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Some people are saying Newtown has gone to the dogs. No less an authority than Canine Enforcement Officer Helen Reid is saying the problem with roaming dogs “is crazy.” While the same dogs roam both winter and summer, Office Reid says their horizons widen with the warmer weather. State law prohibits residents from allowing their dogs to wander on another’s property, without being under control.

* * *

Park Superintendent Hank Kniese has learned to be patient. When notified by police that the sign to the pool entrance at Dickinson Memorial Park mysteriously turned up on the side steps of The Newtown Bee Wednesday night, he dutifully got dressed and drove to the Church Hill Road building to pick it up. The 4-by-8 foot wooden sign has been missing for two years. According to the note attached to the sign, which was addressed to the newspaper, the writer found the sign in his backyard and thought it belonged to The Bee. It’s not the first time it has disappeared. The last time it was found by police near the Redding border.

* * *

A committee composed of residents appointed last August by school Superintendent John Reed presented to the Board of Education its recently completed report of physical needs of the schools. Major conclusions indicate Newtown should not: close an elementary school; move the 9th grade to the middle school; move the 6th grades to the elementary schools. The committee feels Newtown should: move the PROBE preschool program and a special education class from Hawley School to Head O’ Meadow School; lease modular units for the high school; study redistricting of the elementary schools; consider an alternative high school program at a site other than the present high school.

* * *

Massachusetts Congressman Edward J. Markey finished his Nuclear Freeze Movement speech last Saturday in the Edmond Town Hall Theatre with the words, “This is the time, this is the place to give to future generations a legacy of peace and stability, because beyond the next several years that opportunity will be gone forever” — and there was no question the nearly 500 people present were with him as maybe 90 percent of the people rose to give him a standing ovation.

* * *

A 10-year-old boy was injured when a piece of a cemetery monument broke off and struck him Friday afternoon. The boy was playing in the St Rose Cemetery at 1:33 pm. While climbing a monument, he reached for a stone cross. The cross came off and struck him in the head, police said.

* * *

There’s something new being introduced at the Newtown General Store and it doesn’t have a thing to do with deli products or groceries —not directly, at least. This week, Newtown artist Pat Kaufman hung selected pieces of her own artwork in a newly cleared corner of the old general store. Ms Kaufman’s show is the first of a series being planned.

March 7, 1958

Almost as far as the eye could reach smashed and twisted box cars lined the rails in Hawleyville last Friday after an early morning wreck in which 35 cars of a 116-car train were derailed. At daybreak wrecking crews started to work righting the derailed cars, when shortly after 8 am another wreck occurred in New Milford. By Saturday the rail crews had opened both tracks at Hawleyville to traffic.

* * *

Newtown Baseball Club formally came into being Tuesday as a nonprofit corporation. The purpose of the club is to further the course of all sports, as well as baseball, in Newtown. One of the ultimate aims of the organization is to field a team comprised entirely of Newtown Little League and Babe Ruth League graduates.

* * *

Newtown’s quota for the 1958 Red Cross fund raising campaign has been set at $4,500, the same as last year, when the quota was exceeded by $300. Thermometer-type charts indicating week-by-week progress of the campaign will be displayed in front of H.G. Warner General Store in Sandy Hook, and the Newtown Toy Center in the Newtown Shopping Center.

* * *

The Newtown School Building Committee is advertising this week for bids for the complete general construction of the new junior high school. George A. McLachlan said the committee will go before a special town meeting to seek town approval after the bids are opened and the committee has a firm price on the construction. Prior to advertising for the bids the committee had approved final plans for the proposed school.

* * *

The Girl Scouts of Newtown are in need of card tables and folding chairs for their cabin. The articles do not need to be in perfect condition but should be sturdy enough that they can be repaired. The girls will do any necessary refinishing themselves. All donations will be greatly appreciated.

