Vital Scores 23, Leads UConn to 69-47 Rout of NJIT

Christian Vital scored 23 points and UConn ended the 2019 portion of its season with a 69-47 rout of NJIT. Vital hit eight of his 15 shots and was 5 of 8 from 3-point range. Brendan Adams added 12 points for the Huskies (9-3), who have won six of their last seven heading into conference play. Akok Akok chipped in...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/dog-house/vital-scores-23-leads-uconn-to-69-47-rout-of-njit/2203296/

Dolphins Stun Patriots at Gillette

All the Patriots had to do to earn their 10th consecutive first-round bye in the postseason was beat the hapless Miami Dolphins, a four-win team seemingly playing out the string on its way to a top-5 pick in next April’s NFL Draft. To beat a Dolphins team that has won twice in Foxboro since 2001, neither instance featuring much of...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/patriots-dolphins-recap-week-17-december-29-2019/2203295/

MLB Says it is Committed to Protecting Minor League Teams Amid Concern Over Future of Norwich Sea Unicorns

Major League Baseball said Saturday it is committed to protecting minor league teams, a day after U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal warned of possible congressional action if the organization followed through on minor league contraction plans. “It is not Major League Baseball’s goal to eliminate any club in these negotiations, and MLB currently has a plan for every club to continue...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mlb-says-it-is-committed-to-protecting-minor-league-teams-amid-concern-over-future-of-norwich-sea-unicorns/2203195/

Victory in Seattle Would Mark Another Step for 49ers

Kyle Shanahan’s first two seasons as head coach were rough. In 2017, he guided the 49ers to a 6-10 record. That dipped to 4-12 last season. After two years, Shanahan entered this year with a 10-22 career coaching record, and his 49ers teams hardly showed the offensive spark that Shanahan had come to be known for as an offensive coordinator...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/victory-in-seattle-would-mark-another-step-for-49ers/2203221/

Former Red Hawk Wrestler Mentors Female Wrestler at Manchester High School

Manchester freshman Natalya Morris picked up wrestling in eighth grade and decided to try out for the high school wrestling team. “I like the fact that it’s a contact sport,” said Morris. “It’s nothing like 8th grade wrestling. It’s much harder with more advanced moves being done.” She’s the only girl on the team this year and Natalya is determined...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/former-red-hawk-wrestler-mentors-female-wrestler-at-manchester-high-school/2201534/

Crash led to rollover on I-95 in Bridgeport

First responders cleared from the site of a rollover crash on the highway in less than an hour Tuesday night.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Crash-led-to-rollover-on-I-95-in-Bridgeport-14942715.php

Winter Gardening: Grow Your Own Lettuce & Herbs at the Center

Participants in this free winter gardening program will receive all the materials needed to grow lettuce and herb plants over the winter.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1168

Developing New Routines and Habits for a Happier and Healthier Life in 2020 and Beyond (A Four-Part

Research says the best way to bring change into your life is by creating new routines and strategies and sticking to them until they become habits.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1167

New Year’s Trivia Contest

Ring in the New Year with a fun trivia contest covering topics such as music, movies, history and more!

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1166

Bridgeport PD: 2 juveniles charged after fight

Two juveniles were charged after a fight without another juvenile turned violent, police said.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Bridgeport-PD-2-juveniles-charged-after-fight-14942002.php

Person wounded in Bridgeport shooting

An early morning shooting in Bridgeport left one person with non-life-threatening injuries.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Person-wounded-in-Bridgeport-shooting-14941940.php

Children with food allergies have new treatment option

The desensitization process aims to protect people with severe allergies in the case of accidental ingestion.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Children-with-food-allergies-have-new-treatment-14941590.php

Alex Jones ordered to pay $100k for legal fees to Sandy Hook family

Alex Jones has been ordered by a Texas judge to pay more than $100,000 to a Sandy Hook family claiming the Infowars knowingly promoted conspiracy theories about the 2012 massacre.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Alex-Jones-ordered-to-pay-100k-for-legal-fees-to-14941373.php

Taking the train to NYC today? Here’s what you need to know

Going to Times Square? Beware of the Multiple Venue/Pay One Price/All Access Pass.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Taking-the-train-to-NYC-today-Here-s-what-you-14941161.php

$50,000 reward posted to nab Stratford murder suspects

Eduardo “Eddie” Concepcion, who was 30 years old at the time of his death, was fatally shot on Jan. 12 at approximately 2:20 a.m.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/50-000-reward-posted-to-nab-Stratford-murder-14941050.php

UConn Ends Decade Where it Began: No. 1 in Women’s Top 25

UConn finished off the decade in the same spot where it began — No. 1 in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll. The Huskies received 19 first-place votes on Monday, beating No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Oregon State, which both got five first-place votes. South Carolina and Stanford round out the top five. With few games this week...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/uconn-ends-decade-where-it-began-no-1-in-womens-top-25/2203759/

School board member arraigned on kidnapping, police impersonation charges

Bridgeport school board member Chris Taylor and his wife were arraigned Monday in Derby Superior court on kidnapping, police impersonation charges.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/School-board-member-arraigned-on-kidnapping-14939741.php

NFL Officials Look to Raise TV Broadcast Fees on Multiyear Media Deals as Ratings Rise

NFL viewership ratings are on the rise for the second straight year, giving league officials an edge in pushing to raise broadcast fees and lock in multiyear media deals long before they are set to expire at the end of 2022. Viewership plummeted during the 2016 and 2017 seasons after former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick quietly divided football fans by...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/nfl-officials-look-to-raise-tv-broadcast-fees-on-multiyear-media-deals-as-ratings-rise/2203717/

Milford man accused of engaging police in pursuit

Milford police attempted to stop a man for motor vehicle violations on Saturday, but he allegedly fled at a high rate of speed.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Milford-man-accused-of-engaging-police-in-pursuit-14939308.php

Police: Man used fake credit card at Milford mall

MILFORD — A Valley Stream, N.Y. man was arrested after allegedly charging thousands of dollars at Boscov’s using a fraudulent credit card.

According to the Milford Police Department, officers responded to the Boscov’s at the Connecticut Post Mall at 8:13 p.m. Friday on the report of a fraud. Upon arriving, police said, officers found that Nicodemus Miller, 60, was accused of making almost $3,000 in purchases at Boscov’s using a credit card that was opened fradulently.

Police said Miller was found to be in possession of several credit cards with different names on them, and multiple driver’s licenses, which featured Miller’s photo but used different names.

Miller was charged with credit card fraud, two counts of first-degree forgery, third-degree larceny and criminal impersonation.

He was assigned a $25,000 bond and scheduled to appear in court Jan. 23.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Police-Man-used-fake-credit-card-a-Milford-mall-14939207.php

Serena Williams Aces AP Female Athlete of the Decade Honors

Serena Williams dominated the decade, on the court and in conversation. There were, to begin with, the dozen Grand Slam single titles — no other woman had more than three over the past 10 seasons — and the 3 1/2 years in a row at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. And then there was the celebrity status that transcended...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/serena-williams-aces-ap-female-athlete-of-the-decade-honors/2203614/

The King Reigns: LeBron James is AP’s Male Athlete of Decade

He left Cleveland for Miami, finally became a champion, went back to his beloved northeast Ohio, delivered on another title promise, then left for the Los Angeles Lakers and the next challenge. He played in eight straight finals. No NBA player won more games or more MVP awards over the last 10 years than he did. He started a school....

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/the-king-reigns-lebron-james-is-aps-male-athlete-of-decade/2203616/

The Complicated Realities of Connecticut and the Civil War

By Matthew Warshauer

Connecticut has a remarkable Civil War history, and although it is a small state, it was in many ways instrumental to the Union’s survival. The history of that war surrounds Connecticut residents every day both in terms of its physical realities and in the lasting legacies of a complicated conflict that shook the nation between 1861 and 1865.

Three officers of Company C, 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, Fort Brady, Virginia 1864 – Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Lasting Legacies of a Complex War

Connecticut is home to more than 130 Civil War monuments.  They adorn the centers of cities such as Hartford and Waterbury, dot small town greens from Branford to Northfield, and stand silently in sacred places like West Cemetery in Bristol and the Congregational Church in Kensington. Indeed, the Kensington monument, an obelisk made of Portland brownstone designed by Nelson Augustus Moore and dedicated in 1863, is the oldest in the north—and one of the oldest in the nation.  Like these tangible memorials of the war, the legacies connected to race and slavery have continued well into the 21st century.  It was in 2009 that the Connecticut General Assembly passed a resolution apologizing for the state’s involvement in and support of slavery.

