Guilford Preservation Alliance

Witness to History Slavery in Guilford

Donate to the Guilford Preservation Alliance

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • By-Laws
    • Jones Trust Fund
    • Board & Officers
    • Awards
    • FAQs about GPA
  • GPA Projects
    • Guilford Train Station
    • Trolley program “Back on Track”
    • Town Center South
    • Guilford Village Walkways
    • Stone Walls
    • Barn Survey
    • Faulkner’s Light Brigade
    • Newsletter Archives
    • Summary of GPA Accomplishments
    • Kiosk Opening
    • Recreational Areas Map
  • Guilford Bookshelf
  • Historic Guilford
    • Historic Walking Tours
    • A Resource Guide to Historic Homes
    • National Register of Historic Places
    • Local Historic Districts
    • Heritage Tourism Initiative
    • Master Plan of Guilford
    • FAQs about Guilford
    • Demolition-Delay Ordinance
  • Guilford: A Walking Guide
  • Illustrated Historic Survey
  • Archives/News
  • Become a Member
  • Contact Us
  • Historical Plaques
    • Monroe Building
    • Sarah and Robert Shelley House
    • First National Store
    • Dan Collins House
    • Major Jedediah Lathrop House
    • Dr. Jared Redfield House
    • James Monroe Store
You are here: Home / Archives for Civil war

May 25, 2014 By Web Editor

Guilford 375

a soldier lived hereHave you noticed the red, white and blue signs in front of many houses around town?  They designate the home as that of a of Civil War soldier from Guilford and provide his name and some information about him.  Historian Tracy Tomaselli, working with Town Historian Joel Helander, was able to identify 90 houses still standing that served as soldiers’ homes.  Already, more than half of the present residents have indicated an interest in participating in the identification program. GPA played a role in making this happen.

Guilford Preservation Alliance (GPA) Bus Tours

Many of these houses will be the focal point of 40-minute, guided heritage bus tours run by the GPA as part of the Guilford and the Civil War celebration, a Guilford 375th Anniversary Signature Event that takes place onSaturday, May 31, from 11 am to 7 pm.

The bus tours, which will run hourly between noon and 4 pm, will board from a station on the Green across from St. George Church.  

These bus tours are a prototype for other bus tours the GPA plans to run as a complement to guided walking tours that are part of the GPA’s Heritage Tourism initiative.  In addition to educating residents about the Guilford community, the tours have enticed visitors from around the northeast and beyond to shop, walk, bike and enjoy our town.

Other Guilford and the Civil War Events

In addition to the bus tours, residents and visitors can enjoy a living-history experience at other Guilford and the Civil War events on May 31 from 11 am to 7 pm.  Here’s what’s in store:

  • Military reenactors demonstrating what life was like for the town and its soldiers, including military drills, cooking, clothing, sleeping conditions, medical procedures, and even an 1860s-style baseball game.
  • An 1860s-type farm market organized by Dudley Farm will have fresh foods, home-baked and prepared foods, as well as demonstrations of candle-making, and woodworking.
  • A large exhibit about the lives of soldiers and residents of Guilford at the time of the War. The exhibit will be located around the Soldier’s Monument, and the research materials will be donated to the Guilford Free Library after the event so it can be accessible by researchers.
  • Adams Middle School students will recite the Gettysburg Address with musical accompaniment by Adams Concordia strings group.
  • Reenactors, Abraham Lincoln and other historic figures will be available on the Green for a chat.
  • Six original ten-minute plays about the lives of local soldiers and abolitionists, told in part, in their own words.
  • Special exhibits of Civil War artifacts or period activities at the Hyland House and Griswold House museums.
  • Rides in an authentic 1860s carriage and a hay wagon.
  • Live music during the day.
  • A closing concert from 5:30 to 7 pm organized by New Haven Symphony Orchestra Conductor William Boughton.  The concert will feature performers of Civil War-period music and performances by the Guilford High School’s Voices Choral Group and the Heritage Choir of New Haven.
  • Restaurants and shops around the Green, many of which will offer special items.
  • Food reminiscent of the period from Guilford restaurants, including a raw bar, jonnycakes, pulled pork, mac and cheese, homemade ice cream, and sandwiches.

Free Entertainment

With the exception of foods, market items and the bus tours, all of the events are free of charge.

Rain or shine.  Performances will move inside.  

In case of rain, the short musical events and the closing concert at 5:30 will be moved indoors to adjacent churches. The plays will be held in the Christian Science Church on Park Street as planned.  The reenactors will be on the Green, rain or shine.  So come and enjoy these programs rain or shine.  Changes of venues for events will be posted on the churches, at the information tent, and on the website listed below.

Parking Information

Parking will be available at the Griswold House and the Bethel Assembly of God, both on Boston Street and within easy walking distance to the Green. Horse drawn carriages and busses will also carry people to and from those lots.

More Information, including a detailed schedule, go to the event website at:

http://guilfordct375.org/civilwar

You can also view a short fun video about the event:

http://youtu.be/56RpTKs49TY

Helps us get the word out:

Please tell your friends and family about this exciting and educational event.

Feel free to forward this email or any parts of it to others throughout the region and to post the links and any parts of it on your Facebook pages.

Hope to See you and your families on the 31st.

 

Share

Filed Under: Archive of Posts, What's New Tagged With: Civil war, Historic Guilford

May 6, 2011 By Web Editor

Civil War documents

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

Share

Filed Under: Archive of Posts, Dispatches from Dennis Tagged With: Civil war

Local organizations

  • Dudley Farm Foundation
  • Faulkner's Light Brigade
  • Guilford Agricultural Society
  • Guilford Chamber of Commerce
  • Guilford Free Library Edith B. Nettleton Historical Room
  • Guilford Keeping Society
  • Guilford Land Conservation Trust
  • Henry Whitfield State Museum
  • Historic Guilford
  • Shoreline Greenway Trail
  • The Hyland House Museum
  • Town of Guilford
  • Witness to History: Slavery in Guilford

Tags

A Guilford Minute Awards Civil war Delay of Demolition Heritage tourism Historic buildings Historic Guilford Local Businesses Newsletter parade Quarterly News Sustainable development Train station Trolleys Walking tours Welcome

Archives

Finding Preservation Links

Links to websites of local, regional and national preservation websites, and pertinent government entities, can be found in the sidebar of all subsequent pages beyond the homepage.

Copyright © 2025 Guilford Preservation Alliance · Site by C&DStudios · Log in · [footer_backtotop]