Monthly Archives: April 2018

Arbor Day 2018

Arbor Day, Friday, April 27, 2018 was made just a little more interesting for second graders at Moriarty Environmental Sciences Magnet School thanks to Teresa Hanlon and Franz Redanz, the Tree Wardens of Norwich, CT.

Ms. Hanlon and Mr. Redanz were introduced to the second grade students by Principal Rebecca Pellarin followed by a discussion led by the students of what they had already learned about trees and forrests. The students were quick to expand on how trees add beauty to an area, help make oxygen so we can all breathe and some give us food, such as fruit and nut trees and some trees even share their sap so we can enjoy rup with our pancakes.

Then Ms. Hanlon turned to a power point presentation on a big screen with a very big black bug with white speckles and long antennae – the Asian Longhorned Beetle. The students were taught when and how the bug first came to America and how hundreds of trees in Worcester and Boston had to be cut down because of their infestation with the beetle.

Mr. Redanz showed the students examples of the bug preserved in various life stages in boxes with actual pieces of bark with the tiny escape holes and another piece of wood showing the damage the larvae do eating away beneath the surface. He also made certain that each student had a card to take home of the Asian Longhorned Beetle, with a photo of it, its egg site and the size of its exit hole.

Both Tree Wardens reminded students that there are good bugs and bad bugs and its very important to take notice of the trees around us and work to keep the trees happy and healthy by encouraging the good bugs.

It was a pleasure to observe the exchange between the students and the Tree Wardens. Many thanks to Principal Pellarin, Norwich Public Works, Tree Wardens Hanlon and Redanz.

Thank you for reading and sharing my history and Norwich Community blog freely with your family or friends or anyone you think might be interested or in a position to take on some of the suggested projects. Don’t hesitate to contact me for further information. I am happy to pass along anything I can. Together we can make a difference. Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs.

Thank you Earth Day Volunteers

Thank you to everyone who participated in an Earth Day Clean-up at home, in the neighborhood, around the world and in Mohegan Park in Norwich, CT.

Blessed with clear skies and warm temperatures the day could not have been more perfect for a clean up of our environment. Paper, plastic, and wrappers that had been tossed by humans and the winds were fair game for pick up.

The four hundred acres of Mohegan Park are kept pretty clean by the Norwich Public Works employees but a little extra cleaning couldn’t hurt. 20 people signed in but dozens more saw the table and joined in by making certain they threw their trash of the day in the readily available trash cans. Some fishermen came over to the table to explain that they had thrown some tangled fishing line away. Some less responsible fishermen just cut the line and throw it on the ground or in the water where it can be harmful to the fish or wildlife. Thank you fisherman for being considerate.

St. Vincent de Pauls was well represented by workcrew Foreman Leonard Matthews and Doris who took charge of cleaning up the area by the beach.

Chelsea Groton Bank sent their local and shoreline purple team with their families. They quickly took responsibility for the trail that goes around Spaulding Pond. Laughter rang as Marjorie Perrone, Kathy Majca, Amber Crespo, Zaifal Crespo and Ayla Drinkwater worked and walked along.

Samantha Venturo and Craig Murphy re-marked the walking trails. Painting the bright color blotches of Red, Blue and Green increases the safety of walkers by helping to keep them from straying off the trails.

Stacy Gould, of the Norwich City Council and Frank Cilley policed the area by the lower parking lot and saw for themselves how many people were taking advantage of the beautiful day. Sam Browning was home with a cold and sent his regrets. Feel better Sam!

Zechariah Stover and John from the Rotary Community Corp attacked the mean thorned trees by the dog pound. The trees grow wild by the edge of the fence and the dogs could have gotten a thorn in their paw which really hurts.

Dee Keaney came to volunteer some time working outside before leaving to volunteer at the NAC downtown demonstrating her amazing dedication to the city.

Judy and Nick Magnano were surprised by how little trash was in the Upper Parking Lot but saddened that a dirty diaper was on the ground mere inches from the trash can.

Shiela Hayes of the Rotary Community Corp handed out bottled water to keep everyone hydrated and worked with a very determined 18 month old who wanted to sweep Park Center clean.

