A Field Trip Through Local History

By Eliza Hallabeck

After reading My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James and Chris Collier, seventh grade students at St Rose School followed Town Historian Dan Cruson on Wednesday, October 21, for a special tour of Newtown’s center and Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding.

“We could spend the next two days standing here giving you a detailed history of the buildings around here,” said Mr Cruson outside the front entrance to the C.H. Booth Library on Main Street.

Seventh grade students surrounded him as he spoke of the history behind the library, Ram’s Pasture, the Inn of Newtown, the Scudder Building, and the Matthew Curtiss House, all along Main Street.

Some students responded by asking to stand there and learn about the history of the buildings for the next two days. After giving a joking response, Mr Cruson lead the students toward the flagpole to continue the history tour.

My Brother Sam Is Dead tells the story of Tim Meeker as he struggles with the American Revolution, and the eventual choice he will have to make between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats. Language Arts and History teachers from the school chaperoned the day’s field trip to Redding — Putnam Park is the  site of the Winter Encampment of General Israel Putnam’s Continental troops from December 1778 to May 1779 — and through Newtown center.

Also included in the tour were the Edmond Town Hall and The Meeting House, all along Main Street.

Roughly 30 students stood around Mr Cruson at the corner of the front property of St John’s Episcopal Church, facing down Church Hill Road to hear him discuss “one of the great unsolved mysteries of Newtown.”

The students listened as Mr Cruson explained the details of a cobbler building, and the cobbler who lived and worked roughly where the driveway to The Newtown Bee Building is now. The cobbler’s body was found sprawled and axed in the cobbler’s building.

According to the school, the field trip was taken to have the students witness how close history is to them.