William H. Casey: 

Civic Businessman

For half of the 20th Century, Bill Casey was a leader in  the business, civic and social life of  Ridgefield. A soft-spoken man who often wore a smile, Casey founded a company that still bears his name and is still led by his family 70 years later.

Born in Manhattan in 1917,  William Henry Casey grew up on Long Island and graduated from Lehigh University, where he was president of the Class of 1939. The same year he graduated, he married Valerie Dyer, a New York City native who was raised in Montreal, Canada. They were wed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Casey worked for several oil companies before deciding to start his own business. In 1947 they moved to Ridgefield, living at first in the Bluebird Apartments on West Lane.

He began a fuel oil business in 1949  (just three years after native sons Frank and Fred Montanari started the town’s other still-thriving family-owned oil business, Montanari Fuel).

Four years later the Casey family moved to an 18th Century Main Street homestead that has

served as their house but also their office for nearly 70 years. Over those years Casey Fuel has expanded with the acquisition of the heating oil businesses of Ridgefield Supply, Outpost Supply and Venus Oil, added a propane service, and rebranded itself as Casey Energy. The company was led by his son, Michael, starting in 1976, and today is in the hands of grandson, Shane.

 In 1961, Bill Casey opened a real estate end of the business and was long active in the realty community, serving in 1967 as president of the Ridgefield Board of Realtors. In the early 1960s,  Casey also owned an Esso gasoline station and paint store on Danbury Road, now the quarters of Marty Motors.

 Casey was always active in the civic and community life of Ridgefield. A longtime member of the Board of Finance, he also served on the Board of Tax Review.  In 1971 he tossed his hat in the ring for the job of first selectman, but then bowed out in favor of Joseph J. McLinden, who won the job.

He was chairman of the Republican Town Committee, and worked on dozens of campaigns over the years. He served as a director of the Community Center and a trustee of Danbury Hospital. 

And he held the distinction of being the longest, continuous, still-resident member of the Ridgefield Lions Club. Casey joined the club on Nov. 1, 1948, and had served as the club president a few years later. All presidents had a special project to accomplish and his in the early 1950s was something that seemed more out of the inner city than suburbs: Building showers on the front lawn of the Community Center for the town’s children. 

“This was before air conditioning and since there was no place to swim then, we put in 10 showers,” he told a 1996 gathering honoring his 50th anniversary with the Lions. “The kids were there on all the hot summer days.” 

Soon after he and other Lions helped Francis D. Martin create Great Pond’s swimming beach — today’s Martin Park.

An avid golfer, Casey was one of the longest-term members of the Silver Spring Country

Club. There, he was a founder of the infamous Poison Ivy League, a group of local golfers that included such prominent businessmen and attorneys as Judge John E. Dowling, Alex Santini, Judge Joseph H. Donnelly, Edward Hyde, and Judge Reed F. Shields.

He was also interested in his family’s Irish roots — both his and Valerie’s ancestors came from Ireland. In 1997, 18 members of the Casey clan — representing four generations —  traveled together to Ireland for a 10-day trip that included visits to many ancestral sites of both the Casey and Dyer families.  

Bill Casey died in 2002 at his home on Main Street at the age of 84. He left behind one of a handful of Ridgefield businesses that have involved multiple generations of a family and that survive and thrive today. Others besides Montanari Fuel include Ridgefield Supply, Ridgefield Hardware, Neumann Real Estate, and Ancona’s Wines and Liquors.

 Dick’s Dispatch #183:

When Charlie Was Santa

By Richard E. Venus

His name was Charles, and most everyone called him Uncle Charlie — that is, except at this time of the year when he became a very famous character, in a bright red suit, and a long white beard. Of course, we are referring to the one and only, Uncle Charlie Ashbee.

More than 60 years ago, Charlie and his wife, the former Ida Smith, lived at 3050 Grand Concourse, in The Bronx. They used to come to Ridgefield quite often to visit the James Smith family on North Salem Road and later at the Smiths’ farm on Barry Avenue. Big Jim Smith was Ida’s brother.

Like everyone else who came to visit in Ridgefield, the Ashbee grew to love our favorite town. Charlie made up his mind and Ida agreed, that when he retired, they would buy a lot and build a home in Ridgefield.

Charlie had been an executive for some 30 years with a large insurance company. The Ashbees were so anxious to get to Ridgefield that Charlie took an early retirement in 1928 at age 55. In those days early retirements were not common, but then Charlie was not common either. 

The Ashbees bought a good-sized lot from Arthur Carnall on Wilton Road West. The lot was where the old Ridgefield Fair and Cattle Show took place more than 100 years ago. Then they built what must have been their dream house and it shows that they must have put a lot of
thought to it. It is a very attractive house and few, if any, in our town, are like it.

After living in The Bronx, the place on Wilton Road West must have seemed like a spacious ranch to the Ashbees, when they moved into their new home in early 1929.  Both Charlie and Ida were friendly, outgoing people and they fit right into the social life of their adopted town.

Charlie wasted no time in getting involved in local affairs. About the time he arrived in town, the Promoters Club was being reorganized as the Ridgefield Lions Club. Charlie jumped right in and became one of the original members of the new club. Thirty years later, the Lions Club had a big party at the Inn at Ridgefield. They called it Uncle Charlie’s Night and it was a well deserved tribute to this fine gentleman, for his years of service to the club,  the community as a whole and especially the kids whose lives were made brighter by his annual visits.