Thank you to Michelle Heikkineu and everyone who picked up litter whether they signed in or not and to everyone who routinely reduces, reuses, recycles and throws away their trash. YOU make a difference every day and we all appreciate it.

Friday, April 27, 2018 is Arbor Day and the Norwich Tree Wardens will be at Moriarty Environmental Magnet School with a presentation on trees. All visitors must sign in at the school office. Time to be Announced.

Mohegan Park Happenings

Spring has arrived and there is no shortage of things to do, places to go and people to meet up with in Norwich so please include one or more of these fresh air and exercise events, stops and walks in Mohegan Park to your list. The best part is all of these are FREE and open to the public and open to all ages.

The City of Norwich, CT Mohegan Park Improvement & Development Advisory Committee is proud to join in the Norwich City Council Promotion Initiative.

The public is asked to please enjoy these events and Mohegan Park alone or with friends, family and groups. All events are FREE and open to the public with never an admission or parking fee.

On Sunday, Earth Day April 22, 2018 Please meet at Park Center to begin a clean – up and refreshing of the trails of the Park between Noon – 4 PM. Everyone is invited to join us and groups or families are welcome to choose the areas they would like to be responsible for. Please bring your own rakes, brooms and gloves.

See the early bloomers at the Memorial Rose Garden, on CT Public Garden Day, Friday, May 11, 2018.

Here in Norwich, National Trails Day has been expanded from Saturday, June 2 through Sunday, June 10th so there is plenty of opportunity to explore our multiple maintained and unmaintained trails throughout the 400 acres of Mohegan Park.

SCRRA will present “Composting” in Park Center at 7 AM on Wednesday, June 6, 2018 National Gardening Exercise Day

See the changes at the Memorial Rose Garden on Sunday, June 24th when more of the roses will be in bloom.

The 400 acre Mohegan Park is open to the public with no entry or parking fees every day of the year from dawn to dusk. Picnic areas are available. We ask only that you leave the park as clean or cleaner than you found it. Our birds and other wildlife appreciate it.

Additional Events:
Plant Swap – Sunday May 6, 2018 Lee Memorial Church 1pm – 3 pm Indoor and outdoor plants, seedlings, Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers. Plants to swap is encouraged but not required. There are plenty of plants available to good homes.

Plant Swap – Sunday June 10, 2018 Lee Memorial Church 1pm – 3 pm Indoor and outdoor plants, seedlings, Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers. Plants to swap is encouraged but not required. There are plenty of plants available to good homes.
And
Guns of Norwich Historical Society – Saturday, April 28, 2018.presents Norwich Made Firearms and Civil War Era Weapons, at Norwich Game & Fishing Association, 44 Browning Rd, Norwich, CT.

More WWI Howitzer details

The following information is from the dates indicated of the Norwich Bulletin. Details also appeared in various other newspapers but I am using just the stories of the Norwich Bulletin for my references.

World War I lasted from July 28, 1914 though November 11, 1918.

Almost nine years later in the May 19, 1926 Bulletin was a small article how the R. O. Fletcher Post No. 4 American Legion received notice from the Office of Governor Trumbull that the application for a war trophy ( a German made 155mm Howitzer) made several years earlier had been approved and granted and a request for the shipment of the 4,500 pound gun to New Haven had been made.

October 8, 1926 was the announcement the gun which had been hauled by a Norwich City truck would be located to Chelsea Parade for its permanent location at the back of the World War memorial monument would be held on Armistice Day as a part of the town’s Armistice day and susquicentennial observance thanks to Commander Dunbar and First Selectman William S. Murray.

On November 12, 1926 page 5, the Bulletin described a tarpaulin being dragged off the freshly placed memorial gun by four men. A soldier, a sailor, a marine and Leslie Fletcher, brother of Robert O. Fletcher, after whom the post was named.

Society of the Founders First Public Meeting

I always used October 10, 1910 as the celebration date for the Society of the Founders of Norwich, CT. I never questioned the date as it is on the seal and the pin and all sorts of other documents. What I never recognized was I was looking at their incorporation date. Silly me.

