On George Washington: Father of Our Country – Celebrating America’s 250th

by Mary A. Jacobson

Wyatt Bennett with a painting by Emanuel Leutze visualizing Washington Crossing the Delaware.
Photo by Anne W. Semmes

George Washington – patriot, soldier, president, Father of our Country – a man for the times who helped shape our country at a critical period in its history.

Wyatt Bennett has had a fascination with George Washington for fifty years. This year, at eighty-three years of age, he shared his knowledge and admiration of Washington with Mary Ellen LeBien of the Oral History Project, co-chair of the America 250th|Greenwich Community Partners Committee. Bennett was interviewed at Bennett Jewelers, his family store in Old Greenwich.

“Without Washington and without the French help that we got, it could very well have been an extended period before we achieved our freedom. Or it might never have occurred, and we might have had a situation like Canada has, where they peacefully separated from England, and there was no war to speak of… we just don’t know.”

According to Bennett, Washington “was a wonderful soldier in the Seven Years War (1756-1763), and the British were very haughty about how they treated colonials… probably that helped his decision to… become head of the Continental Army” in 1775. Washington, a Virginian, was considered a good choice. “A lot of the disruption that was occurring at this time, in the 1770s was in New England. So, the Second Continental Congress, I think, said, ‘Look, we have to get a Southern man in here who can do the job.’ And he was a very good choice.”

Washington did not experience only victorious outcomes in battles. “I think he might have been involved in seven battles during the Revolutionary War, five of which he lost.” According to Bennett, Washington was determined “to keep the army together... because, if the army dissolved, there would be nobody to oppose the British… That’s why many of those losses were more tactical retreats than anything. In 1776, he was chased across New Jersey into Philadelphia. And he just kept a step ahead of the British at that time, keeping the colonials together.”

At that point, as Bennett described, Washington made a brave and risky decision. He would have his troops cross the Delaware River in the middle of a brutal winter in a raging storm, and make the attack on Trenton, New Jersey. “The night was terrible. He lost a couple of his men through freezing to death. But during the battle, he lost nobody… Normally soldiers in the eighteenth century took a break in the winter and started fighting in the spring… Twenty-four hundred soldiers, I think, he put together to cross the Delaware.”

Once the garrison crossed the river, they then had to march nine miles to get to Trenton. Two supporting contingents of soldiers that were supposed to meet them were unable to, so “Washington had to do it on his own… They (the Hessians) were completely surprised by it (the attack). The Hessians were busy celebrating Christmas. This was the day after Christmas, actually the 26th … And he (Washington) took nine hundred prisoners and killed thirty or forty of them.” A week later, “he went up to Princeton and won a battle there also.” These battles in 1777 with exceptional outcomes were pivotal for the troops and the War effort which did not end until 1781 at the Battle of Yorktown, led by Washington with support from the Marquis de Lafayette and French army troops.

From 1781 “we had a set of rules that we were going to abide by (the Articles of Confederation)” but “the big thing at that time also was keeping the thirteen colonies together, not having them balkanize and each state fighting another state. It was very important to Washington… He believed in a strong federal government.” The drafting of our constitution was completed at the Constitutional Convention at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787. “So, the representatives were sent back to the various states to get their approval… nine was the number you had to have to have full approval.”

In 1789, George Washington was elected president of the United States with unanimous support from each participating state. A national hero and favorite son of Virginia, the largest state at the time, he had been president of the Constitutional Convention and Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. “I think he would have preferred not being president. He loved Mount Vernon and his mules and his crops and he would rather have done that as a private citizen, but he was highly respected and trusted… The things he decided to do on his own set precedents for many years to come… The fact that he was so highly respected made a big difference to how we got off to a fairly good start as a country.”

As to what Bennett thinks young people should know about Washington? “I think it varies depending on the age of the student…. Early on emphasizing patriotism is rather a good thing… and then work from there. As you get older, you become critical of what you’ve been told…. you have to be careful how you treat things that were not so good back then by our standards…. You have to look through the eyes of an eighteenth-century politician, when they were making their decisions, not through the eyes of a twenty-first century one… As I say, in the long run, I think our constitution is set up pretty well; it’s aspirational. We’re trying to make it better all the time, which is encouraging, I hope.”

