Riding in Greenwich

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

These days, often-heard complaints among Greenwich residents center on the town’s ever-increasing traffic congestion. Whether attempting to traverse the Boston Post Road or North Street or the Merritt Parkway, drivers are frequently beset with frustration over the amount of time it can take to get from one end of town to the other. 

Theodore F. Wahl
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Theodore F. Wahl, born in 1898, was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Marcia Coyle in 1974. His memories are of Greenwich one hundred years ago and will allow the reader to pivot from thoughts of cars and traffic to horses, hounds, and the hunt in Greenwich.

Ted Wahl was at the center of horses and riding in Greenwich throughout his life. His family moved here from Florida in 1902, when Ted was four years old. His uncle, John Wahl, had opened a stable in Greenwich “down on Bridge Street. He finished that in 1902 and that’s when my father brought us up from Florida…he taught riding there, and Dad was with him.” Ted dropped out of school at age fourteen and worked for his uncle. 

John Wahl's horse stable
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In time, people desired “a little bit more riding. They had the Field Club down there, and they wanted riding connected with the Field Club.” According to Wahl, the Field Club stable, “built by the Greenwich Riding Association, had held twenty-two horses.” The stable was enlarged to accommodate up to forty horses. “Then they got a few hounds and started a little drag hunting,” a form of equestrian sport in which mounted riders hunted the trail of an artificially laid scent with hounds. This pre-determined route would be laid to take advantage of the best jumping opportunities. The hounds purchased “were English hounds bought from different places. They even got some from Detroit to drag with.”

Ted Wahl moved from the Field Club to the management of Round Hill Stables in 1924, at that time part of the Round Hill Club, with fifty-five horses. Eventually, Wahl bought the stables, land, and buildings from the Round Hill Club in 1965. Wahl was proud to say that he was involved in teaching the third generation of riders. “I was talking to a lady the other day downtown and she said, ‘You know what year you taught me to ride?’ I said, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’ She said, ‘1912.’”

The “country” was wide open in the early days of the sport. “There was a lot of field and there was plenty of room to hunt. We weren’t tied in ’cause where the Round Hill Club is now, that was all Wilson’s meadow. That was all open and we could go out and jump straight on up to Round Hill.” Riders could hunt in both Fairfield and Westchester counties and were known as the Fairfield and Westchester Hounds. Their hunting grounds stretched “as far as the other side of Rye…north up almost to the other side of Bedford… Then we’d cut the other way, over to Stamford… We had a big country to hunt.” 

Fairfield-Westchester Hunt
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

According to Wahl, the hunt was recognized by the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in 1915. Wahl recounts the day “we were dragging up near the North Village Church and a deer jumped up…of course, the hounds followed him and the field went with them. And then they kind of thought, ‘Well, if we can hunt a deer around here, why can’t we hunt fox…? And that’s how they come to start the fox hunting in Greenwich, after the drag [in 1921]”

Wahl recounted the story of John McEntee Bowman, president of the Biltmore [now the Westchester Country Club], elected Joint Master in 1921. “He built a beautiful kennel [at the bottom of Pecksland Road]. The old kennel building is still standing there [at the time of the interview in 1974]… We hunted one day from there all the way down to the Westchester Biltmore. We laid a drag and hunted all the way down there… They put peat moss on the hard roads then, so the horses wouldn’t slip and could jump the fences.”

Theodore F. Wahl with his horses and buggy
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

 

At other times a hunt might start at the Bedford Village green with as many as fifty to seventy-five people. A favorite meeting place, particularly on Thanksgiving Day, was the Round Hill Store. Another meeting spot was located on Clapboard Ridge Road, “There’s a red gate there. Goes in back of the Boys’ Club property.” The red gate was eventually replaced by an iron sign simply stating “The Red Gate.”  Beyond Riversville Road, “we used to meet at Riversville ford. That’s where we crossed the river…the ford’s right where Mayfair Lane comes down.” Other meeting places included Middle Patent Church, East Middle Patent Church, the reservoir on North Street, and a kennel above the Merritt Parkway on Stanwich Road.

Construction of the Merritt Parkway “made a tremendous difference. We lost several hounds on the Merritt Parkway when that got there. It made us hunt further north… It cut the country right in half.” As Wahl described it, “For a long time it was dirt and that was good because we could gallop right up alongside the road when the hounds were there.”

Greenwich map drawn
by Betty Fletcher
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In 1948, fox hunting stopped. “Our last Master of the Hunt was Mr. John Howland… The country began to get built up by that time. But he went and got these drag hounds, and he hunted the drag hounds for four years…until 1952. And that’s when the hunt stopped altogether.”

According to Wahl, in its day, “The hunt here was a big addition to Greenwich. It was a big drawing card with the people coming in here to live. But they got in here and they built us up, so we couldn’t hunt anymore.” The end of an era.

The interview “Riding in Greenwich” may be read in its entirety in the main library location. It is also available to 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.

By Mary Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor