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Norwalk: Norwalk Historical Society hosts Militia Muster Weekend May 3rd and 4th, 2008


by turfgrrl


April 29th, 2008 · 43 Comments

From a press release:

The Norwalk Historical Society is pleased to announce a Militia Muster Weekend on Saturday, May 3 from 10 – 4 and Sunday, May 4 from 12 – 4.   Featuring the recreated 5th Connecticut Regiment, this event is for the entire family and will be held at Mill Hill Historic Park, 2 East Wall Street (at the corner of East Avenue).  There is no admission fee, but donations will be gratefully accepted.

Visitors will be able to experience a spring militia muster encampment.  Talk with the men to learn their views on the Revolution and see their muskets and equipment and learn how they live while on campaign.  Experience the smells of 18th century cooking as women of the regiment prepare a meal for the soldiers in the kitchen of the Gov. Fitch Law Office.  Children will be asked to ‘join up’ and will have the opportunity to learn how to drill with wooden muskets.  Jim Freebairn of Stamford and a charter member of the 5th CT, will demonstrate molding pewter and will cast musket balls, buttons and spoons.  He will offer these products for sale as well.

Today’s 5th Connecticut, which was founded in 1974, includes members from across Connecticut who are interested in the history of this country and teaching others through living history. It was formed as a family group, encouraging women and children to participate as well. Historically, the 5th Connecticut Regiment was formed in May 1775, when the Connecticut legislature created six regiments in response to the hostilities begun at Lexington and Concord. The regiment was then composed almost entirely from officers and men of Fairfield County. During the summer of 1779, the unit was dispatched as part of two Connecticut brigades to the Connecticut coast in response to a British assault that left Norwalk, Fairfield and parts of New Haven in ashes. Lead units clashed with redcoat units as they withdrew to their shipping after torching Norwalk. In June 1783 they were all furloughed when the Continental Army was disbanded. To learn more about the 5th Connecticut Regiment, please visit the group’s website at www.5cr.org

The Norwalk Historical Society was incorporated in 1899 with the purpose of promoting and encouraging historical research in Norwalk. That vision is kept alive today with the re-establishment of the NHS in 1949 and the continued focus on “the research, preservation, and promotion of interest in the history of Norwalk.”

For more information, please call the Norwalk Historical Society at 203-846-0525 or email info@norwalkhistoricalsociety.org. For more information about the Norwalk Historical Society, please visit the NHS website at www.norwalkhistoricalsociety.org.

All donations received will be used to fund the programs of the Norwalk Historical Society.

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Tags: History · Norwalk

43 Responses so far ↓ “Norwalk: Norwalk Historical Society hosts Militia Muster Weekend May 3rd and 4th, 2008”


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  • 1 Scott Kuykendall, NHS President // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    Turfie - thanks for posting this. We are looking for volunteers to help out with this (and other) events and activities. If anyone is interested, contact the NHS Executive Director, VivianLea Stevens, at 203-846-0525, or email her at info@norwalkhistoricalsociety.org. Hope to see you all there!

  • 2 Retired from DRG I // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:06 pm

    Thank you for posting- and best of luck to NHS in getting more participants. Touching the past may help us with the present.

  • 3 Old Timer // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    Attended a similar event last year and had a marvelous time. It is hard to imagine how Norwalk was so involved in the revolution and most of the town was burned to the ground. The British were stopped at France St.
    The British General Tryon is reported to have sat in a rocking chair on Grumman’s hill and watched the city burn. Grumman’s hill is behind the present site of the Norwalk Motor Inn. There was a monument there, before the Inn was built.

  • 4 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 10:47 am

    What the Norwalk Inn was built over a monument. How despicable, zero respect for history, Character and Charm in this town / City. Who is Steering this ship?

  • 5 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 11:16 am

    To add insult to injury, not only was the Norwalk Motor Inn built where Grumman’s Hill was (the Nagy Bros. were responsible for excavating the hill for fill), the one building that may have survived the burning of Norwalk at that site - 93 East Avenue - has been subjected to intentional vandalism and demolition by neglect. Its owner has been enabled by the current administration.

  • 6 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 11:24 am

    Did any Dems out there go to the reception at the Norwalk Inn? I wonder what kind of coolaid they were serving? Did they hand out crowbars to the intoxicated, so they could get there frustrations out at 93 East Avenue??

  • 7 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    I know of one who failed to be renominated at the last board meeting for the chair position he had held.

