Summer / Autumn 2002
| New & Noteworthy |
A Successful Mix |
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| Building Blocks | ||
| Recent Gifts | ||
Nearly 200 members and friends of the Sharon Historical Society gathered on the museum grounds for The Great Sharon Mix for Bricks, this summer’s highly successful fundraiser.
After a week of withering heat, the weather broke on July 5 for a beautiful, cool summer evening, perfect for cocktails, food and congenial mixing. With construction of the new addition on schedule, the contractor D.C. Allen was able to clear the site for the big tent and a safe walk around to view the completed exterior and tour the inside. While there was still finishing work to be done, the walled layout of new rooms gave a good picture of the functional value of the added space (see related story on visiting the addition).
The evening affair also made a healthy contribution to the building fund with the sale of memorial paving bricks for the new outdoor patio. More than 170 bricks with personalized inscriptions have already been sold. SHS President Ed Kirby was careful to point out that the sale of bricks has by no means ended. “As long as people want to buy bricks, we will keep laying them down – even if we have to keep paving our way up the Green!” Order blanks are still available, at the museum and at some locations around town.
The first batch of memorial bricks had been delivered and temporarily installed on the patio for guests to view. Party goers thoroughly enjoyed reading the inscriptions as they finished their tours of the new complex. Then they wandered back to the tent to bid on various items in the unannounced silent auction that featured, among other things, a very large GI Joe collection which brought in a whopping $400 for the building fund. While monitoring their bids and chatting with friends, the guests were also treated to fabulous martinis mixed to order by Lionel Goldfrank III.
Again the success of the benefit is thanks to the efforts of the hard-working benefit committee: Ducky Bancroft, Irene Blagden, Jeanne Blum, Annette Cloney, Maureen Dore, Kristina Durr, Susan Ginkel, Sally Pettus, Deborah Reyelt, Fran Roberts, Ilene Rothschild, Cindy Rubicam, Liz Shapiro and Sally Wilburn. Thanks also go to the Sharon Day Care Center for the delicious hors d’oeuvres, and to the Sharon men of distinction who served as bartenders. The Society is grateful to the Salisbury Bank & Trust, New Milford Savings Bank and Sharon Hospital for their support of the event.
Sharon, venerable as it is with associations of old New England days is yet the last town that the Colony of Connecticut formed. Its first settlement was a full century later than those upon the Sound and upon the banks of its principal river.
There is a striking difference between the process of settling the country in the early period and that of a later day, when Progress had donned her Seven League Boots. With slow facilities of travel, the territory was filled and occupied as the wave swept on; and if the pace was that of the ox-team instead of the locomotive, there were not lacking advantages in all that pertains to the solidification of communities, and the avoidance of that isolation which is a potent factor in the tendency to barbarism. Even so late as 1794 there is a tradition of a family which came to a border town of Sharon, and which moved out of one of the old coast settlements upon a curious vehicle that an ingenious young man of the family had constructed— the first wagon ever seen in its streets!
It thus happened that in October, 1732, as we learn from Gen. Sedgwick’s invaluable history, a committee appointed by the Assembly to “view the colony lands west of the Ousatonic River, laid out the town of Sharon and marked its bounds by sundry piles of stones and the blazing of trees. The township was divided into fifty-three rights one of which should be for the use of the ministry, one for the first gospel minister settled, and one for the support of the school. The remaining fifty rights were to be “vendered and sold,” and their purchasers were to have “a sure indefeasible estate in fee simple” from his majesty, King George the Second— “in fee and common socage, and not in capite nor by Knights Service.” Earlier than this, one Capt. Richard Sackett had thought to appropriate to himself a princely estate here, through a colonial patent from New York, and purchases from the Indian chief, Metoxen, some 22,000 acres in two states—but his scheme, most fortunately, ended in failure. There is however nothing recorded of him specially dishonorable; he was but availing himself of methods in securing a fortune, then as still, in high repute.
Sharon was known only by the cabalistic name of “N.S.”—so it was designated in the committee’s report to the Assembly; but when the first body of settlers came, in 1739, they sent a petition “To the Honorable, the Governor and Representatives in General Court assembled at New Haven,” stating that their township they had “presumed to call by the name of SHARON.” If “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” it is still hard to believe that there would not be some alien flavor to even so delectable a spot, had it retained permanently the uncouth designation of “N.S.” for a name. But the petition was granted and henceforth this wild rose of Sharon had its fragrant and appropriate name.
