Historic District Will Debut Hattertown Portfolio At Library This Weekend

The public is invited to visit C.H. Booth Library the weekend of June 4–6 for a special short-term exhibition of the original works for The Hattertown Portfolio. The limited edition release is being offered for sale to benefit Hattertown Historic District, a small hamlet in southwest Newtown.

For three days the original works of art will be displayed at the library, along with plates that offer information on the historic district and many of the buildings within it.

Hattertown was at one time a thriving community of small farms and cottage industries, with hat shops, button shops, a grist mill, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and a mill. The hamlet may have benefited from being on a direct route between the two large settlements of Danbury and Bridgeport. Hattertown Road today follows what 200 years ago was the Monroe-Newtown Turnpike.

The Hattertown Historic District was founded on October 5, 1970. It is located at approximately the junction of Aunt Park Lane, and Castle Meadow, Hattertown, and Hi Barlow roads. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 1996 (the same month the Newtown Borough Historic District also received the honored recognition).

 “Hattertown was originally a cottage industry — people had hat and button shops in their yards,” Hattertown District resident Bruce Degen recently pointed out. “This was all pre-Industrial Revolution. It was all done on a very small scale.”

According to an August 1996 Newtown Bee article called “Hattertown: Newtown’s Bequest From The Hatting Trade,” at the height of hat making in Newtown, around 1840, “there were seven hat ‘factories’ operating in Newtown with a total of 56 employees who made 30,400 hats in the year 1846 alone. Individual sites and houses associated with hatting families throughout the region have been identified, but Hattertown was one of the few places where an entire village was directly involved in the trade.

“Visitors to the now-historic district,” the article continued, “probably would not realize that 150 years ago the quaint little area of historic homes was a thriving community with four hat shops, a comb and button shop, two blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, a general store and a grist mill.” It is this picturesque section of town that Newtown Historical Society has chosen to highlight this year.

(Picturesque, but not always pleasing to the nasal senses to those who lived or visited there in the 19th Century. In their 1996 book Touring Newtown Past: The Settlement and Architecture of an Old Connecticut Town, Mary Mitchell and Albert Goodrich wrote, “Machinery rattled and a stench peculiar to hatting factories hung in the air around the rear of some cottages.”)

The focus of the community has always been Hattertown Green. It is bisected by Lewis Brook, which goes on to create several ponds and flows into Hattertown Pond, which is currently a large wildlife refuge.

Today Hattertown is a quiet residential community officially containing eight homes and their barns and outbuildings. Four homes adjacent to, but not officially within, Hattertown are also included in The Hattertown Portfolio.

The idea for the portfolio came about when commissioners of the Historic District had to decide what they would do with the small amount of money available for the use of the district. In the past there have been road signs and flower plantings, but the commission wanted to do something different and longer lasting this year.

Hattertown district resident and commissioner Bruce Degen, a children’s book illustrator, proposed the project: a portfolio of Hattertown.

It turns out neighbor Ross MacDonald, who regularly writes for The New York Times and is also a professional illustrator, owns a press and antique type fonts in metal and wood. Mr MacDonald has been a Hattertown resident since October 1996. He collects and uses antique type in his work and is well known for his illustration work, which appears frequently in major publications.

Mr MacDonald writes and illustrates children’s books, including Another Perfect Day, which was featured by Daniel Pinkwater on NPR and received rave reviews following its September 2002 release.

Brightwork Press has been featured in Print Magazine, and Mr MacDonald is a consultant and vintage prop creator for movies including Seabiscuit, The Alamo, and Van Helsing.

Mr MacDonald handled the design and typography for the Hattertown Portfolio project, and did the hand printing of the portfolios in his print shop.

Alex Degen signed on to do the pen and ink drawings for the portfolio. Alex is the son of Bruce and Christine Degen, who have each established themselves as talented illustrators. Now their 23-year old son is showing the world what he is capable of doing.

Alex, 23, lives in the Ralph Benedict House, near the intersection of Hattertown Road and Castle Meadow Road — well within the boundaries of Historic Hattertown District.

Mr Degen’s pen and ink drawings were then etched into metal plates, which he then hand printed using Mr MacDonald’s vintage press. A young man of many talents, Mr Degen is not only interested in drawing and painting, he is currently studying Japanese language and world culture.

Also a major player in the creation of the portfolio was Town Historian Dan Cruson.

“He’s just a font of information,” Mr Degen said this week of Mr Cruson, who has uncovered countless stories about the previous residents and residences of Hattertown for a number of years including Dr Celeste Benedict, the first female physician in the area, who lived in the Hattertown district.

Mr Cruson was also able to put a name on The Henry Pratt House, the dwelling at 52 Aunt Park Lane that was built in 2002 as a replacement for the original circa 1850 structure that had fallen into disrepair.

“Dan was able to locate the name of probably the first resident of that house after it had been converted from a carriage building,” Mr Degen said this week.

The prints are 10 by 15 inches each. Each portfolio contains ten individual prints with informational interleaves, one print featuring four homes just outside the official historic district, and a frontispiece, all set in type of the period. There is a limited edition of 50 portfolios, with each signed by the creators and numbered.

The portfolios have been printed on cream Stonehenge paper in two colors.

They are being offered for sale at $200, with all proceeds being used for the benefit of Hattertown Historic District.

C.H. Booth Library will present “The Hattertown Portfolio: A Special Exhibition” on Friday, June 4, from noon until 5 pm; Saturday, June 5, from 10 am to 5 pm; and Sunday, June 6, from 1 to 5 pm. The exhibition will feature the original artwork, framed and hung, accompanied by informational descriptions.

A reception to meet the artists and creators of the portfolio will be held on Saturday from 2 to 4 pm. The public is invited to meet those involved in the project, view the original art, and enjoy light refreshments.