The home at 252 Main Street was built sometime after 1835 when its first occupant, William Brown, purchased a nineteen and a half acre parcel at the top of Hampton Hill. Brown was a First Selectman in the 1850’s, and later a grocer. A framed map of the village, circa 1858 by Windham County surveyor Jonathan Clark, displayed in the Conference Room at Town Hall names Brown and shows him owning both the house and the building to its immediate north that has served as a General Store; an 1869 Atlas identifies Brown as a “dealer in dry goods”. Some of the names of later owners of the home, such as Moseley and Button, would be familiar only to local historians, but the family who purchased the property in the 1960’s is familiar to most everyone who lives here: the Grants.

Two barns must have been built between 1840 and 1880 because they’re mentioned in a subsequent deed. According to the records of current owner Gustavo Falla, who is committed to restoring the barn that remains, there were pigs in the cellar, and its four beautiful stalls – each with its own window – were for horses which were used to haul ice from the nearby Bigelow Pond. Most notably, the barn once served as a studio for one of Hampton’s finest and most famous artists, Andy Jones.

William “Andy” Anthony Jones came to Hampton in 1988 from Fayetteville, North Carolina. He and his wife, Deb Grant, built a home on the slope east of the barn where they raised their three children, Lydia, Sam, and Will, and where Andy eventually built his art studio. Prior to that, he used the Grant’s barn. There’s not much to say for the loft where Andy painted, stretched his own canvases, and framed his works. Except that it provided a lot of space. Eight florescent lights – the old-fashioned sort used in the elementary schools we attended fifty years ago – probably salvaged from an old building – are suspended from the ceiling to provide virtually the only light. I remember bringing one of my students here to work with Andy – an introverted ten-year-old Puerto Rican child from the Heights who stole away to a corner to draw at every opportunity. He’s a graphic artist and a successful photographer now. He remembers Andy, and the much needed confidence he gave him.

The tributes written by the students Andy influenced at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he served as an art professor since 1990, are priceless:

“…He saw my potential before I could even realize what I was capable of…”

“…I made my best art pieces in his classes, art that I am most proud of, art that I never knew I’d be able to create…”

“…Without his guidance I would not be the artist and teacher that I am today…”

“…I wholeheartedly give credit to Andy Jones for every painting I have made…”

“…One year my painting final got vandalized, and he sat with me for three hours while I cried, carefully dissolving and cutting away paint to help me salvage my piece…”

“…There are no words to describe how much he grew to mean to me or how devastating this loss is…”

“…Without him I would not be on the career path that I am on currently, and I wish that I had been able to let him know that.”

Many of Andy’s paintings elevate the walls of ECSU, and are found in private collections in the United States, England and France. Professor Jones was an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and the Connecticut Plein Air Society, and was awarded an Artist Residency from the Weir Farm Trust in 1991, and an Excellence in Creative and Scholarly Activity Award at Eastern in 2001. His pen and ink drawing of an oak tree not far from his home was selected as the winning design for the U.S. Mint Quarter Competition for the State of Connecticut. Issued in 1999, that achievement earned Andy one roll of quarters, yet it came with no small measure of fame for Hamptonites, who collectively took exceptional pride in the quarter, the artist, and the tree itself. He put Hampton on the map.

Andy’s neighbor and good friend Gordon Hansen quipped at the time, “Hampton – where a quarter of the state was born!” But most of our responses mirrored what one of his students wrote – “He literally designed the Connecticut state quarter! That’s his drawing on the quarter!!!!!!” On our cross country travels during the decade the quarters were released, people would say, “You’re from Connecticut? You have the best quarter.” And we do.

Andy contributed limited edition framed prints of the quarter for an elementary school fundraiser shortly after the coin was minted. He was generous with his art. Signed copies of his painting of a mother ewe feeding her baby lamb benefitted a library fundraiser. One of his colleagues recalled when Andy gifted copies of that painting to members of his department in response to the start of the War in Iraq. “I will never forget it,” she wrote.

Andy contributed to the Gazette for several years, serving on the editorial board, writing articles of interest, and making illustrations, from humorous cartoons to pen and ink sketches of life in our small New England town. These illustrated his respect for the people who lived here and our way of life: very recognizably Walt Stone, junior and senior, in “Hay Days”; George Fuller’s 1935 Ford and Charlie Halbach’s 1939 Packard in “Nice Car!”; an old town pound in “Safe Haven”. He would gift the original to the relevant neighbor – I still have the pen and ink of Jill climbing on the bus for her first day of kindergarten in “Back to School”.

Andy’s understanding of our town was so thorough. Only his accent belied that he wasn’t from here – and his excellent barbecue – though his speech seemed more a part of his way of explaining things. Andy was patient with us. He took his time. He also explained things through detailed diagrams in the Gazette, like making “Backyard Syrup”, which he learned from Paulie Tumel. Theirs was a mutual admiration. Andy learned a lot from Paulie, and Paulie was so proud of his friend, the artist. The tin pails that collected sap from his maple trees, in front of the stone wall, the apple orchard, and the barn, formed a favorite seasonal vignette, and served as an inspiration for other artists. Andy also contributed to our Hampton Calendar, permitting us to place the painting of the oak tree that inspired the coin on our first cover, which was a definite draw. It instantly attracted customers who, on closer inspection, realized why it seemed so familiar.

Andy once confided to us that he didn’t want to be known as “the quarter guy”, that he wanted to be remembered for his art. But Andy’s art is everywhere, not just in our local institutions and in our homes. Andy noticed the art in everything around us, and he opened our eyes to it, too. That oak must have been there for at least a hundred years, and viewed by everyone in Hampton and beyond, because it grew near the long ago Bigelow Pond. Andy noticed the tree as a treasure. He did that a lot. The turkeys that congregated in Ruth (feeder of all birds) Grant’s backyard. The library porch lit with its lamp at dusk. The Stone’s milking barn at dawn. The Hampton Hill Garage at twilight. His paintings spoke to us, like a song that expresses precisely a feeling in a language so pure that listeners immediately recognize themselves. We know those places Andy painted, deep in our hearts, we know them. It is not only an incredible talent and a discerning eye that produces such works of art. It’s a tremendous amount of respect. Andy’s illustrated respect for our rural life will forever evoke memories of our home.

We’ll miss those masterpieces, those treasures immortalized with a stroke of his paintbrush, those maple pails collecting sap in spring, that syrup, but mostly, we’ll miss Andy.

Dayna McDermott