So just to bring a smile to your face here are excerpts from the March 18, 1902 two column report of the “First Public Meeting at Buckingham Memorial” of the Founders of Norwich, CT. After reading the complete article I must admit I much prefer the much shorter meetings of today.

“The first public meeting of the newly organized Society of the Founders of Norwich was held in the hall at Buckingham Memorial on Wednesday afternoon at 4 o’clock. There was a good sized attendance of members and others interested in the history of the town, present.

President George S. Smith called the meeting to order, and in a brief address welcomed the guests. He explained the object of the organization, which he said, was limited to descendants of the 35 original settlers of Norwich (in 2018 this is no longer the case). Its mission was to perpetuate the history of early Norwich and the marking of objects associated with the first days of the town, such as the first church, the birthplace of Benedict Arnold, and other citizens of note.

Next followed the singing by a quartette, consisting of Maj. And Mrs. B. P. Learned, Mrs. M.E. Jensen and Mr. Eben Learned, of the quaint old hymns, ‘False are the Men of High Degree’ and ‘Invitation’.”

“George S. Porter read the first paper, on “The Families of the First Settlers.” Mr. Porter begged for indulgence in not being able to report in more detail due to his limitation of time and in data in preparing his paper. But for me as a reader of only the article there were some details of Norwich hsitory I have not been reminded of in a very long time.
Porter spoke of Robert Allyn, for whom Allyn’s Point was named; John Baldwin, was an English silk merchant; Thomas Bingham, later became a resident of Windham; John Birchard was the first town clerk and Clerk of county court; Joseph Bradford, was the son of John Bradford of Plymouth, Mass; Rev. James Fitch was the first pastor; Thomas Howard, was slain the Narragansett fort fight in King Phillip’s war; William Hyde was the first of his family in America; Lieut. Thomas Leffingwell, the leader of the Uncas relief expedition to Shantoh Point on the Thames in 1645, and a very prominent member of the band of the first settlers; Maj. John Mason, the conqueror of the Pequot Indians, commander-in-chief of the military forces of Connecticut and the originator of the movement to settle Norwich; Dr. John Olmstead, surgeon in King Phillip’s War; Sergt. Thomas Waterman, the first innkeeper in the town and with nods and mention to the other male settlers of Norwich. Apparently women had no part in the settlement of our city, or did they? Historians here is an opportunity to speak up as none have done before.

The next presentation of the meeting was by Miss Maria P. Gilman, on “Lowthorpe,” which word she said was originally taken to mean a group of houses. She reported that one of the oldest settlers of Norwich was the Rev. John Lathrop of Lowthorpe, England and how he held several pastorates in England, and was at one time imprisoned for his religious views. Lathrop came to America with part of his flock and settled in Scituate, Mass and later moved to and died in Barnstable, MA.

Lathrop’s son, Samuel, moved to New London and became a prominent member of the First Church and with his son Samuel, purchased large tracts of land in Norwich.

The paper went on to trace the descendants of Samuel Lathrop with interesting reminiscences of various ancestors of Miss Gilman, and were illuminated by dashes of kindly wit.
The quartette sang another curious old hymn, “America’s Hero,” typical of the period of the settlement of Norwich.

Then Jonathan Trumbull in a few words commended the work of the Society, believing it to be of future value to the community before the meeting adjourned for the evening.

What questions are crossing your mind about the history of Norwich and would you like to hear a rendition or two of these old hymns? A full concert might be pushing it but a sampling at an event or two would be nice don’t you think?

War to end all Wars

Yup its time for another history lesson. The machine gun was invented in the United States of America by Hiram S. Maxim in 1884. By 1887 the machine gun was being produced in Germany at the Spandau Arsenal. In 1914 they had produced 12,000 guns and by 1917, over 100,000 had been produced and the Germans were happy to report that the majority, 90%, of their small arms ammunition was going into the chambers of their machine guns.

Those machine guns were not going onto shelves to be sold to the public, they were being toted and used across Europe in the first World War. World War I lasted from July 28, 1914 though November 11, 1918. Nine million soldiers never returned home. Twenty-one million returned home wounded. The heavy German machine guns called Howitzers were left in fields, backyards and beaches when the German soldiers were given the order to leave an area, move on, retreat, or to finally go home. The story told by the winning side was the guns were captured.

