Oystering in Greenwich

by Mary A. Jacobson

Oystering in Greenwich has a long and storied history that is indelibly intertwined with that of the Chard family of Greenwich. In 1976, Suzanne Kowalski of the Oral History Project interviewed Clarence Chard to learn about his family and its contributions to the history of oystering in our town.

Clarence Chard’s grandfather, Samuel Chard, began oystering off the Greenwich coastline in the 1870s. According to Clarence, “He had a shanty, they called it, on Brush Island (west of Mead’s Point), where he lived through the week. Then the boys would come down weekends with the horse and wagon and take him back up home to Cognewaugh (Road).”

By the turn of the century shellfishing had become a lucrative business for local fishermen. Clarence’s father, William, born in 1868 in Cos Cob, oystered there until he retired in the late 1920s. Clarence, aged 18 in 1918, joined his father and his Uncle Stanley in the oystering business after graduation from Greenwich High School. “At that time the market boats came up from New York and we loaded them…In the early days, before my time, the oyster sloops (or scows, as they were called) used to go down…most people would call them barges, but we called them scows. They had the house on them; and they opened or shucked oysters right there.”

New England was especially known for the richness of its oyster industry. Chard explained that oysters secrete their spawn from June to September. “When the temperature of the water gets right, they secrete that spawn in the water and it swims around for a dozen or so days. Then it settles to the bottom and attaches itself to the shells and pebbles…the oysters settle on the shells there and grow…It’s because they had good natural settling ground. Connecticut seed (young transplantable oysters) used to be shipped all the way down to Chincoteague, Virginia in schooners. Some of the vessels would carry five thousand bushels of seed.”

Clarence vividly recalled growing up on Indian Harbor Drive watching the oyster sloops. Of the thirty-odd there, he began to name a number of them. “Well, there was the Ann Gertrude, the Florence T., the F.E. Webster, the Fannie S., the Piano, the Emma Jane, the Sarah Lucinda, and, of course, the Susie C. and the Samuel Chard—that was my father’s sloop (built in 1900).”

Clarence and his brother Bill bought the Susie C. from his Uncle Stanley in 1932 and would sail it to Bridgeport to oyster there. “There were over three hundred boats up there, years ago. When the fleet landed up in Bridgeport, why, there were some hot old times…the tricks they used to play on each other. Put things down their smoke pipes so the smoke would come out in the cabin, and things like that.”

The Chard family oyster beds were off Field Point, outside of Captain’s Island, and outside Greenwich Point “in the neighborhood of four hundred acres.” Chard recalled that “the best price we ever got (for oysters) was four dollars a bushel…I did sell a few, in later years, for sixteen dollars a bushel.” In his father’s time, when times were lean, “They raked clams out of a rowboat, and he had clam market enough to pay his men…There were a good many years we never made anything.”

In the 1920s oystering in New York State was condemned and Connecticut was restricted. As a result, “the whole west end of the Sound was a breeding place for stars (starfish),” the nemesis of oysters. “They’ll move in like a blanket sometimes, the stars will. Just cover the bottom…There were a couple of years that there were so many stars that, when we had a nice bed of oysters coming, we took them up and sold them before they were really of marketable size. We ran them over to Oyster Bay and sold them.”

The last boat the family built, utilizing both sail and power, was the Hope, built on Brush Island and launched in 1948. “But we didn’t have any oysters, so then we started dredging clams by power.” Nevertheless, Clarence remained hopeful for the future of oystering: “We know that things come in cycles with both fish and shellfish…I think that perhaps the oysters are liable to spawn again someday and live; and if they do, why there’ll be a rebirth of oystering.”

Today, oystering in Greenwich Harbor has had a rebirth. The Greenwich Shellfish Commission, begun in 1986, is considered an example for the State. Its mission to is “manage, protect, propagate and conserve the shellfish beds for both recreational and commercial use.” Local waters are tested sixteen times a year in thirty-six locations. Roger Bowgen, chairman of the GSC, states that there are now thirty million oysters in Greenwich waters.

Clarence Chard would be pleased.

The interview entitled “Oystering” may be read in its entirety at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Mary A. Jacobson, blog editor.

Pioneering Mother and Daughter Flyers of Greenwich

by Jean P. Moore

Marian Cummings suited up to fly her plane, 1934. Courtesy of the Oral History Project

What could be more appropriate for Women’s History Month than to celebrate two female aviation pioneers who achieved many of their flying feats right here in Greenwich in the 1930s?

