On Tuesday, October 18, 2011, the Guilford Preservation Alliance sponsored a workshop on Heritage Tourism. The workshop was led by Carolyn Brackett, the Senior Program Associate for the Heritage Tourism Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Susan Misur covered the event and her article appeared in the Friday, October 21, 2011 issue of the New Haven Register.
We have just posted on our website (on the page entitled GPA Survey of Historic Places) a new, comprehensive annotated list of properties in Guilford. This survey, entitled “Significant Structures Fifty Years Old or More, Guilford, [Read more…]
Dispatches from Dennis: Spring 2011.
I have been studying the Civil War in spurts and starts since I was sent to Petersburg, Virginia in the 1980s for procurement training. Civil War history contains such a vast amount of information from varied sources that when I restarted my studies a few years ago, I decided to try to connect my understanding to local soldiers and local units here in Guilford. The problem that surfaces while studying the Civil War is that the more you discover, the more you realize what you do not know. This can be frustrating—but more often motivating for students of history.
I have always liked American History, long before I became a history teacher. But since three of my grandparents were born in Canada and the fourth was born in Upstate New York, across the border from Canada, I did not believe that my own family’s heritage preceded the 1880s in the U.S. I have always felt that people like George Washington, Abigail Adams, and Abraham Lincoln are our cultural ancestors. And on a similar note, just as I have adopted Guilford as my hometown, I have mentally or virtually adopted Guilford soldiers as Union Soldiers in my own family tree.
I started out one summer on the Guilford Green while looking at the Civil War statue with all of the names of soldiers who died fighting to preserve the Union. I made my way into the local history room (now called the Edith Nettleton Room) and began looking at records. With the assistance of Penny Colby, the reference librarian, the Raphael Ward Benton letters were dusted off and one of my spurts began. The longest list of soldiers on the monument are soldiers from the 14th Connecticut Volunteer Regiment, and Raphael Ward Benton, who wrote faithfully to his wife during the war, served in that regiment in Company I.
The Raphael War Benton letters are available online to read (at http://www.guilfordfreelibrary.org/benton.cfm ). If you are interested, please push through the first two or three letters and begin to read closely when Ward Benton starts to right home from his Civil War unit. Using those letters, and books such as History of the Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Vol. Infantry, by Charles D. Page (1906), Mr. Dunn Browne’s Experiences in the Army: The Civil War Letters of Samuel W. Fiske, edited by Stephen W. Sears (1998), The Boys of Rockville: Civil War Narratives of Sgt. Benjamin Hirst, Company D, 14th Connecticut Volunteers, edited by Robert L. Bee (1998), and Connecticut Yankees at Gettysburg, by Charles P. Hamblen (1993), I was able to form a picture of this regiment’s contribution; but more specifically, the contributions in the Civil War made by our Guilford soldiers.
The 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was formed in August of 1862 and fought in all the major battles of the Army of the Potomac starting at Antietam Creek on 17 Sep 1962, and ending at Appomattox Courthouse on 9 Apr 1865. I have dragged my family (and sometimes travelled alone) to Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Petersburg (again) over the last decade. These visits to the battlefields, as well as the books, letters and other documents, helped us develop a picture of the men from Guilford who fought and died in the war.
Documents such as the Record of Persons Made Orphans or Half Orphans by the War of the Rebellion in the Town of Guilford by Alvin Talcott, Registrar of Guilford, give us a great deal of insight. For instance, we know from other records that Richard Hull of the 14th Connecticut was killed at the Battle of Antietam Creek and is buried at the National Cemetery there in Maryland. But these records (provided by former First Selectman Carl Balestracci) also mention that Corporal Hull was “shot in the mouth while in the act of saying, ‘Keep cool boys.’” He left a nine year old daughter Catherine.
In another listing we find that the child Hattie L. Field, born in February of 1863, was the orphan of Edmund Field (also of the 14th,) who died five months prior to her birth after the Battle of Antietam. (At a talk I gave at the library this autumn, a member of the audience came up to me and mentioned that Hattie was her great-grandmother.)
