Barkhamsted Historical Society Newsletter  -  August 2001

 

Three Things You Should Know

September 2001 is a busy time for us at the Historical Society. Three items at the top of the list:

ONE– FLEA MARKET Sept 8!!
Check out our flea market on Saturday, September 8, 2001 at Mallory Brook Plaza on Route 44 in the parking lot in front of Ames. It starts at 9:00 a.m. and we hope to have a large number of dealers with a wide variety of items for your perusal. This is our biggest fund raising event so we are praying for good weather (in case of rain we will have the flea market on Sunday, September 9.) The Historical Society will also have a table of our own with various items for sale including Barkhamsted Heritage books and a number of articles made of wood.

TWO– ANNUAL MEETING Sept 10.
Please join us at the Barkhamsted Senior Center on Monday, September 10th at 7:00 for the annual meeting of the Historical Society. Following a short business meeting and progress report to our members, Walt Landgraf and Fred Warner will present a program which looks at historic aspects of the Squires Tavern and the surrounding area. Following the program, help us admire and then consume a cake in honor of the 222nd anniversary of the town. September 10 is recognized as the birthday of the town of Barkhamsted, which was incorporated in 1779. We will celebrate the close of another busy year for the Historical Society and the close of another year in the life of our fair town as well as raise a toast to the year ahead.

THREE– MEMBERSHIP DRIVE.
Don’t let your membership lapse! Or if you are not currently a member of the Historical Society, won’t you please join! The Historical Society membership year runs from September 1 to August 31 and we hope that you will sign on with us. We very much appreciate the support of our members. Please use the attached membership envelope to respond. Our annual dues are:

Single $ 7

Family $10

Senior $ 5

Of course we always welcome additional donations over and above the dues amount.

If you have recently sent us a donation as part of our Friends of the Squires Tavern appeal, we want to thank you for the support toward this big project. It is our hope that we can successfully conduct these two fundraising drives each year- our annual membership drive AND the Friends of the Squires Tavern appeal, without losing one bit of enthusiasm from our supporters.

Historical Society Accomplishments

September 10 represents the start of a new fiscal year for the Historical Society, so we would like to take this opportunity to report to you on our work over the past year (especially for those of you who will not be able to get the full report at our annual meeting). Here are some of the major accomplishments:

Squires Tavern - This project went into high gear over the past year. A lot of progress was made on our goal to protect and restore this building. A 30 year lease was negotiated and finalized with the State DEP. A historic building experthas been retained and has provided us with a written report on the building. Walt Landgraf and Fred Warner and their team have done a ton of research on the building, the property and the families that lived there. Repairs to the building have started and a lot of clean-up work completed. We have secured two grants for financial support, including a major $100,000 grant from the State of Connecticut that will be used for very expensive repair work. 

Photo of the Squires Tavern Open House ceremony, July 15, 2001.

Volunteers have established a period garden on the grounds and made major repairs to the front porch. We launched the Friends of the Squires Tavern support group with a town wide mailing and had a very successful Open House day attended by hundreds of people. We are very pleased at the progress on this project and want to thank all those involved.

Program Series - We continued our program series for the third year in a row with three special programs during the winter months: History of Clock Making in Connecticut with Melvin Brown, a tour of Greystone House in New Hartford with New Hartford Historical Society President Jim Smith, and a Walt Landgraf program on the history of the Squires Tavern and the local portion of the Farmington River. We hope to continue the program series annual tradition, so stay tuned!

Yankee Magazine fundraising - We successfully launched a new way to bring in funds by hooking up with Yankee Magazine. When you subscribe or renew, use the link on our web page or the enclosed form and the Historical Society will receive $10 at no cost to you!

Web site - We continue to expand our web site with new and updated information. Visitor traffic has expanded. Over the last year the average number of unique visitors is 433 per month. Visit our site at www.barkhamstedhistory.org.

School House - We are pleased that grade 5 from the Barkhamsted Elementary School continues to use the Center School House as part of its annual History Day. For a day in June the building was again filled with the sounds of students as they learned what school was like in the old days.