New Canaan’s oldest retailer, Walter Stewart’s Market was founded in 1907 when Walter Stewart, an enterprising young grocer, bought out the George Wilser grocery store founded decades earlier by Seymour Comstock, which was located opposite the present Town Hall on Main Street. The seventh son (of a seventh son) of a Northern Irish Farmer, Walter Stewart had migrated to the United States and found employment with a New York City grocer. Once he had saved up enough of his earnings, he headed north on the train to look for an opportunity to start his own business.