The connection between slavery and the Civil War is both obvious and complicated.  It’s obvious because the line that separated North from South was principally one where slavery began or ended, and, of course, the final result of the war was the death of the “peculiar institution,” as slavery was sometimes called. Yet the conflict is complicated because few in the North, and this was certainly true for Connecticut, entered the war to emancipate slaves.  The majority of Connecticut’s residents were not abolitionists.  Again, the state’s Civil War monuments are instructive.  Only three—the Sailors and Soldiers Memorial Arch in Hartford (1886), the Waterbury Soldiers’ Memorial (1884), and the Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment in New Haven (2008)—have any connection to race or slavery.  The majority of the state’s monuments, however, are testaments to sacrifice and the Union.  As Abraham Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg Address, they “gave their lives that the nation might live.”

Call for volunteers to a Connecticut cavalry unit, 1861 – Connecticut Historical Society

And yet the human sacrifice that the war required came home to Connecticut, as it did to every state. Some 55,000 Connecticut men joined the Union Army, a number which represented 47% of men between the ages of 15 and 50.  Ten percent of these men died and many more suffered horrible wounds and the lasting memories of watching family and friends perish.  Connecticut fielded 30 regiments, as well as cavalry and artillery units.  This included one full African American regiment, the 29th Colored Regiment, as well as the beginnings of the 3oth Colored Regiment, which was ultimately folded into the 31st Regiment United States Colored Infantry.  The level of black participation in Connecticut regiments was astounding, considering that the 1860 Federal Census revealed only 8,726 blacks living in the state, and of them only 2,206 were men between the ages of 15 and 50 (the most likely ages for service).  Seventy-eight percent of eligible black men enrolled in the 29th and 30th regiments. Just over 15% of these men died as a result of the war.

Connecticut Takes to the Battlefield

The state’s soldiers fought in every major engagement of the war: from Bull Run to Antietam and Gettysburg, in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march on Atlanta and through the Carolinas, to the final days before Petersburg and Richmond.  They wrote home, complained of army life, worried about their families, expressed their torment and frustration when battles went poorly, and questioned the war’s meaning as they saw comrades blown to pieces.

Perhaps the most famous and hardest-hit regiment was the Connecticut 14th, which arrived at Antietam (September 17, 1862), the single bloodiest battle of the war, after only a few weeks of training.  Samuel Fiske, a member of the 14th and a minister from Madison, Connecticut, wrote home about the Maryland battle on September 18: “I have at last turned over a new and bloody leaf in my experience, and seen a battle, and am now writing you, sitting in a newly plowed field all strewn with the dead of our gallant Union soldiers, still unburied, lying as they fell.”  The regiment suffered again only a few months later in Virginia at Fredericksburg (December 11-15, 1862).  Fiske wrote on the last day of that battle, “Oh! My heart is sick and sad.  Blood and wounds and death are before my eyes; of those who are my friends, comrades, brothers…. Another tremendous, terrible, murderous butchery of brave men.”

Finally, at Gettysburg, the 14th gained some degree of redemption.  Protecting one of the most important points of the Union line, the men withstood Confederate Major General George Pickett’s famous charge on July 3, 1863, leaped over a stone wall, and captured six enemy battle flags.  Three men from the regiment (Elijah W. Bacon, Christopher Flynn, and William B. Hincks) received the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor. The once disheartened Sam Fiske exulted in the victory, writing on July 4th, “I have at last had the desired opportunity of seeing a battle in which there was real fighting; hard, persistent, desperate fighting; a fighting worthy of a noble cause and the confidence of a gallant people….Hurrah for the gallant old 14th!”

Such stories of suffering and victory were repeated by Connecticut men serving in regiments spread throughout the nation—in the west at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the deep south of Louisiana, in Florida, the Carolinas, and in the defenses around Washington, D.C.  Yet as much as these men suffered in the cause of war, those at home suffered too.  Women gave constant attention to the needs of the soldiers in the field, and a virtual river of supplies poured through Connecticut’s soldiers’ aid societies.

Civil War Sanitary Commission, Harpers Weekly, April 9, 1864

On the Home Front

The Hartford Soldiers’ Aid Society became the central organizing body for all other state aid societies. Its first president, Sarah S. Cowen, constantly peppered newspapers with appeals, writing to the Hartford Daily Courant in May 1863, “It is hoped that the battles which are now being fought, and those constantly impending, may stimulate the humane public to new efforts in behalf of our sick and wounded soldiers.”  The societies raised money, collected a wide assortment of garments, medical supplies, and books, as well as food.  They collected just about every conceivable item and often received letters from soldiers, as well as regimental chaplains and surgeons, requesting specific materials.

On occasion, women slipped notes into boxes or garments.  Ellen M. Sprague of Andover stuffed the following into a sock: “My dear Friend and brother in our Country’s cause: To your care and keeping I commit these socks, and trust they may never be disgraced by any conduct of their wearer.  Loyal fingers fashioned them, and may a patriot’s tread, whose very step shall tell against our rebel foes, wear them threadbare (if need be) in crushing the wicked rebellion.  In every stitch is knit a prayer for our nation’s weal, and the hope that peace may smile upon our land long ere these be unfit for use.” (Her letter was published in The Courant in March 1863.) Women also traveled to battlefields before the cannons had cooled to care for the sick and wounded.  They met troop trains arriving in Connecticut and helped set up hospitals to care for the men.  They attended funeral after funeral, and no one in Connecticut escaped the ravages of war.

Connecticut’s War Industry

Yet the home-front effort was not solely about the relief of suffering or providing the material comforts of home to those on the battlefield.  Another part of Connecticut’s workforce diligently produced every means of destruction.  Home to a remarkable array of arms and munition companies, and then to a host of newcomers once the war began, the Nutmeg State was a virtual arsenal. The most well-known manufacturers are Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (Hartford), Eli Whitney Jr. Company (New Haven), Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company (Hartford), and Savage Revolving Fire Arms (Middletown). Yet, there were others in the state, such as the Connecticut Arms Company in Norfolk, William Muir in Windsor Locks, and the Norwich Arms Company.  There were also a host of smaller subcontractors.

Additionally, firms like Collins & Company, in Collinsville, the same company that had made a portion of John Brown’s infamous pikes for his raid on the federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, produced swords and bayonets; and Hotchkiss & Sons in Sharon manufactured all sorts of newly designed artillery shells.  Arms historian David J. Naumec wrote, “Connecticut’s firearms industry achieved an unrivaled degree of success during the Civil War, manufacturing enough firearms to equip a large portion of the Union armies.” Many of the state’s manufacturers were also innovators.  Between 1862 and 1863, more than 70 patents were issued to Connecticut inventors, the vast majority, some 75%, for weaponry.

William A. Buckingham, Connecticut’s governor throughout the Civil War – Connecticut Historical Society

A State Divided

The massive outpouring of support for the war makes it seem like Connecticut was largely unified in its dedication to the Lincoln administration and the war effort, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Nearly half of Connecticut’s population was steadfastly opposed to fighting the South.  The state descended into chaos at the start of the war, splitting into warring Republican and Democratic factions that sometimes faced off violently.  Before the Southern states even seceded, the two parties faced off in the 1860 gubernatorial election, a contest that would decide the level of the state’s involvement once the war began.

Democrats pitted the popular former governor Thomas H. Seymour against Governor William A. Buckingham.  Fearing a Republican defeat, the party pulled Abraham Lincoln from his travels in New York and New Hampshire, and in March 1860 he delivered five speeches in Connecticut.  Buckingham won the election by a mere 541 votes, receiving 44,458 to Seymour’s 43,917, with some 10,000 more votes cast than in the previous year’s election.

Opposition Calls for Peace

When the war finally began in April 1861, Democrats immediately opposed it.  A white “peace” flag appeared in Ridgefield, where two men were shot while attempting to tear it down.  Other peace flags were put up in Avon, New Milford, New Preston, Windsor, and West Hartford.  Upon hearing such reports, Thomas Seymour, then serving in the General Assembly, announced that there existed “a growing sentiment among the people for a peaceful settlement — and honorable peace.”  He insisted that the South could not be forced back into the Union and was quoted in The Hartford Weekly Times saying, “There seems to be a radical mistake on the part of many people.  They appear to think the South can be conquered.”

13-inch seacoast mortars of Federal Battery No. 4 with officers of 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, near Yorktown, Virginia, 1862 – Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Although the raising of peace flags and violent opposition in the streets declined over the course of the war, the animosity and struggle for political control continued.  Most significant was the 1863 gubernatorial election, which once again placed Governor Buckingham against Seymour.  Had Buckingham lost this pivotal election, his defeat could have ended Connecticut’s support for the Lincoln administration and the Union.  The focal point of the contest became the opinions of soldiers at the front.  The Courant and The Hartford Times published dozens of soldiers’ letters and regimental resolutions advocating either Buckingham or Seymour for governor.  It was the most concentrated, sustained political effort of the war.

A soldier from the 27th Regiment wrote, in a letter published in The Courant, “I hope, in all favor, that our friends will not allow Tom Seymour to be elected Governor of Connecticut.  Don’t do it! For mercy’s sake, don’t let him be Governor.” A soldier from the 22nd shot back, “Almost to a man, rank and file, heartily endorse the nomination of Gov. Seymour, and daily wish and pray that he may be elected.” Ultimately, Buckingham won the election by just 2,634 votes, almost precisely the number of Union soldiers furloughed to return home and cast ballots. Democrats charged fraud, and the uneasy dispute over the war continued well through its end.