* * *

On April 5 a mounted and city delivery mail service will be established by the Newtown Post Office. The Board of Burgesses of the Borough and the Board of Selectmen obtained the services of the Board of Assessors to determine and assign house numbers to all the homes that will be served by this delivery. The proper house number should be placed on each home by the occupant before April 5 in order to help the Post Office expedite the delivery of the mail.

 

March 3, 1933

The government recently announced that in 1931 there was a gain of 90,800 in the number of farms served with electricity for the first time. When the figures for 1932 come out, another marked advance will be recorded, though it may not be on so great a scale. At the moment almost a million farm homes have power — and 650,000 of these obtain it from high tension lines owned by large utilities, the cheapest and most efficient kind of service.

* * *

Saturday about 10 o’clock snow began falling and by nightfall there was a good three inches on the ground. The State trucks speedily had the State roads cleared of snow, Sunday morning. Sunday was a genuine March day, warm and windy with increasing cold and wind toward evening.

* * *

From the Office of the President of Newtown Chamber of Commerce: The Newtown Chamber of Commerce has accomplished many worthy things, the past few years, and looks forward courageously and confidently to accomplishing many more, and it is for that reason, that I as President respectfully request you to print this letter in your most excellent and widely circulated publication, The Newtown Bee, so that every business man and public spirited citizen in the Town of Newtown, who haveth interest of their town at heart, may know that the Newtown Chamber of Commerce, wants and asks them to join with us as members of the Newtown Chamber of Commerce to push forward the good work already so well started. Very Truly Yours, F. Robert Mount

* * *

The Lecturer’s hour at the meeting of the Pootatuck Grange, Tuesday night, at Edmond Town hall was made especially interesting by a capable and entertaining address on “The Boy Scout Movement,” by Attorney Earle W. Smith of Bridgeport. Attorney Smith spoke of the ten years of Scout program in progress, and urged the members of Pootatuck Grange to give their unqualified support to the Scout movement.

* * *

Union Lenten Services: The services this year will be continued as in the past, alternating first in Trinity and then in the Congregational church. The time will be at 8 o’clock and there will be special music by the choirs. All members of the community are invited.

* * *

The Danbury-New Haven line of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad via Hawleyville and Botsford, was blocked shortly after midnight, Sunday morning, when ten cars of a freight train bound from Maybrook, N.Y., to New Haven were derailed near Stevenson, a few miles south of Botsford. The accident was caused by the breaking of a wheel on one of the cars. More than 300 feet of track was torn up and the road was blocked until Sunday evening.

 

March 6, 1908

A number of the pupils of the Huntingtown district school have been enjoying all the pleasure attended with the chicken pox. Miss Florence Winton has been so ill with it as to require the care of a physician.

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Rev T.J. Lee from the pulpit for the Congregational church announced the acceptance of the call to the pastorate of Rev Alexander Steele of Cokeville, Pa., who will probably begin his labors here in the early spring.

* * *

William McDonald, an expert horse shoer, has taken a position with A.W. Bassett & Son at Sandy Hook. They have had a busy season. A.W. Bassett & Son have rented the Niantic mill property and will do carriage painting there. Howard Bassett, of the firm, is one of the best carriage painters hereabouts and is sure to have a busy season.

* * *

Dr H.V. Walls, a graduate of the University of Baltimore, Md., has opened an office at the Grand Central hotel, Newtown, and will begin the practice of medicine here. Dr Walls has done post graduate work at the Johns Hopkins university. He was formerly associate professor of clinical surgery at the Women’s Medical College, Baltimore, Md. Dr Walls has done clinical work in London for two seasons.

* * *

The hearing on the remonstrance against granting a license to sell liquor at the Grand Central hotel took place at the Town hall, Monday, before County Commissioner Simeon Pease and Commissioner Brophy. Attorney John W. Banks appeared for Town Clerk Houlihan, the applicant, and Attorney Wilder for the remonstrants. From 75 to 100 people were in attendance. The hearing opened with witnesses for the applicant on the stand. Some 20 or more heard, when an adjournment was made for two weeks.