  • 8 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    Rather, the last Common Council meeting…

  • 9 AAA Bond rating "Goodby." // Apr 30, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    Before we had the British trying to destroy Norwalk, now we have the politicians and the Developers. At least the British did it to your face and stood up like men. The British just shot at us. The politicians and Developers are killing us by sucking us dry of every piece of land that they can get their hands on, and at the same time getting big tax breaks that the taxpayer will in the end have to pay for. In the end it is always the taxpayer who gets the burden.

    When developers meet with the Mayor and the city, do they discuss how many 55 gallon drums of Vaseline that they have to get for the taxpayer when the taxpayers are forced to bend over?

  • 10 Anonymous // Apr 30, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    Don’t forget the sand. That’s gotta be factored in too.

  • 11 old timer // Apr 30, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    I doubt if 93 East or anything on East Ave survived the burning. Everything I read describes the buildings that survived as being far off the beaten path used by the British. East Ave was their main route back to their ships.
    The monument was not built over, it was moved. I think it is now in front of Nathan Hale school. It would make sense to put it back out in front of the Inn. It isn’t that big and that is the place.

  • 12 anonynous // May 1, 2008 at 9:29 am

    Gee ‘old timer’ - you don’t sound like you’ve been in Norwalk too long or that you’ve read much about the burning of Norwalk. By the way, the monument in front of Nathan Hale school is NOT the monument that was at the Inn site…

  • 13 Anonymous // May 1, 2008 at 9:31 am

    There is a monument in front of the Inn. I don’t know if it’s the original one.

  • 14 Hello AAA Bond Rating // May 1, 2008 at 9:33 am

    #9, it is amazing to me as to how many people in Norwalk have been bamboozled into thinking that our ‘AAA’ bond rating is the ultimate litmus test of the health of a city in the entire world. A drop in our bond rating would translate to a relatively small increase in the city’s interest expense. Fortune 500 corporations bond ratings go up and down all the time.
    Personally, I’d rather pay a little more in interest and see the city’s historic properties maintained, the roads paved and some extra police added to the force.

  • 15 Anonymous // May 1, 2008 at 10:05 am

    The monument in front of Nathan Hale School used to be at Mill Hill. There are photos of it to the left of the Town House. Before that, it was part of a fountain with a stone tub in front of the old Armory (long gone), approximately where Cross St. intersects with the Route 7 Connector, I believe. Somehow the stone tub ended up at Ambler Farm on Hurlbutt St. in Wilton.

    Another in a long list of murky historical Norwalk stories. Like how the WWI cannon in front of the VFW (?) on Cross St. got separated from the base, now on the Norwalk Green. Both used to be at the triangle where West Avenue meets Wall St. in front of the Norwalk Library.

  • 16 Norwalker // May 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    The Armory was at the bottom of hospital hill, Rt 1 & West ave.

  • 17 old timer // May 1, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    #12 Why, what did I get wrong about the burning.?
    The monument was there and I said I thought it had been moved to the school. For all I know, it may be back in front of the Inn.
    The old armory was at #2 Connecticut Ave where Conn Ave, West Ave and Stevens St.(hospital hill)all came together and some lucky police officer directed traffic from a raised stand in the middle of the intersection.

  • 18 old timer // May 2, 2008 at 10:35 am

    Gen Tyron landed with 2,500 troops in 26 boats on Saturday, July 11th. After being routed at the Rocks on France St by less than four hundred Norwalk men in a battle that lasted only two hours, on Sunday, the Red Coats retreated back to their boats, setting fire to 135 houses, 2 churches, 4 mills, 89 barns, and 5 boats. Some accounts say 6 houses were not burned, same say up to 30, but most of the ones spared were not on main roads back to the Beach. There is no house mentioned as spared on East Ave. This was in 1779. Norwalk first settlers arrived in 1651 and there was a substantial community here by 1779. There had been numerous raids by the British taking cattle and other supplies before this attack. There were British supporters living in Norwalk. Some of them also lost their houses to the fires, as the British just went house to house, burning everything in sight.

  • 19 Anonymous // May 2, 2008 at 11:24 am

    Interesting. Where did you find your information on the battle and the burning?

  • 20 Anonymous // May 2, 2008 at 11:31 am

    ‘old timer’ - go check the list of who applied for reparations after the war and did they claim a total or partial loss.