After the war, since everyone knew there would never be another; the American Government regulated the purchase of the guns to organizations, cities and towns throughout America. Each gun was given an identity and a story of true heroism. The fact or fiction of the tale was of no concern. The Europeans had seen enough of the guns and the power they had against their citizens and so did not want them. The world was more interested in the power and strength of the American dollar. The American Legion, Robert O Fletcher Post in Norwich purchased one of the guns and it proudly stood on the tip of Chelsea Parade. Children played on it as it deteriorated to finally be hauled away out of sight and out of mind. Robert O. Fletcher was one of the Norwich men killed in action. He played ball at Norwich Free Academy and wrote sports stories for the Norwich Bulletin, but his story wasn’t as interesting and he was soon forgotten.

Now it has been 100 years so the skeleton of the gun is ready to be hauled out and paraded out in public again as a demonstration of American power and might. I hope someone tells the rest of the story. War is not just fought by the winners. The losing side has stories and families too.

There has been not one word of mention to honor the soldiers of Norwich, CT buried in other countries and cared for by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Residents of Norwich will contribute dollars to fix up the gun to be better than new and then there will a dedication and a moment of silence for the lost soldiers or perhaps we’ll get to ring the bell at City Hall again.

But not one dime will be contributed to the care and preservation of the graves overseas for the men who died for this country but will never have the earth of their country beneath them again.

The interments of World War I remain at ABMC cemeteries permanently. It is no longer possible to repatriate the remains. The program of final disposition of the remains was carried out by the American Graves Registration Service, quartermaster general of the War Department under the provisions of Public Law 389, 66th Congress and Public Law 368, 80th Congress.
On November 11, 2018 the 26 permanent American military cemeteries and 29 federal memorial, monuments and markers which are located in 16 foreign countries, the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the British Dependency of Gibraltar; and the three in the United States will host a ceremony to honor the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of World War 1.

Those will be the ceremonies that will honor the last deeds of our Norwich, CT sons. Perhaps you know the families of –

Private Billings Theophilus Avery, Jr.
Cook Dominick Barber
Corporal Irving E. Bogue
Private James Carver
Private Erwin A. Cohen
Private George A. Dawson
Sargeant Robert O. Fletcher
Private Thomas M. Growns
Private Thomas Perry Johnson
Private Frederick J. Kelley
Lieutentant John F. McCormick
Private Patrick O’Leary
Private James H. H. Perrin
Private Arthur P. Schulz
Private William Stankiewicz
Private Wladslaw Szablinski
Private John Ulan
Corporal Frank A Wilcox
Corporal Walter J. Woodmansee
Private Charles Zdancewicz
Private William M. Durr
Private Donald G. Fraser

With grateful thanks to the American Battle Monuments Commission for all their efforts to commemorate the service, achievements and sacrifice of the members of the U. S. Armed forces buried and memorialized around the world and at home, families and the public will have access to multiple artifact collections through their collections and preservation staff.

Classroom lessons, ideas and resources can be obtained through www.abmceducation.org

ABMC staff members are available to escort family to gravesite locations, to assist with photographs, and give a personal guided tour at each site.

Flowers can be placed within ABMC cemeteries at gravesites. Floral arrangement orders must be placed directly with a florist.

Direct next-of-kin scan request a photo of the floral arrangement at the grave site at no charge. Direct next-of-kin are defined as parent, spouse, sibling, or child of the deceased.

For more information and for a listing of all other services available please visit the ABMC website at www.abmc.gov

And while Norwich, CT has a loose connection with the Roosevelt family it should be noted that the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt has two sons buried next to each other in the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-Sur-Mer, France. Quentin Roosevelt (born November 19, 1897) First Lieutenant, U. S. Army Air Corps, 95th Aeroplance Squadron, Air Service, Died July 14, 1918 Buried Plot D Row 28 Grave 46 and WWII Brigadier General Theodore J. Roosevelt, O- 139726, Died July 12, 1944, Plot D Row 28, Grave 45.

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