It was at a Lions Club Christmas party that Charlie’s role as the man in the red suit began. Someone was needed to act as the man with the long white beard and as usual Charlie volunteered. Little did he, or anyone else, realize that this would develop into a tradition, in a town noted for traditions. He certainly must have been the longest running show in Ridgefield’s history. 

Charlie got to be such an important part of the Christmas season that letters addressed to the man at the North Pole were rerouted to him. He would never fail to visit the home of the little kid that wrote the letter. In many cases he was able to locate a toy that a youngster had asked for. When he did he would take it along with him and leave it with the parents, to be put under the tree. Bill Sturges was a great help in this connection as all year long he collected and repaired toys.

To say that the kids loved Charlie would be a gross understatement. Not only the kids, but grownups as well thought that he was just the greatest. Many people who are grandparents today, were visited by Charlie when they themselves were little ones. These people all have fond memories of him. 

It was quite a distance from the Ashbee home on Wilton Road West to the business area and when we saw Charlie walking to town each day, we suspected that it was a part of his health program. Such was not the case. What we did not know was that Charlie had never learned to drive a car. 

Charlie’s brother-in-law, Big Jim Smith, was a rural mail carrier and when Jim wanted to take some time off, he asked Charlie if he would substitute for him on the mail route. Charlie, agreeable as always, said that he was willing to learn to operate Jim’s old Dodge. The Smiths lived on Barry Avenue where Paul Korker lives now and they had a farm on which there was an orchard. Jim acted as Charlie’s tutor and helped him familiarize himself with the brakes, the steering apparatus, etc., and then took him out into the orchard where he charted a course among the apple trees. Charlie soon mastered the operation of the vehicle and announced that he was ready to deliver the mail. 

Jim Smith’s mail route was in the northern section of town and included the Ridgebury area. The houses were a considerable distance apart as this was some time before developments started to spring up. The people along the mail route liked Big Jim, but they considered it a rare treat whenever Charlie filled in for him. Charlie’s personality would be best described as effervescent and the people looked forward to his visits.

Jim Smith had a sideline in which he dealt in furs and collected the hides of foxes, skunks,

muskrats, raccoons, and rabbits. All of these animals were in abundance along Jim's mail route. Therefore, he established a trap line and set steel traps under each of the many bridges along the way. Jim would check the traps each day anything that he caught was put in the trunk of his car. Charlie was expected to check the traps when he did the mail route. He did stop and examine each one but after doing the route several times, it was noted that he did not bring back any game. 

The reason was quite simple. Charlie could not stand the thought of trapping any animal. If he found anything in a trap, he would release it. If there was nothing in the trap, Charlie would spring it so that nothing would be caught in it. He was a kind man.

Charlie never ran for any major elected office in town government. If he had he would have been a shoo-in, because of his popularity. He did serve several terms as registrar of voters. Charlie served for many years as a valued vestryman at St. Stephen’s Church.

In his younger days, Charlie, who was a great lover of sports, was a very good left-handed pitcher. He used to umpire the baseball games and he was exceptionally good at settling disputes. His word was always taken as the players had a lot of respect for him.

He also used to keep score at the Congregational Church Bowling Alleys for the big pin bowling league. We well remember one occasion when a violent dispute erupted between two very angry, very big and very tough bowlers. 

As they were about to tear each other apart, Charlie jumped from behind the bench on which he was keeping score. He threw his cap on the floor and jumped between the huge gladiators and announced that if there was going to be any fighting, he would do it. No doubt he saved someone from serious injury, as the sight of this great little man serving as a buffer between the big fellows, caused everyone to laugh. All agreed that his quick action had quelled a potentially dangerous situation.

Charlie developed several nice hobbies during his long life span. He had a real fine stamp collection but his greatest collection was of autographs and especially those of Presidents of the United States. He had them all, with the exception of George Washington. He also had the autographs of Civil War Generals, missing only J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson.

The Ashbees sold their home on Wilton Road West in 1946 to Elmer Q. Oliphant. In case you never heard of Ollie. he was the greatest athlete ever to graduate from West Point. He was on everyone’s All-Time All American Football Team.

Charles Francis Ashbee received many tributes and he deserved every one. He was the first to receive the Citizen of the Year Award from the Ridgefield Rotary Club. 

One year after his passing in 1962, the road Ashbee Lane, off Route 7 was named in his memory. 

Uncle Charlie continued his role of the man in the red suit, at this time of year, until his 88th birthday. At that time he was a patient at Altnacraig on High Ridge and felt bad that he could not go out to visit his kids. So the procedures were reversed and his kids all came to see him. It was a great tribute to a great man.

(NOTE: Dick Venus, who became Ridgefield’s first town historian, wrote 365 “Dick’s Dispatch” columns for the Ridgefield Press, telling about life in Ridgefield during the first half of the 20th Century. This column appeared Dec. 23, 1985.)

Rev. Hugh Shields:

A Two-Church Pastor

For most of his long career in Ridgefield, the Rev. Hugh Shields served two congregations. He also served the needs of both the church and state, and he once served as a star of the Hoosier stage. 

Born in 1890, the Indiana native helped earn his way through drama school at Butler University by giving readings of famous people like James Whitcomb Riley, the Indiana poet. Performing under the name of “The Hoosier Impersonator,” Shields even had a management bureau that booked and promoted his appearances. 

