The Botsford Water Tower —

Saving a Piece of Newtown’s Railroad History

By Jan Howard

Members of a local historical museum are formulating plans to preserve a piece of Newtown’s railroad history and to display it for posterity.

Members of the Danbury Train Museum want to dismantle the Botsford Depot water tower, now located on property owned by Wickes Lumber on Swamp Road, and reassemble it in the railroad yard on White Street in Danbury.

“We’re trying to save another piece of history. We don’t want to see it lost,” museum Board of Directors member Ira Pollack said recently. “It’s part of railroad and Newtown heritage.”

He said he thinks the water tower was probably built between 1916 and 1918 to replace a prior tower. It once held 250,000 gallons of water.

“The steam engines filled up there,” he said.

Wickes Lumber has given the museum members “the go ahead to remove it,” Wickes credit manager Brian Roy said this week.

“Wickes said `You can have it,’” Mr Pollack said. “We are very excited by it. We want the tower very much. Anything related to Danbury or Connecticut we try to get our hands on. Either we take it or it’s destroyed.”

 The group hopes to move the water tower in the near future, once they have enough volunteers to do it. “We have to get people with the right expertise involved,” Mr Pollack said. He said the group is also looking for heavy equipment operators and a crane to aid in dismantling the tower.

“We have to get together a plan of attack to move it,” Mr Pollack added. “We are working out a plan to take the water tower apart and move it by tractor trailer to the museum in Danbury.

“We’ve never moved anything of this caliber before,” he added. “It’s probably the biggest thing we’ve worked on.”

The water tower is about 40 feet high and 24 feet in diameter, he said. “It’s something you can’t miss.”

“It will take a lot of people pooling resources to help us,” Mr Pollack said. “We are a volunteer organization. It will probably be a costly operation to do it. We’re looking for volunteers.”

Mr Pollack explained that the project would involve taking the roof off the water tower and disassembling it, cutting the tank in the middle and dismantling it, and loading the whole thing on a truck. “It’s too big to move as one unit,” he explained.

“We would like to have it disassembled and moved to the yard by winter. We need to get it out of there,” Mr Pollack said. He would like to expedite it as soon as possible, but, fortunately, he noted, there is no deadline for moving the tower.

He said an engineer would oversee the location and rebuilding of the tower on the museum site.

 Mr Pollack said he would like to see it constructed next to the museum’s turntable.

The museum members are also restoring a pump house, located on Seger Street in Danbury, and hope to move it to the museum site as part of the water tower display. “The pump doesn’t work, but the parts are all there,” he said, adding the pump house located next to the Botsford water tower is deteriorated and has no pump, and will not be moved as part of the project.

The Railroad and Botsford Station

The Botsford Depot was part of the Housatonic Line that was constructed to connect Bridgeport with the distant trade center of Albany and points west. The first passenger train on the line made the trip from New Milford to Bridgeport on February 14, 1840. The line was the third of its kind in the state.

The first person in town to buy stock in the Housatonic Line was Daniel Botsford, a prominent citizen, who owned so much land that he was called the richest man in Newtown. One of his sons, Jabez, served as station agent for many years.

In the beginning, Botsford was only a stopping place at a road crossing. During the stagecoach era, it was called Cold Spring and, in 1883, was renamed Botsford. Later, it became a junction where the New Haven and Derby branch, the Maybrook Line, joined the Housatonic. Here, connections were made for Derby and New Haven.

According to an account of the time, a train trip of the day would “pass through the little stations and quiet hamlets of Stepney and Botsford and press on till we reach the pleasant region of Newtown…”

The Botsford station went through several changes and renovations through its history. In December of 1892, a spur track was put in at Botsford for leaving loaded freight cars.

On January 12, 1894, The Newtown Bee reported that the work of tearing down the old depot building at Botsford had begun. The Bee noted, “The scenery will be greatly improved when the job is done.” On January 26, the paper noted that “The beautiful depot at Botsford makes the place look 100 percent better and probably land will go up in value in that vicinity before long.”

In February, the newspaper reported on the newly constructed buildings at Botsford Depot, noting “The traveler who passed through Botsford months ago would hardly recognize it today. ” The exterior of the 24 by 65-foot building was painted an olive color with dark trim. A covered platform protected travelers against storms. The interior of the station was described as light and pleasant, with a ticket and telegraph office in the center of the room, and an inside vestibule. The station was furnished with running water from a spring.

A baggage room was situated at the north end of the depot, according to the account, and a freight house, measuring 30 x 46 feet, was located north of the passenger station. South of the station a building for the section men was being constructed.

In 1900, someone living near the station, either in pride or despair, reported to The Newtown Bee that 45 trains passed through daily.

On August 5, 1904, The Bee reported that a windmill had been erected at Botsford Depot for pumping water into the water tank. A long siding had also been completed between Botsford Depot and “the high bridge on the New Haven branch to accommodate the long freight trains expected soon to go over this branch.”

The Botsford Depot was used until just after World War II.  The abandoned station burned down in the 1980s.

The Danbury Train

Museum

The Danbury Train Museum was formed in 1994. It has a membership of 550 and is growing, Mr Pollack said. “It all started in a shop on Ives Street.”

Located on 5½ acres of railroad property, the museum is subsidized by the City of Danbury and the State of Connecticut. It has 40 pieces of railroad equipment on display.

 Soon, in addition to the water tower, a steam engine from the Boston area will be moved to the museum site at a cost of approximately $12,000, according to Mr Pollack.

The work and the costs are all worthwhile to preserve local railroad history, according to Mr Pollack, who added,  “We all have a true love of railroading.”

Some of the information for this story was gathered from Newtown Connecticut Directions & Images published by the League of Women Voters and town historian Dan Cruson’s Images of America NEWTOWN.