That Hampton was once a premier resort town is no secret; but few knew that its place on Society Pages was firmly established prior to its lure as a summertime destination. An outsider might wonder why a farming community in a town as small as Hampton would inspire such widespread interest. Perhaps a few examples of the newsier items found on the society pages can explain the fascination:
June 8, 1892: Mr. Frank Whittaker is adding a porch to the house north of the hotel.
August 15, 1902: The Chelsea Inn Gulf Club played the Brooklyn club on the links of the latter club Saturday. Apparently, Brooklyn air did not agree with the Hampton club, it being defeated to the score of thirty-one down.
December 12, 1902: We are glad to note that the furnace in the church has been repaired, thereby preventing the escape of gas into the church, which was such a great annoyance last winter.
December 16, 1904: W.W. Burnham has recently had a telephone installed in his residence. There are now ten telephones in this town.
August 28, 1908: Tuesday while Mr. Ennis was out admiring nature, he discovered a giant mushroom on the farm of the late Harry Neff.
May 7, 1909: W. H. Phillips has purchased a two-cylinder Buick touring car.
November 20, 1909: Mrs. Frank Stocking on Saturday picked a bunch of dandelions.
Though Howard Valley reported events such as Mr. Swift and Mrs. Warner of Abington were callers at Fred Humes’ last Sunday, and one headline announced “Wild West Show Attracts Rawson People”, Clark’s Corners seemed to generate more news than other areas of town with its “Social Affairs of the Week”. Who knew affairs were societally acceptable then? (for at least a week)
Mrs. Paul Revere Gordon would later pen a letter claiming: Clarks Corner’s theme song is ‘whatever high society in Hampton doesn’t want, stick it in Clark’s Corner’…Come over to C. C. and learn what noise is. We know nothing of Hampton’s “high society”, though news of a campground here offers a clue: The old aluminum mess kits passed into the pioneer history of Camp Fernow last week when china dishes and silver knives, forks and spoons were placed on the new mess tables. The new dishes followed the disappearance of the mess line.
While this clipping solves the “high society” puzzle, Clark’s Corner’s social activities might account for the noise: At P.J. Naven’s are Miss Anna Lynch, Mrs. Mary Lynch, Mrs. Arthur Racicot and child, Miss Winifred Rourke and friend, all of Willimantic, Mrs. John H. Kelly and son Raymond, and Miss Annie McMahon of New Haven. Wow! P. J.’s long-standing stint as Mayor of Clark’s Corners must have been a generational thing.
In other weekly news: “Jerome Evans of Hartford spent the weekend at his parents’ home here. Miss Dutton, operator, spent Saturday in Boston. Miss Lenora Jennings has returned from Plainville after a week’s stay. Miss Ruth Scott has left for Plainville where she is employed. Mrs. L. H. Jewett spent Thursday at Coventry Lake. A. Newman of New Haven called on his daughter recently. Mrs. William Oliver is recovering from grip.” There was also a speaking and spelling contest at Clark’s Corner school house with Clarence Kneelandgewofare the winner — small wonder with a name like that to spell! And then there was this tidbit: On Labor Day a traveler called on the local grocer and made some purchases. Later in the week the grocer received a letter which contained the following news: Dear grocer: In making change for me on Labor Day you gave me too much change, so I am returning the ten cents. Now that’s news that probably would make the front page today.
Whatever anyone thinks of what was reported, one must admit, they didn’t miss much:
Frank Phillips was in Willimantic recently.
Mrs. John Fitts who has been very ill is slightly improved.
Mrs. E. B. Phillips picked some blue and white violets last Sunday.
Mrs. Edwin St. John is sick.
A family of Italians moved into the Shanley house last week.
- W. Hammond was in Abington on Saturday.
Miss Mildred Burnham is confined to her bed from the effects of chilling her feet.
You didn’t have to travel very far from Hampton to make the news:
Robert Colburn was in Chaplin on Sunday.
Herman Allen, Mrs. F. J. Moran, Mrs. Stanley Weaver and Mrs. C. B. Jewett were Thread City visitors during the week.
Miss Eleanor Sharpe has returned from a visit with relatives in Woodstock Valley.