The two remarkable women are Molly Cummings Minot Cook and her mother, Marian Engle Cummings, who died in 1984 at the age of 93. Together with Molly’s brother, Wilbur (“Billy”) Love Cummings, Jr., also a pilot, they won the nickname, “The Flying Family of Greenwich.” Molly was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Suzanne Seton in 2012. She died at the age of 102 in April 2020.

In her youth, Marian Cummings was a force of nature. She proved such a challenge to her parents that she was sent east from her home in Seattle to be made a “lady”- a not entirely successful venture. From sliding down spiral staircases at her finishing school in Middlebury, Connecticut, to illegally harboring kittens in her room, she was a handful for the headmistress, who nevertheless appreciated her spunk.
After graduating with honors and returning to Seattle, Marian met Wilbur Love Cummings, a young lawyer out west on assignment. Young and in love, their romance culminated in marriage on the eve of World War I. Subsequently, they traveled to New York, where Mr. Cummings would resume his work. This trip occurred at the height of the Spanish flu epidemic. Marian, Wilbur, and their two young children, Billy and Molly, wore facemasks and stayed in their cabin.

The family settled in Greenwich and bought an old farmhouse on John Street. However, life in Greenwich may have been too uneventful for Marian Cummings. To feed her love for adventure, she began taking flying lessons at North Beach, now LaGuardia airport, earning her pilot’s license in 1932 at the age of 40. Mr. Cummings congratulated his wife on her accomplishments and asked if she would like an airplane. And so Marian Cummings acquired her first Stinson Reliant. Before long, Marian and her son and daughter were all flying at Armonk Airport. According to her daughter, Molly Cook, Armonk was not a proper airport. It was called the Westchester Pasture for Select Flying Machines and was actually a potato field off Route 22 just long enough for landing small planes.

While Molly and Billy were earning their wings, their mother Marian was busy racking up firsts and awards. She was the first woman to make a parachute jump and the first woman to hold a commercial license. She then proceeded to put her training to use by flying her husband to various destinations where he had legal dealings, traveling around the States and in Central America.

Marian Cummings was a powerful influence on her two children. Following in their mother’s footsteps, they were accomplished and daring pilots. Daughter Molly Cummings Minot Cook, born in 1917, was also a flying marvel, earning her pilot’s license in 1935 when she turned 18. Soon thereafter, Molly and her brother Billy bought a small plane, a Luscombe, and began competing in meets. While still in college, they became popular at “stunting” meets at airfields in Armonk, Hartford, and Long Island, among others. Molly Cook describes one maneuver in which a roll of toilet paper would be thrown out of the plane at three or four thousand feet creating a streamer effect. “The trick was how long it took you to cut that strip twice, with your plane.”

During World War II, Molly and her mother joined the Civil Air Patrol. While her mother ferried pilots between destinations stateside, Molly taught Morse code and aerial navigation. Her brother Billy joined the Navy Air Corps as a transport pilot, flying new planes from factories in the U.S. to England, where they were deployed in the war. Tragically, it was on one of those trips that young Billy Cummings crashed on takeoff, killing this cherished son and brother.

In time, Molly Cook went on to marry and have a family of her own. She continued flying and engaging in many other interests, from teaching art, to ranching, and to conservation, making substantial donations to the Land Trust. However, flying was never far from her heart.
As she relates, “I loved stunting. In the summer…I would be in my white flying suit and helmet and goggles – oh, I was just the big cheese – and get into my little Fleet plane. All these people on Sunday, that was the thing to do in those days, that people would drive to Armonk to watch the planes, sort of a – what would you call it – a bullfight feeling. Is the matador going to make it or – I’d go up and do a spin or a loop and a something, and then come down. Then we’d sit, and then somebody said, ‘Well, I think I’ll go up and amuse them a little bit.’ It was fun on a Sunday.”

This blog was written by OHP volunteer Jean Moore from the interview, “Mother and Daughter Flyers.” The transcript of the interview may be read at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the Oral History Project office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Mary A. Jacobson, OHP blog editor.

 

Havemeyer Park – A Unique Community

by Anne W. Semmes

Gene Tunney and Arthur M. Starck reviewing construction plans for Havemeyer Park. Photo courtesy of the Greenwich Historical Society.