There was nothing of haphazard in the Puritan’s way of founding a settlement. He had a genius for organization, and he came with institutions, civil and religious, already perfected; there was only to set them up at first, and town and parish were in working order. So the founders immediately laid out the traditional village street with a meeting house in the center of the green, as instinctively as a colony of bees onstructs a comb. The surveyors did not end their work, indeed, until they had covered that part of the township with a right-angled network of highways, many of them on all manner of impossible grades. It would seem that their ideal plan must be carried out, despite the incorrigibility of the geological formation.
“The Sharon fathers, we may suppose, paused upon the New England border— the Ultima Thule of civilization to them” — says a local chronicler of this region, “and from their vantage ground of the hill, peered over into the sister state with mingled feelings of curiosity and disapproval. They must have pondered gravely on the mysterious ways of their neighbors in the Province of Amenia, N.Y.; for here they met abruptly a wave of emigration which had flowed in a direction opposite to their own, from the banks of the Hudson. They were the people whom Diedrich Knickerbocker long ago portrayed in his renowned ‘History of New York’—a people differing in language, customs and all their social traditions from the New England type. Germans and Hollanders, including their foster brethren, Huguenots, had been already established for fifteen or twenty years in ‘The Oblong,’ as that strip of territory, fifty miles long and less than two miles wide, which had been ceded by Connecticut to New York in 1731, in exchange for the ‘Horseneck’ on the Sound, was called in those days; or ‘The Equivalent,’ as we see it in land titles of the period.
“ ‘ What manner of man is this Dutchman?’ we imagine their exclaiming, ‘He can build for himself substantial houses, indeed, of brick and of stone, with deep shady stoups, and with name and date inscribed upon them; sometimes with huge initials and figures fantastically wrought into the masonry of a whole quaint gable; but his roads are devious, wandering trails in the footsteps of the Indians. Where is his organic town development? There is not a meeting house or even a village green in the whole settlement!’”
“It was a piece of the irony of fate,” continues our chronicler, “that the very first white man to live in the town of Sharon was a Dutchman! This was one Baltus Lott—Dutchiest of the Dutch, it would appear. The offence of his intrusion, and his profaning with his outlandish gibberish the sacred precincts of a Puritan settlement, were not without some palliation, for the state boundary was not clearly defined when he settled in what is now the little village of Sharon Valley; but Baltus Lott proved a stubborn interloper, and resisted successfully for several years all efforts to dislodge him. He finally exacted a snug bonus for his squatter rights, and took himself off. It was well to be rid of him at any price!
“Though the Dutch had the advantage of earlier establishment, there was some quality in this outpost of New England people who had suddenly become their neighbors with which they were powerless to cope. There was a leaven at work which was altogether too lively for the narrow rim of Connecticut; and within a very few years after the settlement of Sharon in 1739 this element poured in a tidal wave over the borders, and the Dutchman of the Webutuck Valley awoke one day to find himself a Yankee—language and all!”
There is the record, all too familiar in New England annals, of trials and disasters in the first years of settlement. Very early there was the visitation of a mysterious “wasting sickness,” or “nervous fever,” of which many died, and which nearly ruined the whole enterprise. But his band of hardy men and their families had come to “undergo the difficulties of settling a wilderness country,”—to use the phrase of one of their petitions to the colonial government—and they met all hardships bravely, and went forward to success.
Doubtless in these early communities there was the full average of enjoyment and happiness, comparing them with vastly different conditions in modern times. Our vision of the old days in New England is apt to have a certain somber cast. If there seemed to be a twilight overspreading the land, as Thoreau says, and an allusion to the sun shining, in some account of the time, he says, gave a certain sensation of surprise, this is doubtless owing, more than otherwise to some obscure association which the remoteness of a scene brings to our minds. There is ample evidence, despite some plausible showing to the contrary, that those little communities of the early Puritan days took life with zest and enjoyment. There was with them an existence of strenuous and hopeful endeavor, which of itself, brings it rich rewards. Their days were lit by ever fresh expectation. Certainly a race of pessimists never subdued a country as New England was subdued. The day of flippant literature, at least, had not arrived; and probably an extreme in the opposite direction is the main thing which has contributed to deceive us—an unnatural solemnity being judged by them the only appropriate form for anything attaining to the dignity of print. Even formal documents, however, occasionally break through the stricture. For instance, in the records of the first town meeting in Sharon, “To chuse town officers which Being Dune the Inhabitance being met on the 11th day of December, In ye year 1739,” can we believe that no joke was intended when “Nathl Skinner Jun Was Chosen Leather Sealer?”; or that, when it was “farther voted that Swin haven a Ring in their Noses shall be accounted an orderly Creater,” it was soberly adjudged by the “inhabitance” that these bejeweled citizens were welcome attractions in the village, running at large?
