Oxford Historical Society, a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization
Twitchell Rowland Homestead Museum
P.O. Box 582, 60 Towner Lane, Oxford, CT 06478
Annual Meeting to Feature Civil War Re-enactor Kevin Johnson
The Oxford Historical Society Annual Meeting on Saturday, November 16, at 2 p.m. will feature reenactor Kevin Johnson. Known throughout the state for his view of Connecticut through the experiences of the Black men in its history, Kevin will portray Jordan Freeman from the Revolutionary War in Connecticut in “A Black Revolutionary War Experience.” Jordan Freeman, an African American man, helped defend Fort Griswold and New London during the Revolutionary War.
Historians estimate the number of Black soldiers in the Revolutionary War to have been about 5,000 men, serving in militias, seagoing services, and support activities, including nearly 500 from Connecticut and at least 3 from Waterbury. Some enlisted because they felt it was their duty; others because they were offered their freedom in return for satisfactory completion of a set period of service. The presentation is based on extensive research in the collections of the Connecticut State Library and the Museum of Connecticut History at 231 Capitol Ave, opposite the State Capitol in Hartford.
Kevin Johnson is an employee of the State Library’s History and Genealogy Unit. In addition to portraying Jordan Freeman, he has been presenting as Pvt. William Webb, a soldier in the Civil War, for more than 16 years and has given more than 500 presentations. The Connecticut State Library provides high quality library and information services to state government and the citizens of Connecticut. It also preserves and makes accessible the records of Connecticut’s history and heritage.
Admission is free for students and 15 per person for adults. Refreshments will be served. The program is at Great Hill United Methodist Church on Great Hill Road at the rotary in Seymour. The church hall is handicapped accessible and the parking lot is level and large.
Our Annual Tractor Show and Meet, October 6
Our Annual Tractor Meet will take place Sunday, October 6, from noon to 4 pm at the society’s TwitchellRowland Homestead at 60 Towner Lane. There is free admission for all and docent-led tours of the Homestead are available. Vintage farm equipment, some customized for local needs, will be parked on the lawn and there will be plenty of folks to chat with. All ages will enjoy this rally of local vehicles. Look for the Litchfield Hills refreshment truck, too. The meet will be canceled in the event of bad weather
Historic Flash Flood Brings Serious Damage to Historic Properties
Serious damage foreshadows changes to the look and feel of Oxford going forward. Multiple sites centered on Route 67 as it follows the Little River have had serious damage and at this point work is ongoing and extensive. Two landmarks that are significant to Oxford’s history have been marked by damage: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and The Mill on Park Road at Oxford Road. These brief profiles are excerpted from ‘Historic Buildings of Oxford Past and Present.’ Copies of the 2017 award winning paperback book featuring color photos includes text researched and composed by members of the Oxford Historical Society and are on sale at the Twitchell Rowland Homestead.
ST. PETER’S CHURCH:
The current St. Peter’s Church replaced an earlier house of worship on Governor’s Hill Road built in 1767. In 1835 the present church was consecrated on land donated by Chauncey Hatch on Oxford Road.
This Episcopal house of worship was constructed in a Gothic architectural design with a twenty-foot-high bell tower. The eight double lancet stained-glass memorial windows in the sanctuary and the narthex add a special beauty to the building.
PARK ROAD MILL:
Perhaps the second oldest mill in the United States, the mill on Park Road is on the National Register for Historic Places. The earliest references to it date from 1747, and it continued either as a gristmill or a sawmill from that time until 1965 when the last mill operator, Joe Montriski, died in 1965.
While owned by a succession of millers, it was Montriski who, after buying the structure in 1926, added the main part of the building, converted it from a gristmill to a sawmill, and added a cider mill that produced up to 50 gallons a day. In 1971, William and Margaret Emerson converted the mill into a unique private home, incorporating original walls and machinery into their living quarters. The original dam and waterfall can be seen through high windows also added by the Emersons. The mill is currently owned by Vickie Tkacz.
THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS!!
Our annual Peach Festival was finally held September 7. It was postponed following the floods of August 18. In spite of the rain the Society hosted nearly 200 people at Great Hill United Methodist Church in Seymour.
Inspiring photos showed the art and lives of the Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who sought refuge from World Wars and Revolutions in rural Connecticut. Oxford’s Russian Village was home to about 40 families during its height of popularity.