What does a sugar cane magnate, a professional boxer, and World War II veterans have in common? The answer, of course, is Havemeyer Park, a planned community in Old Greenwich, just to the west of the town line with Stamford, that has thrived since the 1940s. Oral History Project volunteers Carol Ashwell and Janet McDonald interviewed early residents of Havemeyer Park in the 1990s to gain an understanding of this place with its unique culture and history.

One can trace the history of Havemeyer Park to its initial incarnation, that of a 200-acre homestead, just north of Boston Post Road, where Henry Osbourne Havemeyer built a family country retreat in 1880, named Hilltop. Havemeyer, president of the American Sugar Refining Company, enjoyed the bucolic setting of Hilltop with its mansion, barn, three greenhouses, farm animals, and extensive plantings. Havemeyer died in 1907. The home was demolished after his wife, Louisine, died in 1929.

Gene Tunney, known primarily as the world heavyweight champion from 1926 to 1928, married socialite Polly Lauder of Greenwich in 1928. In 1946, he purchased the property from the Havemeyer estate for $178,000. Tunney, a former Marine, envisioned the land, now named Havemeyer Park, as a housing development for returning WWII veterans. He and Arthur M. Starck formed the Stamford Building Company. The Cape Cod-style homes were built on one-quarter acre lots. The first units were completed by 1947; eventually 360 of them were constructed. A $1,000 loan from the bank could procure a home priced at $10,000. It is no surprise that the neighborhood boasts street names like McArthur Drive, Halsey Drive, and Nimitz Place.

Ginny Ridenour, a former resident, recounted a story about Mr. Tunney. “I heard that in the early years he used to come along and check out the site; and if people would come out and say, ‘Mr. Tunney, I don’t have enough room for my garage’ or whatever, he would try to accommodate the wishes of the residents. And the builder finally told him, ‘You have to stay off the site because we can’t make all these changes.’”

Russell Vernet lived in Havemeyer Park from 1950 to 1996. When he moved in “practically everybody was a veteran…We had a Cape Cod, and it was a two-story, but the second floor was never finished; and the basement, of course, wasn’t finished. But, over a period of time I completely finished the upstairs into two bedrooms and a bath and made a playroom in the basement…Almost everybody who moved in was a hands-on handyman.” Vernet describes some of the streets as dirt roads “for a long time after we moved in…So there was a lot of roadwork that had to be done.”

Havemeyer Park’s population consisted mostly of young families. It was amusingly dubbed “Have a Baby Park” for the many children in the neighborhood. Ginny Ridenour remembered the first day she moved there in 1959. “My next door neighbor came over and she said, ‘Do you have children?’ and I said, ‘Yes, we have one.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I’m so glad because we have three.’ And from that moment on we began a beautiful experience in Havemeyer Park.”
Within the community there were many organized and impromptu social activities. From Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops to picnics, a garden club, costume parties, Valentine’s Dances and more. “We really had a whole social life right within our own area. Nobody joined the Newcomers or anything like that. They never felt they needed to,” according to Ridenour.

“No two (houses) were alike in the first part of the development.” Photo courtesy of the Greenwich Historical Society.

Russell Vernet described a Christmas tradition where a neighbor “used to put up a big screen in front of his house; and he had a projector and would project the words of the Christmas carols onto that screen. Then he’d play the accordion, and we’d all stand around and sing.”

The Havemeyer Park Owners Association, begun in 1948, grew out of concern for roads and traffic. In those days, according to Gerald Porricelli, past president of the homeowners’ association, “… we were speaking at Planning and Zoning Commission hearings, writing letters particularly about traffic, the density of traffic coming onto Havemeyer Lane and arranging for access out on Palmer Hill Road.” Over time, Porricelli commented, the population of Havemeyer Park has become more transient in nature and the number of neighborhood activities has diminished from its early days. “You see a lot of turnovers…we have working families with not a whole lot of time to give to these kinds of events.”

Ginny Ridenour reflected on her early days in Havemeyer Park saying, “It was a very positive period of our life, and I think this is what we’ve all come away thinking about it…I don’t know what the magic was, but we really did all have such fun…It was truly a unique place to start your life in Greenwich.”

The transcript of the interview, “Havemeyer Park.” may be read at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the Oral History Project Office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Mary A. Jacobson, OHP blog editor.