The first meeting house was a temporary structure of logs; but so early as the third year a permanent building was erected. There have been few pastorates in Connecticut more memorable than that of the Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, whose ministry in Sharon began in 1755 and continued till his death, in 1806. Parson Smith, as he was called, was no less eminent for his good works than his learning and piety. His befriending of orphan children with substantial material aid was an eloquent preaching, over and above the 4000 discourses, besides some 1,500 on funeral and other occasions, which one of his admirers estimated he had delivered. The figures show a memorable achievement; but, when we reflect what a sermon was in those days, the vast aggregate is not without its appalling aspect. Sharon was conspicuous for its fervor of patriotism in the Revolution, and it had no citizen more ardent or more stalwart than Parson Smith. The tiding of Lexington reached Sharon just in time for him to announce them from the pulpit, which he did with stirring exhortations. He was afterward, for a time, a chaplain in the army.
Adonijah Maxam, who died here in his native town in 1850, at the age of 97, went through a series of remarkable adventures in the Revolutionary War. In an attempt on Montreal, under Col. Ethan Allen, he was captured with others, including Allen, and sent to England. The vicissitudes of his escape, when he was brought back to New York, still imprisoned, make a thrilling tale. He again joined the army, and, among other experiences, went through the horrors of the winter at Valley Forge. There is one tradition connected with his adventures, on which written history—doubtless from a proper sense of dignity—has hitherto kept silent. Maxam, it seems, was more noted for his patriotism and bravery than for his attractions of person. It is even hinted that he was the homeliest man in the State of Connecticut—which is saying a great deal! Be that as it may, the forlorn physical condition to which he was reduced by stress of prolonged imprisonment and neglect was such, it is said, as greatly to heighten whatever impression his presence made to the eye of the observer; and the story is that his captors actually had him exhibited to crowds in England, as a specimen of the outlandish Yankees—a race of Yahoos—they were trying to subdue.
One memento of the Revolutionary struggle preserved in Sharon is the discharge of Hezekiah Goodwin, with the signature and seal of Washington, under date of June 7, 1783, after his faithful services through the whole war. It is kept by his grandson, Mr. George D. Goodwin, who now, at the age of 86, is one of the few left who furnish a link with the past of Sharon.
It is a fact worth recording that it is only within two or three years that Mr. Goodwin has gained possession of this heirloom. It had been given up as part of the proof necessary to obtaining a pension for the veteran soldier; but, that granted, the discharge was stubbornly held on to in the archives at Washington, and now, after the lapse of the greater part of a century, it is at last in the hands of its rightful owner.
Another interesting document in the possession of Mr. Goodwin is the Commission of Lieut. Col. David Burr, signed by Jonathan Trumbull in 1772.
The stretch of country surrounding Sharon, within a radius of a few miles, embraces an unusual variety—between sylvan pastoral views, which recall Berket Foster’s English Landscapes, and the wildest mountain scenery. The township itself is a great rounded upland, with picturesque peaks and wide outlooks, descending steeply on the east to the wooded, rapid-flowing Housatonic, and on the west to the placid meadows of the Webutuck. In laying out the town there was found no site, even nearly central, for the village plot or borough. Tradition still points out the upland plateau which the settlers first selected. The situation finally chosen is upon the extreme western border; and the choice is fortunate, except for the inconvenience of the township housekeeping, so to speak, for the location has great attractions. To the northward, in the distance, are the Taghkanics; and three blue peaks, in a close group to the eye, rise up from their three several states—Mount Riga, Mount Everett, or the Dome, and Bear Mountain. Ray Mountain is in the nearer view, and Indian Mountain, with a beautiful lake at the foot of its slopes upon each side. Silver Lake, or Mudge, if its not very euphonious, but historic name, must be given, is the only one of the four lakes in close vicinity to each other of which the aboriginal name is not preserved. Wequagnock, on the state border, is Indian Pond from time immemorial; but it was the Gnaden See of the old Moravians—their “Lake of Grace,” for the good work they accomplished among the Indians here. Their famous mission was established in the wilds almost as early as the settlement of the town. A monument to them and their work adorns the shore of the lake. There are many beautiful lakes in this vicinity; but I doubt whether there is another, even in the state, which can rival the great variety of charm pertaining to Wequagnock.