To some extent, the differences between Republicans and Democrats grew to encompass the issue of race.  Though Republicans had not inaugurated the war to free America’s nearly four million enslaved, once the conflict was in earnest, emancipation became a means to win.

Emancipation vs. Abolition

Handbill issued by The Hartford Courant in April 1865 that signaled the end of the Civil War – Connecticut Historical Society

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation sapped the South of its labor force, and Republicans came to accept this necessity. Democrats utterly refused, and railed against a war waged for abolition.The reality, however, was that emancipation and abolition were not the same.  Emancipation placed the needs of the Union ahead of the needs of slaves; it was not about black social and political equality.  Abolition was the opposite.  It was focused on equality and human rights, and in the minds of many endangered the Union.  Lincoln had famously stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”  This was the difference between emancipation and abolition, and it accurately reflected attitudes in Connecticut.

In the spring of 1865, the General Assembly passed an amendment to the state constitution removing the word “white” in determining who could vote, and scheduled an October referendum on the subject.  The change was overwhelmingly rejected by Connecticut voters, and it was Republican votes that secured the amendment’s defeat.  The state’s residents may have ultimately supported emancipation, but they were not advocates of black civic equality—they were not abolitionists.

This legacy of racial intolerance, as well as that of the sacrifices of Connecticut soldiers and those on the home front, is symbolized in the state’s Civil War monuments.  That today we understand the war as the death knell of slavery does not mean that those who fought the conflict meant it to be so.  It was a result of the war, but not an intent.

Matthew Warshauer, PhD, is a Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/connecticut-and-the-civil-war/

Skating Through Winter

by Karen DePauw

The centuries-old tradition of ice skating during the winter season began as a simple way to get from place to place. However, by the 1850s, better-designed skates and the increased interest in outdoor activities made ice skating a popular leisure activity. Skaters might be found on virtually any frozen body of water: small ponds, rivers, even town reservoirs.

Boys Playing Hockey, ca. 1896. This souvenir paperweight from the Connecticut State Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition shows boys playing hockey on the old Garden Street Reservoir in Hartford – Connecticut Historical Society

Hartford Ice Rink Used Year-Round

Then, in 1869, Hartford built its first skating rink in the city to provide a safe place for its residents to skate. The rink was 80 feet by 200 feet and, according to a newspaper announcement in the Hartford Courant in July of 1869, could accommodate “five or six hundred skaters, all being required to move in one direction around the area.”

The Hartford rink offered more than just a place to skate without worrying about falling through the ice. Ticket prices were set moderately to accommodate skaters of various economic circumstances. And the rink also featured an area for musicians to play during the evening hours. The ice basin was designed to be emptied and covered in summer and autumn allowing for the hosting of large city meetings, or fairs. It could even be fitted with a floor for roller skating in the warmer weather months.

Skating Deemed Suitable for 19th-Century Ladies

Women, as well as men, enjoyed Hartford’s new skating facility. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, more and more women were being encouraged to participate in outdoor activities. Ice skating, which was considered a healthy form of exercise much like dancing, was among the first activities deemed appropriate for ladies. Often, skirts were shortened slightly to reduce the risk of tripping, though ladies were sometimes advised to wear a longer skirt to and from the pond or skating rink to avoid showing their ankles. A veil was recommended in order to protect the lungs from cold air. Men teaching female friends and relatives to skate were encouraged to do so on quiet, secluded ponds so no one would see the ladies’ awkwardness and distress while learning the new skill.

Francis and Co. Trade Card. Late 19th century. This trade card shows a pair of skates made to attach to a pair of sturdy boots – Connecticut Historical Society

The first ice skates were merely a separate blade that attached to any solidly made shoe or boot with a series of buckles and clamps. Skates like these were used throughout the 1800s and only in the 1900s were skate and boot combined into one unit. The more secure and well-designed skates became, the more activities became possible. With a good pair of skates, one was no longer restricted to skating around in circles. In 1918 an ice skating carnival on the pond at Colt Park featured figure skating demonstrations and skating races with dashes, distance skates, and even a relay. Figure skating and ice hockey became increasingly popular in the 1900s; some talented skaters could now go on to become professional athletes. For most people, however, ice skating remains a source of pure winter fun.

Karen DePauw, formerly a Research and Collections Associate at The Connecticut Historical Society.

© Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network and Connecticut Historical Society. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared on Connecticut History | WNPR News

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/skating-through-winter/

Multi-vehicle accident closes SB Route 8 in Shelton

The accident, reported at 8:38 a.m., has closed all southbound lanes between Exits13 and 12.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Multi-vehicle-accident-closes-SB-Route-8-in-14938921.php

2 days after Christmas, Ansonia man cashes in $500,000 lottery ticket

Out of the 1,101,750 tickets in the $500,000 Gold game, there are only three top prizes of $500,000.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/2-days-after-Christmas-Ansonia-man-cashes-in-14938867.php

From ice to rain, CT under several weather advisories

Just before 5 a.m., the temperature was 30 degrees in Torrington and Norfork. In southern CT, temperatures ranged from 35 to 30 degrees.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/weather/article/From-ice-to-rain-CT-under-several-weather-14938731.php

Horse Dies During Light Running at Santa Anita

Santa Anita’s opening weekend reportedly was marred by the death of another racehorse — though the latest fatality happened on Thursday, two days before Saturday’s rescheduled opening day. Truest Reward, a 3-year-old gelding, died during a period when the track was closed to workouts but open for jogging and galloping, according to the Los Angeles Times, which said the horse...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/horse-reportedly-dies-during-light-running-at-santa-anita/2203399/

Truck accident on I-95 in Fairfield

A accident on 95 southbound in Fairfield briefly closed the right lane on part of the highway Sunday night.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Truck-accident-on-I-95-in-Fairfiled-14938256.php

Vehicle fire on Route 8 in Shelton

The right lane of Route 8 southbound in Shelton closed briefly Sunday night due to a vehicle fire.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Vehicle-fire-on-Route-8-in-Shelton-14938188.php

Images of 2019

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Images-of-2019-14938046.php

Police seek missing Bridgeport teen

A 16-year-old girl has been missing in Bridgeport since Monday.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Police-seek-missing-Bridgeport-teen-14937989.php

Vital Scores 23, Leads UConn to 69-47 Rout of NJIT

Christian Vital scored 23 points and UConn ended the 2019 portion of its season with a 69-47 rout of NJIT. Vital hit eight of his 15 shots and was 5 of 8 from 3-point range. Brendan Adams added 12 points for the Huskies (9-3), who have won six of their last seven heading into conference play. Akok Akok chipped in...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/dog-house/vital-scores-23-leads-uconn-to-69-47-rout-of-njit/2203296/

Dolphins Stun Patriots at Gillette

All the Patriots had to do to earn their 10th consecutive first-round bye in the postseason was beat the hapless Miami Dolphins, a team seemingly playing out the string on its way to a top-5 pick in next April’s NFL Draft. To beat a Dolphins team that has won twice in Foxboro since 2001, neither instance featuring much of Tom...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/patriots-dolphins-recap-week-17-december-29-2019/2203295/

Mice likely culprits in Monroe car fire

The Stevenson Volunteer Fire Company was called to a car fire on the Monroe Turnpike Sunday, which might have been caused by mice.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Mice-likely-culprits-in-Monroe-car-fire-14937824.php

Man accused on drug, interfering charges in Orange

A motor vehicle stop led to drug and interfering charges for an East Haven man in Orange.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Man-accused-on-drug-interfering-charges-in-Orange-14937782.php

Christmas tree pick-up scheduled in Monroe

Monroe residents looking to dispose of Christmas trees can either take them to the Garder Road Landfill, 211 Garder Road, or wait until the town starts picking them up on Monday, Jan. 13.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Christmas-tree-pick-up-scheduled-in-Monroe-14937753.php

Victory in Seattle Would Mark Another Step for 49ers

Kyle Shanahan’s first two seasons as head coach were rough. In 2017, he guided the 49ers to a 6-10 record. That dipped to 4-12 last season. After two years, Shanahan entered this year with a 10-22 career coaching record, and his 49ers teams hardly showed the offensive spark that Shanahan had come to be known for as an offensive coordinator...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/victory-in-seattle-would-mark-another-step-for-49ers/2203221/

MLB Says it is Committed to Protecting Minor League Teams Amid Concern Over Future of Norwich Sea Unicorns

Major League Baseball said Saturday it is committed to protecting minor league teams, a day after U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal warned of possible congressional action if the organization followed through on minor league contraction plans. “It is not Major League Baseball’s goal to eliminate any club in these negotiations, and MLB currently has a plan for every club to continue...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/mlb-says-it-is-committed-to-protecting-minor-league-teams-amid-concern-over-future-of-norwich-sea-unicorns/2203195/

Bridgeport school board member arrested on kidnapping charges

Bridgeport school board member Chris Taylor was charged with posing as a police officer and attempting to kidnap a Seymour man.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-school-board-member-arrested-on-14937536.php

CT Post Year in Photos 2019

Connecticut Post staff photographs from 2019

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/CT-Post-Year-in-Photos-2019-14937504.php

William Hawkins Abbott Finds the Energy to Power the Northeast

William Hawkins Abbott was a 19th-century pioneer in the energy industry. Originally a farmer and merchant from Connecticut, Abbott found his fortune in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania and helped transform the market for affordable energy through his oil refining, pipeline, and distribution networks.

