Greenwich Celebrates the Fourth

“Before the festivities began, there was a reading of the Declaration of Independence.”

This Fourth of July the Town begins a yearlong celebration of America’s 250th Anniversary, culminating on July 4, 2026, our semi-quincentennial. The Greenwich Library Oral History Project has documented the remembrances of several residents whose reminisces of festive patriotic events are vivid and heart-warming. The following excerpts recall Fourth of July celebrations in the late 1890s and 1920s and Greenwich’s Tercentenary in 1940.

Bicentennial Fireworks display, 1976.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

Gladys Husted Rungee Owen, a descendant of the storied Husted family, one of the seminal families in Greenwich, was interviewed in 1993 by Oral History Project volunteer Rhonda Barney Jenkins. Originally owners of one of two of the largest farms in town, Mrs. Husted traces her family back twelve generations in Greenwich. “There were two big farms here in Greenwich at the time, the Husted Farm…and my cousin’s farm, John Lyon, which spilled into Port Chester.”

The Fourth of July celebrations at the Husted Homestead were huge events. “Entire families of the whole town were invited here,” with as many as two hundred people. “Everybody…loved this party, even though it meant a lot of work… the last Fourth of July celebration was in 1903 on this place.” Some relatives from Brooklyn communicated their attendance by the arrival of homing pigeons, “our Morse code.” Before the festivities began, there was a reading of the Declaration of Independence “always read by some member of the Husted family, and also they never broke bread until the Congregational minister had given a prayer.” Henrietta Husted, Gladys Rungee Husted Owen’s grandmother, provided all the food and all the prizes. “In 1903 the big prize was her late husband’s beautiful shotgun.” It was awarded to the winner of the clay pigeon shooting contest. The surprise sharpshooter winner was seventeen-year-old Adeline Smith Husted, Gladys’s mother.

Lithograph reproduction of Fourth of July parade in Greenwich, circa 1800.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library.

Children looked forward to playing croquet, hoops, darts, horseshoes, and archery. Pony rides and billy goat rides were also popular activities for them. In case of rain, there were indoor games of Parcheesi, chinese checkers, charades, blind man’s bluff, pin-the-tail-on-the donkey, and hide-the-penny. “You were supposed to guess which person had the penny. Grandmother Henrietta always said, ‘You take care of the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.’” Prizes for the winners included produce from the farm including apples, peaches, cherries, eggs, and potatoes.

The employees on the Husted Farm and neighboring farms also gathered together for games and activities. The different farms would play against one another in competitions including tug-of-war, wood-sawing, “bale the hay,” horseshoe pitching, baseball, and ox-pulling. For the latter, “They’d bring a great big boulder, and the oxen of the different farms would come and pull, up towards Knollwood Drive; and that was really quite something.”

Meat preparation would start the day before by heating the rocks in the large pit of the barbeque and keeping the spits continually rotating. “Almost the whole body of a steer would be on this.” The feast included beef and pork, fresh corn, baked potatoes, clams, oysters, and homemade apple pies. Around four o’clock there would be singers and musicians, followed by dancing.

At the end of the evening, guests would sit on the lawn and watch fireworks. Each child would also be given a sparkler “and they would dance around the lawn; and, of course, they didn’t have the electricity we have today. And Grandmother Henrietta said it looked like a whole bunch of fireflies descending on the group.” The one forbidden activity concerned firecrackers. “Great-grandmother would allow no firecrackers, absolutely no firecrackers…and they never had an accident because great-grandmother had very strict rules about what the children were to do and what they were not to do if they were coming to her party.”

Firecrackers, on the other hand, were the highlight of Fourth of July celebrations in the 1920s for Warren White and Frank Nicholson, interviewed by OHP volunteers Marian Phillips (in 1983) and Olwen Jones (in 1974), respectively. As Nicholson recalled of his youth, “You had to make preparation for Fourth of July. You had to save up your money to buy your firecrackers one at a time…and store them away in some place where your brother couldn’t find them so you could be the first one out here on the Fourth of July at the crack of dawn to set off the first firecracker.”