“He will, in the course of an evening, vividly bring scores of ... characters before the audience and in his own masterful way, make the audience feel that these children of the poet’s fancy are actually standing before it,” said the bureau’s promotional brochure for him. The promotion also reprinted many reviews of praise, including one from the head of the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, who called Shields  “a reader of rare ability and any community is fortunate that secures him for a series of readings.”

Despite his training and critical praise, Shields soon felt a calling to the pulpit instead of the stage. He graduated from Yale Divinity School and became minister of the First Congregational Church here in 1919. He remained its minister until 1956 after which he was pastor emeritus until his death in 1971 at the age of 80. 

Among his accomplishments was the acquisition of the old Ridgefield Club building, converted to a church hall (it burned down in 1978 and was replaced by today’s Lund Hall), and the resurrection of the failing Ridgebury Congregational Church, which had been closed for some time. He was its pastor from 1923 until 1962. 

His being pastor of two churches created a busy Sunday schedule. He had hoped that he could do First Congregational services in the morning, and Ridgebury in the afternoon, but since most members of the Ridgebury congregation were farmers, they wanted a morning service.  So on a typical Sunday, Ridgebury service was at 8 a.m., Sunday school at First Congregational at 9:30 and the service at 11. At 4 p.m., there was a junior high fellowship, and at 7, a senior high fellowship meeting. For each event, his wife, Alberta Reed Shields, was at his side. 

Shields was the only Ridgefield minister to represent the town in the Connecticut Legislature, and was elected to two terms starting in 1928. 

He was a popular speaker at community events and organizations, and belonged to Rotary, Lions and the Masons. His son, Reed, was a well-known Ridgefield attorney and probate judge for many years. 

In 1963, when he was named Rotary Citizen of the Year, Shields observed, “I love Ridgefield and its people, and find as each year goes by that I love them more.”

In 1966, The Ridgefield Press received a handwritten note, signed “Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Shields,” asking that their subscription be discontinued. “Neither of us has the eyesight to read very much,” the note said, adding that they had enjoyed the paper for much of their lives. “We have been subscribers for almost fifty years, but there surely is an end to all things.”

Karl S. Nash, Ridgefield native and Press publisher (who was 13 years old when the Rev. Shields came to town), sent a note back to the couple, expressing his thanks for their loyal patronage and offering good wishes for the future, but adding: “We cannot agree, though, that ‘there is surely an end to all things.’”  

Bill Oexle, 

Master Restorer

“I can’t imagine anybody cold-blooded enough not to appreciate something as beautiful as these things can be,” Bill Oexle told a newspaper reporter in 1976.

The object of his affection was the antique car, and Oexle had spent much of his free time over three decades restoring dozens of them.

William H. Oexle (pronounced OX-lee)  was born in New Jersey in 1908 and came to Ridgefield in 1949 after a career in Ohio where he was sales manager for the Tyson Bearing Corporation. Earlier he had worked in the precision tool field in California and in auto sales and service.

He and his wife, Lina, known as Lee, first lived on Wilton Road West and later on North Salem Road and later way out Ridgebury Road almost in Danbury only later to move back to a home built by their son Sandy Cook in back of their place on North Salem Road. Soon after arriving, he started the Oexle Supply Company, a contractors’ supply business and distributor of nuts, bolts, chain, cable, tools, and other hardware items as well as fire extinguishers. In 1964 he moved his company from the old Ridgefield Bakery building behind what is now the the Planet Pizza/Amatuzzi building to quarters on South Street, built to his specifications. His firm grew and when he sold it in 1973, he was doing business throughout the Northeast as well as Europe and South America.

In 1970 he opened the Taylor Rental Center on South Street and continued to operate that business until his death. 

Oexle was one of the original members of the town’s Police Commission, created in 1955, and was its first chairman.

His greatest love, however, was the restoration of old cars, an avocation he began in 1947. Five years later he was restoring them professionally.

 “It takes a long time to learn how to do it,”  he told the Press in 1979. “The hobby grows and for every man involved in it, some friend of his becomes interested. I would guess there are 200,000 people involved in antique cars.”

He said many restoration hobbyists get started because of fond memories of cars past. “Maybe your father or uncle had a certain kind of car, and you try to find one like it,” he said. “Some people want to get the oldest car they can get — sporty old cars are the ones that appeal to me.”

He said that “old cars give a man an outlet for his desire to use his hands, which he probably doesn’t get in the business world. By the time you have worked on an antique car, doing the mechanical work, perhaps the upholstery, painted it with paint that matches its original coat, you feel that you have put a lot of yourself into it.”

Active in the Horseless Carriage Club of America and the Antique Automobile Club of America, he won many national awards for his restorations. Every car he built that was shown in national competition won an HCCA National First Prize. “He set the standard at the time,” said Rob Kinnaird, who had assisted Oexle in his restorations.

 Several times he was chairman of the Ridgefield Antique Car Show at Veterans Park, which was co-sponsored by the Lions Club for decades and featured up to 200 old vehicles. In fact it was Oexle who convinced the Lions to sponsor the car shows with Horseless Carriage Club of America, starting in 1962. Because of his reputation, many collectors brought their prize restorations to this show. (They were discontinued around 1983 after Veterans Park became unavailable due to the installation of an underground irrigation system that a couple hundred cars could easily damage.)

