A Unique Picture Of A Remarkable Town: Dan Cruson’s New Book

By Shannon Hicks

Dan Cruson likes to say he started work on his new project, A Mosaic of Newtown History, about fifteen years ago.

The book is a collection of essays that originally appeared in issues of The Rooster’s Crow, the newsletter of Newtown Historical Society. As Town Historian and now a retired teacher of local history, Mr Cruson’s is a familiar name and bearded face around town. He has presented countless programs on various aspects of history in town, and has been deeply involved in the research and sharing of Newtown’s history since moving into town with his family three decades ago.

The book was coordinated for the celebration of Newtown’s 300th birthday. It sells for $20.

Mr Cruson’s newest release debuted on October 1, during the performances of Tableaux Vivants, a Tercentennial production that was staged at Newtown High School. Mr Cruson, who narrated the performances of four living pictures, each depicting a different element of town history, graciously signed copies of the brand-new book before and after each of the two performances of the tableaux.

The Rooster’s Crow is published five times each year. The essays included within the newspaper, as Mr Cruson explains in the Introduction of his new book, have been intended “to highlight a single aspect of the town’s history and deal with it in greater depth than would be done with an overall narrative history of the town. In this way they are the tessera which together form a mosaic of Newtown history, a detailed picture of a unique town.”

Mr Cruson did the bulk of the selection work, going through 15 years worth of essays in various forms, in deciding which works would be included in A Mosaic of Newtown History. Former historical president Elin Hayes, who has for years urged Mr Cruson to publish a collection of his essays, unearthed digital copies of some of the earliest essays and made sure they were put into Mr Cruson’s hands when he began organizing the project.

Novelist and fellow Newtown resident Justin Scott also helped Mr Cruson, offering stylistic corrections and editing input.

The essays have been arranged in roughly chronological form. Some have been rewritten or edited to include new information discovered since an essay’s original publication. Others have had information corrected when research has shown the necessity to update data.

A Mosaic of Newtown History is divided into six segments: Colonial Newtown, with six essays; The Revolution, also with six essays; The Industrial Revolution, another six essays; The Nineteenth Century, with 14 essays; The Soft Underbelly of Victorian Newtown, eight essays; and Early Twentieth Century, 16 essays. In all, the book offers 56 essays.

(I of course turned first to the one called “The Newtown Bee’s Rival.” As can be expected when reading anything that Mr Cruson has researched, I learned information about the early years of the newspaper industry in Newtown. With this essay concerning a long-defunct newspaper, there was a lot to learn.)

The essays are all interesting reads, and every one of them offers interesting nuggets of knowledge. I knew of the existence of various school districts in the past, for instance, but never realized that the North Central schoolhouse was located where the Soldiers and Sailors Monument now stands, at the corner of Main Street and Hanover Road.

The book also features a 12-page Index, which will undoubtedly become a valuable tool for countless readers and researchers well into the future.

 Among his favorite essays, Mr Cruson said he enjoyed revisiting those concerning the Revolutionary War era and one called “Newtown’s Red-Light District Revisited.”

He also enjoyed working on the chapters called “Newtown Notables.” Rather than focus on an event or era in Newtown, these seven chapters focus their efforts on individuals who made lasting contributions to this town (and in some cases, well beyond the town’s borders).

“Newtown Notables” offer a look at men both familiar – including William Upham and James Brunot – and not so well known. Henry Cook, whom Mr Cruson called “an obscure guy,” moved into Newtown in 1865 and produced some of the town’s earliest landscape photographs.

A few of the young photographer’s images have been reproduced in A Mosaic of Newtown History, including a stereograph that shows the two Trinity Church buildings when they were side by side. The view predates the placement of Newtown’s first Main Street flagpole.

“He was an unusual guy in that he just didn’t seem to do portraits, and that was the bread and butter of these guys,” Mr Cruson said. “He didn’t do any portraits, apparently.”

If the cover of Mr Cruson’s book looks familiar, that’s because it uses many of the images seen on photographer Jill L. Jackson Baimel’s limited edition poster, “Looking For Newtown.” A Newtown resident, Ms Baimel spent months walking and driving around town photographing street signs, business signs, clocks, trucks, busses and automobiles, license plates, sewer caps and more – anything she could find with the word Newtown on it.

Ms Baimel has been involved in a national photography project, The National StateArt Project, since 2001. She has already completed poster projects for New York and New Jersey, and is finishing work on the Connecticut poster.

Her work focusing on Newtown was done with both the Tercentennial poster and Dan Cruson’s book jacket in mind. The poster was released a few months ago. Forty-five of the images featured on “Looking For Newtown” are also found on Mr Cruson’s book cover.

“The trouble with the book jacket is people get the book in their hands, and they start looking at the cover trying to figure out where the pictures were taken,” Mr Cruson said with a laugh. “I’ve told her that she needs to make a key for the images.”

Mr Cruson moved into Newtown in 1970, became president of Newtown Historical Society in 1989 and helped rejuvenate it, bringing it new vision with the assistance of a half dozen other residents who also were willing to donate their time and efforts. “It was my luck to step in and direct their energies. They were the movers and shakers on this project,” he insisted.

The following year he began writing essays on different aspects of Newtown history for The Rooster’s Crow.

Written in 1991, Mr Cruson’s The Prehistory of Fairfield County, which formed the basis of the local history course he taught at Joel Barlow, was his first book.

He has also authored Newtown Slaves: A Case Study in Connecticut Rural Black History, and identified and assembled old photographs for two volumes in the Images of America series, Newtown (published in 1997) and Newtown: 1900-1960 (October 2002). He also used his expertise to assemble Images of America: Easton-Redding

Mr Cruson compiled a history of the Men’s Literary and Social Club of Newtown Street in 1994 for its 100th anniversary, a history of Curtis Packaging in 1995, and has written a history of Newtown Savings Bank, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, which will soon go to press.

A Mosaic of Newtown History is available at C.H. Booth Library, and Mr Cruson says Newtown Historical Society will have it available for purchase at its programs and open house events. Plans are being finalized for a book signing at the library during November.