The annual homemade peach shortcakes were popular as always. The local peaches from Gazy Bros. and the Rich Farm peach ice cream were a hit. We are additionally grateful for Marilyn Serus’ efforts to bake us a dozen peach pies which sold out in the first hour – as always! We are totally dependent on our members and friends who worked so hard. Our net income was roughly 11500 which will help us continue work to finish restoration of the Munn Schoolhouse and open it to the public soon.
Oxford Heritage Recipe
ALICE EAMES NYBERG
Alice Eames Nyberg is remembered by her daughter Eleanor for her intelligence, her skills including gardening and house design, her love of her family, and her love of animals.
Alice was born to Eleanor Soper Eames and James Henry Eames in Massachusetts in 1904. Her father had tried his hand at many jobs including mining for gold in the Alaska Gold Rush, but finally settled as a well-respected Gothic architect in New York City. He dreamed of a farm and finally bought a 100-acre spread on Christian Street with a large colonial house, a huge barn and a lot of mud. He continued to work in New York to provide money for necessary renovations.
The family wintered in the City and spent summers in Oxford. This was heaven for Alice, with wonderful places to play among the trees and rocks and in the haymow. To her delight, the family acquired animals: cows, calves, horses, pigs, poultry, cats and dogs. The animals did not necessarily live in the barnyard, and one family story tells about J. Henry heading for his bed one night and finding a pig among his covers. Eventually, he sold this farm and bought another on Christian Street, plus land on Larkey Road.
When in Oxford, Alice went to Christian Street School. After they moved to Oxford full time, Alice attended Crosby High School in Waterbury, walking the railroad track to Towantic Station and the train.
Upon graduation from high school, Alice enrolled in the Yale Summer Normal Course in New Haven for 3 different summers. She boarded in a Yale dorm, riding her bike to Seymour to catch the trolley to New Haven, and coming home for weekends.
It was in New Haven that she met Richard Nyberg when he offered her a ride home, and he became a constant in her life with picnics, hayrides and dances. The day after her 18th birthday, Alice started teaching at Riggs Street School. The following year, she taught at the Purchase School in Southbury.
Richard gave up his teaching job at the Southford School, convincing his father to invest in a country store in Middlebury, Alice too resigned from teaching and helped Richard in the business. They hoped they would make enough money to marry sooner and live over the store. Their wedding took place on June 6, 1925.
On May 28, 1925, Doris Nichols stopped by. They were chatting in the kitchen over the store when smoke from a fire drifted up from downstairs. Only the cash register and their truck were saved from the blaze. They lost almost everything else. After a cross-country trip looking unsuccessfully for a place to settle, they returned home with no plans and began living in the little garage Richard had built on Jack’s Hill on property Alice’s father had bought. In 1933, they enlarged the garage into a home. Alice designed the house with her architect father. Later the couple would build two investment homes on Jack’s Hill Road and one on Larkey Road.
They settled into the community. Among other jobs, Richard was an insurance agent and had his office first in their house and later in a little building by the road. They were charter members of the Grange. Four children were born to them: Louise (1930), Eleanor (1940), James (1945) who did not survive, and Jessie (1950.)
Life was not easy. They only had one car which Richard took to work. Alice bought much of what she needed including clothes from peddlers. Coal and groceries were purchased in Seymour. Laundry except for sheets and her husband’s shirts were scrubbed on a washboard and hung out to dry.
Appliances such as an electric stove and a refrigerator came gradually, and for a time food to be kept cold was lowered into the well. Alice was an immaculate housekeeper.
The yard around the house was also neat and clean. Alice planted many perennial gardens plus a vegetable and annual garden. There was an orchard. With World War II, the family began raising chickens, reluctantly turning their tennis court into a chicken yard. A cow provided milk and butter. Barns to shelter the animals were added to the property. A lily pool in the backyard was stocked with goldfish. Fun included trips all over the United States, sometimes finding and purchasing donkeys for their farm.
Alice loved donkeys and her first, Pinocchio, was bought as a pet. Fourteen more followed, and Jack’s Hill Donkey Farm was born. The family gave rides in a ring in front of the barn. They provided entertainment at local church fairs and birthday parties from the early 1940’s into the 1950’s. The donkeys were shown at the Bethlehem Fair. Even after she no longer kept them as a business, Alice continued with some of her furry friends in her barn until 1965. All were pets and all had names.
In the last years of her life, Alice’s daughter, Louise, gave her mother a notebook and asked her to write down some memories of her extraordinary life. Louise said that Alice would disappear for hours in her room, and some months later returned the notebook now filled with the story of Alice’s first five decades. That became the book “In Those Days,” published by the Oxford Historical Society and available for purchase at the Twitchell Rowland Homestead.