Over the years Oexle restored such antiques as a 1934 Packard Coupe, 1934 LaSalle Convertible Coupe, 1923 Austro-Daimler Boat Tail Roadster,  1923 Buick Sport Touring Car, 1931 Mercer Raceabout, 1928 Chrysler Roadster, and a 1927 Gardner. His first professional restoration was a 1919 Locomobile; ironically, the last, completed after his death, was a 1920 Locomobile. In the later years, he’d was often assisted by Kinnaird, Guy Montanari and Hiram Scott. Hiram “Scotty” Scott owned Scott’s Autobody in the building off Main Street now occupied by Milillo Farms. 

His favorite car was the late twenties Packard, a number of which he restored, the last one in the late 1970s. “In the 1920s and 30s, I was a service mechanic and sold cars, mostly Packards,” he said in an interview a year before his death in 1980 at the age of 72. “I formed an attachment for 1928s — just to look at them was exciting. A ’28 roadster was a nice auto, handsome, and it performed well.”

“How do you drive a ’28 Packard,”  interviewer Linette Burton asked Oexle.

“Very carefully,” he replied with a smile. “Very carefully.”  

Francis D. Martin and his wife, Doris.

Francis D. Martin: 

“Mr. Ridgefield”

“Known affectionately as Mr. Ridgefield,” his Ridgefield Press obituary said, Francis D. Martin “was a jeweler, optician, banker, traveler, church and community leader, figure skater, and a philanthropist who aided many organizations and causes.” 

Mr. Martin was probably also the best known Ridgefield resident of the 20th Century. When he and his wife, Doris, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1966, more than 1,500 townspeople attended the open house at their gymnasium on the former Ridgefield School property on North Salem Road. 

“My first hobby is helping my fellow man, my church, and my community,” he once told The   Press. 

Born in 1893 in West Park, N.Y., “Marty” came to Ridgefield at the age of three. His father was for 50 years superintendent of Gov. Phineas C. Lounsbury’s Main Street estate — including what’s we now the Community Center — and his family lived in a house on the south side of Governor Street, where the Wells Fargo bank parking lot is now.

Mr. Martin attended school on Bailey Avenue — “where there were no toilets and no running water, just a pail with a dipper from which everyone drank and no one got typhoid fever,” he once wrote.

He began working at the age of six, carrying mail to the Vinton School for girls on East Ridge (now the Ridgefield police station). At 12, he was caddying at 15 cents a round. A year later, he got the job of night operator for the telephone company at $3.50 a week — five cents an hour — working from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. He said he'd then go home, eat breakfast and catch the 7:35 train for Norwalk High School (Ridgefield didn't have a high school then).

At Norwalk he was captain of the basketball and baseball teams. At basketball, he said, he was high scorer in the state in his final year on a team that had a 21-1 record and won the state championship. The same year, he reported, he pitched Norwalk High’s baseball squad to a 19-1 record, and had the highest batting average, .421.

He later played regional baseball and basketball and, in 1916, pitched three no-hitters for the Woosters of Danbury. That September, he said, he tried out for the Chicago White Sox, was offered a contract, but refused because he was about to be married to Doris Godfrey, his wife of more than 60 years.

Mr. Martin attended the Philadelphia College of Horology and Optics. In 1911, at age 17, he opened Ridgefield’s first clock and optician store in the Donnelly building on Main Street. “For the first 23 years I never failed being at my place of business later than 4:30 in the morning,” he said. “And we kept the stores in Ridgefield open every night in those days.”

He became active in the community, helping found Ridgefield's first Boy Scout troop in 1912, raising funds for the county YMCA,  establishing  the Promoter’s Club, and serving as first president of the Lions Club. He was a 27-year member of the Board of Finance, a state commissioner of opticians, chairman of the Boys’ Club,  chairman of the Red Cross during World War II,  president of the First National Bank for many years, and a trustee of Danbury Hospital. 

With A.J. Carnall, he worked on the acquisition of  the Lounsbury estate to become Veterans Park and the Community Center, and even tried to convince the United Nations to establish its headquarters in town.

For many years, Mr. Martin headed the Branchville Fresh Air Camp, which hosted some 100 children a year through the Herald Tribune Fresh Air Fund. The camp was on the site of today’s Branchville School.

A leader in the Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church, he was chairman of the church’s Board of Trustees for 35 years and led the church’s move from the center of town to its present location. He gave the church more than a half million dollars. 

One of his favorite activities was figure skating, and for many years in February, he would plow snow off the ice at Lake Mamanasco and invite the entire town to a skating party there. Often, more than 1,000 people would attend.

In 1934, he was seriously injured in a skating accident. While he was recuperating,  Mr. Martin decided to undertake “five projects to benefit Ridgefield and my fellow man.” He completed four and never revealed what the fifth was.

“The Depression was on, and business was very bad at that time,” he wrote of his first plan. “Foremost in my thought was that in 30 years, wealth would be gone and Ridgefield needed some kind of industry, but no factories, as we are a beautiful residential community.”’

So he began buying properties near the village, particularly along Grove Street and Old Quarry Road. Some people thought he was crazy, he said. One teacher even told his son’s class, “Wise people buy high and dry land; foolish people along railroads, town dumps, and filter beds.”

