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From the pages of the Evening Sentinel
This Week in Valley History...
Week of May 4 - 10
100 Years Ago - 1908
Monday, May 4
ANSONIA - The City will repair the wooden covered portion of the Bridge Street Bridge.
ANSONIA - The Webster Hose Company No. 3 accepts the auxiliary hose house and hose wagon on Central Street, donated by James McKeon. One of the Valley's only horse drawn fire engines in it history will carry 1000' of hose and 2 chemical extinguishers.
SHELTON - The fire-ruined Silver Plate Cutlery Company on Canal Street will be torn down to make room for a new 4 story 36x135' addition to the Adams Manufacturing Company, also known as the "Derby Cotton Mills". The addition will be used mostly for storage and finishing machines.
May 5
ANSONIA - A horse becomes frightened by an automobile on Main Street, and jumps in front of it. Trying to avoid the horse, the automobile drives though the front window of the Ansonia Trading Company on the corner with Water Street.
ANSONIA - Charles F. Brooker's former butler is sentenced to 7-12 years for stealing over $7000 in jewels on September 25, 1907. The theft occurred after the butler was discharged on suspicion of stealing. He reentered the home later that day while the family was at dinner and looted the place.
ANSONIA - The man on trial for murdering his wife on March 29 is found guilty of 2nd degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison.
ANSONIA - The Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church on Howard Avenue is roused by the ongoing destruction of church property by hoodlums. Many church, stable, and rectory windows have been smashed, iron and wood fences damaged or stolen, and trees or shrubs damaged. The police say they are investigating.
May 6
OXFORD - "The cold wave which followed so closely on the few summer-like days of last week, caused much uneasiness to people having fruit trees in bloom, particularly plum and peach trees which were showing indications of a heavy fruitage".
SEYMOUR - A French woodchopper's right foot is horribly injured when he slips under the wheels of a boxcar he was trying to illegally jump onto near the Seymour train station.
May 7
The heaviest rain thus far of the season, over 2" falls, accompanied by 22mph winds. A total of 3.38" falls in 24 hours.
ANSONIA -Jersey Street is covered with several inches of water again, and cellars are flooded, residents there very upset.
ANSONIA - A Black Hand letter is sent to real estate developer and landlord Phillip Cohen, asking for $2000 to be left in a bag at the Bridge Street Bridge. He ignores it.
DERBY - The Derby Choral Club holds a 10th anniversary concert at the Sterling Opera House. Mme. Louise Homer was the prima donna, from New York City's Metropolitan Opera House. The opera house was crowded despite the bad rainstorm outside.
May 8
ANSONIA - The George May & Son Grocery Store is gutted by fire at 12:20 AM, near Maple and High Streets.
May 9
SHELTON - A 4-story brick building, 38'x30' will be erected on the corner of Coram Avenue and Kneen Street. It will have one five-room flat each floor. This building still stands today across from Good Shepherd Church.
75 Years Ago - 1933
Thursday, May 4
DERBY - The Derby Relief Fund employed 82 people this week, a record, and paid them $550.40 Most of them are working on cemeteries and Academy Hill Road improvements.
May 5
ANSONIA - The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union opens in Ansonia, with the International President giving an address at Christ Church. The hotels are packed.
SHELTON - Shelton Mutual Aid has spent $1062.35 in the last 4 months on labor.
May 6
ANSONIA - The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union continues with a grand banquet at the Ansonia Armory.
ANSONIA - William P. Crawford, armorer at the Ansonia Armory, dies at Griffin Hospital in the early morning. He had been in charge of armory since it was built, and before that was the coachman for Charles Bliss. The Bliss house stood where the Armory would later be built, and Mr. Crawford simply switched his employers, remaining on the same spot. He lived in the armory, being tied to the neighborhood for 44 years.
DERBY & SHELTON - 40 state police, and the entire regular and supernumerary polices of both cities are on duty for the Yale Regatta. Yale varsity rowing crews win the Blackwell Cup in one of the closest races ever up to that time, beating Penn State by only 1/5th of a second. The Columbia rowing team was a distant third. Yale crews sweep all 4 races. Rain kept crowds small, and there were only 12 cars on the observation train which ran parallel to the race on the Shelton side, the smallest train ever. There wasn't even a grandstand at Riverview Park as had been on past "Derby Days". The Penn State shell capsized in 1 race, dumping 20 into the water. Yale and Columbia crews made sure the rowers made it to a raft before they continued the race. It is felt that the ongoing Great Depression may have lessened crowds.
May 7
ANSONIA - The 37th Annual Convention of the Connecticut Christian Endeavor Union closes at the Ansonia Congregational Church in Ansonia. The convention delegates adopt a resolution opposing the legalization of alcohol by federal and state governments.
DERBY - The Polish Falcons officially open their new clubhouse in the former Derby Savings Bank building at Main Street and Caroline Street. The all day program includes a parade from the clubhouse to St. Michael's Church for mass.
May 8
ANSONIA - The head of the Ideal Dress Company is fined $40 and costs for employing 4 minors without school certificates, and for doing it for more than 8 hours a day.
DERBY - Two men are arrested for cutting trees for firewood on Island Park.
SHELTON - The United Shirt and Blouse Company on 84 Center Street reopens with 125 employees and a 7.5% increase in wages. Employees are now unionized through the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The firm had closed 2 weeks ago to protest low prices from competing sweatshops.
May 9
It is announced in today's paper 3.2% beer and wine will be legal in Connecticut tomorrow.
ANSONIA - 22 seek liquor permits in Ansonia, 14 for chain stores and rest to individuals.
ANSONIA - Ansonia Mutual Aid employed 168 men and paid them $1084.62 in past week. 83 were put to work on the river wall job.
DERBY - The Unity Shirt Company reopens on 300 Seymour Avenue with a 7.5% increase in wages. The firm employs 250 girls, and is now unionized through the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. The shirt factory has urged other textile manufacturers to unionize and fight sweatshops
May 10 - THE END OF PROHIBITION IN CONNECTICUT - 3.2% beer and wine is now legal in Connecticut, for the first tine since 1919. Despite this, alcohol is in short supply in the Valley. There are 133 alcohol selling permits pending at the Superior Court at New Haven pending, mostly for chain stores in area.
ANSONIA - The St. Sebastian Young Men's Club is organized by Italian youths of Ansonia.
DERBY - The City is as "dry as a bone", no one has permits to sell alcohol yet. Chain stores actually have beer in stock, but cannot sell it.
SEYMOUR - 15 have sought permits to sell alcohol.
50 Years Ago - 1958
Tuesday, May 6
OPERATION ALERT 1958 - In a simulated nuclear attack on the United States, four nuclear bombs are said to have detonated on Connecticut's largest cities. Public scrambled into bomb shelters at 10:37 AM. Traffic is halted. Fire engines and civil defense unites scramble to remote parts of various cities and towns to avoid destruction. Parts of Shelton said to be uninhabitable from the nuclear attack on Bridgeport. When the all clear is sounded, everyday life goes on.
May 9
ANSONIA - Rev. Peter L. Manfredi of Holy Rosary Church celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. He was one of the first Italian priests ordained in Connecticut. Born on February 13, 1880, assigned to Holy Rosary on April 3, 1913.
DERBY - Gov. Ribicoff vetoes a State bill that would allow Goshen residents to swim in Tyler Lake and West Side Pond. Because of this, the Housatonic Council of the Boy Scouts of America announces from its Derby office that it cannot build the proposed Housatonic Scout Reservation along West Side Pond now, and will have to sue to recover the $10,000 down payment it made on the property.
SHELTON - Fire damages an Isinglass Road home.
SHELTON - The P. Francini Company of Derby has been assigned the work of rebuilding the fire-gutted Good Shepherd Church, for an estimated cost of $200,000.
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