Norfolk Then…
Before centralizations, the Norfolk district school system included 11 grammar schools, each managed by a local school committee. Schoolhouses were simple one-room structures with a wood stove provoking heat. The North Middle School still stands at the corner of Ashpohtag and Bald Mountain Roads. The district schools served a varying number of children, and teachers were usually […]
Norfolk Then…
Norfolk Then Fire Chief Martin O’Connor takes the first dig during ground-breaking ceremonies for a new firehouse on June 6, 1970. Also pictured are (from left): Peter Mulville (builder), Walter Allyn (Selectman), O’Connor, Robert Mead (Chairman of the Building Committee), and Russell Childs (architect). The need for larger quarters had become particularly pressing when the […]
Norfolk Then…
The Yankees and the Red Sox are back at it, but does anyone remember the rivalry between the Crickets and the Spiders? In 1915, a New York lawyer by the name of George Case laid out a baseball field adjacent to his summer home on Sunset Ridge. There he sponsored two teams made up of […]
Norfolk Then…
Norfolk’s Village Hall provided a variety of entertainment for townspeople at the turn of the 20 th century, as this 1906 photograph of the Arcanum Minstrels illustrates. At that time professional minstrel shows were on the wane, having been replaced by vaudeville, although amateur troupes such as this one continued to make use of blackface […]
Norfolk Then…
An aerial photograph of Norfolk provides a glimpse of the town blanketed by snow on a winter’s day. At left, the Catholic Church designed by Alfredo Taylor still has its tower with open belfry. Next door children play in the yard behind the Center School, set well back from the road. This imposing brick structure […]
Norfolk Then…
For the Kendall family of Norfolk, Christmas meant gathering to decorate an evergreen tree in their home. If this sounds traditional, it wasn’t always so. Claude Kendall, the son of Norfolk’s talented photographer Marie, recalled in a written reminiscence that his family was the first in Norfolk to have a Christmas tree. Each year Marie […]
Norfolk Then…
Eighty-eight years ago on November 2, 1920, Norfolk women cast their ballots for the first time in a presidential election. This photograph is a timely reminder of the long struggle fought by many dedicated women for basic civil liberties including the right to vote. Pictured at the annual convention of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association […]
Norfolk Then…
The United States Men’s Gymnastics Team in training for the Olympics? Or a group of Norfolk men working out at the Eldridge Gymnasium (now Town Hall)? Any one of the men in this 1896 photograph might have participated in the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece in April of that year. There were […]
Norfolk Then…
The auction is about to begin as shoppers browse among tables, chairs and chests of drawers displayed in front of George W. Scoville’s store on Greenwoods Road near the corner of the Green. Scoville was a dealer in furniture and upholstery as well as town undertaker and funeral director. The store no longer stands, but […]