Eventually, however, the land was zoned for light industry and, improved by Mr. Martin, became home to such companies as Schlumberger and Digitech.  

His second project was to upgrade his business into “the finest country jewelry store in America.”  (By the time he sold the store to Helen Craig in 1950, he calculated that he had personally repaired 125,000 watches and 25,000 clocks.)

His third project was the acquisition of many run-down properties including the Tudor-style building where Planet Pizza is today.  Many were fixed up, and shacks out back torn down. 

In 1941 he bought the old Ridgefield Boys School on North Salem Road “with the sole purpose in my mind of keeping out of Ridgefield a very undesirable group of people who were after it,” he said without further explanation. He eventually decided to make it his home and much of the building was razed to make it more house-sized. (The property was once among the sites considered for the world headquarters of the United Nations, now in Manhattan.)

Around 1950, Mr. Martin purchased the 14 acres at the corner of Danbury and Copps Hill Roads so that “when Ridgefield (was) large enough, we would have a shopping center outside congested areas with parking room for over 1,000 cars.” The spot is now Copps Hill Plaza, built in the early 1970’s.

Mr. Martin’s final project was his favorite. “While still in bed, I laid great plans to have an exceptionally fine swimming place for the people of Ridgefield —a place that would be absolutely clean, well-guarded by the police and lifeguards.”

The land at Great Pond was acquired by Mr. Martin and others. Volunteers created a beach in 1953. Fees high enough only to cover costs of operating the private park were charged.

When the Great Pond Holding Corporation donated the property to the town in 1970, Mr. Martin had only two stipulations. “It is the wish of Francis D. Martin,” the deed says of one, “that this park be continuously self-supporting.” He did not want taxpayers who don’t use the beach to have to pay for it and thus, the town must charge fees for its use.

The only other stipulation was that “said premises will be known as Francis D. Martin Park.”

Francis Martin died in 1982 at the age of 88. His wife, Doris, died five years later.

Irving B. Conklin: 

A Symbol of Change

In a way, Irving Conklin symbolized the changing nature of Ridgefield in the 20th Century – from a farming town, to a haven for estates, and then to a bedroom community for commuters. Conklin participated in all three levels of the community, and was a leading participant in all three.

Born in 1899 in Hyde Park, N.Y., Irving B. Conklin Sr. came to Ridgefield as a young man and became superintendent of Dr. George G. Shelton’s estate along West Lane at the Ridgefield-Lewisboro line. 

From 1928 till the early 1940s, he owned Conklin’s Dairy on Ramapoo Road, Ridgefield’s largest and last major dairy farm. Over those years he had supplied most of Ridgefield with milk. 

“That was a time when the per capita consumption of milk in Ridgefield actually exceeded the per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages,” former town historian Dick Venus once observed, perhaps with a wink of an eye. As a young man Venus had delivered milk for Conklin, usually by horse and cart, and later had his own dairy.

In the 1950s, as more and more commuters were eyeing Ridgefield as a place to live, the Conklin farm was subdivided; it includes today’s neighborhoods of Farm Hill Road, Overlook Drive and Nutmeg Court.

In 1944 Irving Conklin and Leo Pambianchi started Ridgefield Motors, which grew into Conklin Motors, then became Village Pontiac-Cadillac on Danbury Road; the building now houses Party Depot.

In 1941, he acquired  Stonecrest, the large estate on North Street, and had his home there. During the war he and Joseph Young raised beef, pigs and sheep on the Stonecrest Farm.

In the 1950s he and his wife, Ethel, subdivided much of the property into the Stonecrest Road and Dowling Drive neighborhoods and around 1953 also established a riding stable on the old estate that is still in business today. 

Ethel, incidentally, was famed for her homemade ice cream.  “There can be no other

delightful repast that conveys such a pleasant taste, along with the urge for a second helping,”  Dick Venus wrote in a 1984 column in The Ridgefield Press. “A host will really enjoy the plaudits of the guests when serving ice cream made with Mrs. Conklin’s renowned recipe. It is a sure way to put everyone in a good mood.”

Irving Conklin was a president of the Lions Club, a member of the Rotary Club, and belonged to the Odd Fellows.

He retired to Florida where he died in 1966 at the age of 66. Ethel died in 1991 at the age of 94.

Conklin’s Dairy Farm was a huge operation and had so many cows that Conklin at one point was ordering freight-car loads of peanut shells from the Planter’s factory in Virginia to use as bedding for the livestock. Venus recalled that the light but bulky shells cost $11 a ton to buy, but $15 a ton to transport. They were packed in sacks “that were almost large enough to hold a Volkswagen.”

However, Conklin eventually found that, even though the shells had no particular food value, the cows would on occasion eat them. 

When he finally discontinued using peanut-shell bedding, Venus asked him why. “Because the milk was beginning to taste like peanut butter,” Conklin replied.

Harvey Lown: 

The Beloved Embezzler

Probably no arrest in Ridgefield’s history has evoked the outpouring of emotion that surrounded the case of Harvey Lown, a beloved war veteran and native son who had been Ridgefield’s tax collector for 13 years . Even the judge who sent Lown to prison had tears in his eyes when he pronounced the sentence.

When the arrest came in February of 1940, “it was as though a bomb had been dropped in our little community,” wrote former town historian Richard E. Venus.

