The long-awaited pipe organ arrived at Trinity Church on Monday and work on its construction began immediately. The swell wind chest will contain 1,100 pipes, the great wind chest will accommodate approximately 1,000.

***

Final dialogue between the Hawleyville Company and the Conservation Commission was exchanged Wednesday evening during a public hearing to consider a long form application from the company for an industrial subdivision off Barnabas Road in Hawleyville.

***

The Long and Winding Road Ends for John Lennon. Music of the artist played continuously on area radio stations as disc jockeys dedicated a day’s programming to him. It was Tuesday, December 9, and the world was struck with grief as the news of the fatal shooting [the night before] spread. The Newtown area, like many other parts of the nation, was affected by the tragedy as people flocked to local record stores to purchase an album or tape of the music that at many times motivated the world.

***

Concerns in recent months have cropped up in board discussions about an apparent lack of coordination of Newtown’s human services agencies. Selectman Jack McAuliffe told the board all parties involved in the three basic service areas should meet to decide how to effectively set up what will amount to a totally new town department.

***

The winners of the Newtown PTA Council Children’s Theatre bean counting contest were recently assembled at The Bee office to pick up their prizes. Miss Ellen Rollinson of the Sandy Hook School library presented the winning students with a ticket to the Sheffield Ensemble Theatre’s recent local production of Beans. Billy Kasbarian, at Middle Gate School, was just five beans off the mark, guessing 5,410 when the jar contained 5, 405.

***

If the Newtown Legislative Council approves a request for a $10,000 special appropriation to air condition the Newtown Day Care/Multi-Purpose Center when it meets December 17, summertime temperatures which have hit 100 or better in the 7,500 square foot building should become a thing of the past.

***

Town of Newtown officials have apparently convinced the senior sanitary engineer of the Water Compliance Unit of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that they are making some progress toward finding a solution to one of the most persistent problems First Selectman Jack Rosenthal has had since he took office in 1976: finding a permanent disposal system for septage pumped from the town’s septic tank.

December 16, 1955

The Housatonic Public Service Company announced this week that it has made considerable progress in its program for increasing the electrical capacity of the Newtown substation. Plans call for five feeders, or local distribution lines, emanating from the substation to replace the present two.

***

The long awaited announcement of the route of the relocation of Route 6 in Newtown will be found in the legal notices in this issue of The Bee. The State Highway Department is now legally authorized to acquire the land needed for the right-of-way by purchase or condemnation.

***

The Newtown Park Commission, at its regular monthly meeting held last Friday, December 9, in the selectmen’s office, accepted the gift of a carved-in-steel sign given in memory of the late A. Fenn Dickinson by Thomas A. Reilly of Bridgeport. The sign…will eventually be placed at the entrance to the park.

***

Acting on several requests for help in treating Christmas trees to reduce their inflammability, the Newtown Hook and Ladder Company has offered, as a service to the community, to spray the trees of all townspeople who bring their trees to the firehouse, located behind Edmond Town Hall.

***

The Newtown Board of Education held its regular monthly open meeting last Thursday evening, December 8, in the library of the high school. The board decided that the position of the supervising principal of the new Sandy Hook School would be open to outsiders as well as qualified teachers in the Newtown school system.

***

In a workshop meeting held Tuesday, December 6, at the home of Mrs William Schumacher on the grounds of Fairfield Hills State Hospital, the members of the Berkshire Garden Club worked on decorations for one of the cottages at Fairfield State Hospital.

***

The chairman of the Merchants Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Newtown, Joseph Leo, reports that he is working with the Providence office of the Railway Express Agency in an effort to secure store-door and house deliveries of express shipments to Newtown addresses.

December 12, 1930

There will be eight big vaudeville acts and dancing at The Dodgingtown fire house, Saturday evening, December 13. The vaudeville show will start at 7:30 o’clock and dancing will continue from 9 to 12. Al Bevans will be there with his talking doll.

***

DODGE’S MOUNTAIN INN: Martin D. Dodge, formerly of Naugatuck, has built an attractive service station, and will cater to motorists with Shell gas and oils. Luncheons will also be served the year around. A number of tourists cabins are to be erected in the woods, which will undoubtedly meet with favor from the motoring public.

The special town meeting on Friday night, at the Edmond Town hall, to consider the naming of commissions to manage the Edmond Town hall, build the proposed Cyrenius Booth Memorial Library, and erect a memorial to the soldiers of the several wars of the nation under bequests made by the late Miss Mary E. Hawley, was attended by fully 200 voters.

***

W.B. Bentley, who has had quite a serious time with a junior carbuncle on the back of his neck, is much better and attending to business again.

***

An event of more than ordinary interest to the citizens of Newtown occurred on Wednesday when the executor of the Mary D. Hawley estate, Arthur T. Nettleton, and the Travelers Bank & Trust Co, represented by Mr Bolles, turned over to T.F. Brew, selectman, and Frank Wright, treasurer, the sum of $200,000 for the erection of the Cyrenius E. Booth Memorial Library; also, $25,000 for the erection of the war memorial.

***

At a hearing on December 9, 1930, Robert D. Fairchild presented his petition to Judge Frederick Peasley, Judge of the Superior Court of Fairfield County, requesting that he be declared to have been elected assessor at the town election for the town of Newtown by the moderator at said election on October 6, 1930. Mr Fairchild claimed that some 20 of the ballots…had been improperly rejected.

December 15, 1905

Postmaster Willison M. Reynolds is to be congratulated on the handsome appearance of the postoffice interior, the new boxes, fresh paint and new shades working wonders.

***

“Grandpa” Ingraham, father of Mrs C.S. Platt, is an active old gentleman, and although 87 years old, does some work on the farm almost every day. “The other day,” said Mr Ingraham, “I was at work…when I heard a big noise near the barn door. I thought it was Mr Platt driving his horse in, but on looking around I saw it was one of the big roosters from Editor Smith’s Poultry yard… These roosters that Smith raised this year beat anything this side of North Adams, Mass.”

***

Put it down in your diary — the first substantial snow storm of the season 1905–’06 occurred on December 9–10.

***

Leon Bourquenez of Botsford is to move his mill from where it is now to Zoar on R.S. Wheeler’s land, where he has a large contract for sawing. Mr Bourquenez has just purchased a new 15½ horse power gasoline engine for power for his mill.

***

The road bridge over the Housatonic river at Sandy Hook has been newly planked.

***

Herbert R. Derby of Stratford was fatally injured by a fall from the new temporary railroad bridge over the Housatonic river at Sandy Hook at 4 o’clock last week Thursday afternoon. The young man, who was only 21 years of age, was a carpenter, and was engaged with a large number of other workmen in putting the finishing touches upon the bridge.