Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Ernest Thompson Seton

In 1902, a few rambunctious, somewhat unruly, children painted the iron gates of a private estate in Cos Cob with “all kinds of things that never should have been put on a gate with paint.” This singular incident may be viewed as the beginning of the formation of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. 

Ernest Thompson Seton, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

The gates were located at the entrance to a 100-acre estate on Orchard Street, known as Wyndygoul, that belonged to Ernest Thompson Seton, who had purchased it two years earlier.  Instead of calling for severe consequences for the young perpetrators, Ernest Thompson Seton must have decided instead that these children didn’t have enough productive ways in which to spend their idle hours. He visited Cos Cob School and spoke to some boys, inviting them to his property for an overnight stay during Easter vacation. One of them was Leonard S. Clark, ten years old at the time, who was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Penny Bott in 1975. He proclaimed at the time of his interview, “ . . . honestly and truthfully, I didn’t do it (paint the gates!).” 

Boys by their tepee at Wyndygoul.
Courtesy of Charles A. Clark
 

Leonard had clear memories of that first overnight at Wyndygoul (a Scottish name meaning Windy Gulch). “I remember distinctly that we were told to bring along a blanket, so that we could sleep in a tent that night.”  Mr. Seton’s “tent” was, in reality, “an original Indian teepee that Mr. Seton had bought somewhere from Indians and brought with him to Wyndygoul.” That night, by the light of an open fire, “Mr. Seton told us stories. . . . When he told us stories about the Indians . . . everybody paid attention. Not only paid attention, but we were just entranced with his talking. . . . Nobody ran around, nobody left, nobody turned their heads, nobody spoke. . . . He spoke of the Indians as outstanding individuals.” In addition, the boys were given advice about values, “about fair play, about never lying. He looked down on an individual if you told a falsehood. . . . We were taught always to tell the truth.”

 

Ernest Thompson Seton teaching archery, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

At the close of that first night’s camp experience, Mr. Seton invited the boys to come back in the summer for a longer stay. The boys were to be called Woodcraft Indians and given Indian names. Clark’s name was “Broken Arm.” Their activities were chosen primarily to enhance their knowledge and skills of life in the woods. One involved swimming across the lake, which was about a hundred yards. “We ran races for which we got what he called a ‘coup.’ A coup was a feather that we could put in our hair . . . and, if you did particularly good, on the upper part of the feather was a little white thread that he had put on, and that was a grand coup.” They also raced around the lake “for the hundred yards and then we had the two-twenty races.” 


Ernest Thompson Seton teaching fire-making, from "By a Thousand Fires," by Julia Seton.
Copyright 1967 by Julia Seton.
Reproduced by permission of Doubleday & Co., Inc.

 A favorite game was the “deer hunt” in which one boy was elected to be the deer and given a head start. He would wear shoes onto which iron hoof forms, resembling deer hoofs and made by a blacksmith, were fastened. Off he would go over hills and rocks, trying to elude the “hunters” who followed the tracks until the “deer” was found to great elation. “It was an honor to be the deer, and we all wanted to be the deer, and Mr. Seton would change around so we would all have a chance.”

 The next year, Mr. Seton invited the boys to return “and then it grew, and all the Cos Cob boys came,” eventually including other boys from Greenwich. Ernest Seton taught the boys lessons which resonated with them throughout their lives. “Everything Mr. Seton taught us had something to do with . . . the development of fine young men, in every sense of the word. . . . He was teaching us honesty. . . . He was teaching us to be a team, to play together. He was teaching us of manhood that was to come, and he was teaching us the worth of outdoor life. . . . Everything that you can think of that’s good.” In addition, “There were no harsh words, no swear words. Swearing was one of the things that you just didn’t do. . . . While we were having a good time, in reality he was teaching us the proper things in life.”

 Ernest Thompson Seton was a member of the Camp Fire Club of America and invited that group to come to Wyndygoul to observe the Woodcraft Indians. He also wrote a book entitled “The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians,” which delineated in great detail the rules, goals, games, and activities of the program he created. Sir Robert Baden-Powell of England, who authored “Scouting for Boys” and organized the Boy Scouts in England, was impressed and influenced by Seton. “But where we were called Seton Indians . . . he called them Boy Scouts.”


Leonard S. Clark
Courtesy of Maryanne Gjersvik

 Leonard proudly stated, “So the Boy Scout movement that’s over the world today . . . came from England back to us. . . . And so the first Boy Scouts in the United States were the group in Cos Cob under the leadership of Mr. Seton. . . . I attribute the good health, the fine characters we had . . . to the outstanding training Mr. Seton gave us boys in Cos Cob.” 

 The interview Seton’s Indians” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by 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.


Tuesday, January 16, 2024

YEARS AGO IN GLENVILLE

“The whole town was like a big
family. We shared each other’s joys and sorrows.” Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty, on three separate occasions in 1975/76,  was interviewed by Katherine Scanlon of the Greenwich Library Oral History Project to capture memories of a lifetime in Glenville. She had much to tell about a life that had its share of hardships and setbacks, but was remembered by the joy and comfort of a loving and large family.

Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty photo by Karl Gleeson
Courtesy of Oral History Project.

Frances was the third of ten children born in 1907 to Polish immigrants.  “They had such large families. Everybody had. I don’t think there was any with less than five.” According to Frances, “We were all Polish-speaking people. . . . There was a great crowd (of immigrants) that came at once; we were all growing up together.”

Glenville was largely a company town. “Almost every house in Glenville was owned by the American Felt Company.” Rent of a dollar a room was paid to the AFC. Families who managed to snare a house with multiple bedrooms would rent them out to boarders for extra cash. “I don’t know anyone in Glenville that started with my mother’s crowd that didn’t end up owning their own home . . . without asking anyone’s help.”


1908 photo of the Chmielowiec family with sisters Mary and Eleanor and adopted son, John. Frances is seated on a cushion on the floor.
Courtesy of Frances Geraghty.

There was a strong sense of community among these young immigrants. Families grew their own vegetables and many owned chickens and pigs. “There was always an exchange. If you didn’t have a good crop of one thing and the other did . . . you just didn’t refuse anyone. . . . People were closely knit in those days.” Frances remembered that her father would be asked by “the people from the country, upper King Street” to help fulfill their needs of a seamstress, a cook, or a milkmaid.   He would then investigate which ships were coming into the Port of New York, hitch up the horse and wagon, and ride down to the docks. As the passengers stepped off the ship, her father would shout, “Who can cook? Who can sew? Who can take care of horses?” Soon he would have a wagon-load of young people who stayed with them until they procured jobs. 

In those early days of her life, Frances remembered that there was no electricity. “Don’t forget there was no water in Glenville either . . . no water till after I was married (in 1930). . . . Every bit of water had to be brought into the house, pumped in. My mother with ten children on wash day was really something.” In addition, “Everybody had an outdoor privy; and you weren’t embarrassed about it because everyone else had one, too.” Proudly, she stated, “Well, we had the best one in town. We had a five-seater.”

The house, owned by the American Felt Company, in which Frances Geraghty was born in 1907. Her father’s general store occupied space in front of the building (not visible). Courtesy of Frances Geraghty.

News traveled in a different way in those days when people did not have telephones. “There was a very unusual way of gathering people.” Someone with “a very fancy bugle with tassels hanging” would stand in the center of town and blow it. “ . . . everybody came running from the hills or they sent the children out. ‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’” The bugle was blown when the First World War ended. It also announced when someone had died or if an important meeting was to take place.

As Frances reminisced, she said wistfully, “I don’t think anyone today can visualize or comprehend a life like this. . . . You have to remember the quietness of the town. . . . You heard nothing except the humming of the felt mill, and that would be down toward the river. There were no airplanes, no traffic, no cars. . . . You could hear crickets, locusts, maybe a cow mooing or a rooster crowing. Those were the only sounds we heard. The smells were beautiful. You could smell sweet hay and strawberries.”

Frances remembered making deliveries by horse and wagon with her father from his general store to customers on Porchuck Road, Round Hill Road, and Banksville. In the summer, they would leave at 4:30 in the morning. “I remember coming back home at dark, at night. Sometimes my father would fall asleep and the horse would bring us home.” In the 1930s, the A&P came to Glenville; her dad could not compete with their prices and eventually closed his store.

The onset of the Depression led to difficult and challenging times for Frances and her family. “Bill and I got married at the height of the Depression (1930). There were no jobs. There was nothing; no money. . . . My mother had seventeen people in the home. My father was making a dollar a day for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) building the Glenville School playground. . . . There was nothing to do but go and do domestic work. . . . I had dresses that were somebody else’s and coats that didn’t fit.” Frances and Bill, who was recovering from tuberculosis, lived with her parents for a time. Eventually, Bill got a job as a plumbing apprentice for eleven dollars a week and they were able to rent a tiny house near her parents. “It had no water, no lights, and, of course, no heat.” They preferred to call it their “honeymoon house.” “Yet, somehow,” Frances said, “through all that, you had your garden and you had a few chickens.  You survived. And we had each other which was the main thing.”

Economic circumstances improved for them with the onset of the Second World War when she and Bill obtained jobs with Electrolux in Old Greenwich. At the time of her interview, Frances worked at Town Hall. As she looked back on her life and times, Frances stated, “. . . they were rough times, but they were happy days. . . . Those were the good old days.”

The interview “Years Ago in Glenville – Frances Chmielowiec Geraghty” may be read in its entirety at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subject to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.