Harvey Bishop Lown was the Norman Rockwell picture of the ideal citizen of a small New England town, a man who had risked his life for his country in World War I, who owned a successful local business, who had led many major organizations in town, who had served on the school board and as a state representative, and who, with his beautiful schoolteacher wife, was invited to many of the nicest social events in Ridgefield.

Born in 1899 in neighboring Wilton, young Harvey Lown came to Ridgefield at the age of three. He attended local schools and Norwalk High School — Ridgefield had no high school back then — and was both a good student and a fine athlete. “He was a great baseball player, an exceptionally good hitter and base runner, and played the outfield with the grace of a Tris Speaker or Joe DiMaggio,” recalled Venus. “He had a very pleasing personality and was very easy to like.”

After graduating Lown worked as a clerk in S.D. Keeler’s store (where Deborah Ann’s Sweet Shoppe is now) until the outbreak of World War I, when he joined the U.S. Navy. Lown served as a storekeeper aboard the U.S.S. Minnesota and later the U.S.S. Tenadores, which was transporting troops and war supplies to France. He sailed on seven missions to France, but on the eighth, his military career nearly ended. At midnight on Dec. 28, 1918, the 485-foot Tenadores struck rocks in the Bay of Biscay and began sinking. Lown and fellow crewmates drifted in a lifeboat for two days before being rescued by a minesweeper. He was then assigned to a destroyer, which stayed afloat till war’s end.

Back in his hometown, Lown went to work for Judge George G. Scott, who had an insurance business and was also the town clerk. It was working under Scott that Lown was introduced to a bookkeeping technique that was to be his downfall. In 1926, he bought Scott’s business on Main Street, a bit south of the town hall, and renamed it the Lown Agency. 

Lown was becoming increasingly involved in the community, where he eventually became president of the Promoter’s Club, precursor of the Lions Club, of which he was also president. He was chairman of the 1939 Building Committee that enlarged Ridgefield High School with an auditorium (now the Ridgefield Playhouse), cafeteria and classrooms. He was active in the Red Cross, the Masons, the American Legion, St. Stephen’s Church, and various relief efforts during the Great Depression.

In 1927, Lown was elected the town’s tax collector, a part-time job held over the generations by the most respected and trustworthy citizens.

At around this time he was courting a popular Ridgefield teacher, Elizabeth O’Shea (whose sister Isabel, also a teacher, became the first principal of Veterans Park School). Venus described

Elizabeth as “very pretty” and “very popular.” Harvey and Elizabeth were married in August 1929, two months before the Wall Street crash that was to figure in Harvey’s later troubles.

In 1932, Tax Collector Lown was also elected one of Ridgefield’s two representatives to the State Legislature, another sign of the high esteem in which he was held. A profile of him that year in The Ridgefield Press said the tax collector “has given the town a highly efficient administration of that office.” It predicted that, “as representative to the General Assembly, Mr. Lown will undoubtedly give the same conscientious and efficient performance of the duties as given to those of the past.”

Lown’s profile in the paper was accompanied by another — that of Judge George G. Scott, with whom Lown had worked and from whom he bought the insurance business. Scott was also a public official; serving among other things as town assessor, judge of probate, and town clerk. Lown learned a lot from Scott—including how to deal with money.

According to 1940 notes written in pencil by Press Publisher and Editor Karl S. Nash and found in an old file, “Scott’s system of bookkeeping was lax. During his incumbency, [he] kept money of town and money of his business in same pot. That was how Mr. Lown learned the business.”

Lown began doing the same thing, keeping his insurance business income in the same account as his tax collections. It simplified his bookkeeping, but led to problems.

Ridgefield in the 1930s was suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. Many people were in financial trouble. “We know of several people who went to see Harvey when they were unable to pay either their premiums or their taxes,” historian Venus wrote in 1984. “After hearing their plight, he would agree to carry them until they were back on their feet.”

To help his insurance customers, Lown started using the town’s tax income to cover premiums. He would replace the tax money when he had received enough insurance money to do so. For most of years in office, Lown was able to cover the premium payments he “borrowed” before there was any problem.

Ridgefield was not alone among Connecticut’s 169 towns in having officials who commingled funds. It was apparently a common practice, especially among smaller towns. But the Depression led to shortages in many municipal accounts in the state, and problems became so widespread that in 1939, the General Assembly passed a law requiring regular audits of the books of town offices involved in handling tax dollars.

“It was said that some officials could see the axe about to fall and were successful in getting their houses in order,” Venus said. “Several audits were made and failed to disclose any wrongdoing.”

In November of 1939, the state tax department sent auditors to look at Ridgefield’s books. Lown was at the top of his popularity; he’d just been re-elected tax collector by a huge margin and he had recently been chosen president of the Connecticut Tax Collectors Association. One town official told a newspaper, “the audit is simply the first in a routine check-up which in the future will be made at stated periods in accordance with the enactment of the 1939 legislature.”

But when the auditors stayed in town hall longer than expected, people began to wonder if something was amiss. And in early December, the state tax department disclosed it had found “irregularities” in Ridgefield’s tax collection records.

The Bridgeport Telegram reported on Jan. 9 that a preliminary report on Ridgefield’s audit had been turned over to State Tax Commissioner Charles J. McLaughlin and State’s Attorney Lorin W. Willis. McLaughlin had ordered the audit when, he said, tax receipts and bank balances over the previous two years “appeared to be out of balance.” 