We may picture to ourselves the Sharon of early times, when this wide mountain upland lay in its primeval state, and so large is the area still covered by forests there are many portions which differ little from the time when the bear and deer roamed through them, and when the Indians were warring, hunting and fishing, and, at times, castigating their fetish idol (kept in charge of an old squaw) whenever it was believed to have brought them ill luck in their endeavors.
That same wide, long street remains that was laid out in 1739, but there is no little change in the aspect of the village since the day when it was voted that “Swin haven a Ring in their Noses shall be accounted an orderly Creater”—this shady avenue, with its handsome residences, and lawns, not left to the clipping of four-footed residents. A few of the buildings date back within the first quarter-century; but there are elms which the settlers must have planted when they first came. Their great size we should believe indicated a much greater age, did we not know the rapid growth of this species.
[To be continued in the next issue of Sharon Archives.]
Where in the World is Ebenezer Mudge?
Among the many brick orders that have come into the office, one caught my eye. It said simply “Ebenezer Mudge”. Not a modern name at all, yet it is familiar in Sharon – the Mudge part at least. But Ebenezer? Haven’t heard that one in a while! Who was he? I heard a rumor at the Great Sharon Mix for Bricks that Ebenezer is a ghost. I’m partly descended from a large Southern clan with many cherished ghosts in various family houses, so I’m willing to entertain the thought.
In Charleston, SC, it is a recognized fact that most ghosts make their presence known to us mortals because they have some unfinished business which they need help resolving. One such ghost in my mother’s family regularly appeared near a certain bookshelf in the library. Someone finally decided to search the bookshelf for clues. An old will fell out of one of the books, and was duly delivered to the proper authorities. A bit of research uncovered the fact that the estate of the deceased had never been accurately probated. The family immediately took steps to implement as many of the old will’s provisions as possible. They never saw the ghost again!
Is Mr. Mudge on such a mission? He lived in Sharon before the Revolution, having been one of the original Proprietors of the town. At the first Town meeting on December 11, 1739, he was chosen as one of four Surveyors of Highways. In 1743, Ebenezer built a home on the west bank of the pond that would eventually bear his name (in those days it was known as Skinner’s Pond). He lived there with his family of six sons and died on April 21, 1758. His sons eventually all left the town of Sharon before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, but the family name remained attached to the lake where they had lived.
Ebenezer made a brief appearance again in Sharon in 1989 in the person of Ed Kirby. On the 250th anniversary of the founding of the town, the first Town Meeting was reenacted at the Congregational Church in a play written by David Truax and produced by Jano Fairservis. After receiving his assignment as Surveyor of Highways, Mr. Mudge took part in a vote recognizing that “a pig with a ring in his nose is a tractable animal”. Following that, he disappeared again, but reliable sources say that he is still seen and heard on the west shore of Mudge pond on the grounds of the old Hart farmhouse which stands now on the site of the old Mudge home. What can Ebenezer Mudge be up to?
Marge McAvoy
National Heritage Area Update -- A Fun Fall Weekend!
The Tri-Corners History Council and Housatonic Heritage Committee are planning
a weekend of walks on Saturday and Sunday, October 5th & 6th, as part
of the focus on the pending National Heritage Area. The National Park
Service is showing increasing interest in the creation of the Heritage Area,
and the weekend’s activities will highlight some of the rich heritage the
corridor has to offer. Beginning on the southern end in Kent and heading on
up as far north as Dalton, Massachusetts, a variety of educational walks will
take place.
On Sunday, October 6th, Sharon Historical Society President Ed Kirby will
conduct a geologic tour of the Bull's Falls area south of Kent and the remnants
of the old Bulls Bridge Iron Furnace. The crumbled stack and stone work on
the river bank offer clues easily read by this noted expert on the iron industry.
On Saturday, October 5th, Kent Historical Society Director Marge McAvoy will
lead a walk through the site of a long gone village in Kent called Alder City.
Located on the west bank of the Housatonic River, the Alder City area is now
known as a favorite stopping point for hundreds of migrating fall warblers,
so birdwatchers are encouraged to attend.