Born in Middlebury, Connecticut, in 1819, William Hawkins Abbott was the oldest of 12 children born into a farming family. Throughout much of his childhood, Abbott attended school during the winter months and spent the remainder of the year farming.

At the age of 18, Abbott became a salesman and clerk for a merchant in Watertown. After 7 years there, he headed to Ohio, finding similar work in the town of Newton Falls. One year into his new position he replaced one of his bosses as part owner of a store renamed Bronson & Abbott. Soon, however, Abbott went out on his own and made a living both as a merchant and by opening his own real estate business.

Abbott Refines His Business Acumen in the Oil Fields of Pennsylvania

In February of 1860, Abbott visited the oil region of western Pennsylvania and immediately recognized the industry’s financial potential. Abbott bought an interest in one of the drilling leases there and by the time he arrived back in Ohio his well was producing upwards of 50 barrels of oil per day. He promptly made his way to New York to help locate buyers for this new windfall.

Abbott’s first shipments to New York arrived in oil barrels, as well as molasses and whiskey barrels, all of which leaked excessively along the journey, but still, this did not keep him from making a substantial profit. Abbott located a refinery in New York that made his oil suitable for household use (primarily in illumination) and, after acquiring a sufficient supply of barrels, he began shipping his product by rail for $1.56 per barrel.

Pipe-line at Miller farm in 1866, W. H. Abbott (depicted on the left) and Henry Harley, illustration from Sketches in Crude-Oil by John J. McLaurin

In the fall of 1860, Abbott financed the construction of a refinery, and just over 2 months later, he began refining his own oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The refinery cost $15,000 and Abbott’s first attempts at refining oil cost him $10 per barrel, but by the spring of 1861 he managed to streamline his processes in order to get his costs down to $1.25 per barrel.

The following year Abbott moved from Ohio to Titusville and arranged for a shipment of coal to his new hometown which he promptly sold in lots ranging from 50 to 200 pounds. It was the first coal made available for domestic use in Titusville and proved such a successful operation that Abbott began purchasing large tracts of land in Pennsylvania for coal mining.

One of Abbott’s most significant contributions to the growth of the energy industry in the Northeast came in the summer of 1867 when he formed a partnership to construct an intricate array of pipelines running from his oil fields to a series of railroad terminals. He later invested in improvements to the local railroad infrastructure that helped lower the costs of his valuable fuel supplies.

Abbott spent the later years of his life watching over his business interests and serving the town of Titusville. He even became president of the Citizens Bank of Titusville before passing away in 1901.

 

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/william-hawkins-abbott-finds-the-energy-to-power-the-northeast/

Union agreement reached for janitors in New Haven, Fairfield counties

Wages for janitors represented by Local 32BJ will increase and benefits will continue to be fully covered.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Union-agreement-reached-for-janitors-in-New-14936869.php

Nearly 10K calls for service during CT holiday enforcement

The number of crashes across Connecticut during the December holiday enforcement period has increased from last year to this year.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Nearly-10K-calls-for-service-in-CT-during-holiday-14936675.php

Lamont visits CT National Guard troops in Guantanamo Bay

The governor made a trip to Cuba Friday to visit members of the Connecticut National Guard.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Lamont-visits-CT-National-Guard-troops-in-14935352.php

Former Westport resident, radio personality Don Imus dead at 79

Don Imus, a former Westport resident known for his time as a radio personality, died Friday morning in Texas.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Former-Westport-resident-radio-personality-Don-14935181.php

Escort policy in effect after fights at Milford mall

Shoppers under the age of 18 at the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford must be in the company of an adult — age 21 or over.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Escort-policy-in-effect-after-fights-at-Milford-14935068.php

Weekly Storytimes - January 6 - February 27

Check out our schedule of regular Winter Session weekly storytimes for ages 9 months through 6 years.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1165

Teen Game Night- Friday, January 10, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.

For teens in grades 6 - 12, stop by to play games, such as Game of Phones and Superfight. We can also ask the Magic 8 Ball what other games from our collection we can play.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1164

Low Interest Rates and Retirement Income - Thursday, January 9 at 6:30 p.m.

Learn how to navigate the web of finial products along with resources to organize your financial life.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1163

The Fun Guy: Kawhi Leonard Is the AP’s Male Athlete of 2019

He was the Fun Guy. The board man who got paid. He overcame injury to reclaim his rightful place as one of the very best basketball players on the planet. He conquered the NBA world for a second time, bringing a championship to Canada. And then he joined the Los Angeles Clippers, ready to start anew. “What it do, baby?” For Kawhi...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/the-fun-guy-kawhi-leonard-is-the-aps-male-athlete-of-2019/2202219/

Tax Collector Legal Notice

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1162

There’s No Place Like Home for the Designer of Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers – Who Knew?

…that Connecticut-born Adrian, the American clothing designer known best for creating costumes showcased in hundreds of movies, also designed Dorothy’s ruby slippers for The Wizard of Oz.

Born in Naugatuck in 1903, Adrian Adolph Greenburg grew up surrounded by fabric, ribbon, accessories, and hats in his family’s millinery shop. Inspired to study fashion, he went off to Paris in the fall of 1922 where musical theater composer Irving Berlin discovered his work and asked him to design costumes for his Music Box Revue on Broadway. Natacha Rambova, the wife and manager of silent screen idol Rudolph Valentino, took notice of Adrian’s theatrical costumes and offered him a job in Hollywood. By the late 1920s Adrian was the chief designer for MGM, dressing many of the leading actresses of the time, including such stars as Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and fellow Connecticut natives Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn. In 1939 Adrian supervised the design of hundreds of costumes for The Wizard of Oz, including the famous slippers. The ruby color was Adrian’s design decision for the relatively new Technicolor screen—the original color in the books being silver. The ruby slippers are currently held in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/theres-no-place-like-home-for-the-designer-of-dorothys-ruby-slippers-who-knew/

A Godmother to Ravensbrück Survivors

By Kristin Peterson Havill for Connecticut Explored

Letters in the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden archives are addressed to “Ma Chere Marainne” (My Dear Godmother). They were written to Caroline Ferriday by concentration camp survivor and French war heroine Jacqueline Péry d’Alincourt, who, along with other French, Polish, and Czechoslovakian political prisoners interned during World War II at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in northern Germany, described Ferriday as a generous benefactor, mother, godmother, and sister. Why did these women from across the Atlantic Ocean praise this part-time Connectican? What did she do to earn three medals of honor from the French government, including the Legion of Honor, the highest French distinction, awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through civilian or military valor?

Ferriday’s French Connection

Photo taken in France of Caroline Ferriday, from the cover of Jacqueline Péry d’Alincourt’s reminiscence of Ferriday given at Ferriday’s 1990 memorial service in Bethlehem – Courtesy of Anna Jarosky, Connecticut Landmarks

Caroline Ferriday (1902-1990) was the last owner of what is now known as the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden, the Bethlehem property she bequeathed to Connecticut Landmarks in 1990. Her parents had purchased the property as a summer home in 1912 when she was 10 years old. Caroline lived in New York City during the winters and spent summers in Bethlehem, where she was particularly devoted to her garden and pursued her many philanthropic interests.

Ferriday was a lifelong Francophile. Her father, Henry McKeen Ferriday, having himself lived in Paris for several years as a child, evidently contributed to his daughter’s interest in all things French. This French connection led to her pivotal role in helping the post-War recovery of the Ravensbrück Lapins, survivors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp and its program of forced Nazi medical experiments.

During the intensifying buildup to World War II in the mid- to late 1930s, Ferriday volunteered at the French consulate in New York City, where she was privy to news of France’s developing difficulties. French General Charles de Gaulle, having escaped to Britain when the Nazis invaded France, in 1940 gave a BBC radio address that invigorated the resistance spirit of everyday people and gave birth to the Free France movement. By 1941 Ferriday had become one of the early American members of France Forever, the Fighting French Committee in America.

Supporting the French Resistance during WWII

A few years later Ferriday affiliated herself with the ADIR, or National Association of Deportees and Internees of the Resistance, founded in 1945 by female members of the French resistance who had survived their internment in the German camps. Ferriday became particularly moved by the energy of ADIR members Jacqueline Péry D’Alincourt, Genevieve de Gaulle, Anise Postel-Vinay, and Germaine Tillon, four women who had bonded as political prisoners in Ravensbrück.

