Memorial Day Also For

The Newtown That Once Was

To the Editor:

This Memorial Day marked my return to the hometown of my entire 21 years, shortly after my graduation from UConn weeks earlier in May. What I had hoped to see and enjoy were the green canopies above Hopewell Road, the rolling pastures of Great Ring Farm (less than a mile from where I grew up), a fantastic view of the flagpole from the top of Boggs Hill, and the lingering sense of a beautiful rural Newtown.

Each of these sites, however, has very recently or in years past been disgustingly tainted. The expansion of a bridge over Hopewell has rendered the road impassable; what used to be Great Ring Farm is now littered with cheap houses; the Chase House, and better yet, the beautiful stone barn next to it at the top of Boggs Hill, was knocked down to build a wooden barn and what some would call a phony-looking “McMansion.”

But most of all, while hiking the trails near the beloved Hattertown Pond on the sunny afternoon of Memorial Day, I stumbled onto the property that was recently known as the Hundred Acres Farm, where I fondly remember cutting Christmas trees while growing up. But Hundred Acres Farm is no more. It has been sold, and then contracted. A massive highway of dirt and mud has been cut through the evergreens and a cul-de-sac forms at the end. Another subdivision.

As my “welcome back” to the town in which I grew up, love, and see myself living in for many years to come, I am appalled. A friend of mine admitted being brought to tears by the sight of the destruction of the farm, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a letter to the editor last year by a woman who was brought to tears by the hideous development at the top of Boggs Hill. I sympathize. To the people in this town who work so hard to sell, build, and move into these houses, I hope you read this: shame on you. Where you see profit and selfish opportunity, I remember Newtown. Where you think of “development,” I think of the droning of lawnmowers, oversized SUVs, overcrowded schools, and the utter destruction of the beauty that once was.

The people and the policymakers of this town must put an end to this, or Newtown will become as ugly as it is becoming cheap.

Daniel Maxwell

14 Stonewall Ridge Road, Newtown                            May 31, 2005