Monday, November 6, 2023

 THE CLAM BOX 1939-1985

A Beloved Local Business

In 1939, Anna and George Gross rented a two-car garage on Salem Street and East Putnam Avenue in Cos Cob and opened the original Clam Box restaurant. It had a few stools in front and a take-out counter and was to serve customers in the summers only.  According to their son, Arthur Gross, interviewed by Penny Bott-Haughwout of the Oral History Project in 1986, “My parents started the original Clam Box restaurant with four hundred dollars… They painted the building white. They put an awning in front of it. They bought several truckloads of oyster shells which was put on the ground and then crushed by a crushing machine. And that became the area where people ate in their cars or ate at the stand.”

Original Clam Box
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Business was good---so good, in fact, that “my father made more money in three months in Cos Cob than he’d made all year in New York (at his NYC spot called Cooper’s Fish and Chips near Grand Central Station). Shortly thereafter, the New York City restaurant was closed and George Gross “devoted one hundred per cent of his time in Cos Cob.” After the first year, Anna and George bought the building and opened the Clam Box year-round. Eventually, they built on both sides of the existing main stand and it became a restaurant of about 250 seats.


The Clam Box menu, front cover
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project


What was the “secret sauce” to this successful small business? According to Arthur, “ . . . nobody had any seafood items cooked the way we did. The frying was completely new to this New England area… Our kitchens were open to the public. People got the aroma of the cooking. And the fact that we fried at such high temperatures . . . at 375 degrees, they were seared very quickly. An order of fried clams would take thirty or forty-five seconds in these special cooking machines that we had.” Fish and chips were also cooked at a high temperature and “ . . . in a matter of three or four minutes, we’d have a magnificent piece of fish cooked, very crispy on the outside and very moist on the inside.” Everything was cooked to order.

The Clam Box menu, back cover
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Of course, the high quality of the food was fundamental. “We sent a man from Greenwich to New York City five mornings a week . . . to the Fulton Fish Market. He used to leave here about quarter of three o’clock in the morning… The fish was delivered to Cos Cob like ten o’clock in the morning, and it was served that evening.”

The Clam Box menu, inside left
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

How about the prices? The original Clam Box menu in 1939 lists “Silex coffee with cream” for five cents. “People remembered the fact that they got a good cup of coffee.” In addition, “Bottle Grade A Milk” was ten cents; clam chowder, fifteen cents; fish and chips, thirty-five cents; oyster stew, forty cents. The “Clam Box Special” with half cold lobster, crabmeat, shrimps, and clams was ninety-five cents.

The Clam Box menu, inside right
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Customers, mostly locals at the time, had a different cycle to their daily lives in those early days. In the summer, before television and air-conditioning, “a man would get in the car and take a ride with his wife and they’d stop off for fried clams or fish and chips at our type of a restaurant. We also found that we were busier late in the evening---this would run until two in the morning.” Post-WWII, with the advent of television, people tended to stay home in the evenings. “Our business changed rapidly… After the war we never stayed open as late as we did prior to the war.”

George and Anna believed in their business. “Every dollar they made they reinvested back into the property, and they managed to survive, and it was quite successful after the second year.” In 1947, the Grosses purchased another building, with four hundred feet frontage on East Putnam Avenue in Cos Cob, in which the Clam Box remained until 1985. Fortunately, the property also allowed for enlargement of the restaurant facilities.

“By enlarging the kitchen, we were able to purchase additional equipment to make the same recipes… We were able to handle the many thousands of people that we did serve in the summertime… We had a wonderful reputation. We had the nicest people in the area coming out to dinner.” Arthur was proud that a family could be well-fed for under ten dollars.

The Clam Box, expanded capacity, outside
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

In 1963, with additional storage space made available for produce and seafood, the restaurant could serve five hundred and fifty patrons “plus the take-out business.” A bakery was also now contained on the premises in which fresh rolls, pies, cakes, puddings, éclair shells, and more were prepared. Over one hundred and thirty staff were employed. Arthur boasted that “ . . . we must have had seventy-five working here more than five years . . . and another ten or fifteen who worked here for twenty years or more.”   

The Clam Box, expanded capacity, inside
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Arthur’s parents retired in 1957. His father George passed away in 1960. Arthur and his wife, Priscilla, managed the business from that time on. Arthur himself had worked in the restaurant from the age of 14 in 1939 to age 60 in 1985. “If people wanted to find me, they could reach me at 9:30 in the morning, and I was here until sometimes 9:30 at night, and I was here many a time seven days a week.” In 1985, the decision was made to close the restaurant and “sell the property, distribute the proceeds (among the corporation of family members), and go our separate ways… It’s the end of an era.”

The Clam Box postcard
Photo courtesy of Greenwich Library Oral History Project

Arthur did have to admit that occasionally he would see some tempting restaurant locations in town. “I’d come home and say to my wife, ‘You know, we could go back and open up another little stand again and just sell clams and shrimp and fish and chips.’ And she’d say, ‘No way, Buster.’”

The interview of Arthur Gross appears in the Oral History Project book entitled “The Clam Box and the Food Mart.” It may be read in its entirety at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subject to factual scrutiny.

Mary Jacobson, OHP blog editor.