According to Warren White’s memories of those days, “We purchased our fireworks in Breslow’s News Store. Mr. Breslow had a cigar, newspaper, and magazine store on lower Greenwich Avenue… At Fourth of July time, he sold fireworks. In front of this store, you’d have two or three counters heaped with these skyrockets, salutes, the most volatile things…and just see the fire commissioners today. They’d have apoplexy… Anyway, it was something to be looked forward to and I remember it with great pleasure.”

American Legion Drum Corps marching in Greenwich Tercentenary parade, 1940.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

On a more historic note, Marie Krumeich, interviewed by OHP volunteer Kim Klein in 1974, remembered the extravagant Tercentenary Pageant held in June 1940, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of Greenwich. “…July 18, 1640 is the date of the founding of Greenwich. The founding fathers Daniel Patrick and Robert Feake landed on Greenwich Point in a small boat from Captain’s Island, and purchased the land for the first settlement from the Indians for twenty-five coats and some trinkets.” A reenactment of the purchase “actually took place right out there on the Point.” The Tercentenary Pageant lasted a week. “There were many parades, lovely costumes, musical programs, floats, and fireworks every night. It was entitled ‘Under Three Flags’ because Greenwich was first an English colony, and then it became a Dutch Manor for a few years, and finally after the Revolution, American.”

This was a town-wide event in which “it seemed everyone in town had an active part,” including the storekeepers who had their windows decorated with historical displays. Various scenes from Greenwich history were reenacted on the old Greenwich football field including the colonial period, the visits to Greenwich by General George Washington and General Lafayette, the first train passing through town in 1848, the period of industrial development, the Civil War period, the Gay Nineties, the Turn of the Century, and the First World War Years in which Greenwich lost a flyer by the name of Major Bolling, for whom a statue is dedicated in front of the Havemeyer Building. “The finale even had a scene with a vision into the future of Greenwich. But this scene I don’t remember very well.”

Tercentenary Parade Viewers, 1940.
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society.

To commemorate this historic event, “a special Tercentenary Stamp designed by a local artist, George Wharton Edwards, was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in Washington. And a special Tercentenary Medal was made at the U.S. Mint, and I have a few of these.” In conclusion, Marie Krumeich stated, “Yes, it was a very exciting time and made a lasting impression on me. In fact, I have been deeply interested in Greenwich history ever since.”

The interviews “Husted Family,” “Growing Up on Lewis Street in the 1920s,” “Ice Cream and Automobiles,” and “The Tercentenary Pageant,” may be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library and are available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrators’ recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

WGCH – A Community Radio Station

By Mary A. Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor

“Radio is still a miracle to me. It was in the 1920s when I walked three miles to listen to Jack Dempsey try to knock out Gene Tunney unsuccessfully (for the title of world’s heavy-weight champion), or listen to Babe Ruth hit one out. And it’s still a miracle.”

 

George C. Stevens, WGCH President
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

WGCH Lobby Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

George Cooke Stevens, general manager of the Greenwich Broadcasting Corporation which owned WGCH at the time, spoke to Oral History Project volunteer Arthur Holch in 1976. His pride and excitement in heading a community radio station was palpable in his interview. Now, close to fifty years later, his words still speak to the relevance and continuing role WGCH plays in the community of Greenwich.
 
The first broadcast of WGCH 1490 AM was on September 15, 1964. It had taken the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) almost twenty years to approve the AM license to broadcast from its initial application. Initially, WGCH was an FM station. “I don’t think too many people remember WGCH–FM, which started in 1949… After three or four years, it was an uneconomic venture… The FM failed only because there simply weren’t enough FM sets around. FM all over the country were going dark and channels were being abandoned.” AM stations were also concerned about television, and were fearful of being put out of business. Stevens continued, “I was at NBC at the time… Television was looming as a huge threat to radio audiences.”

