The forces lined up against liquor continued activities in the decades that followed. We hear of lectures in the Congregational Church at the opening of 1870 by a certain Mrs. Pardee of South Norwalk on those slaves who have not shared in the emancipation of seven years earlier - "Slaves of the Wine Cup." She was prepared to support the arresting statement that "moderation is a worse foe to society than beastly, violent intemperance." Shortly afterwards a goodly number "notwithstanding the severity of the weather," climbed the Meeting House Hill again to hear the Rev. Miss Olympia Brown hold forth on "The Christian Home and the Grog Shop." The Rev. Olympia, a "Woman's Rights" advocate, proposed thorough reforms of prospective husbands. We trust she did not question the sincerity of the editor of The Era, who added to his account of the meeting: "Her band of united women who are to marry no man who drinks, smokes, chews, or swears, will we hope work a great reform. We are sure it did some good, for we know of one man who threw away his tobacco box once."
With such a goal demanding their efforts, naturally the New Canaan girls would never have been an occasion for stumbling to the New Canaan youth.
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STAID NEW YEAR'S
We have often been told what ravages could be wrought by a succession of New Year's calls upon a well-meaning young man, treated to cake and wine by each girl in turn. But in our village even these New Year's calls were, according to M. H. G. Benedict, very staid affairs. With fruit cake and marble cake made by the "charming lassies" to "sate the hungry crowd" was served an innocent cup of tea or coffee.
Before the writer had arrived at the caller's estate he had joined the Friendship Division of the Sons of Temperance, which used to meet on the third floor of the J. & J. Benedict shoe factory on the south corner of Main Street and Railroad Avenue. This frame building, with a retail shoe store on the ground floor, was burned early in 1875. Mr. Benedict remembers climbing that long flight of outside stairs to the lodge room for the cheerful Saturday night gatherings with their speaking and singing. The Sons of Temperance "dwindled and passed out" but "before it had breathed its last" another temperance group was organized, called "The Good Templars," which flourished for a number of years in the rear room of the second story of "Armory Hall," behind Raymond's Market on the west side of Main Street.
"BAND OF HOPE"
The year 1877 opened with the organization of the "Band of Hope," which proceeded to meet monthly for "religious improve- ment," holding its sessions alternately in the Methodist and Congre- gational Churches. This also was a temperance society, as only those willing to sign the total abstinence pledge were eligible for member- ship. In spite of the rigorous nature of this pledge, which included the renunciation of cider, tobacco in any form, and profanity, as many as 135 people, and half of these the youth of the village, signed at one meeting. Possibly the name was well chosen, but not to put too great a strain on the optimism that "springs eternal," there was a second pledge from which the tobacco clause was omitted.
It is in the mid-eighties that we find Mr. Edwin Hoyt tackling the smoking evil by introducing a "cigarette bill" in the Legislature, providing that "every person who shall sell or deliver cigarettes to any boy under eighteen years of age shall be fined not more than one
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hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days or both." The Messenger agrees that this great evil to the young ought to be suppressed, and recommends that the opponents of the bill "be com- pelled to stay in a close room where several of these extremely offen- sive cigarettes are burning," without, however, suggesting how the noxious weed is any less different when smoked by those of riper years.
PROHIBITION VOTES
It seems as if so radical a temperance man as the sponsor of this bill would have been acceptable to the dry forces of the district, but in the November election of 1885 they almost defeated their own cause by giving so many Republican votes to the prohibition candi- date, the Rev. Wilson Terry, that it was by a majority of only eight votes over his democratic opponent that Edwin Hoyt was elected to the legislature.
The Stamford Advocate, exclaiming at the folly of this "so-called Prohibition," reminds its readers that this candidate whom the drys had so nearly defeated was the man that had put through the Legis- lature a bill banishing rum from the County Fair Grounds under penalty of forfeiting the state bounty.
And so the fight went on. Every year a separate vote might be taken on the license. The dry forces always made a great effort to get out the no-license vote and succeeded rather oftener than their opponents, who had to get a special petition before the matter could again be opened.
THE BOROUGH
The last decade of the nineteenth century saw a number of changes significant in the life of the village.
In 1889 came the beginning of our dual form of government, a plan which as we have noted had been suggested 38 years before by a short-lived local newspaper. The time was ripe for the birth of a baby Borough. Now with the changes wrought by nearly half a century of history, the stage seems set for its demise. It is interesting in connection with the present discussion to compare the first borough tax, three mills, with the ten and a quarter mill tax for the current year.
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This last year of the eighties saw also the organization of the New Canaan Historical Society, of which more later.
D. A. R. FORMED
In 1894 came the formation of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, named for that patriotic Hannah Bene- dict Carter who in her home on Clapboard Hill dispensed hospitality to the Revolutionary soldiers.
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