Alice was a homebody and loved the house and yard she had created, living there until she passed on in 1987 at age 82. She loved to cook, and guests were treated to a big meal. Her daughter, Eleanor L. Sturges, remembers her mother making this recipe for Tuna Rollups for her and her sister Jessie for supper on school nights.
Oxford Heritage Recipe
TUNA OR HAM ROLL-UPS
For the Dough Sift together:
- 3 cups flour
- 4 1⁄2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 1⁄2 tsp. salt
- Pour into a 2 – cup measuring pitcher (Pyrex): 1⁄2 cup Wesson Oil
- Pour: 1 cup milk on top of the oil. Don’t stir them together. Pour all at once into the flour. Stir with a table fork until the mixture clears sides of bowl and rounds up into a ball. Knead (with your hands) 10 times in the bowl without adding any extra flour. Divide the ball with your fingers.
- Put each lump on a 12″ x 12″ square of waxed paper. Flatten each lump with your hands.
- Put another piece of 12″ x 12 ” waxed paper on top of each ball of dough. Roll with rolling pin until dough reaches the edges of the paper.
- Peel off the top paper and cut each square of dough into 9 pieces.
- Place 1 tablespoon of filling (below) on a square and roll up as for a jell roll.
- Place sealed side down in a large pan or on a cookie sheet (ungreased). Roll up one square at a time and don’t allow the roll-ups to touch in the pan.
- Repeat with the remaining ball of dough.
- Bake 10 – 15 minutes in a hot (400 degrees) oven.
Tuna Filling:
- Mix together:
- 1 flat can tuna (2 small or 1 large can)
- 1⁄2 cup celery, chopped fine
- 1 egg, unbeaten.
Ham Filling:
- 1 Daisy Ham (about a 6″ long roll)
- 1 large whole egg
- 6 slices white bread – crumbled
- 2 tsp. (heaping) Gulden’s Mustard
- Put the ham through the meat chopper (food processer.) Mix ham, crumbs and egg in a bowl. Add mustard last and mix well.
Sauces:
- Heat 1 can Cream of Chicken or Cream of Mushroom for Ham Rollups. Add just enough boiling water to soup so it will pour over the Rollups or use liquid from a can of peas (5 tablespoons.) Top baked Rollups with sauce and serve.
Thank you to Alice Nyberg’s daughter, Eleanor L. Sturges, for sharing her memories of her mother. Much of the information in this article came from Alice’s memoir “In Those Days” and from Louise N. Burr’s unpublished autobiography, “It Was Always interesting.”
Join the Effort to Preserve Oxford’s Historic Rural Heritage
- Follow us on Facebook: @oxfordhistoricalsociety
- Like Facebook page to let foundations know the Society has your support
- Join the Historical Society. Download a membership form here
Historical Society Members Open the Congregational Church for Persons Stranded During the Flash Flood
Sunday August 18, 2024 will be long remembered in Oxford. A driving rain storm hit the town early in the day and continued into the night. By the end of the storm nearly 16 inches of rain had fallen and damage was done from one side of town to the other. Worst of all, two women drowned. No one could have imagined the degree of impact this disaster would have.
As of this writing, we have only started to add up the totals: houses flooded and destroyed, roads and bridges ripped up and stripped down to underlay and rough stones, mudslides burying possessions and properties. The town, state and federal governments as well as community and private groups have started pouring funds into the town. The question,”Where is Oxford?” is common and our southwestern Connecticut suburban town is in the national news.
One tale that will be retold is of the four members of the Oxford Historical Society who left the Twitchell Rowland Homestead at the end of their monthly executive board meeting at 4 pm and surprisingly met again outside the Oxford Congregational Church an hour later. Each of them had driven away from the Homestead individually taking their normal route home in spite of the driving rain that was flooding the yard of the house museum.
The first indication of trouble was the flooded lower end of Towner Lane near St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church – it was impassable so everyone drove up Towner Road toward Christian Street. Three turned right and one left; only to find rain spurting like a 3-foot geyser from the storm drains and runoff washing down fist size rocks from a driveway on the uphill side. And then a pick up truck ran through the runoff blinding one of the drivers.