WGCH Lobby Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

Walter Lemmon founded the Greenwich FM station in 1949 and held the position of head of the Greenwich Broadcasting Corporation. He remained in that position when the AM license was granted in 1964 and died in 1967. Lemmon “was a naval communications officer…a pioneer in international short-wave broadcasting…a man of very strong character, of great determination. Extremely knowledgeable in all technical matters.” When Stevens first met Lemmon, “we seemed to hit it off from the beginning… He felt I could be of some assistance in helping the new fledgling WGCH 1490 AM. And, of course, I was interested.”
 
To help listeners remember the call numbers of the station, the Greenwich Post Office was  persuaded to change the original postal address of WGCH 1490 to 1490 Dayton Avenue. The Post Office box number “is Box 1490 and our telephone number is 869-1490. We felt it would help impress on the consciousness of the community the 1490 numbers.”

Saturday Night Request Party
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

So, why a community radio station? In the age before Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and so forth, it was a way “to establish a degree of news and information for people in this area which they can’t find anywhere else… So, we’re constantly looking for new ways to give people reasons to tune into WGCH, but intentionally to be a community-oriented station, locally based, and giving service to the people who live nearby.” When there’s an emergency “like the big power blackout of three or four years ago, then the whole town looks to a station like WGCH to serve as the heart of its communication system… We simply turn over the station to kind of a total community service role in emergencies like that.” Another way in which WGCH judged its effectiveness in those days, was its ability “to open up the airwaves to callers and let the community establish a total community dialogue… People on the street…can listen to the radio and find out really what’s going on in the whole town and the degree of the problem.”
 

Family Quiz Night Sign
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

Parents of yore may well remember telephone chains to alert one another of school closings or delays. They could also listen to the radio to learn this news. Despite the special codes established by the radio station to thwart false information, occasionally a school closing was fatuously reported by a student. “I think it was Father Gay of Saint Mary’s High School who had just driven down through heavy snows from Danbury in order to get here for opening of school. Few people were there… We learn from experience.”
 
WGCH was proud of its commitment to broadcast meetings of importance to the community. “We’ve carried every town meeting live, start to finish. We carry all of the Board of Education meetings live, start to finish. We carry all Board of Estimate meetings live, in their entirety, as well as many special Planning and Zoning hearings…Then we follow that up with numerous forums and discussions. We have ‘The Open Line.’”
 

WGCH Management and Staff
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

In addition to its focus on local news, Stevens cited the importance of national and world reports. “In fact, on some days I dare say we give our audience more national and world news on the hour than the networks do in New York, with the exception of the all-news stations like CBS and WINS.” Of the staff who worked at WGCH, Stevens cited Bill Coddaire (“our morning man”); Burt Steere (morning news); John Gentri (call-in programs); Marge Staples and Elizabeth Karp (interviews); Neil MacMillan (program manager); Fran Donald (library news); Grace Mackall (gardening expertise); George Barber and Earl Price (big bands and classical music), among others. At one point, four hundred high school students signed a petition requesting more rock music. “We’ve talked to them about putting some more on late nights. They claim they study better with this in the background.”

The Teen Turntable, 1949
Courtesy of Greenwich Historical Society

In conclusion, Stevens said, “Well, I think it (WGCH) has an identity.” One of its listeners summed it up for him. “He said, ’There’s something that’s different about this station outside of the fact that it’s obviously a local station. Your station is more human.’” Stevens proudly reflected on that observation. “I naturally was pleased by that. If we’re going to get a label, I’d be happy to settle for that one.”
 
The interview “WGCH: A Community Radio Station” may be read in its entirety or checked out at the main library. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.
 

Francis Steegmuller: Growing Up a Writer in Greenwich

By Mary Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor

What are the childhood influences from where one can trace a life’s passion? In the case of Francis Steegmuller, acclaimed recipient of many literary honors, his formative years in the Greenwich schools can be credited for igniting his literary gifts.

Francis Steegmuller
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Francis Steegmuller, born in 1906, was interviewed in 1977 by Oral History Project volunteer Catherine McNamara at his home in New York City. As he recalled his years growing up in Greenwich, he remembered with nostalgia simple pastimes like sledding down Sound View Drive, “blueberrying” and “blackberrying” in the woods across from his house, and ice skating at Ten Acres (where GHS is now located).