Genevieve de Gaulle, the 19-year-old niece of General de Gaulle, immediately joined the war effort after her uncle’s BBC address to the French people. In July 1943 the Gestapo arrested her and six months later she was sent to Ravensbrück, where she remained as a special political prisoner for the remainder of the war.

Jacqueline Péry D’Alincourt, from a family of Breton aristocracy, was a young war widow in 1942. She joined the resistance that year after seeing a young Jewish child in a Paris train station with a yellow star pinned to her dress. One of her roles in the resistance involved finding accommodations for underground agents by renting hard-to-find housing in her own name. This activity led the Nazis to her when one of the agents she had helped was caught. She was sent to Ravensbrück in 1943 at age 24.

Anise Postel-Vinay, the daughter of a woman who took in refugees and whose knowledge of the German language proved to be an asset, was arrested for acts of resistance in August 1942 at age 20. Germaine Tillon, a graduate of the Sorbonne and a French anthropologist, was arrested for helping prisoners escape and for organizing intelligence for the Allied Forces. Betrayed by a priest, Tillon was captured at age 36 and deported to Ravensbrück, along with Postel-Vinay, in October 1943. They were designated as NN (Nacht und Nebel, or “night and fog”), political prisoners who were meant to disappear and never be heard from again.

These four women, however, did not disappear. All were later to have an impact on Ferriday’s life.

Concentration Camp Prisoners Subjected to Medical Experiments

Ravensbrück, located 50 miles north of Berlin, was a forced labor camp for women. Prisoners from more than 30 countries were forced to work under brutal conditions in agriculture, local industry, the production of armaments, and camp maintenance.

Our knowledge of Ravensbrück comes primarily from survivors. Tillon, for example, wrote an eyewitness account in a book published in 1973. Tillon described the remarkable camaraderie that formed among many of the prisoners.

Beginning in August 1942, the Nazis began a program of medical experiments on young Polish high school and university students imprisoned in Ravensbrück. The Polish population there was the largest of those from any country, and the Nazis considered Poles racially inferior. The experiments focused on young women in part because females tended to be the healthiest prisoners. The inmates used the name Lapins (rabbits) to describe the women being used for these lab experiments. The young women were subjected to up to six operations each, including having the bones and muscles in their legs broken, cut out, or otherwise damaged. Their wounds were then deliberately infected with bacteria. A total of 74 Lapins were subjected to these horrific experiments; 63 survived the war, largely due to the help of other inmates.

Word reached the outside world via notes passed at great risk by prisoners working in factories and hidden in correspondence with families. The plight of the Ravensbrück Lapins became a cause célèbre for a unified network of underground resistance. In the 1950s, Ferriday joined the effort to help the Lapins, whom she had learned about through her affiliation with the ADIR.

After WWII, Ferriday Pursues Aid for Ravensbrück Survivors

In 1958, 13 years after the end of World War II, Ferriday was among the first to awaken the American public to the horrors of Ravensbrück. Because Poland was behind the Iron Curtain, the camp was liberated by the Russian Army, not the American. And since it was a camp for women and not specifically devoted to the extermination of the Jews, the history of this camp was slow to emerge.

Benjamin Fermenz, a war crimes prosecutor, recalls his first meeting with Ferriday:

One day, in 1957, a very nice young lady, named Caroline Ferriday showed up at my office with an interesting plea. From her association with various anti-Nazi organizations, she had learned about young Polish women who had been shipped to the concentration camp at Ravensbrück where they were subjected to a host of medical experiments . . . Miss Ferriday knew that I had helped Jewish claimants, and she wondered if I would also come to the aid of the Catholic ladies from Poland.

Fermenz noted that Ferriday had already approached Norman Cousins, editor of the magazine Saturday Review, for help; Cousins had, she knew, arranged to bring a group of “Hiroshima Maidens” to the US for cosmetic surgery. Would he consider doing the same for the scarred young women of Ravensbrück?

Ferriday traveled to Warsaw in 1958 and acted as an emissary and liaison to meet with Polish officials and to gain the trust of the Lapins. She and Cousins, who had indeed agreed to help, contacted the Lapins, now in Poland, and arranged their trip to the United States for care.

Cousins wrote a series of three articles about the Lapins that appeared in the Saturday Review in 1958 and 1959. The stories captured the hearts of Americans and gave Ferriday credit for her motivating role:

Caroline Ferriday has an almost magical gift for inspiring confidence. Her first few days in Warsaw were not without their difficulties, but after awhile the project began to move. Then, at the end of the week, we received a cable saying that the Polish authorities were cooperative and gracious and that prospects were excellent.

“Our Dear Miss Caroline,” an unidentified woman among the group wrote, “you have won our hearts immediately through your kindness . . . We are moved by your dedication in our behalf.”

Ferriday returned to Warsaw a second time that year with Dr. William Hitzig, a prominent New York physician who also had aided Japanese victims of the atomic bomb for the Hiroshima Maidens project. Representing American doctors who had agreed to treat the Lapins if they came to the United States, Dr. Hitzig examined the women and assessed their medical needs.

The Ladies Arrive in US for Treatment

Of the 53 Lapins still surviving in 1958, 35 made the trip to the United States for a stay that lasted from December 1958 to December 1959. The Lapins, renamed the Ladies, stayed in small groups with host families in 12 cities from Boston to San Francisco. In addition to the medical treatment they received, Cousins wrote, “the most remarkable change in the group as a whole . . . was in the emotional and psychological regeneration of the Ladies.”

Caroline Ferriday and former Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors celebrating Christmas at Ferriday’s home in Bethlehem, Connecticut, 1958 – Connecticut Landmarks

Four of the women spent Christmas in Bethlehem, Connecticut, with Ferriday. This visit was described in a December 26 newspaper article:

Four women, who have seen more hell in their lifetime than a human mind can imagine are here today spending a quiet happy Christmas holiday in this village named after the town where Christ was born . . . On the table in the living room of Miss Ferriday’s large colonial home is a small Christmas tree that they brought from Poland. It is decorated in the traditional manner, with candies and paper ornaments and with an angel on top. The small tree symbolizes the hope that has kept all the Ravensbrück Lapins. . . .

In the summer of 1959 the Ladies gathered in San Francisco and began a cross-country tour. On their way to their final engagement in New York, they stopped in Washington, DC, where Cousins reported “a large number of Senators and Representatives was host to the Ladies at a special lunch in the Senate dining room” and they “gasped with delight when Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas called the attention of the Senate to their presence.”

As reported in the Congressional Record on May 19, 1959, Senator Edmund Muskie, whose father had emigrated from Poland, spoke before the Senate after the Ladies returned to Poland “paying particular tribute to Mr. Norman Cousins and to Miss Caroline Ferriday for the dedication and the interest they have given to this project, without which it would not have materialized . . . It is significant, I think, that even now a decade and a half after the end of the war, we are still far from having achieved substantial justice for these victims of some of the most inhuman actions on record.”

Two days after the Ladies were introduced to the Senate, with attention garnered from the US tour, the Ravensbrück Lapins Committee, which was legally empowered to act for the women, received a check from the German embassy to pay the medical costs for 30 of the women during their stay in America and was told “that the Federal Government was thoroughly and urgently examining possibilities of further relief.”

Ferriday continued to maintain relationships with several of the Ladies and other Ravensbrück internees, including Milena Seborova, the daughter of a justice of the Czechoslovakian supreme court, who was deported to Ravensbrück in 1941 when she was 25 years old. She was later decorated by her country with the Military Cross for bravery and by France and Norway for saving the lives of her fellow French and Norwegian prisoners. She suffered further when she was imprisoned after the war after rejoining the underground in the fight against Russian communists. Five more years of imprisonment and hard labor for this young woman took its toll. Because of her heroic acts while at Ravensbrück, the French ADIR survivors put her in touch with Caroline. Caroline wrote, “I feel like your mother in many respects. . . .”

Tributes to an “Incomparable Benefactor”

Caroline Ferriday died on April 27, 1990. Jacqueline Péry D’Alincourt attended her memorial service at Bethlehem’s Christ Church on April 28, 1990. In a 1991 copy of a small self-bound tribute she wrote, “In our first meeting our friendship was sealed. She wanted to know everything. She asked ‘What can I do?’ Every year she welcomed me to the lovely Connecticut home where she lived since 1913. Such was the incomparable benefactor of our association.”

Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden – Connecticut Landmarks

Genevieve de Gaulle, too, wrote a memorial tribute, hers appearing in the March/April 1991 ADIR newsletter Voix et Visages. She described Ferriday as “a sister to everyone. She helped us to gain recognition first, and then to compensate the victims of pseudo-medical experiments. She brought about this action with all her intelligence, all her generosity. . . .”