Once out on Route 67 progress was slow in the rain that continued to pour and the road was obscured by giant puddles of unknown depth. Hogsback Road was blockaded by sawhorses and a large puddle so two of the folks drove further along toward the center of Oxford. Then they found Governor’s Hill also blockaded. Unknown to the pair, another had tried Riggs Street while the fourth, who had headed home to Southbury, was turning back as there was nowhere to go in the flooded streets.
One after the other the four pulled into the parking lot of the Oxford Congregational Church. They all attended the church and knew the lot was a local high spot and a good space to wait out the deluge. To their surprise they found the church lot already full of cars, later discovering from restaurant staff that the manager of the Oxford House across the street had staff move their cars to the church lot while the water behind the restaurant grew as waves pushed the Little River higher and higher flooding their parking lot.
By 5 pm two deacons agreed since they had keys they would open the church to offer marooned people rest rooms or a dry place to sit out the storm for a while. And as they walked in to the building they were joined by two more attendees and then the strangers began staggering in having left their cars stranded along Academy Road and Route 67.
Ultimately 25 people – all strangers to each other except for the four church members who had come from the Historical Society meeting – gathered and warmed up with coffee, tea and leftover coffee hour treats. News and photos of the flood’s devastation were shared as the refugees talked on their cell phones for hours. Waves of water continued to flow down Route 67. Puzzles and games to relieve the tension were pulled from the church’s stash of tag sale donations. Kind neighbors arrived from a nearby home offering peanut butter sandwiches.
At least three of the stranded folks were on their way to a concert in Bridgeport where the weather had cleared. One pair of grandparents never got to their family to babysit for the event. Slowly some people decided to brave the increasing dark and try to find a route home. The visitors left their mark as they signed their names in the church’s Guest Book.
By 10 pm town crew members arrived and talked to each person left to determine a clear route to their destination. The coffee pot, cups and napkins were cleaned up and the lights turned out. The door was locked and checked and lives were resumed. But a number of people had enjoyed a dry, warm space and had a tour of the historic meeting house, learning a bit of its history. Sometimes being stranded with a member of a historical society can be a great way to weather a storm…while history is unfolding!
NOTE: The Historical Society is saddened by the loss of life and property and horrified by the destruction and damage of historic buildings such as St Peter’s Episcopal Church and The Mill on Park Road. The members of the Oxford United Church of Christ Congregational have generously supported fund raising efforts and are relived to report no damage to the church. This chapter of Oxford history will stick with those who witnessed it for the rest of their lives. 
Open Houses Scheduled
Join us on the first and third Sunday each month when the Twitchell-Rowland Homestead is open to the public from 2 pm to 4 pm. Docents chat about the history of the house and the items found inside as well as other topics of interest to the community. There is no charge for these open days: September 15 and October 6 and 20. The museum was closed Labor Day weekend.
Books produced by the Society are available for purchase as well as the unique notecard sets created using local art and photographs. Proceeds benefit the society’s events and activities as well as maintenance of the buildings and grounds.
On Display: the Homestead Museum is featuring sewing baskets, a staple of daily life for decades and now treasured antiques. Tissue sewing patterns, needle packets, Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine brochures, buttons, buttons and more buttons plus a child’s sewing machine from the ‘50’s are on show among packets of sewing notions and spools of sewing thread. All the sundries are on loan from society members and friends.
Twitchell-Rowland Homestead 60 Towner Lane, Oxford, CT
Built circa 1755
Home of Oxford Historical Society
Mr. Munn’s One-Room School 60 Towner Lane, Oxford, CT Built circa 1855
Preparing to be opened soon
Volunteer Opportunity:
Help Wanted: Love history?
Fascinated by old houses? What a great opportunity to share your passion by becoming a docent at The Homestead. Volunteers of all ages including teens and students are welcome to participate.
We will provide training and you can share the fun with other volunteers. You do not need to be a member to qualify. For more information contact: Nancy Farnum 203-888-0230.
OHS membership forms can be downloaded at the OHS website and checks can be mailed to OHS, PO Box 582, Oxford, CT 06478. Individual memberships are $10, Seniors and Junior Associates (under 18) $10, Families $25 and Business Supporters ($200).
Not only do member dollars help with society expenses and activities, the numbers of members are used by grant givers as an indication of involvement with the community. Also listed are opportunities for volunteering. Be sure to check those that appeal to you. Being a member really counts for us!
Local History on Offer:
Over the years, Town Historian Dorothy DeBisschop had presented “If You Lived in Oxford in 1919” each year to all the third graders in Oxford to help the students meet their local history state-mandated requirement.
The Town Historian is also available to give that talk for similar local history talks to local groups.