And sometimes you didn’t even have to travel out of town:
Mr. and Mrs. W. N. Jewett were visitors here from Clark’s Corners this week.
Moving from one home to another was considered newsworthy — Mrs. Ralph Burnham and grandchildren have gone from the home owned by Mrs. Rosella Congdon to the home in Bigelow owned by Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Hughes — though it’s hard to understand how this November 7, 1902 item — The Selectmen of Hampton have secured the old Demming Place in that town for the purpose of making it into a town farm, and it is also proposed to build a lodging house for tramps on the premises, making the tramps chop wood in payment for lodgings. – qualifies as the sort of news usually reserved for the “silk-stocking crowd”.
The dizzying array of social clubs no doubt contributed to the whirlwind days and steamy nights: the Harmony Club, the Betterment Society, Young Couples Club, Home Economics, Hampton Community Club, the Village Improvement Society, Young Homemakers Club, to name a few, and at the center of our eclectic universe – the Little River Grange, reporting on its “water-cooler talk” — Carl W. Jewett has been recently elected secretary of the vegetable club…A local milk meeting was held in Hampton, called by Charles Fitts, president — and on other drama:
March 16, 1906: “Valley Farm” was presented by Little River Grange Dramatic Club at the Town Hall on Wednesday evening of last week. The drama was of excellent merit and those participating took their part in the most satisfactory manner. Not exactly the most effusive of praise, from columnists who felt compelled to let us know that: Charles Parker of this place has a freak chicken his incubator hatched Tuesday.
The Congregational Church was also a constant source of entertainment: Sunday evening several hymns will be pantomimed by Miss Ruth Burnham, accompanied by invisible singers, and we also reaped the rewards of a local chapter of an international ministry:
March 8, 1901: There was a bean supper given in the Town Hall on Wednesday night, the 27th, by the Christian Endeavor Social Committee. After the supper a spelling match was held. In “Hampton Remembers”, Ethel Edwards recalled making “oodles of dinners” and “bushels and bushels of beans”. This is the only one, however, that was immediately followed by a community event. In fact, Gertrude Pearl relayed that the minister “wished we’d stop havin’ baked bean suppers Saturday night. He like baked beans but he said if a Saturday night you had a baked bean supper, then folks didn’t come to church on Sunday. “
Nearly a century later, The Hampton Gazette would provide a society page in columns titled “Social Notes”, “Neighbors”, and “About Folks”. Here, too, travels were worth noting, as in this September, 1980 account which recorded destinations as close as Karen and Kristin Hoffman, Tonia Becker, Judy and Alyssa Hochstetter and Rebecca Trowbridge attended Clever Camp at the 4-H camp and as far flung as Asia, when Mr. and Mrs. Akira Memii of Japan visited Akira’s brother’s pen pal in grammar school, Sue Hochstetter.
While the fortunate few invited to the playground of Hampton’s fashionable elite were recognized — Recent visitors to Hampton include Mr. and Mrs. Peter Milner and family of Quebec, Ms. Ellen Osborne Coolidge of Montreal, Ms. Whitney Dean of Boston, Ms. Agnes Forman of Florida, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hawley of Florida, and Mrs. Gordon Gray of Philadelphia — most months contained information on our own comings and goings:
Mrs. John E. Holt returned May 16 from a visit to her home in Versailles, Kentucky. During her stay she entertained Mr. and Mrs. Morris Burr, Mr. and Mrs. T. Frederick Curry, and Mrs. W. Harold Stockburger.
George and Margaret Hemphill will be spending the next six months in England and on the continent, while their son, Tom, remains in Hampton.
Josiah and Nickolas Brown traveled by Amtrak for ten hours to visit their friends the Medbery children in Buchannan, Virginia.
The ‘traveling grandmothers’, namely Marion Osborn, Dot Overbaugh, Vera Hoffman, Eleanor Moon and Bea Thayer made their annual trip to Vermont to see the foliage.”
There was this seasonal reminder: Sure signs of spring – the return of robins and other southern birds. Welcome home Frances Chadwick and Mrs. Worcester, Bill and Vinnie Stocking, and Dick and Ethel Jaworski.
