UPDATE (Thursday, January 27, 2022): This article has been updated to include note that the flagpole is on the National Register of Historic Places.

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“The ABCs of Newtown” is a series tying each letter of the alphabet to something in Newtown. This week we continue with a look at one of the town’s most enduring symbols of patriotism.

The Main Street flagpole has become Newtown’s unofficial landmark, and has been incorporated into countless logos and works of art.

Two flags fly from it annually: a 20- by 30-foot summer flag, and an 18- by 24-foot winter flag. The summer flag goes up just prior to Memorial Day, and the winter flag goes up shortly after Labor Day.

The flagpole’s appearance dates to 1876. To celebrate the nation’s centennial, a two-part flagpole was erected smack dab in the middle of Main Street, West Street, and Church Hill Road.

The flagpole was not the first entity in that central location, however. From 1709 until 1792, the Congregational meeting house lived there. That building — now formally Newtown Meeting House — was moved a few yards west in 1792.

The Episcopal church was then constructed in the middle of Church Hill Road, opposite the meeting house. That building remained until 1870, when the new stone building was constructed in its current location and the wooden church building was dismantled.

According to an essay by the late Town Historian Dan Cruson, “The town’s leading men had gotten together to determine how best to celebrate this event.” A liberty pole was decided upon and residents were invited to contribute.

Wallace H. Mitchell reportedly cut the pole in the Shady Rest section of Sandy Hook and then dragged it to Main Street with several yoke of oxen.

The cost to purchase the centennial pole and its top mast, and to install the pole, was $131.65, Cruson noted in one of his essays.

That first flagpole, originally called the Liberty Pole, looked like a ship’s mast, and stood at least 70 feet tall. It was, also according to Cruson, “considerably lower than 100 feet, the height of the present pole.”

That first pole, he also noted, “were square hewn” according to tradition.

The pole was replaced three times: twice by wooden poles (1892 and 1914) and then by a spun steel pole in 1950. The last two poles were 100 feet high.

The anticipation, installation, and dedication of the current flagpole was front page coverage in The Newtown Bee for four straight weeks in early 1950.

A two paragraph note on the January 27, 1950 cover simply announced the arrival of the pole in two sections, noted it had been welded on the scene, “and swing by the giant crane into place.” A history of the pole’s predecessors and complete coverage of the February 1950 dedication followed in subsequent weeks.

Dedication On Lincoln’s Birthday

The dedication of the town’s new landmark took place on Sunday, February 12, 1950.

The event “brought together a large gathering of townspeople when members of a score of the town’s civic organizations formed in line and marched to the site of the dedication. A patriotic urge and loyalty to an historic town institution combined with almost balmy weather for February to make the convocation impressively large,” the paper shared.

Several hundred people reportedly attended the dedication. Traffic was directed by two state police officers.

The line of march formed at Edmond Town Hall. It was led by First Selectman A. Fenn Dickinson and American Legion Commander George L. May. George A. Jackson acted a parade marshal.

The color guards of the Raymond L. Pease Post, American Legion and The Charles Howard Peck VFW Post and their auxiliaries, “and the guards of other organizations,” marched to music performed by Sandy Hook Fife and Drum Corps. Parade participants also included The Rotary Club of Newtown, “Boy Scouts and Cubs, Girl Scouts and Browns, Camp Fire Girls, Bluebirds, Pohtatuck Grange, firemen and members of other organizations,” also according to the newpaper.

Many local leaders of faith were also part of the dedication. The Reverend Walter R. Conroy, pastor of St Rose Church; Reverend Paul Cullens, pastor of Newtown Congregational Church (and Scoutmaster); Reverend Gordon D. Pierce, rector of Trinity Episcopal; and Reverend C.A. Whitemarsh, pastor of Sandy Hook Methodist church, were all invited to speak.

The flag raised that afternoon had been given to the first selectman a few weeks earlier by Antoinette Lawson, the widow of Captain Peter Lawson, a World War I US Marine Corps veteran who was killed in action during World War II. The flag had been sent by the US War Department to Mrs Lawson.

In his comments, Judge Paul V. Cavanaugh offered a brief history of the town and nation during the period the Liberty pole had been in place. He dedicated the pole and what it stands for to those who made its return possible, “and to the boys in all the wars who gave their life blood to guarantee our freed.”

Cavanaugh called on those present to “dedicate ourselves to the same independent principles so proudly exemplified by the 43 citizens of 1876” who stood at the same location and dedicated Newtown’s first Liberty Pole. While little was recorded from that first ceremony, he said, “we do know that the erection of the first liberty pole was a result of thoughtful consideration of what freedom, liberty and independence meant to our Newt England forefathers. In turn our grandsires learned that these privileges were retained only through continued vigilance and that the cohesive agency which made the foundation of this country so permanent was the blood of the patriots at Lexington and Concord.”