There were also long summer days at Little Captain’s Island beach “the only public bathing beach in Greenwich at that time.” Tod’s Point was then “completely private. Nobody dreamed of going to Tod’s Point to swim.” Bird watching was also a pleasing pastime. “My parents gave me some binoculars, and I used to spend a lot of time watching the birds. I always walked through the woods on my way to Havemeyer School.” Later, they lived in a home on the corner of Stanwich Road where “we kept chickens and pigs. It was really like a miniature farm.” His dad commuted to work in New York City each day “but at home he’d be a farmer in a modest way.”

 

Steegmuller described himself as a quiet, bookish fellow whose family was well-established in Greenwich. His mother had lived in Greenwich since her girlhood. “She knew all the people who had the stores on Greenwich Avenue and people who had the houses around.” Her stepmother, Sarah Held, and her sister, Minnie Held, “ran a hotel called the Held House (later known as Held Cottage). It was down on Indian Harbor.” His grandfather, an immigrant from Ireland, became Judge of Probate in Greenwich. Their family claimed four generations of lawyers in town. Steegmuller’s father hoped his son would become a certified public accountant “despite my bad marks in mathematics, which were really my only bad marks. He thought for a long time that it was too bad that I didn’t go into public accounting. It would have been a disaster, I assure you.”

 

Held Cottage
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Instead, Steegmuller credited two GHS teachers, in particular, as having had impressionable and long-lasting effects on his future endeavors. One was Catharine Woods “the teacher I knew best. I knew her from the time I was a freshman in high school (1918) until she died (1976).” As Steegmuller describes her, “She was an excellent teacher. We always enjoyed her class… She liked people who had a talent for writing, who loved words, who loved to read and to show that they could write. There was a magazine in school called The Green Witch. Those of us who wrote for that, she always encouraged them.” (Catharine Woods has also been credited by Truman Capote as recognizing and encouraging his writing talents while a student at GHS in the years 1939-1942.)

 

While a student at Columbia University, Steegmuller wrote his first book, O Rare Ben Jonson, published by Alfred Knopf in 1927, under the pseudonym Byron Steel, “a rather romantic name which seems silly to me now.” At the time Steegmuller also considered changing his name to a simpler one like Stuart or Fitzgerald. He gingerly approached his father about it who responded, “Do it if you want to. It’s a clumsy name. I’ve always had trouble with it, and I understand.” Because his dad was so understanding, “I knew I wanted to keep his name. So, I never did change it.” In recognition of the publication of his first book, “Catharine Woods invited me out for tea in New York. She took me to the Plaza Hotel for tea. I was young and, of course, thrilled… We remained friends from then on always.”

 

A second teacher whom Steegmuller cited as influencing his writing was “a very good French teacher, Mademoiselle Hooker… I found that I took quite easily to the study of French.” Upon graduation from GHS, he was awarded “a medal to the person who had the highest marks in French” by the Alliance Francaise in Greenwich. According to Steegmuller, “Both teachers had a considerable influence… It was only later, when I became interested in a particular French subject, Flaubert and his novel Madame Bovary, that I combined the two interests, the writing and the French.”

 

A further fascination with French was engendered by a travel book series his parents had given him entitled Stoddard’s Lectures. “In those days, of course, there wasn’t nearly as much travel, and he opened up fairylands to some of these people who were stay-at-homes… I was so fascinated by two volumes, one on Paris and one on France, that they were almost falling to pieces as a result of my childhood reading.” In addition, Steegmuller recalled one winter when, at the age of four, he and his family lived in Montreal. He conjectured, “So it was a combination of something innate or acquired at a very early age…combined with the good teaching I had from Mademoiselle Hooker, that gave me a basis in French, and so that later somehow I began to write about French things.”

 

In his literary career, at the time of his OHP interview in 1976, Steegmuller had written twenty books, several on the subject of Gustave Flaubert, including a translation of his letters, and was a recipient of the National Book Award. In conclusion, Steegmuller observed, “I had excellent teachers. I don’t think anyone could have had better teachers anywhere.”

 

The interview “School Days Remembered” may be read in its entirety or checked out at the main library. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.