Another record of interest is of Nathan Clements, also of the 14th Connecticut Volunteers. He died after a skirmish at Morton’s Ford, Virginia, in the winter of 1864. His record shows that he had already been promoted from corporal to sergeant. And because of his bravery, he was to receive a commission (to become an officer) but died of his wounds instead.
But is seems that the more information we gather, the more questions that remain unanswered. As I was compiling a list of soldiers to update the list read by the Guilford veterans group at the Memorial Day Ceremony, I found an intriguing set of soldiers’ names. In the History of Guilford book written by Ralph Dunning Smith (1877), there were three soldiers with the last name Fowler from Guilford who served in the 27th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. In the middle of December, 1862, the unit was in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the same Corps as the 14th Connecticut Volunteers. The 27th attacked Marye’s Heights along with the 2nd Corps and was repulsed. The three Guilford soldiers named Fowler died within a month of each other after the battle. More intriguing, Samuel Fowler was 45 years old and Emerson Fowler was only 15 years old. Richard Fowler was a 1st Sergeant in the unit. It seems a sad and strange coincidence that these three men from Guilford with the same name would serve and die within such a short period of time. I have yet to learn if they are related, but I am sure that this information is available in the Edith Nettleton Room of the Guilford Free Library.
The stories we can find of Richard Hull’s leadership, Nathan Clement’s bravery, and Raphael Ward Benton’s attempt to balance his duties as a husband, a father, and a soldier while foreshadowing his death (in 1862) in his carefully written letters—these letters, these books, these battlefields and stories are waiting to be discovered or rediscovered by all of us, neighbors and descendants, and by those of us who consider ourselves virtual descendants of our Civil War soldiers.
Dennis Culliton, May 2011
A column by Howard Brown, widely acclaimed environmental and management consultant and GPA board member.
Preservation and Change.
I often hear people say that nothing ever changes around here. When I moved to Guilford in 1970, there was one traffic light. Route 1 was a rural road through open fields and woods. Most of the houses along the shoreline were uninsulated summer cottages. The population was about 8,000 and an acre of land was about $8000. Many of the houses in the center of town were in need of repair.
We often forget how many of the things we take for granted in our daily lives are actually new. The Connecticut Turnpike (now I-95) was only completed in 1958. Before that auto access to this town was all via Route 1, which more resembled Rt. 146 than its present incarnation with shoulders and modern lanes. Even into the 1950’s, many houses in town still didn’t have decent plumbing. For the residents of what is now the Griswold House, electricity was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Perhaps, most significantly, when I moved to the town in 1970, there was still very little public interest in municipal government and very little citizen involvement in town affairs. From an economic point of view, in 1970, Guilford was largely rural, just on the verge of a growth spurt that would change its character.
For all of the change and new prosperity, Guilford has managed to avoid many of the negative affects that befell towns along the I-95 corridor. Active citizenry helped channel development in relatively constructive ways, and that helped preserve and protect many of the community’s assets. Now, as the national economy has begun to slowly recover from a deep recession, and as development pressure spreads east from New York along I-95, the people of Guilford need to make new choices about what kind of town we want to live in, and how to channel the powerful economic forces of development in constructive ways to achieve our goals.
Local Economies and Responsible Development
Preservation and economic development are actually two sides of the same coin. In fact, historic and environmental preservalition are often key drivers of a healthy local economy. The term sustainable development, which has increasingly become a goal of communities across the country, is often defined as meeting the needs of the today’s citizens without compromising future generations’ capacity to meet their needs. This is an underlying principle of GPA’s work.
Effective economic development is about enhancing the the economic and social wellbeing of the people in a community by building an economy that is robust and can stay healthy even during booms and busts of larger economic cycles. Economists who study local economies look for many indicators of health and success. They tend to look beyond the common assumptions about commercial real estate development to understand what makes some communities thrive while others struggle with cycles of rising costs, rising taxes, declining municipal services and declining property values. One thing is clear, the towns that are the most attractive places to visit and live are neither hostile to development nor indifferent to their uniqueness. The communities that most people consider desirable are the ones with the wisdom to embrace yet channel development to enhance their uniqueness.