The judge noted that the world had been through two major wars since the first pole was installed. He worried about what he saw as a lack of respect by the younger generation, who seemed to take their freedoms for granted, and adults who joked about the president in front of children.

“We must all remember that as a free and independent people we are permitted to make our own choice of those who represent us in office. At least the office commands our respect and unless we show that respect we certainly have no right to expect much from our children,” he said.

“Let us be a little more grateful and appreciative of the great gifts that we are permitted to enjoy in this land of liberty, and let us realize that all of these privileges of Freedom, Liberty and Independence are given to us by Almighty God and by no one else. Let us preserve them.

“If the flag with the symbol of the hammer and sickle were being raised her today instead of the Stars and Stripes, you may rest assured that this pole would not be flanked by two churches not would men of the churched of God be permitted on the program. Let’s preserve these previous gifts. Let’s be Americans in every sense of the world,” Cavanaugh said in conclusion.

The event fell on the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, “sixteenth president of the United States, and savior of the nation during the War Between the States,” The Bee noted. Arthur T. Nettleton eulogized the president and gave “an inspiring address” before Rev Pierce offered the closing benediction.

The ceremony was conducted under the auspices of The Raymond L. Pease Post, American Legion.

The current flagpole, according to notes Cruson prepared for Newtown’s tercentennial in 2005, “is set in a hole 12 feet deep and seven feet in diameter. The pole was then placed in a galvanized steel cylinder 21 inches in diameter, which was lowered to a depth of 11 feet and then surrounded by concrete.”

That flagpole cost $2,900. One cross section of the final wooden flagpole, with a bronze plaque identifying and authenticating it, was gifted to Newtown Savings Bank President Arthur T. Nettleton, who then gifted it to C.H. Booth Library. The historic piece remains on display at the library.

The remainder of the lower mast went into storage for two years. In 1952 it was donated to Hawleyville Fire Company, which was looking for a pole for its siren.

The top mast stood for several years in the former SAC fields in Sandy Hook.

The flag has its fans and its detractors. Many love its presence and what it stands for. In its history, however, the flagpole has been hit by many vehicles, most often by drivers who are not paying attention to a 100-foot-tall white pole in the center of the roadway.

While most crashes are slow-speed events, in October 2012 the flagpole was struck hard enough by a tractor-trailer truck that the 16-inch-diameter gilded ball at its top was knocked off its post. Then-Keeper of the Flagpole David Lydem told The Newtown Bee it was the first time since 1993 that the flagpole had been hit hard enough for that to happen.

The driver of the truck was uninjured. The golden ball was never located.

Keepers Of A National And State-Sanctioned Landmark

A retired Newtown Police Department lieutenant, Lydem had appointed himself unofficial caretaker of the flagpole in 1983. He took that responsibility very seriously, protecting the pole from unauthorized use (aside from the traffic signs, fliers and other notices are not allowed) and staying on top of maintenance.

Following Lydem’s retirement from the post in 2015, borough resident Chris Gardner took over the honor and responsibilities of caring for the landmark.

Earlier this year Gardner offered advance notice of the summer flag changeover, and invited the public to join him, Newtown Lions Club members — who traditionally help with the changeover and donate to the flag fund — and Hook & Ladder firefighters in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance once the flag was raised.

Maintenance and repair funds have come from donations and a flagpole account the town maintains as a special revenue fund.

Depending on the work or task to be done, Hook & Ladder firefighters or steeplejacks are called on to access the pole. Firefighters donate their time and equipment for the flag changeovers. They also handle lowering and raising the flag when needed to memorialize someone. Steeplejacks handle painting duties on upper reaches of the pole, as well as work on the gilded ball atop the pole.

Since December 1996, the flagpole has been on the National Register of Historic Places. A January 31, 1997 article in The Newtown Bee noted that then-First Selectman Bob Cascella had received official notification that the landmark was among the properties and locations listed when the Borough was listed on the national register.

A letter from John Shannahan, state historic preservation officer, informed Cascella that the designation for the district went into effect December 20, 1996. The designation included properties on Academy Lane, Church Hill Road, Currituck Road, Glover Avenue, Main Street, South Main Street, and West Street. It also includes Ram Pasture and The Hawley Memorial Bridge on Hawley Road.

The flagpole is also a state-sanctioned landmark. As Cruson wrote in “The Newtown Flagpole,” included in A Mosaic of Newtown History (2005), threats from the State Department of Transportation to remove or relocate the flagpole from its position in the center of a state road were “disarmed in 1981 by state legislation introduced by then Representative Mae Schmidle, which prohibited the removal of the landmark. It is stronger than it has ever been and is now protected by state legislation.”

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Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.