A truly historic event for America 250th|Greenwich will occur at Greenwich Library on June 20. On that day, the George Washington Inaugural Bible will be displayed there from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. This Bible was supplied to Washington when it was discovered that there was none for him to lay his hand upon as he was about to be sworn in as president in 1789. The Bible has been kept under guard at the Masonic Lodge in lower Manhattan; its safe keeping will continue to be monitored as it travels to Greenwich.

The Oral History Project is proud to present blogs derived from its collection of recorded interviews as part of the Project’s celebration of “America’s 250th|Greenwich – Greenwich History is American History.” The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Interviews may also be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library. They are also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

A plaque from 1932, located on exterior of Second Congregational Church, commemorating 143rd anniversary of day George Washington stopped to admire scenery from nearby Post Road in 1789. Photo by Anne W. Semmes.

 
A visualization entitled “Washington’s Crossing” on a Durham boat with men and cannons by Mort Kunstler, painted in 2011.
Photo by Anne W. Semmes.

Missy Wolfe: Greenwich Historian -- Celebrating America 250

 By Mary A. Jacobson

A 1649 Dutch Visscher map showing Greenwich (Groeobis) and Stamford (Stamfort). The misspelled Dutch name for Greenwich should be Groenwits. Greenwich was a Dutch territory, a part of New Netherlands for its first sixteen years. Courtesy of Missy Wolfe.

Historian: “a scholar who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events.” (Wikipedia)

What, one may wonder, are the qualities and influences which might propel a person to make the study of history a life’s passion? Curiosity? The joy of discovery? Perseverance? Inspiration?

Missy Wolfe, a Greenwich resident, is considered a preeminent Greenwich historian. In 2024, Oral History Project volunteer Caroline Atkins interviewed her to enlighten us about the person behind her work.

Missy Wolfe’s family moved to Greenwich from Louisville, Kentucky, when she was of middle-school age and was enrolled at Central Middle School. “I loved reading and always did; I love nonfiction and biography… I always found nonfiction far more fascinating than fiction because you can’t make this stuff up; it really happened. And that it really happened was intriguing to me.”

After receiving her undergraduate degree in economics and psychology at Indiana University, Wolfe joined her dad, who had a career in advertising, in developing a marketing strategy consulting firm. Their focus was on the concept of creativity, and how their uniquely developed materials could enable consumers of goods or services to create what they wanted to buy. “The creativity process we sold became very successful…Our clients, the companies, would then ask their manufacturers to create our recommendations and their advertising agency to relay our findings.” Missy credits that experience with developing her writing skills. “How do you take a large amount of information, sort it, organize it, structure it, make conclusions about it, and report it in a very efficient way?… So, I guess that really established my ability to organize a lot of data.”

Missy also credits several writers as being major influences on her. They include Antonia Fraser, “famous for her non-fiction histories of female European royalty and the geopolitical games they played and why;” Alison Weir, author of numerous historical biographies of British royalty and personages; and Barbara Tuchman, local author, historian, and Pulitzer Prize winner. “And those were my inspirations… I was always reading them.”

Over the next twelve or so intervening years, Missy obtained an MBA from Columbia Business School, was employed by Ogilvy and Mathers, married, worked additional years with her dad, and had three children. Her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, was also an academic writer. “He taught me the importance of publishing in academic journals to present important discoveries… He is the one who pushed me to write my first academic article on the original Dutch jurisdiction of Greenwich… So that jelled with my love of nonfiction that requires a lot of citation. My great interest in genealogy links with this too.”

Missy’s hypothesis was that, in its first years, Greenwich was a Dutch territory, that it was not founded by the New Haven Colony. “It was a myth that we were English originally.” She presented her theory to Debra Mecky, then Executive Director and CEO of Greenwich Historical Society. Mecky’s response was, “’Well, do your research and present your proposition,’ which I did.”

Missy Wolfe portrait. Courtesy of Missy Wolfe.