Visitors to the Bellamy-Ferriday House will see an autographed photograph of General de Gaulle and a certificate commending Ferriday for her service to the French cause. The typewriter next to her desk is a reminder of her lifelong correspondence with her international friends and her letters to various newspapers and officials that helped keep alive an interest in the plight of the Ravensbrück Ladies.

Kristin Peterson Havill is the site administrator of the Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden.

© Connecticut Explored. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Connecticut Explored (formerly Hog River Journal) Vol. 10/ No. 1, WINTER 2011/2012.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/a-godmother-to-ravensbruck-survivors/

9 times police were called to CT malls because of fighting

Mall fights are a holiday tradition, apparently. Here are a total of nine times fighting broke out at local Connecticut malls.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/9-times-police-were-called-to-CT-malls-because-of-14933910.php

Another mall fight broken up in Trumbull

Arrests follow melee at Westfield Trumbull mall Thursday

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Another-mall-fight-broken-up-in-Trumbull-14933810.php

Missing keys found in plaza in Orange

Orange police are looking for the owner of a set of keys found earlier this week.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Missing-keys-found-in-plaza-in-Orange-14933329.php

Police: Milford mall closed after ‘huge fights’

The Connecticut Post Mall is closed because of fights.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Police-Milford-mall-closed-after-huge-14933215.php

China Pours Billions Into Infrastructure, Talent as It Readies for 2022 Winter Olympics

Two Chinese cities — namely Beijing and Zhangjiakou — witnessed a burst of activity in winter sports investment after China was named the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Since 2015, when it was announced that Beijing and its surrounding cities would play host in 2022, the Chinese government has been pushing for the development of winter sports. Some incentives include dishing...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/china-pours-billions-into-infrastructure-talent-as-it-readies-for-2022-winter-olympics/2201668/

Holiday Closing

The Town of Newington will be closed January 1, 2020.

from Newington, CT - News Flash http://www.newingtonct.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?aid=1150

Gas leak in Ansonia prompts road closures

A gas leak in Ansonia has caused road closures.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Gas-leak-in-Ansonia-prompts-road-closures-14932909.php

Bridgeport detectives exploring leads in Santa’s Last Stop robbery

Bridgeport police are continuing to investigate the break-in at the East End Community Center.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Bridgeport-detectives-exploring-leads-in-14932932.php

Fairfield man accused of choking girlfriend over Christmas dress

A Fairfield man is charged with beating, choking his girlfriend because he didn’t like the way she was dressed for Christmas.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Fairfield-man-accused-of-choking-girlfriend-over-14932804.php

Former Red Hawk Wrestler Mentors Female Wrestler at Manchester High School

Manchester freshman Natalya Morris picked up wrestling in eighth grade and decided to try out for the high school wrestling team. “I like the fact that it’s a contact sport,” said Morris. “It’s nothing like 8th grade wrestling. It’s much harder with more advanced moves being done.” She’s the only girl on the team this year and Natalya is determined...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/former-red-hawk-wrestler-mentors-female-wrestler-at-manchester-high-school/2201534/

Ash Creek dredging to widen channel for boaters, emergency responders

The $700,000 project undertaken by Fairfield is also visible from Bridgeport’s St. Mary’s by the Sea neighborhood and will be finished next month.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Ash-Creek-dredging-to-widen-channel-for-boaters-14932158.php

Olympic Skier Lindsey Vonn Proposes to Hockey Player P.K. Subban

Lindsey Vonn popped the question to hockey star P.K. Subban. “Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!! On our 2 year anniversary, in a “non traditional” move, I asked PK to marry me and he said, Yes," Vonn tweeted on Christmas Day.

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/olympic-skier-lindsey-vonn-proposes-hockey-player-p-k-subban/2201296/

Man arrested for attempted Milford home break in.

MILFORD — Police have arrested a Glastonbury man after he was caught breaking into a house on Christmas Eve.

David Klash, 21, was charged with burglary, possession of burglary tools and criminal mischief. He was held on a $5,000 bond.

Police say they responded to a home in the area of Clark Street and Pearl Hill Street who said they arrived home to find an unknown male fleeing the residence. A male fitting that description was located a short distance away. The home sustained some damage to a window.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Man-arrested-for-attempted-Milford-home-break-in-14931296.php

Break-in at Santa’s Last Stop does not deter East End Volunteers

An early Christmas morning break-in is reported at Santa’s Last Stop; as much as $2,000 worth of toys and electronics taken from the East End center during an event that has become a neighborhood tradition.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Break-in-at-Santa-s-Last-Stop-does-not-deter-14931149.php

Giving Fund: Help your neighbors this holiday season

Some local families and individuals could use your help this holiday season.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/givingfund/article/Giving-Fund-Help-your-neighbors-this-holiday-14930188.php

ESPN College Football Reporter Edward Aschoff Dies at 34

ESPN college football reporter Edward Aschoff, known for his outgoing and friendly personality, dapper dress and great love of sports, has died. He was 34. The sports network announced Aschoff died Tuesday after a brief illness. “We are very sorry to have to share the devastating news of the tragic passing of friend and ESPN colleague Edward Aschoff,” ESPN said...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/espn-college-football-reporter-edward-aschoff-dies-at-34/2201093/

Two-alarm fire in New Haven on Christmas morning

Burnt house said to be former home of football legend Walter Camp

from News https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Two-alarm-fire-in-New-Haven-on-Christmas-morning-14931177.php

Karma Had a Hand in Top 5 ‘Feel-Good’ Sports Moments of 2019

The top five ‘feel-good’ sports stories of the year had one thing in common — karma. Whether they happened on a manicured lawn at the Masters, or turning for home on a dirt strip at the Kentucky Derby, the moments that made you smile hinted somebody up there had a hand in the script.

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/karma-had-a-hand-in-top-5-feel-good-sports-moments-of-2019/2201078/

Hartford Publishes the First Literary Work by an African American – Who Knew?

…that Jupiter Hammon, who endured life-long enslavement became the first African American writer to be published in America when his 88-line poem, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries”, was published. A devout Christian, Hammon composed his work on Christmas Day, 1760; it was printed in Hartford in 1761 as a broadside (a work printed on a single large sheet of paper).

Born on October 17, 1711, Hammon lived on Huntington, Long Island, where he worked as a slave for four generations of the Lloyd family. During the American Revolution he was removed to Connecticut by the family when the British occupation of Huntington exiled them from their home. While in Hartford, Hammon published additional works including “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly” in 1778, “An Essay on the Ten Virgins” in 1779, and “A Winter Piece” in 1782. Hammon is also recognized as being one of the first to write about black theology and is credited with influencing antislavery protest literature in America.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/hartford-publishes-the-first-literary-work-by-an-african-american-who-knew/

Route 63 in Bethany closed after pedestrian hit by driver

A pedestrian was hit by a driver in Bethany, causing road closures.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Route-63-in-Bethany-closed-after-pedestrian-hit-14930548.php

Fairfield residents named Mr. and Miss Shamrock 2020

Four Fairfield residents will receive educational scholarships after winning the Mr. and Miss Shamrock scholarships.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Fairfield-residents-named-Mr-and-Miss-Shamrock-14930411.php

Bridgeport cops pull driver from car after crash

Bridgeport cops heard a loud crash and raced toward it to find the scene of a crash that landed one person in the hospital.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Bridgeport-cops-pull-driver-from-car-after-crash-14930125.php

Milford PD charges Ansonia couple with disorderly conduct

A dispute in a moving car led to Milford Police charging an Ansonia couple

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Milford-PD-charges-Ansonia-couple-with-disorderly-14930029.php

Ansonia investigators search Derby BJ’s area for evidence in missing child case

A call about a discarded car seat led investigators to the area around BJ’s in Derby.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Ansonia-investigators-search-Derby-BJ-s-area-14930016.php

Sikorsky awarded $556.1M for Black Hawk production

Sikorsky is entering another year of production for its Black Hawk program after getting a hefty contract from the U.S. Army.

from Business https://www.ctpost.com/business/article/Sikorsky-awarded-556-1M-for-Black-Hawk-production-14929868.php

The Early Years of the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company

By Richard DeLuca

In the spring of 1925, aircraft engine designer and aviation engineer Frederick B. Rentschler came to Connecticut to pursue an idea that became one of the most successful ventures in American aviation industry. Like many such instances, Rentschler’s success resulted from a unique combination of technical know-how, social relationships, and happenstance.

The pivotal chance circumstance in Rentschler’s story was the 1922 passage of the Washington Naval Treaty, the result of a five-nation negotiation to disarm the major naval powers of the world. The treaty limited the construction of war ships by limiting ship tonnage. With two large battle cruisers already in production, the United States Navy decided to conform to the treaty by converting the two cruisers from gunships to aircraft carriers, thereby creating an immediate need for 200 fighter aircraft with which to stock the carriers.

