April 26, 1996

Responding to the 85-vote defeat of the proposed $50.3 million town/school budget in Tuesday’s referendum, the Legislative Council met Wednesday night and decided to reduce the budget by $700,000. To the dismay of First Selectman Bob Cascella and Board of Education Chairman Herb Rosenthal, the council voted to cut $350,000 from the town’s road reconstruction budget and $350,000 from the debt service for the proposed school projects. A town meeting must be held within the next ten days to vote on the new budget proposal. Voters at the meeting have the power to decrease or delete any item from the budget but not to add... If the budget is defeated, it goes back to the council... If the budget is approved at the town meeting, the action is final and not subject to a referendum.

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A controversial home-building proposal that would have seen 19 houses built in a densely populated section of Sandy Hook has been rejected by Planning & Zoning members who voiced concerns over excavation, drainage, erosion, sedimentation and grading. P&Z members rejected PHD Partnership’s proposal to build 19 homes on 26 acres on Cherry Street, Pine Street, and Narragansett Trail in a development named Whispering Pines.

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Only a handful of people — mostly town officials — attended the public informational meeting held in the high school auditorium last Thursday evening on the state’s plans for the replacement of the railroad bridge over Church Hill Road. The DOT representatives who attended the meeting brought a computer-generated photo of what the new $2.5 million bridge will look like... final bridge design must be approved by the Federal Highway Administration... The existing bridge, built about 1929, is a 35-foot, 6-inch long “through girder” style bridge... The clearance underneath is only 12 feet, 7 inches, an impossible squeeze for most tractor trailer trucks. There were 24 reported instances of trucks striking the bridge between 1993 and 1995... The new through girder steel will bridge will be higher with a vertical clearance underneath of 14 feet, 6 inches.

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A 13-year-old boy who was hiking with friends in the rugged Rocky Glen in Sandy Hook on the afternoon of April 18 slipped and fell about 30 feet down an extremely steep slope of the gorge, landing in the cold, rushing waters of the Pootatuck River... The youth, who is from Michigan, was staying with people in Brookfield... Luckily for the boy, there were people in the area who rushed to his rescue when he landed in the water, which was about three feet deep. Sandy Hook, Newtown Hook & Ladder, and NUSAR squad members launched an inflatable rescue boat... placed him in the boat, and them pulled it back to the east side of the river.

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The 100th running of the Boston Marathon — still boasting the usual prerace fanfare — enticed eight runners from Newtown and Sandy Hook to take the 26-mile challenge. Locals who made that trip included Alan Huebner, David Wolcott, Gene Giorgio, Gerry Panuczak, Ken Kovatch, Scott Crawford, Leah and William Begg, and Christopher MacDonald.

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The Newtown Little League threw out the first pitch of its 1996 season on Monday night, April 22. In two Majors Division games played at Fairfield Hills, it was Newtown Hardware and Emmet & Glander who shook off opening day jitters and pocketed victories. Hardware got strong pitching efforts from Keith Nedig and Ronny Isler. Jason Glander and Tommy Ermini combined forces on the hill to pitch Emmet & Glander to a 13-8 win over Ice Cream Shop.

April 23, 1971

The special town meeting on Thursday evening, April 15, in the Edmond Town Hall gymnasium drew nearly a hundred interested participants. An appropriation of $26,300 to be added to the police capital account for the purpose of constructing new police headquarters within Edmond Town Hall was voted in; a special appropriation of $8,000 to the police private duty account was also approved. The third proposal, however, caused considerable debate. It concerned the appropriation of $36,700 for the completion of Settlers Lane and Surrey Trail. The construction and drainage of the roads... has been a problem for a number of years... the appropriation was approved almost unanimously.

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Saturday morning and afternoon the members of the Society for Creative Arts in Newtown had their first workshop, conducted by the watercolorist Claude Croney of Danbury. Mr Croney lectured and demonstrated in the morning and in the afternoon the members attending painted. It was the first of various workshops that the society hopes to conduct for the benefit of professional and amateur artist members.

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The Newtown Ambulance Corps made 43 trips and traveled 1,081 miles during March. There were 30 daytime and 13 nighttime trips, including one to Yale-New Haven and one to Bridgeport Hospital. Oxygen was administered six times and First Aid five times by the crews.

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In case of April showers, some of the schoolchildren in town can get out of the rain, thanks to a gift of bus shelters by Frank D’Addario. Four of the shelters were put up by the town this week on town property at the following locations: Parmalee Hill and Papoose Hill, Riverside and Narragansett Trail, Toddy Hill Road and Settlers Lane, and Toddy Hill and Surrey Trail.

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On Saturday, April 17, Explorer Post 70 planted 2,000 white pine seedlings at the new Sanitary Landfill as a community service project for Newtown. It is the town’s intention to transplant these trees as they mature for purposes of beautification and screening town properties.

