Time stood still in 1942 for a 7-year-old. The 4th of July parade consisted of oxen, teams of horses and the Fire Department which was the 1927 LaFrance Pumper and Barney Pawlikowski. Hampton was in a time warp with many dirt roads. Because of the war, there were no new cars. You knew everyone by his car. Hampton had many farms and more cows than people. I lived on Kings Highways which was a dirt road.
In September of 1942, I enrolled in the third grade, a class of six, at Bell School. Lois Richardson Woodward was the teacher for my first years in Hampton. Bell School had a big wood furnace, water from a spring at the edge of the swamp, and outhouses for boys and girls. One of the duties of the male members of the school board was to clean them once a month, and my father, Chairman of the board, participated. The remainder of my elementary education was at Center School, which had a hand pump outside for water and a wood furnace and the same toilet facilities.
The most outstanding event at Center School was in 1948 — a multi-town trip to Boston on a steam engine. Students from surrounding towns gathered at Hampton Station. It was a wonderful trip to visit the Constitution Ship, North Church, and Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill. That was my first trip on the Airline Trail on the steam train.
My second trip was in 1955. I was in the US Navy. My ship had docked in Boston. I took a thirty day leave during the month of August. The Hartford-New Haven train had been reduced to a one car trolley. I bought a round trip ticket to Willimantic. I asked the engineer to let me off in Hampton, but he said they had no station, so I got off in Pomfret. August 1955 brought us the famous hurricane and wiped out the bridge in Putnam, and so I am the last resident of Hampton who rode the Airline Trail Train.
George Miller