Rentschler Promises US Navy a Better Aircraft Engine

Aviation pioneers William E.Boeing, left and Frederick B Rentschler inspecting a Wasp “A” engine in 1927 – Pratt & Whitney

Rentschler, a former Navy lieutenant convinced that “the best airplane could only be designed around the best engine,” as historian Mark P. Sullivan notes, suggested to the Navy that he could meet their standard for a 400-horsepower engine weighing 650 pounds or less—a feat that other manufacturers considered beyond their reach. With encouragement from the Navy, Rentschler assembled a design team and looked for investment capital and a place to set up shop.

A graduate of Princeton University, Rentschler came from an industrious Midwest family with social connections, and through his banker brother soon learned that the Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool Company of Hartford, with its long history as a manufacturer of precision tools, had both capital to invest and extra factory space. As it happened, the president of Pratt & Whitney’s parent company, Niles-Bement-Ponds, was a friend of the Rentschler family, and with little fuss a deal was struck in July 1925 creating the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company as a separate business with Rentschler at the helm. The following month, Rentschler and his design team, led by chief engineer George Mead, moved into the Capitol Avenue factory that a few years earlier had been home to the Pope-Hartford Electric Automobile Company and began to work on the Navy’s engine.

Wasp and Hornet Feature Innovative Air-cooled Radial Design

Rentschler’s vision centered on the design of an efficient, air-cooled radial engine. Unlike the V-8 automotive engine adapted for aviation use, or existing liquid-cooled radial engines, an air-cooled radial would provide more power with less weight. By Christmas, Rentschler and his team had produced an ingenious radial design that made use of a split crankshaft to increase the engine’s revolutions per minute without generating additional heat. The result was an engine that produced 425 horsepower while weighing only 650 pounds.

Searching for a name for the engine from among the family of fast-flying insects, Rentschler’s wife suggested the “Wasp.” Soon after, Rentschler’s team had produced a second air-cooled radial named the “Hornet” that was rated at 525 horsepower, and by October 1926 the US Navy had placed an order for 200 Wasp and Hornet engines, thereby insuring the short-term financial success of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.

A worker on the final assembly of a WASP engine in the East Hartford plant, 1940 – Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

WWII Brings Dramatic Growth

The dependability of the Wasp and the Hornet also made them popular among commercial aircraft manufacturers, and as the manufacturing of airplanes for commercial use increased, so did the demand for Pratt & Whitney engines. Meanwhile, continued demand for more powerful engines for military use added to the company’s prosperity. To keep up with production, the company moved its operations in 1929 to a large new plant it built in East Hartford on a 1,100-acre site, which included an adjacent airfield for flight testing its aircraft engines. The airport was soon named Rentschler Field.

By 1940, Pratt & Whitney’s engine technology had improved dramatically. The company’s largest engine, the Twin Wasp, produced 1,200 horsepower. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved to put the country on a wartime footing, American aircraft manufacturers were called on to produce 50,000 aircraft a year for the military. To meet the challenge, Pratt & Whitney by 1943 expanded its workforce from 3,000 employees to 40,000. The company also recruited automakers, including Ford, Buick, and Chevrolet, as subcontractors, training the auto companies to duplicate the Pratt & Whitney manufacturing process.

Pratt & Whitney engineers continued to innovate, increasing the power of their engine designs throughout the war years. By the end of the war, the power of Pratt & Whitney’s largest engine had tripled to 3600 horsepower, and the company and its licensees had managed to produce more than 363,000 aircraft engines, an amount equal to one half the total air power of the Allied Air Forces.

In the post-war years, the company adapted to the modern air age with the manufacture of jet turbine engines beginning in the 1950s. Today, as part of the United Technologies Corporation, Pratt & Whitney continues to be an innovative manufacturer of jet turbines for commercial and military use worldwide, as well as one of Connecticut’s larger employers.

Richard DeLuca is the author of Post Roads & Iron Horses: Transportation in Connecticut From Colonial Times to the Age of Steam, published by Wesleyan University Press, 2011.

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Support ConnecticutHistory.org through your purchase of this classic DVD – Home Front: CT During WWII (2001 w/CPTV – 1 hour 52 minutes)

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/the-early-years-of-the-pratt-and-whitney-aircraft-company/

Weatherwise, all is calm - and cold -on Christmas Eve

Temperatures fall into the low 30s and 20s on Christmas Eve.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/weather/article/Weatherwise-all-is-calm-and-cold-on-Christmas-14929309.php

Watch John Mayer’s new holiday song: CVS bag

Mayer performed the song in a video on Instagram with his very own CVS bag.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Watch-John-Mayer-s-new-holiday-song-CVS-bag-14929276.php

TV sparks fire inside Westport commercial building

“The fire was confined to the wall in the area of the TV with no other extension,” said Assistant Chief Brian Meadows.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/TV-sparks-fire-inside-Westport-commercial-building-14929253.php

Colin Kaepernick’s New Nike Shoe Sells Out on the First Day

Nike’s new “True to 7” shoe with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has already sold out on the first day of its North American release, according to the company’s website. “This Air Force 1 season, Nike partnered with a collective of collaborators to design an AF1 that connects to their life personally. Colin was identified because we believe his voice and perspective inspire...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/colin-kaepernicks-new-nike-shoe-sells-out-on-the-first-day/2200405/

Bridgeport officer celebrated for stopping runaway SUV heading toward youths

BRIDGEPORT — A city police officer was celebrated Monday after reportedly stopping a runaway SUV that rolled into traffic, toward a group of young people, according to the office of Mayor Joe Ganim.

Ganim, Chief Armando Perez and Assistant Chief Rebeca Garcia acknowledged Officer Carlos Carmo Jr.’s efforts to stop the vehicle, which began to roll downhill out of control on Boston Avenue while school was being dismissed, according to a Monday release.

“It was spur of the moment, you put your own life at risk, and you saved the people that were in the vehicle, people the vehicle was headed towards,” Ganim said in the release. “On behalf of a grateful City, I want to say thank you very much.”

In a video posted by the city, Carmo said he was having a regular day, when the car began to roll into traffic, toward a group of young people. There were people in the vehicle “going crazy,” Carmo said, but no one in the driver’s seat.

Carmo said he was able to pop open the door, grab the frame and stop the car. The vehicle had been parked, but slipped into neutral unexpectedly, Carmo said in the video.

“As I was running after the SUV… I was praying to please stop and it was a huge sense of relief when I was able to get the car to come to a stop,” said Carmo in the release.

Ganim and the City Council will present a proclamation and citation to Carmo Jan. 6 to commend his bravery, selflessness and quick thinking, according to the release.

“He is an inspiration to the Police Department and the City of Bridgeport,” officials said in the release.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Bridgeport-officer-celebrated-for-stopping-14928375.php

Monroe firefighter accused of torching his recovered SUV

A Monroe man who just got back his stolen SUV is accused of setting it on fire and claiming it had been stolen again.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Monroe-firefighter-accused-of-torching-his-14928349.php

Waterbury Clock Company Saved by Mickey Mouse – Who Knew?

…that the Ingersoll Waterbury Company (now Timex) was saved from bankruptcy during the Great Depression, in part, by the introduction of the Mickey Mouse watch.

Detail for patent number 1,989,881 a “Time Instrument” granted to James R. Putnam, Waterbury, CT assignor to Waterbury Clock Company, February 5, 1935

Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley once manufactured millions of clocks and watches, and the Waterbury Clock Company was one of its biggest producers, manufacturing over 20,000 clocks per day by the end of the 19th century. Building on the history of Connecticut’s clock making innovations—from the introduction of mass-produced parts and the design of the first shelf clock, to the introduction of brass movements—the Waterbury Clock Company’s initial success stemmed from their ability to manufacture clock movements small enough to fit in a pocket. Later, in 1892, they introduced a piece known as the Jumbo pocket watch, named for P. T. Barnum’s elephant. But their best-selling item was the “Yankee” pocket watch produced for Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro. which sold for a dollar and appealed to the masses. Consequently, by 1915, Waterbury Clock was the largest clock maker in the United States.

With the advent of World War I, Waterbury Clock continued to place itself at the forefront of innovation when they modified one of Ingersoll’s Ladies’ Midget pocket watches for use by the military. The company added a canvas strap and luminescent numbers that allowed soldiers to easily read the time, giving rise to a new form of timepiece—the wristwatch. Civilians soon wanted them too and the wristwatch became part of the company’s regular product line.

Detail from a June 22, 1933, display advertisement in the Hartford Courant with the prices for the new line of Mickey Mouse clocks and watches from Ingersoll Waterbury Clock

After the war ended, Ingersoll entered bankruptcy protection. The Waterbury Clock Company purchased Ingersoll and became Ingersoll Waterbury Clock. But by 1932 the Great Depression had taken its toll on the new company and it struggled to remain solvent.

