New Canaan There & Then

New Canaan There & Then: John & Carolyn Kennedy, the New Canaan Couple That Might Have Been

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 

Within days of the tragedy that summer of 1999, the New York Post carried the intriguing story that the beautiful young couple were under contract to purchase property in New Canaan. 

The story, titled in the Post’s inimitable way, “Estate Would Have Been Great for Kids,” was uncharacteristically fact specific:
“John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn were building a Connecticut dream house with everything a Camelot couple could wish for – even llamas grazing nearby. The spread has lots of rooms, lots of land, a tennis court, a swimming pool. And it’s in New Canaan, the tony town where Carolyn Bessette Kennedy spent part of her childhood and where her sister Lisa Ann lives.”
The Post story identified the property as 65 Barnegat Road, a large parcel of land at the northern tip of New Canaan, on the border with New York State. Construction there was well underway continued the story, and the Post identified the owner as Alex Kaali-Nagy, a respected architect and local builder responsible for a number of high-end construction projects in Greenwich and elsewhere in Fairfield County. Two days later, the New York Daily News threw water on the story of its arch competitor.

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New Canaan There & Then: Slavery in Connecticut, Venture Smith and the 200th Anniversary of Tom Peterson

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 

The upcoming Independence Day is, of course, the sesquicentennial of our country.  For history lovers this Fourth of July will also be remembered as the 200th anniversary of the deaths of both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1826 (in that order, despite Adams’ plaintive last words, “Jefferson lives”), in what surely is the most extraordinary coincidence in American history.  

But the year 1826 is also the bicentennial of the birth of Thomas Peterson, who spent much of his early life in New Canaan living in what is now the historic 1764 Hanford-Silliman House, a featured attraction on the five-acre campus of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.  And it is also possible that Tom Peterson, who died in 1901 in Milford, was the last former slave to live in Connecticut. ***

The history of the beginnings of slavery in Connecticut is scant.  There is a 1638 account where several Native American prisoners taken during the Pequot War (1636-1638) were exchanged in the West Indies for enslaved Africans; historians believe this is probably how the first enslaved Africans ended up in the colony. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be the last. 

By 1790, most prosperous merchants in Connecticut owned at least one slave, as did half  of all ministers.  Unquestionably, the state’s economic links to slavery were entwined with the colony’s religious, political, and educational institutions, making the sordid institution a part of the social contract in Connecticut.  According to U.S. census data there were 2,764 slaves in Connecticut as of 1790.  This declined during the early part of the 19th century, with the census indicating number reported as slaves in the state of 951 in 1800, 97 in 1820, and 25 by 1830. 

Perhaps the most enlightening account of 18th century slavery in Connecticut is the narrative autobiography of Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself.  The story highlights an individual who has been heralded as one of the country’s first black entrepreneurs. What’s particularly poignant about the narrative is how his enslaved experience could become seemingly run-of-the-mill, even where life was focused not on the active “pursuit of happiness,” as Thomas Jefferson posited, but daily survival, where human beings and their families were bought, sold and traded like a cow, a piece of furniture, or a collection of farm utensils. Born Broteer Furro in West Africa, he was kidnapped as a six-year-old and taken to the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) to be sold.

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New Canaan There & Then: Chester B. “Chet” Hansen, a Ringside Seat to The Greatest War

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 

The opening scene of the 1970 Academy Award-winning movie “Patton” is one of the most iconic in cinema history. 

Screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola brilliantly cobbled together various statements of U.S. General George S. Patton Jr. into one fiery and profane speech to his beloved troops, with the immortal first lines spoken in front of a giant American flag:
“At ease, men. Now I want you to remember . . . that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country .

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New Canaan There & Then: A Cold Case—The Tragic Murder of Mary Mount

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 
As any connoisseur of true crime mysteries knows, a cold case is an unsolved criminal investigation, typically involving a violent crime like murder or a missing person, that is no longer actively pursued by authorities due to a lack of evidence or leads. Unfortunately, the biggest cold case in New Canaan history has remained unsolved for 57 years. On May 27, 1969, 10-year-old Mary Katherine Mount was abducted from Kiwanis Park in broad daylight. She and her 12-year-old brother had walked there in the afternoon from their house on Willowbrook Road; the brother last saw his pink-clad sister alone in the park, where she was playing with a cat. Authorities initiated a frantic, massive search for the young girl in New Canaan, including a number of local volunteers, as her parents Dr. and Mrs. Joseph F. Mount awaited a possible call for ransom, a call that tragically never came.

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New Canaan There & Then: George Washington, the First Purple Heart and the Sergeant from Town

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 
It’s the oldest military decoration in American history. It was created and designed by none other than George Washington. One of the first three recipients of the honor was awarded it for gallantry exhibited in the battle that won the Revolutionary War for the nascent United States. And that honoree – who received it in person from General Washington – was from New Canaan. Does local history get any more noteworthy than that?