History

History Re-interpreted

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This past May, my wife, Beth, and I had dinner with my cousin’s son, Presston in Brooklyn. At dinner, Presston shared his latest job adventures. For the past four years, he was one of the project managers for the new Statue of Liberty Museum. He was both excited and stressed about the project that was to officially open to the public later in the week. The following day, he would meet with reporters from the major papers like the New York Times and others as well, as setting up interviews for the major television networks.

History

Ice Harvest Demonstrated

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Each year, when the weather permits, Dennis Picard holds a public demonstration of ice harvesting at the Noble & Cooley mill pond in Granville, just north of North Granby. This year the weather on February 2 was great, the ice was clear and over a foot thick, and appreciative visitors enjoyed the demonstration and explanations by Picard, a knowledgeable historian and former director of the Storrowton Village Museum at the Big E.

Many onlookers each year accept the invitation to take hold of one of Picard’s ice saws and learn how to cut the long slices of ice which can then be split into chunks, floated off, and lifted out with big iron tongs. This year one of the students was this writer, who brought an old Connecticut ice saw recently donated to the King House Museum by Eric Haffner. The saw was very similar to the ones that Picard brought, and he said that type of saw was manufactured from 1819 to 1919. He dated the one I brought to about 1880 and called it a nice example because it retained the original pin and wedge that secure the blade to the handle.