Then, on Jan. 16, Lown resigned as tax collector, and was immediately arrested for embezzlement.

Ridgefielders couldn’t believe what was happening. Much loved in town and much respected throughout Connecticut, Harvey Lown was under arrest, charged with misappropriating funds. 

First Selectman Winthrop Rockwell was shaken. The fellow Republican and longtime friend of Lown called an emergency meeting of the Board of Selectmen, the people who run town government. However, when many citizens and three reporters from local newspapers showed up, Rockwell and his board tried to have them all ejected so the officials could discuss the auditors’ report in private. That sparked angry outcries. The reporters and some citizens refused to leave, believing the discussion should be public. Eventually the meeting was canceled, but the outrage at the attempt at secrecy became so widespread that the selectmen wound up releasing the report to the public.

It turned out that Lown’s tax accounts were missing some $11,500 — nearly $200,000 in today’s dollars.

Lown pleaded guilty. With the help of friends, he also made full restitution of the missing $11,500. Nonetheless, the state wanted to make an example of him so that public officials across Connecticut would heed the new, tough law on commingling tax funds.

Lown was brought before Judge Carl Foster in a packed courtroom at Superior Court, Bridgeport.

First Selectman Rockwell testified in Lown’s behalf. “He was a man for whom we always felt there was a great future,” he said. “This unfortunate situation would never have occurred had it not been for the fact that he devoted so much of his efforts and time to civic affairs.”

Rockwell argued that “it was more than a man’s job and if it weren’t for this and other civic undertakings which he shouldered and the fact that he had so many friends whom he disliked to dun for insurance premiums in the conduct of his own business, he would never have been in this position.”

State’s Attorney Willis took a different tack, telling the court that because Lown had so many friends among his clients, he was lax in pressing them for premium payments. When it came time for him to send the money to the insurance companies, he “unfortunately fell into the habit of drawing money from the town funds to make good to the companies he represented, but always with the intention of making good, just as every embezzler does.” When Lown did collect the late premiums, he would return the money to the town accounts, but he was never able to quite catch up.

Willis argued that Lown had been doing this since he first took office and each year fell further behind until the accumulated shortages reached about $11,500. “We have before us the unhappy situation which has become all too common, of a tax collector in whom the public placed its confidence and held in high esteem, and who then proves faithless,” Willis said. 

Tax collectors, he said, “fail to realize the gravity of such an offense. It strikes a blow at the orderly forms of democratic government and these things cannot be overlooked. I understand that several townspeople, including officials, are here today to testify in Mr. Lown’s behalf, but it is difficult to understand how town officers can take any stand in this matter.”

The judge felt he had little choice in the case. His decision prompted an unusually emotional 65-word sentence opening to the news story in The Bridgeport Post:

“One of the most dramatic incidents in the history of the Superior Court, a picture so rare that spectators sat breathless in their seats in stunned silence after it was over, occurred today when Judge Carl Foster, voice choked with emotion and tears flooding his eyes, sentenced Harvey B. Lown, 40, former Ridgefield tax collector, to state’s prison for two to five years for embezzlement.”

The judge, the account continued, “seemed nearly carried away by an inner emotional turbulence as he declared, prior to the sentencing: ‘This man deserves every ounce of credit, yet the law must be upheld.’ ”

Judge Foster’s sentence shocked most people, both because he’d seemed sympathetic to Lown and because State’s Attorney Willis had repeatedly referred to the fact that Lown had made full restitution of the losses and always was — and still was — highly regarded by his town. 

The sentence was tougher than those handed out today. During his first year in prison, Lown could receive only one letter a week, and his wife was limited to only two, 30-minute visits a month.

“This tragic situation had a profound effect on many people,” said Venus. “The person most affected, after Harvey himself, was his ever-loyal wife, Elizabeth, who stepped into the breech and carried on the Lown Insurance business.”

In fact, that business continued in operation for many years. Even while Lown was in prison,

many Ridgefielders would buy their insurance from his wife. People still loved Lown, and tried to help in many ways. Dr. and Mrs. Robert DuBois, for instance, doubled their amount of insurance to show their support for him.

When he was released from prison in 1943, “the strain had taken its toll,” Venus said. “The once vibrant and enthusiastic Lowns would never be the happy people they had been.”

Nonetheless, Lown remained a part of the business and social community, and was particularly active in the American Legion where he served many years as chairman of the Sailors, Soldiers and Marines Fund, retiring in 1962 because of poor eyesight. In 1964, he was elected president of the Last Man’s Club, a group of World War I veterans. In a touch of irony, his vice president was John C. Kelly, former head of the Connecticut State Police Department.

The Lown Agency was eventually sold to A.J. Carnall, which is now part of the Fairfield County Bank Insurance Services. Elizabeth died in 1959 at the age of 57. A year later, Lown married Katherine Klein English, a widow from Bethel.

When he died in 1967, the man who had once been a friend of everyone in town and subject of countless front-page stories, good and bad, had only a brief six-paragraph obituary, placed deep inside that week’s Ridgefield Press. It said nothing of his having been the town’s tax collector for 13 years — or of his arrest and imprisonment.