  • 21 Old Timer // May 2, 2008 at 8:08 pm

    I borrowed a very old history book. It has several versions of the story, based on witness interviews many years later,(some conflicts) from different sources. The six houses that were spared were some on the East and some on the West of the river and are not identified in any way that correlates to 93 East. It may have been one of ones spared. There is a description of a house that was destroyed that belonged to Mrs Mary Esther St John and was at the foot of Grumman’s Hill, about where 93 East is now. An 1847 map shows Mrs St John’s house there. apparently rebuilt. In all, there were 30 houses spared, most of them were a distance away from East Ave, the principal route back to the beach.
    The dates in the stories are consistent, but there is some confusion about days of the week. Some say Saturday & Sunday, Others, Sunday & Monday

  • 22 Anonymous // May 3, 2008 at 8:00 am

    Which book was it?

  • 23 Old Timer // May 3, 2008 at 10:05 am

    If I tell you that I might as well use my real name. It is a rare edition, almost 100 years old, entitled “history”. There is more to the title,but we are not going there.

  • 24 Anonymous // May 3, 2008 at 10:28 am

    I find your rationale hard to understand. Is it because the book is rare? Why are you so reluctant to cite your sources? What if someone else wanted to read it?

  • 25 indiga // May 3, 2008 at 10:32 am

    It’s the Reverend Selleck’s book about Norwalk and the founding families, right? I believe the library has a copy.

    Another interesting tidbit from the past, Morgan Avenue (was originally called St. John Place. This caused confusion since there was a St. John Place in East Norwalk. The “uptown” street was named for Frederick St. John Lockwood (and the St.John families) who owned most of the property that is today’s Morgan. The city changed the name (to avoid confusuion) to Tryon Place. Well, you would have thought the City had brought the Brtish back to burn the town again! Letters were written. Editorials proliferated. Public hearings were held. No one was going to stand for naming a street after the blackgaurd who left the town in ruins. Few were keen on pouring more honor on Frederick St.John Lockwood (a man of apparently large ego already). So the search was on for a name for the “grand boulevard stretching to Saugatuck” that the developers envisioned for the street. This was in the 1880s or thereabouts (I believe). So, the name Morgan came from Charles Morgan — a NYC financier — who married Frederick St. John Lockwood’s sister. Apparently, Morgan won out because he was new in town and no one had an axe to grind.

    The articles (in the old Norwalk Gazette, I think) are great and show that Norwalkers were as feisty then as they are now.

  • 26 Old Timer // May 3, 2008 at 10:50 am

    #24 & 25 I believe I may have temporary custody of a very rare book, not available in most libraries. A few people know about it and naming it would be like using my real name. Believe it or not, my mother never called me “old timer”.
    No, it is not Rev. Selleck’s book and predates it by quite a bit.

  • 27 Anonymous // May 3, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Why is it that a few certain people in this town believe they are the only ones who have the right to know the history of it? Attitudes like that do more harm than good and everyone who supports the preservation of Norwalk’s legacy gets painted with the same brush as “hysteric.” Norwalk’s history belongs to all of its residents, not just a few who think they know everything.

  • 28 Anonymous // May 3, 2008 at 4:26 pm

    Did it come from the vault at the Norwalk Museum that has been turned into a pile of rubble under this curator (who bring total chaos to whatever she touches)? It used to be run just like a real Historical Reference library before she was installed by Zullo and Esposito.

    If the other 2 libraries in Norwalk looked like this one people would be outraged. But, since it is no longer available to the public…like the museum) only the “chosen few” see it. Every one else is locked out!

  • 29 Old Timer // May 3, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    No, it didn’t come from that vault. Like many others, I have never found the museum open when I had the time to visit, so I have never seen the inside, or the vault. Anybody know what days & hours it is open? I agree, more should be done to preserve our history and make it available to all. However, this book is not mine and the owner has not given me permission to give out his name. He has indicated an interest in donating it to someplace where it will be treasured. Right now, he is not confident that the Museum would be the right place.
    For anyone interested, there are numerous remarkable history books about Norwalk and many of them are available in libraries. Some libraries have more than others. The central library in New York is a marvelous resource. For anyone studying family history who believes certain ancestors came through New York, they have ship manifests, city directories, newspaper files and more… There are websites that also have amazing information for very small fees.
    The book I am using is actually a collection of the work of numerous people a long time ago and is presented pretty much as written. There are numerous versions of the burning of Norwalk from different historians who spoke directly to eye witnesses, not all that many years after it happened. There is considerable information about Norwalk well before the revolution, all the way back to the first settlers.

  • 30 barnstorm // May 3, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    I say we invite the British back to Norwalk and let them burn down the Norwalk Inn. They can use the curator as kindling.

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