Two Centuries of New Milford Connecticut: An Account of the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Town Held June 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1907, With a Number of Historical Articles and ReminiscencesVarious
History
Two Centuries of New Milford Connecticut: An Account of the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Town Held June 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1907, With a Number of Historical Articles and Reminiscences
Various
New Milford (Conn. : Town) -- History
The loan exhibition in Memorial Hall was opened to the public at ten
o’clock Saturday morning, several hours in advance of the formal
ceremonies of welcome described above, and was kept open during the
entire four days of the Celebration. It proved an agreeable surprise,
not only to the guests of the town, but to the townspeople themselves,
who had no idea how rich their homes were in relics of the past until
they were thus brought together for this Bi-Centennial occasion. Indeed,
it was pronounced by competent judges one of the most interesting
collections of antiquities ever seen in the State of Connecticut. By its
aid, any person possessed of the slightest imagination could easily
reconstruct the every-day existence (in-doors and out-of-doors) of the
ancestors, and could even divine the intellectual, moral and religious
ideas and ideals which governed them. Besides the local relics
associated directly with the New Milford life of yore, were a number of
curiosities from remote corners of the globe, which testified to the
important rôle played by natives of New Milford in earlier times as
merchants, ship-owners, travellers, and missionaries.
These various richly-stored heirlooms were a source of great joy to the
aged, whose observations and reminiscences, as they moved about among
the show-cases, were well-nigh as fascinating as the exhibits
themselves; and a means of instruction for the young, to whom most of
the objects displayed appeared as strange as if they had been brought
from another planet.
The finest thing about this exhibition, however, was the public spirit
it exemplified. The committee in charge met scarcely a refusal from the
persons to whom they applied for loans, and, once the character of the
undertaking was understood, volunteers came forward in such numbers that
twice the space afforded by the G. A. R. rooms might have been filled,
had it been available.
Many of the visitors expressed regret that so remarkable a collection
must be scattered so soon and a hope that New Milford would one day see
its way clear to maintaining a permanent exhibition of the sort. And it
would not be surprising if the ultimate outcome of this loan exhibition
should be a museum of antiquities, since a large proportion of the
exhibitors would gladly contribute their treasures to the common-weal,
if a specially-constructed, fire-proof building should be provided for
the conservation of them.
A complete list of the exhibits is given herewith:
Henry Kimlin:
1. Razor dated 1688.
2. Pair of spectacles.
Minot S. Giddings:
3. A deed to Jonathan Giddings of a tract of land on the Connecticut
Reserve of Ohio, given by Elijah Boardman, Homer Boardman, David S.
Boardman, Stanley Griswold, of New Milford, Ct., Elijah Wadsworth,
Frederick Wolcott, Litchfield, Ct., and Zepheniah Briggs of New
Fairfield, Ct. Dated 1800.
4. Razor. Portrait of Washington engraved on blade.
5. Sampler, Ruth Buck, date 1786.
6. Bible, Ruth Buck, date 1771.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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