By Marilyn May
Milford History
Second location of the DAR chapter house on Prospect Street. Photo courtesy of Marilyn May.
It happens every time: when reading something about Milford history, there are often bits of interesting stories, but not enough information to write a whole column. So, here is a patchwork quilt of stories.
The accompanying photo is of a house on Prospect Street, and you can probably guess the picture was taken right after the 1938 hurricane blew through the town. The sign reads “Site of Home of Freelove Baldwin Stow.” The local Daughters of the American Republic chapter planned to move from its 1907 headquarters on Broad Street, and all along they intended to demolish what was left standing of the house. Then in the 1950s, they built a new headquarters on this spot. It’s the colonial-style red brick building we know of today at 55 Prospect St.. The cornerstone from the Broad Street building was moved to the new building.
Not everyone hates potholes. An August 1916 edition of the Milford Citizen tells us the selectmen announced that the appropriations for fixing 150 miles of roads in Milford could not pay for all the road repairs needed and had to be put off until the following spring. Surprisingly, that was good news for the residents of Walnut Beach. They were said to be “desirous” of having Broadway stay in its present condition, full of holes. The bumpy road was a means of preventing “jittery drivers from driving at a reckless speed,” and putting the “lives of all in danger.”
This next story begins with a retelling of something most people know, but first you might need a reminder. In 1852, the Revolutionary War soldier’s monument in the Old Milford Cemetery was dedicated in remembrance of the American prisoners of war, many dying of smallpox, who were stranded on Milford shores after being taken off a British transport ship on a wintry night in January 1777. They were left to die or spread the disease. The town rallied to help the men, but a “hospital” was needed. Milford resident Capt. Stephen Stow, who had four sons in the armed forces, stepped in to ease the suffering of the men. But he died of smallpox about a month later, along with 46 soldiers who also died over time. Since that time, Stow has been called “Milford’s Martyr.”
Here is a question you probably do not know: where was the “hospital” located?
In Nathan Stowe’s 1917 book “Sixty Years’ Recollections of Milford,” he wrote, “The Baptist Society erected a new meeting house (in 1845 next to the Town House), and their old building (had been) moved to the corner of Daniel and River Streets, said old building having been erected in 1760…it was in this building that the 46 American soldiers died, along with their faithful nurse with them in 1777.”
It was decided in 1852 to construct a memorial to Stow and the soldiers. Volunteers acquired a heavy stone base that got stuck on the tracks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad, according to Frank N. Platt, a fruit grower from North Street who learned the story from his grandmother.
“The monument was made of Portland sandstone…and was brought by boat to the Town Dock,” Platt recalled in a newspaper article. A large number of farmers contributed the use of their oxen to bring the base of the monument up to the cemetery. The stone was lifted and carried between two ox carts, but “it barely cleared the ground.” Their route took them up from the town dock, across the predecessor of Memorial Bridge and then to the railroad tracks from a spot near today’s fire headquarters, which had not been built yet. The oxen moved the stone up an incline that had such a pitch that the stone was dragged onto the train tracks, but the oxen “were unable to move it.”
Someone rushed to the train station to tell the station master, Squire William Strong. Then Strong ran along the tracks and stopped an oncoming train in its tracks. The train engineer was angry at the farmers, and he let them know it. Nathan Smith of Woodmont, grandfather of Fred A. Smith of Darina Place, spoke up and said, “If you don’t stop your abuse, we will get some hay and feed our oxen right here on the track.” That settled everyone. Finally, the stone was pulled forward over rails, the train fired up again and the oxen got fed back in their own fields.
The stops on the Connecticut Freedom Trail highlight more than 170 documented sites you can visit and learn about enslaved Black people’s fight for freedom, education and equality while adding to Connecticut’s history. There are places such as the Prudence Crandall house in Canterbury, the Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield and the Amistad Memorial Statue that’s as close as New Haven. New sites are, after extensive documentation, added all the time.
Tammy Denease, outreach director of the Connecticut Freedom Trail, said that a house in Milford may prove to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. Denese said that the investigation of a certain house is just beginning, and added, “But certain things already discovered look promising.”
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and is on the board of the Milford Historical Society.