There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Cody Pharmacy

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Samuel Silliman opened the first drug store in New Canaan on Main Street in 1845. Nine years later, Lucius Monroe purchased it and renamed it the New Canaan Drug store. Doctors came to dispense medicines and Monroe did, too. By the later part of the 19th century, the drug store had become something of a social center of the town. It had a soda fountain with a marble counter, home-made ice cream, round ice cream parlor tables and chairs, hair oil for men, women’s cosmetics, mortars and pestles, Magic Hoodoo Ant Paper, various powders and fragrances, bottles, stuffed birds, jars of rock candy and licorice, cigarettes, cigars, snuff, school supplies, and toilet paper.

Around Town

New Canaan Now & Then: Main and Cherry Streets

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The photographer here was C.E. Hilgert, looking north on Main Street ca. 1947. The stone wall is the one that now frames the parking lot. The Birdsall House used to sit on what is now the Morse Court parking lot in the center of New Canaan, bounded by Main Street, Cherry Street and South Avenue. Around 1872, the house was bought by Gilbert Birdsall who had developed the Third Avenue Railway in New York City. He operated the house as a hotel, tavern, and livery stable for many years before it was demolished in the 1950s.

There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Main Street and Locust Avenue

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The shoe industry dominated New Canaan’s economy for more than a century. The first factory opened in 1768 on Brushy Ridge Road, but by the early 1800s there were numerous factories in the downtown area. At the height of production, New Canaan shoemakers produced 50,000 pairs per year. Five generations of the Benedict family created a shoe dynasty. At times, they employed as many as 100 people.  

The Big Shop located on the corner of Main Street and Locust Avenue was the factory and retail outlet for Benedict & Co. Sadly, the handmade shoes in New Canaan couldn’t keep up with the mechanized means of production in the factories in Massachusetts. By 1924, there were no shoe factories left. In the photo above, the columns of the 1868-built structure at 60 Main St.—known to many as the Knights of Columbus building, present-day home to Chef Prasad restaurant—can be seen through the trees at right. “New Canaan Now & Then” is presented in partnership with the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.

There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Elm Street Between South and Main

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The New Canaan G. C. Murphy originally opened in 1924 in the Raymond Building on Main Street. Murphy’s was a national chain of five-and-dime stores that opened its first store in Pittsburgh in 1906.  In 1939, Murphy’s owners razed the building that was formerly occupied by Stevens Auto Cab and built the storefront which is now occupied by Ralph Lauren at 51 Elm. The new store, pictured here, opened on March 14, 1940 and remained in operation at this location until 1963. This photograph, taken sometime around 1947, is only one of four color photographs that the Museum has of downtown New Canaan from this era. The white building at the bottom right is Walter Stewart’s at its Main Street location, which is now the extension of the Chase Bank. Just to the left of Stewart’s is the corner of the Raymond Building with its original facade. Also notice that Elm Street was only partially one way at this point. It was only one way from Main Street to South Ave with the rest of the block being open to two way traffic as shown by the cars parked in the opposite direction in the lower right of the photo.

There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: The ‘Perkins House’ at Park and Seminary Streets

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63 Park St. was built in 1836. It served initially as a boarding house for schoolteachers and shoe manufacturers in what was then a burgeoning shoe industry in New Canaan.  

For five years, it was the site of New Canaan Community School, which later became New Canaan Country School.  

And from 1924-1947, it was the home of Max Perkins, editor to F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and many others.  Although Max moved out, the house stayed in his family until the1960s. The architect Richard Bergmann and his wife, Saundra, purchased it in 1973. They stayed for 45 years, living and working out of the Greek Revival building that is on the National Register of Historic Places.  

When they retired to Florida, the building was sold. It is now home to the Onera Foundation. “New Canaan Now & Then” is presented in partnership with the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society.