New Canaan There & Then

New Canaan There & Then: The Life of a Freemason—Remembering My Grandfather Gabriel Alexander

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz. When I began my work at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, I was unaware that I would be occupying the same space once utilized by the Freemasons Fraternity until 1950. This was the very society my own grandfather joined when he lived in New Canaan from 1964 until his death in 1997. 

The Masons are the world’s oldest extant fraternal organization with its origin in the late 17th century masonic guilds in England and continental Europe. Freemasons developed a reputation for upstanding moral character and were widely respected. Their mission was and remains to promote self-improvement and a better world through the application of moral values, intellectual development, and mutual respect, fostering a brotherhood of men united by shared principles.

New Canaan There & Then

New Canaan There & Then: The Town Takes Flight—1920 Aviation Exhibition

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz. In 1920, three veteran pilots brought a new perspective to the people of New Canaan. 

Captains Bob Gordon and Dean Lamb, along with Lieutenant M. Lee came to New Canaan to share the joy of flying with the townspeople. The trio were decorated aviators who had flown missions in WWI and stayed in New Canaan for three weeks doing exhibition flights, taking passengers up to 1,000 feet at a cost of $10 for 10 minutes. Gordon and Lamb served with the Canadian Flying Corps before the United States joined the war. Both Lamb and Gordon were shot down in flames five times in pursuit of the Germans.

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New Canaan There & Then: A Local Gem—The Little Red Schoolhouse

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz. Steve Karl was four years old the first time he visited the one-room Little Red Schoolhouse on Carter Street in town. “I remember the tiny wooden desks lined up in neat rows,” he recalled. “I remember the outdoor manual water pump in the front yard that we loved to play around with. I also have a vivid memory of the oil painting of Aesop’s fables above the entrance to the classroom, facing the students.” 

That mural, and four others, were the product of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and painter Justin Gruelle, who was part of the Silvermine Group of Artists, in 1936.

New Canaan There & Then

New Canaan There & Then: A Life of Firsts—Marion Dickerman’s Legacy of Equality and Service

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz. Marion Dickerman, born in New York in 1890, was a woman truly ahead of her time, and served as a pillar of equality, education, and historical preservation. From suffragette to educator to wartime nurse and beyond, Dickerman’s legacy lives on. She is one of the exceptional women who have been residents of New Canaan. During her college years first at Wellesley and later Syracuse, Dickerman was a strong advocate for women’s suffrage, as well as protective labor legislation for women, and the abolishment of child labor.

New Canaan There & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: Congregational Church

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‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli, Dawn Sterner and Pam Stutz. Without the Congregational Church of New Canaan, there would be no Town of New Canaan. In the first decades of the 18th century, residents of Norwalk and Stamford pushed north seeking additional land, and on May 13, 1731 Puritans living in present-day New Canaan obtained authorization from the Connecticut General Assembly to form the ecclesiastical society of Canaan Parish. Why “Canaan”? As Mary Louise King wrote in her impressive 1981 history of our town, “Portrait of New Canaan”:

Neither then nor in later years did anyone record when, how and why “Canaan” was chosen as the parish’s name.