Also in Kent on both Saturday and Sunday, mining expert John
Pawloski of the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association, will offer a lecture
titled "Touring Our Industrial Past". Like Kirby, Mr. Pawloski is
an expert whose talk should not be missed.
Heading north, Russ Cohen will lead a hunt at Housatonic Meadows State Park
for edible wild plants and mushrooms. In Salisbury, George Massey will take
interested hikers into Salisbury Dark Hollow, while hikes up historic Monument
Mountain will be conducted on both days by Bernard Drew, and Jim Parrish will
follow the trail of Shay’s Rebellion.
One of the most intriguing walks promises to be a tour of downtown Pittsfield
by Norma Lynn Powers. Pittsfield’s reputation has been badly tarnished
by the controversial pollution problems caused by General Electric, but the
city has a rich and fascinating history which promises to make this walk an
enlightening experience.
The hardest part of the weekend will be choosing the events to attend. This
is only a partial list of the walks and tours being held. Save the dates and
watch your local newspapers for more information as the time approaches. You
may also call the Sharon Historical Society at 364-5688 or the Kent Historical
Society at 927-4587 for more information.
Recent Gifts to the Sharon Historical Society
In February, 2002, Sharon resident Warren Prindle presented several items to the S.H.S. These items were from the papers of Stuart Prindle, Warren’s father. Stuart Prindle, a Sharon native and founder of the Prindle Insurance Agency, passed away at age ninety-two in December 2001.
Included in the collection is a pamphlet “Active and Attractive Sharon.” Significant photographs include those of Bostwick’s Mill, and the Cornwall Bridge Covered Bridge (destroyed by the ice break-up of March, 1936), a view of the Benedict’s Mill / Sharon Electric Company site and one of Perkin’s Castle. Twenty-seven additional photographs and postcards, and a c1912 school group picture complete the set.
One of the features of this collection is a 1988 letter to Stuart and Audrey Prindle from Sharon native Myron Vosburgh.
In July, Joan Barnett Loper donated a collection to the S.H.S. in memory of her late husband Ralph Everett Loper, 1927-2000. Both the Loper and Everett families have a long history in Sharon, particularly in the Ellsworth area. Ralph’s earliest Sharon ancestor, Ebenezer Everett, came to Ellsworth from Hebron, Connecticut in 1745.
Materials in the Loper collection center primarily on the Ellsworth region. Included is the bell from the old Ellsworth School, District #14 on Beer’s 1874 map (District #2 on Clark’s 1853 map). Also part of the gift are pre-1923 class photos taken in front of the Sharon Center School, an 1804 account book, Sedgwick’s Second Edition “General History of the Town of Sharon”, “Ellsworth Connecticut” edited by G. F. Goodenough, 1900, the Ellsworth Manual of the First Congregational Church of Sharon (1900) and a souvenir program Commemorating the Settlement of the Town of Sharon, Connecticut, August 6 – 9, 1939.
Included too is the Manual of the First Congregational Church of Sharon” (1900) and the intriguing 1848 diary of Elizabeth Everitt. Excerpts from this diary will be published in a future issue of Archives.
Ed Kirby
Ann Eliza Millard – A Stitchery Mystery
A handsome sampler worked by a ten year-old girl of Sharon in 1840 has been acquired by the Society and was put on view for the first time at the July fund raising party.
The antique needlework piece is an exciting example of the samplers made by little girls of long ago to learn the art of embroidery. Intricate stitchery traces the identity of the young artist: Ann Eliza Millard, aged 10, Sharon, and gives the date of Sept 9, 1840.
As with many of these childhood creations, the sampler features the alphabet in capital and lower case letters. Following is the traditional prayer or inspirational message:
Jesus permit thy name to stand
As the first efforts of an infants hand
And while her fingers oer the canvas move
Incline her tender heart to seek thy love.
Under the verse on one side is the outline of a house flanked by figures of a dog and bird. On the other side is a willow tree trailing over a burial urn. The 18” by 20” linen tableau is bordered with a stitched floral tracery.
The framed pattern of the young girl’s needlework is remarkable in its variety of stitches and colored threads. It is wonderfully well preserved for its 162 year age.
Earlier this year the Society’s Trustees learned of the existence of this Sharon artifact through an antique sampler collector in Massachusetts. Donations by several anonymous benefactors made feasible the consideration of its purchase.