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While construction of the road continues in front of Green’s Store in Southbury, and is making The Bee Box inaccessible for a news drop off, H.H. Stone and Sons have kindly agreed to collect Newtown Bee local news. If anyone wishes publicity for a club or organization, please have them leave the news item at Stone’s in the office. The store on Main Street is open from 7 am to 5 pm, Monday through Saturday.

April 19, 1946

The Regional Board of Education agreed at its regular meeting, Wednesday evening, April 10, to seek the cooperation of the four town Boards of Education in electing a single superintendent to work with all five boards as the best means for coordinating the work of the elementary and high schools. At present, the Third Regional District is divided in respect to supervision, since Newtown lies in one rural supervisory district, and Southbury, Woodbury, and Bethlehem in another, both served by superintendents assigned by the State Department of Education. No choice of candidates for superintendent has yet been made.

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Mrs Rose E. Beardsley, wife of the late Arthur Beardsley, has sold her farm of 48 acres in Half-Way River District, Newtown, to Mrs Ruth Hyams, wife of Barry Hyams, of New York City. The Beardsley property adjoins the estate of Grace Moore. Mr and Mrs Hyams will use this property as a summer residence.

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The Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts in Botsford won the contest which has been going on in Troop 70 for three months. One of the reasons for their victory was their unity and loyalty to the gang. The Scoutmaster inspected their trail and rustic bridge and lean-tos and camp-fires they have built in the nearby woods and can only compliment them on their fine work.

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The Senior Class at Hawley School is to be highly complimented on this year’s issue of “The Bugle,” copies of which arrived this week from the printer. A liberal number of well-taken photographs add to the interest of its other contents. The issue is appropriately dedicated to two of the most popular members of the faculty — Miss Ann Anderson and Coach Harold S. DeGroat.

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A.B. Brundage of King Street district, Danbury, in a message to The Bee, states that 59 years ago, April 19, was the best sleighing of the winter. It would not be popular this year, following our summer-like March. However, some of The Bee’s readers will doubtless recall it. “Ben” recalls it in detail and with pleasure, even to his fair companion on a ride which he took at the time. He phoned her the other day to remind her of the occasion.

April 8, 1921

Newtown’s History and historian, Ezra Levan Johnson, with additional material prepared by Jane Eliza Johnson, the historian’s life companion, is out from the press, a handsome volume typographically of 500 pages, bearing the simple inscription on the outside cover, Newtown, 1705-1918. The work of supervising the publishing of this interesting and valuable town history has been carried on by Mrs Ezra L. Johnson, who quietly celebrated her 84th birthday on Wednesday at her home in South Center. It is a wonderful accomplishment for a lady of her age, and so valuable is the book historically that every family in town should possess a copy, even if they have to make a sacrifice to do so.

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The town meeting to accept the magnificent gift of Miss Mary E. Hawley of $100,000 for a school building in memory of her parents, Mr and Mrs Marcus C. Hawley, was held at the Town hall, last Saturday afternoon, at 2 o’clock. To say that it was a town meeting to be proud of and attended by taxpayers from all sections of the town to show the appreciation of the gift of Miss Hawley, would be putting it mildly. Miss Mary E. Hawley, by her gift, will be a blessing to the rising generations to a degree that cannot be estimated.

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Mystery surrounds the discovery here, Wednesday, of an automobile, which had been driven down a 70-foot embankment into Lake Housatonic, just below Bennetts Bridge, without injury to the car and leaving no trace of the driver or occupants. What were believed to be blood spots were found on the inside of the rear right shoe and also on the right running board. The car, which is a Chevrolet, sedan model, was found standing upright, with no glass broken, in about two feet of water. Two well worn men’s hats, one of a tweed mixture and the other of a straw material, together with a New York newspaper of November 3, 1920, were the only articles found in the machine. According to police officials, the car was deliberately driven off the main post road.

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Manager O’Neill is having the exterior of his building covered with asbestos shingles. He will also have cement walks laid in front of his building. Contractor Joseph Collins is doing the work. E.C. Platt, the popular Hawleyville lumber dealer, has begun work on his new dwelling situated on the Main road between Newtown and Hawleyville. The foundation is already completed and work on the dwelling has commenced.

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The Parent-Teacher Association will meet on Friday, April 15, at the school, instead of this week. The change of time is made to accommodate a number of members, who wish to attend the Ladies’ Auxiliary meeting of Trinity Parish, at which Miss Bessie Franklin of Hartford will be the speaker.

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On Friday morning, April 15, there will be a pruning demonstration at the orchard of H.H. Taylor of Mt Pleasant, given by W.H. Darrow, under the auspices of the Fairfield County Farm Bureau. Mr Darrow is a fruit specialist and will demonstrate pruning on both old and young peach trees.

Your memories are the ones we want to share! Do you have photographs of people or places in town from a bygone era? The Way We Were is the perfect landing spot so that your photographs can be enjoyed by Newtown Bee readers. Images can be e-mailed as attachments to editor@thebee.com, subject line: Way We Were photo. When submitting photographs, please identify as many people as possible, the location, and the approximate date.