Missy Wolfe’s research took her to the New York State Library in Albany, New York, which “has many of the earliest records concerning Greenwich because of this original (Dutch) jurisdiction; another reason we didn’t know our earliest history very well…These records sat on ships during the American Revolution. They put them on ships because they didn’t want the Dutch or British to burn them. . . getting moldier and wet. It’s amazing they survived.” Later, in the 1800s, the records were retrieved from The Hague, where they had been stored, and were brought back to New York State. Luckily, one man transcribed some records and created an index for most of them, storing them in the New York State Library. Unfortunately, in 1911, a fire damaged or destroyed much of these old 1600s records. “All the original documents that have been transcribed to this day, up there at New Netherland project, all the original documents are burned around the edges.”

In the 1970s these records were conserved and cleaned by Josephine Conboy, founder of the Greenwich Preservation Trust in 2008. “Fifty years after Jo Conboy’s prescient work, I had the technology to digitize them, and in this way, they could be restored to chronological order once again after three hundred and fifty years… It is also amazing that our town archives of Greenwich, that live down in our town hall, that we have them at all is a truly wonderful thing!”

In 2015, Missy’s article The First Dutch Jurisdiction of Greenwich was published in the Connecticut History Review. “So now it is accepted by all of academia that that is true. We were (initially) a part of New Netherland; a part of Dutch New York.” Missy further stated, “People were upset because they had invested in the English heritage of Greenwich… Everything I’ve written is cited. You can refer to the original source document where this information comes from.”

Missy Wolfe’s publications include Insubordinate Spirit, chronicling the history of early settlers Elizabeth Feake Winthrop Hallett and family when Greenwich was still part of New Netherland; The Hidden History of Colonial Greenwich, describing the creation of the community of Greenwich in early American colonial times; and The Great Ledger Records of the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut 1640-1742, a two-volume “transcription of town hall records… a very large project of photographing, transcribing, ordering, and indexing hundreds and hundreds of colonial records.” Missy is now working on volume three and is up to 1768. The factual information and historical revelations presented in these books have added immeasurably to the knowledge that we now have about our local history.

For Missy Wolfe, the fascination of Greenwich is of “the lost Greenwich, the Greenwich that we never knew, radically different from today.” And the inner propulsion to uncover its history? “I can’t explain it. It’s like an obsession that just came over me. It was like I was teed up because of my life experiences to be the person to do this work.”

The Oral History Project is proud to present blogs derived from its collection of recorded interviews as part of the Project’s celebration “America’s 250th|Greenwich – Greenwich History is American History.” Visit the website at glohistory.org. Interviews may also be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library. They are also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Dictating the 1600s records in Greenwich Town Hall Vital Records Vault in 2015. Courtesy of Missy Wolfe.

WWII Veterans and Tod’s Point -- Celebrating America 250

By Mary A. Jacobson

Veteran tenant families renovating the mansion to accommodate thirteen families. Courtesy of Life Magazine, June 17, 1946.

While thousands of people enjoy the beauty and sanctuary of Tod’s Point, known now as Greenwich Point, few are aware of its connection to our WWII veterans. The longtime owners of Tod’s Point were Mr. and Mrs. J. Kennedy Tod. From 1946 to 1961, their former mansion served as a residence for WWII veterans and their families.

To preserve the history of Tod’s Point for present and future generations, the Oral History Project interviewed 67 narrators and published its book Tod’s’ Point, An Oral History in 1981. It is from this rich trove that the stories of the WWII veterans are excerpted.

In 1945 the Town of Greenwich purchased the 148acre property of Tod’s Point from Presbyterian Hospital, to whom it had been bequeathed upon J. Kennedy Tod’s death, for the sum of $550,000. The mansion on the property had not been used as a residence since 1939. Concurrently, with the end of WWII, veterans were returning home to Greenwich to a severe housing shortage. Approval was given by the Town of Greenwich to lease the mansion to thirteen veteran families for one dollar a year.