Walt Disney Studios was also struggling during this time and looking for new ways to profit off licensing their cartoon character Mickey Mouse. A partnership between Disney and Ingersoll Waterbury then produced one of the most iconic watches in American history. Waterbury Clock Company submitted a patent application on May 22, 1933, for a “Time Instrument . . . in which a picture is associated with the dial.” The patent drawing included an image of Mickey illustrated with moveable arms. The patent was granted to Waterbury Clock Company in 1935 but the Mickey Mouse line had already been introduced to the public back in June of 1933. The watch rolled off a miniature assembly line at the Chicago World’s Fair and on the first day of sales at Macy’s the store sold 11,000 of these highly sought-after watches. The 1933 Sears Christmas Book also offered the watch and within a year and a half the Ingersoll Waterbury Company had sold over two million watches. In 1935 the Hartford Courant reported that Waterbury Clock had added an additional three thousand employees to their staff and the paper gave Mickey Mouse most (if not all) of the credit for this growth. Eventually Waterbury Clock became Timex, and today its corporate headquarters are located in Middlebury, Connecticut.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/waterbury-clock-company-saved-by-mickey-mouse-who-knew/

UConn Moves to No. 1 in AP Women’s Basketball Poll

UConn is back in a familiar spot — No. 1 in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll. The Huskies moved up to the top position in the poll Monday after previous No. 1 Stanford lost at Texas on Sunday. UConn has spent more time at No. 1 than any other team in the history of the sport. This is the...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/dog-house/uconn-moves-to-no-1-in-ap-womens-basketball-poll/2200274/

Bridgeport begins demolishing ‘Preservation Block’ buildings

Bridgeport is tearing down the Preservation Block buildings after years of vacancy and deterioration in the Downtown North area.

from Business https://www.ctpost.com/business/article/Bridgeport-officials-begin-demolishing-14927950.php

Police: Verbal dispute led to steering wheel fight

Two Ansonia residents were arrested in Milford on Saturday after they allegedly got into a verbal dispute that turned physical.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Police-Verbal-dispute-led-to-steering-wheel-fight-14927940.php

Patriots Storm Back, Win 11th Straight AFC East Title

Meaningful games against the Bills in December? In a Patriots season full of oddities, New England hosted Buffalo in Week 16 of the regular season with the AFC East title on the line.  Indicative of just how different the times are, the Bills even held a lead in the fourth quarter. Tom Brady and Co. ensured we aren’t living in...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/patriots-clinch-11th-straight-afc-east-title/2200238/

Milford woman accused of toy attack

A woman is accused of hitting a man with a toy sword in Milford.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Milford-woman-accused-of-toy-attack-14927522.php

When CT liquor stores will be closed for the holidays

Stores are allowed to be open until 10 p.m. on Mondays through Saturdays.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/When-CT-liquor-stores-will-be-closed-for-the-14927447.php

Florida flights continue to soar at Connecticut’s Bradley airport

Frontier Airlines has begun a new seasonal flight to Miami running three days a week until April.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Florida-flights-continue-to-soar-at-14927169.php

‘Grandfathering’ unvaccinated children stirs latest religious exemption debate

Lawmakers are stuck on part of a bill that would eliminate the religious exemption for vaccinations in the state.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Grandfathering-unvaccinated-children-stirs-14927134.php

U.S. bomb-sniffing dogs dying from mistreatment overseas, report says

A government watchdog report showed that military bomb-sniffing dogs posted overseas are dying from mistreatment. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is urging Congress to act.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/U-S-bomb-sniffing-dogs-dying-from-mistreatment-14927120.php

UConn Wins With Dailey at Helm, Routs Oklahoma 97-53

Chris Dailey remained perfect filling in for Geno Auriemma as head coach as No. 2 UConn stated its case to move up to the top of the poll. Olivia Nelson-Ododa had 27 points, 15 rebounds and seven blocks and the Huskies — without Auriemma — routed Oklahoma 97-53 on Sunday in the Hall of Fame Women’s Basketball Showcase. The 65-year-old...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/dog-house/uconn-wins-with-dailey-at-helm-routs-oklahoma-97-53/2200130/

Little chance of a White Christmas in CT this year

The NWS defines a white Christmas as having 1 inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/weather/article/Little-chance-of-a-White-Christmas-in-CT-this-year-14926883.php

Fire in Washington

Multiple fire companies battled a blaze in Washington Sunday night.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Fire-in-Washington-14926480.php

Man, dog rescued from water in Fairfield

Three civilians rescued a man and his dog who had fallen through the ice at Lake Mohegan in Fairfield on Sunday.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Man-dog-rescued-from-water-in-Fairfield-14926215.php

UConn Jets Past New Hampshire 88-62

Point guard Alterique Gilbert scored 21 points to lead UConn over the University of New Hampshire 88-62 on Sunday. Gilbert, who had scored a combined nine points over the previous two games, took over early in the second half with his own 9-0 run to make it 52-37 with 15:57 remaining. The red-shirt junior shot 6-for-12 from the field, 3-for-5...

from Sports – NBC Connecticut https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/sports/dog-house/uconn-jets-past-new-hampshire-88-62/2199872/

Man accused of dispute at Orange restaurant

A Norwalk man is accused of engaging in a dispute at an Orange TGI Fridays.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Man-accused-of-dispute-at-Orange-restaurant-14925954.php

Building fire reported in Monroe

A caller told emergency dispatchers that the flames were going through the roof. All occupants were reported to be out of the building.

from News https://www.ctpost.com/policereports/article/Structure-fire-reported-in-Monroe-14925875.php

First New-Gate Prisoner – Today in History: December 22

A view of the guard house and mines, East Granby, 1781 – Connecticut Historical Society

On December 22, 1773, John Hinson the state’s first inmate arrived at New-Gate Prison. Ironically only 18 days later Hinson, the first person to be imprisoned, also became the first to escape. Sentenced to 10 years for burglary, the 20-year-old Hinson was held underground in an old copper mine in Simsbury, now East Granby. At the time corporal punishment for breaking the law included whipping, the cropping of ears, or branding with a hot iron; so, isolation from society, accompanied by work in the mine, was seen as a more humane alternative.  The state’s General Assembly passed an act earlier in the year outlining the terms of imprisonment: a first offense for burglary, robbery, and counterfeiting earned a term not to exceed 10 years while a second offense resulted in life imprisonment.

The Colony of Connecticut chose the mine as a prison site because of its remote location and the security afforded by its two vertical shafts. The first, 25-feet deep, could be accessed only by the ladder attached to its wall and was secured with a grate at the entrance. The other shaft, at 67-feet deep, offered no ready means of access so prison overseers deemed additional security unnecessary.  At the time of Hinson’s confinement little had been done to improve the mine except the addition of a 16-foot-wide room at the bottom of the shorter shaft and a small wooden lodge at the top. Aided by an accomplice, rumored to have been a woman, Hinson escaped on January 9 by means of a simple rope lowered down the deeper shaft.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/first-new-gate-prisoner-today-in-history/

The Reverend Joseph Bellamy Makes Bethlehem a Holy Place

The Reverend Joseph Bellamy was a dynamic preacher, author, and educator during the 18th century and a long-time resident of Bethlehem, Connecticut. Known for having a commanding presence and booming voice, Bellamy was not only among Bethlehem’s earliest residents, but he also gave the town its name and became its wealthiest citizen.

Sermons Upon the Following Subjects : viz. The Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Millenium (sic). The Wisdom of God, in the Permission of Sin by Joseph Bellamy

A native of nearby Cheshire, Bellamy completed four years of study at Yale University in 1735, at the age of 16. He then began a year and a half of studying under the famous theologian Jonathan Edwards. After turning 18 and receiving his license to preach, Bellamy became an itinerant Congregationalist preacher, traveling around Connecticut and spreading that religion’s word of God wherever possible. He spent much of this time in Bethlehem, where local residents eventually requested he become the town’s preacher in 1740.

Congregationalist Preacher, Writer, and Educator

Bellamy preached the traditional Puritan belief that an abundance of material possessions corrupted the soul. He also believed in original sin and the role of God in granting salvation and limiting free will. His message appealed to the people of Bethlehem and Bellamy became a very successful and respected leader in the town.

With the approval of his congregation, Bellamy spread his message beyond the boundaries of Bethlehem. Traveling extensively in the early 1740s, he spoke more than 450 times over a two year period. He then settled back into life in Bethlehem where he cut back his sermons to once or twice per week.

In addition to spreading his message from the pulpit, Bellamy published 22 books over the course of his life, including the highly acclaimed True Religion Delineated in 1750. Out of his home, he operated the first theological school in America, educating such famous students as Aaron Burr and Jonathan Edwards II.

Joseph Bellamy died in 1790 at the age of 72, after battling illness and paralysis for the last three years of his life. Upon his death, Bellamy left his house to his son, David, whose provisions kept it in the family until 1868. After several changes in ownership, Caroline Ferriday took over the property and in the latter half of the 20th century restored much of the home’s original character. Ferriday also oversaw the development of elaborate gardens on the grounds and ensured the property’s preservation by deeding it to the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society (now Connecticut Landmarks) upon her death in 1990.

from Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project https://connecticuthistory.org/the-reverend-joseph-bellamy-makes-bethlehem-a-holy-place/