More than half of Guilford’s households have settled here since 1970. Most moved here from other places because the unique rural and historic village character of the town is still intact. GPA believes that the healthiest economic development should stem from policies and programs that build on the strengths that make Guilford a special and desirable place, rather than activities that make it more like every other place.
Guilford’s historic architecture and landscapes, its charming town center, its quintessential New England coastline, its farms and rolling hills in the north, and its extraordinary ecological diversity, are all features that contribute to its uniqueness. Though Guilford is geographically one of the largest towns in CT, nearly 18 of its 50 square miles are now protected open space with a growing network of nature trails and resources. It also has a blend of small retail shops, growing small businesses, and a burgeoning regional medical services and technology sector. We are the only town in Connecticut with two important highways (146 and 77) designated by the State as Scenic Roads. All of these assets represent important opportunities to encourage low impact tourism, and expand the health- and medical-related business environment.
Over the years, the GPA has helped preserve our architectural heritage—by securing national and regional recognition for it—and has worked to support open space preservation and protect small farms and local businesses. In the coming year, we will be using this site to share more information about our economic development initiatives, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.
Howard Brown
GPA Board member
The unpretentious utilitarian building at the corner of Water and River Streets evokes memories of the time when Guilford residents could hop aboard an electric trolley on the Green and take the scenic route up and down the shoreline, from New Haven to New London and beyond.
Presently occupied by a carpet store, the old trolley barn was built around 1910 and served as a maintenance facility for electric railway cars until 1930. During the brief heyday of the interurban trolley, before the muffled roar of highway traffic disturbed the peace, the gentle ding-ding-ding of the trolley bell signaled a vital link between small agricultural communities like Guilford and the wider world.
We hope that you and your families will join us for our free spring program on May 10, when we’ll turn back the clock and recapture the magic of Guilford’s bygone trolley era. There will be old-time music, displays, slide shows, refreshments, and a presentation by a founding member of East Haven’s renowned Trolley Museum. The doors will open at 6:30, and we promise to get you home at an early hour (see the page on our website about our program, “Back on Track” for more information).
Although we can’t bring back the electric trolleys, the issues of mass transit and energy-efficient “transit-oriented” development are very much on the agenda of both the GPA and town officials these days. Guilford is fortunate to have excellent commuter rail service seven days a week, as well as hourly bus service to and from New Haven on weekdays. Experience has shown that mass transit isn’t a luxury that only big-city residents can enjoy. It’s an essential part of the infrastructure that sustains the local economies of small and middle-sized towns like Guilford.
Elsewhere on our website, my fellow bloggers Howard Brown and Dennis Culliton shed light on two of the GPA’s longstanding priorities—sustainable development and historic preservation. Far from being mutually exclusive, it’s our belief that, as Howard says, “preservation and economic development are two sides of the same coin.” For example, the GPA’s ongoing efforts to preserve Guilford‘s 19th-century railroad station buildings are fueled by a conviction that such historic resources can be a driving force in the economic revitalization of our town center.
Through our website, public programs, and other activities, the GPA will continue to keep you informed about news and events of interest to our community. Guilfordpreservation.org is a work in progress. Among the enhancements you can look forward to is a greatly expanded and more user-friendly online registry of historic buildings around town. Stay tuned, visit us often, and please let us hear from you.
Best wishes,
Harry Haskell
President
We had a great turnout for our spring program “Back on Track,” celebrating trolley days from New Haven to Guilford, and Stony Creek to Ivoryton. We’ll be posting some of the historical photos and other displays here on our website. At the spring program we gave out 2 Awards of Merit for 2011–you can read about them on our Awards Page.
The Guilford Preservation Alliance is looking for photos of the railroad in Guilford (including the old station buildings, people associated with the buildings, locomotives, etc.) from after 1900, particularly the World War II era. The photos could be used as part of a permanent historical exhibit to be installed in the Shoreline East commuter rail station. Please contact Ellie Green at 203-458-2262 or [email protected].