Before these families could move into the mansion in 1946, its thirty-nine rooms needed to be converted into thirteen apartments. The veterans formed an independent nonprofit corporation called Vetaptco (Veterans’ Apartment Corporation) and each family floated a $1,000 loan from The Greenwich Trust Company. According to resident Thiel Ficker, “We paid (monthly) rent to our own corporation. I think forty dollars was the cheapest and seventy dollars was the most expensive. Of that, twentynine dollars went to the bank. The balance went into our Vetaptco account, and from that we paid for our oil, our heat, our electric, and so forth.”

The original Tod home was beautifully appointed. “You would find lovely casement windows in certain areas with just lovely hardware, the kind that would be very, very expensive; leaded glass, that sort of thing.” To ready the apartments for thirteen families, Ficker continued, “This contractor (Peter Danziger) did the basic work and we did all the finishing work. We did all the painting and some of the plastering and a lot of the carpentry.” When the job was done, “and everybody’s apartment was finally fixed up, we decided we ought to have an open house because people all over town were curious about this… Hordes of people came down and walked through the whole place… and were quite astounded at what had been done.”

Thiel Ficker reminisced, “Because practically every woman in the place was pregnant, we called it “Stork Point” for a while… None of us would ever choose to go back to that time again, of course, but for that particular time -we were all young, just out of the army – it was fun. It was sort of communal living in a way. We kept the integrity and privacy of each individual family.”

Wintertime living at Tod’s Point had its challenges. The Town agreed to only plow snow to the entrance of the Point. On December 26, 1947, one of the worst blizzards occurred in Greenwich with 26.5 inches of snow. Ficker recalled, “Well, we didn’t have any snow shovels… so we took these sheets of aluminum and cut them up and made long wooden handles, and nailed these rectangular pieces of aluminum to the wooden handles and made about thirteen shovels…We shoveled all day long, and at six o’clock at night, we finally broke through to Shore Road where they had plowed it.”

Another emergency requiring a communal response was the inadequate septic system that gave out on Thanksgiving Day, 1946. As Ficker described it, “There was a poor old septic tank, and it just couldn’t take it any longer.” That day the men dug a whole dry field. “We dug trenches through that. We honeycombed that whole field, laid tiles, filled in gravel, and connected it in with the septic tank which was across the road. All that on Thanksgiving Day. We worked up an appetite for turkey. Although some of us didn’t have much of an appetite.”

Demolition of the mansion, 1961. Courtesy of the Oral History Project.

Summertime was a busy time. “You can imagine it was like living on Coney Island on a Sunday. On a nice day in July, it was a steady stream of cars, and people used to drive up the driveway and right around the big circle there. So, we were happy when fall came and they closed the beach. Then it was peaceful and quiet.” Joseph Callachan remembered fondly the flock of snowy white egrets that would return to Tod’s Point in the fall. “Of course, Tod’s Point is, and was then, a sort of paradise for bird watchers.” Thiel Ficker remembered Sunday mornings down at the pond with his two sons. “We had a big net on the end of a long pole and we’d catch blue crabs Oh, boy! Blue crabs were all over the place!”

By 1961, the last family moved out. According to Ficker, “I think it ended simply because time had run out on it… The Town had said they wouldn’t renew the lease, and there was good reason… It was really starting to get run down. It would have taken a tremendous amount of money to put it into any shape at all… And then there was the decision to demolish the house. Of course, we were sad to see it go.” Joseph Callachan heartily agreed. “It was just a simply marvelous experience.”

On May 9, as part of the celebration of “America’s 250th|Greenwich,” Seaside Gardens at Greenwich Point will be the site of a festival of handbell choirs, featuring a commissioned work by Jonathan Vaughn entitled “Let Freedom Ring!” One might muse of the connection from the theme of this music to the brave American WWII veterans who moved to Greenwich Point eighty years ago, after their years of dedicated service in the defense of freedom.

The Oral History Project is proud to present blogs derived from its collection of recorded interviews as part of the Project’s celebration of “America’s 250th|Greenwich – Greenwich History is American History.” The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Interviews may also be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library. They are also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office.

Recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Lease extension granted by RTM in 1957. Aerial photo of by Cal Hood. Courtesy of The Village Gazette.