Since the arrival of the new acquisition, Meg Szalewicz, museum archivist and sampler enthusiast, has been researching the genealogy of Ann Eliza Millard. To date it has been a sorting of conflicting fragments with a general story unfolding. Born in Ellsworth, Ann Eliza was christened in Cornwall on March 4, 1830. Two dates – 1847 and 1853 – are given for her marriage to Cornelius Skiff of Ellsworth. Apparently she died soon after without children because Cornelius Skiff is recorded as marrying his second wife, Hannah Skiff, in 1855. The search for more of the story continues...look for updates in future newsletters! When the museum reopens, we hope you will come and see our newest treasure.
John Quinn
WORK BEGINS ON PHASE II OF THE SHARON VALLEY KILN
On a sweltering Monday, August 5th, workers from the Ganem Contracting Corporation removed the protective covering from the Sharon Valley Lime Kiln. This process began Phase II of the restoration-preservation process of Sharon’s monument to the town’s one hundred seventy-nine years of manufacturing and industry. The restoration-preservation process is a joint project of the Sharon Historical Society and the Town of Sharon, owner of the kiln.
Work on Phase I of the Sharon Valley Lime Kiln was completed on Wednesday, December 12, 2001. This stage included a three year preliminary review of the structure and site, an archaeological assessment of the kiln, an engineering assessment, and development of restoration plans, tree and brush removal, excavation around the site to the original ground level, cleaning and pointing of voids in the rock faces and replacement of the one hundred twenty year-old timber binders. Work on the kiln stack was accomplished by restoration masons “Ziggy” Swieton and Joe Aulicino of the Ganem Contracting Corporation.
Funding for the Phase I cost of $49,443 plus administrative, engineering and archaeological fees was provided from a LoCIP (Local Capitol Improve Program) grant of $25,000 through the Town of Sharon and $40,000 from a local foundation. Even while Phase I was in progress, application was made for a grant to complete Phases II, III and IV. Phase II, the cleaning and restoration of the kiln interior will cost $24,776; Phase III, bringing the structure back to its original height, $20,000 and Phase IV, capping the top with cement, a waterproof membrane and a Plexiglass vented top, $13,750.
The town has applied for a S.T.E.A.P. (Small Town Economic Assistance Program) grant to pay for those parts of the project and for Phase IV work, including cosmetic ground work and interpretive signs. This grant program provides funding for towns with populations under 30,000, not designated as distressed municipalities and not having an urban center. Under
S.T.E.A.P. guidelines, the kiln qualifies as a “pilot historic preservation and redevelopment program(s) that leverage private funds… .
In May, 64th District Representative Roberta Willis notified your S.H.S. president that we would be receiving the requested S.T.E.A.P. funding toward Phases II, III and IV of the project. Representative Willis was the co-sponsor of the Connecticut House bill that was designed to provide S.T.E.A.P. funding. 30th District Senator Andrew Roraback has been of tremendous assistance in the securing of the grant. Thanks are also extended to First Selectman Robert Moeller and those kiln committee members, friends, and SHS Board of Trustees members who wrote letters in support of our application.
The initial August top diggings by restoration masons “Ziggy” Sweiton, Joe Aulinico and Paul Sweiton, uncovering the nine foot diameter tunnel head, revealed an interior firebrick chamber with an inside diameter of 4’ 10”. An eight foot long, four foot wide rock had fallen from the original top into the chamber. Weighing about 2,600 pounds, it was necessary to secure a crane from the Healy Crane Company in Bethel, Connecticut to remove the rock.
All materials, sand, refractory brick (firebrick) and rock were removed by Joe Aulinico using a mason’s trowel (there was no space for shovels). Raising the materials by block and tackle, Paul Sweiton has stacked the bricks, sand and rocks in separate piles. All this preliminary work has been conducted in an extended period of extremely high relative humidity and average temperatures in the 90ºF range. By August 20, Joe Aulinico had cleared the chamber to a point just above the bottom.
Meanwhile, industrial archaeologist Victor Rolando has reviewed each step with the S.H.S. president to determine the important history of the kiln. Since no lime kiln in the Tri-State region, or even well beyond, has ever been studied in detail, this joint effort by the Sharon Historical Society and the Town of Sharon should add key information to the town’s industrial period.
Ed Kirby
The Great Attic Classic III -- Coming in July of 2003!!
Start gathering your Truly Splendid Stuff for this Splendid Tag Sale and Silent Auction!!!