And this explanation: If things seem a bit quieter around town, Dorothy Holt is in Kentucky but will be home early in May.
Alice Matthews contributed the monthly column to the Gazette, and it must have been a tough assignment, as Eleanor Moon and Mary Pearl attempted it only briefly, returning the arduous task to Alice rather quickly. Along with travels, births were announced, as well as nuptials. And while this remains a curiosity — Let’s start with an apology to Wendy Frattini. Mrs. Frattini owns her own home where she resides with her two children — an inexplicable retraction as the referenced article didn’t mention where Mrs. Frattini lived or with whom, another apology was more evidently warranted a few months later: I would like to start with an apology to Noel Waite for making him a bigamist in last month’s column. Apparently Noel was erroneously named as the groom in his brother’s wedding as well as his own.
“Weddings, weddings, weddings,” Alice bemoaned, but she was only responsible for naming the happy couple and their happy parents. Earlier clippings in the Chronicle and the Courant included every last detail of wedding attire, such as Miss Eleanor Pearl’s: The bride, who was given in marriage by her father, wore a gown of white crepe and a veil of tulle. She carried a shower bouquet of bride roses and baby breath…the matron of honor wore a gown of pink roses. The bridesmaids’ gowns were of blue crepe and they carried yellow roses…The bride and groom left for an unannounced wedding trip, the bride wearing a green ensemble.
Honestly, it’s a wonder Hampton’s youth ever found one another, as young women were focused on sophistication, as with the Ladies’ Aid Society where ladies of the church and their friends were invited to the Annual Summer Silver Tea, and the Hampton Homemakers where: Mrs. Egbert B. Inman Jr. and Mrs. Carl Pite presented the program, “Entertaining with a Cosmopolitan Flair”, while the young men followed woodsy pursuits, as with the Boy Ranger Lodge “raring to go” in the direction of great doings in the weeks to come. They expect to indulge in some unusual pow-wows very soon.
They did dance a lot: The Recreation Committee will sponsor a “Beatnik Dance” Saturday from 7:30 to 11pm. at the firehouse. Young people on the planning committee include Nancy Hoffman, Mary Lu Trowbridge, Gail Chatey, Janet Thompson, Patricia Jones, Thomas Trowbridge, Shirley Freeman, Alan Freeman, Scott Johnson, John Osborn and Kathy Thompson. Wow! Perhaps we could contact some of these people for tips on accomplishing this amount of participation! And ask what constituted a “beatnik dance” while we’re at it.
The Gazette’s society page wasn’t limited to the social scene of Hampton’s glitterati. Major accomplishments were also listed:
Sue Hochstetter spent several days in Kansas City, Mo., attending a symposium on allergies.
Eunice and Ron Gluck recently became Connecticut State racing canoe champions.
Steve Surridge is taking flying lessons.
Pat Donahue recently entertained members of the Willimantic Paints and Palette Club.
Gerry Donahue achieved the position of sales director of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
Randy Thompson’s hobby of parachuting has paid off in an unexpected way. He is working at Kennedy Space Center.
This one paid off, too: Eben Ostby (of Pixar fame) received his M.S. in computer science from Brown University
Some notices weren’t without a degree of drama: Graduations fifteen hours apart were the breathless schedule followed by Kay and Tom Gaines and November 6, if you consult your Hampton Community Calendar, is Kevin Kavanaugh’s birthday. Wife Jeanne staged a twenty-four-hour miracle.
Other lofty accomplishments: Leila Polttila of Sarah Pearl Road was walking in the woods in Howard Valley and found a balloon released from a school in Green Brook, New Jersey.
We don’t know what the reason for the eventual demise of the Gazette’s society page was, but at one point Mrs. Matthews published her phone number with the stern warning: “I cannot print what I do not hear”. It’s comforting to know that as grueling as it was to keep up with Hampton’s juicy gossip, she never resorted to paparazzi tactics like stalking neighbors and peeking in windows, nor did she depend solely on the intel one usually collects at the Town Dump.
It is a curiosity to many, who might pose the question “who cares?” Not only did they care to know these things, but they cared enough to report them! But perhaps the operative word is “cared”. For their neighbors, their community, one another, they cared.