“Harvey’s loyal friends have always felt that he never shortchanged anyone but himself,” Venus said.—from “Wicked Ridgefield”

Joseph Knapp: 

Overcoming Adversity

As a young man, Joe Knapp had two strikes against him: poverty and a severe war injury. He overcame both to become a successful local businessman and a nationally recognized antique car collector.

Joseph Lewis Knapp was born in 1929, the sixth of 10 children, and grew up during the Depression. His family was poor and, to earn money to help with their support, he dropped out of Ridgefield High School in the 10th grade. Only 16 years old, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Merchant Marine for some guaranteed pay and “so he could be assured of three meals a day,” son Darin said. When his age was discovered, he was sent home.

He then worked as a caretaker on large estates and also as a janitor at the Ridgefield Playhouse on Prospect Street; he had to walk three miles each way to that job. In 1974, he was a founder and member of Board of Directors of Village Bank and Trust Company, located in the old Playhouse building whose floors he used to sweep. When the Village Bank board decided to sell to Webster Bank in 1998, Knapp was opposed. He wanted it to remain a hometown bank. (In 2012, the old Playhouse/bank building was demolished to make way for the Prospector, a theater imitating the old Playhouse’s design.)

When the Korean War broke out, Knapp joined the Army. He won two Bronze Stars as a combat engineer. He was severely injured when a large Army truck crashed into his tent, running over his legs and killing a fellow soldier while they were sleeping. Although the doctor treating him thought he might never walk again, Knapp overcame the injuries and wound up being able to walk with only a slight limp.

After the war, he and his brother, Bob, started a lawn care, landscaping and tree care business, which grew into one of the region’s largest tree companies. In 1954, they had one tree crew. By 1980, Knapp Bros. Inc. tree surgeons had two dozen crews working throughout  southwestern Connecticut, often on jobs for CL&P or SNET.  

Both his business success and some smart investments — such as turning $3,000 invested in commodities into $100,000 in 1971 — allowed Knapp to pursue his favorite hobby: Antique automobiles. By the 1990s, he had four garages filled with old cars. A specialty was Stanley Steamers and he owned a 1908 Stanley Steamer Model M, which was one of only two now in existence. He also restored a 1914 Model 606 Roadster. 

The Stanleys were capable of traveling more than 60 mph and Knapp would take his onto I-84 for rides — much to the amazement and sometimes concern of other motorists who thought his very old car was on fire. “These people don’t realize what a steam car does,” he said. “It’s a very tricky ordeal to get it going, but it rolls along so nicely with just a ‘puff puff.’ It’s so effortless.

Other favorites in his collection were a 1936 Buick Special convertible, and a 1957 Thunderbird, which he would drive to Florida. “It can do 130 mph,” he told an interviewer in 1990. “It has a 312 dressed up engine and is weighted, balanced and blueprinted. I use it all the time and have a picture of it in front of Disneyworld.”

He loved old cars. “What I see when I look at a car is the preservation of our heritage,” he said. “If collectors didn’t feel this way, these cars would be pieces of junk under the earth.”

Knapp was active in the Lions Club — which for years sponsored an antique car show in town — and other community organizations.

During his life, Knapp battled not only his war injuries, but cancer. At 60, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy and radiation. He also used homeopathic medicines. “He was an advocate of natural medicine and believed in the power of mind over body,” said a profile of him in 2000, the year he died. At 66, he was found to have prostate cancer, but “he did not die of cancer,” said his son, Darin. “He died of a heart attack.” He was 71 years old.

Joe Knapp and his wife, June, had six children, all with five-letter names beginning with D: David, Daryl, Darin, Dayle, Darcy and Dawne. “My mother just wanted it that way, and she was great with names,” Darin said.

Carleton A. Scofield: 

A Good Investment

Around 1925, a young man, fresh out of high school, went to work for The Ridgefield Press. Carleton Scofield assisted editor David W. Workman with writing news and setting the printing type by hand. Pretty soon, Scofield was doing much of the weekly’s work, especially when Workman was out fighting forest fires in his capacity of state fire warden or policing the town when he was on duty as a local constable.

The value of the energetic young Scofield was not lost on Samuel Keeler, then owner and publisher of The Press. Karl S. Nash, who would later own the paper, said Keeler saw Scofield “as good protection for his investment in the printing and publishing business.”

Scofield, however, had his eye on a better opportunity and applied for a teller’s job at the Ridgefield Savings Bank. Keeler, a bank director, did not want to lose a good printer and journalist, and opposed the hiring. “We can run the bank without him,” he confided in an associate.  “I’m not sure I can make a profit at the Press without him.”

The bank’s directors overruled Keeler, Scofield was hired, and eventually he became the eighth president of the institution, now the sizable Fairfield County Bank.

He also became one of Ridgefield’s most active and involved citizens.

A native of Ridgefield, Carleton Avery Scofield was born in 1905 and graduated from Hamilton High School on Bailey Avenue in 1925. After four years at the Press, Scofield began his banking career. He studied at the American Institute of Banking, at the Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers, and at Columbia. He began as a teller in 1930, the year the Art Deco bank on Main Street was built. He was named an incorporator in 1933, a director in 1942, secretary and treasurer in 1946, and president in 1955 — a position he held until his retirement in 1972. He was chairman of the bank’s board until 1981.

He was also active in regional and national banking affairs, serving as an officer of the Mechanics Bank Association of America and president for four years of the Savings Bank Guarantee Fund of Connecticut, a predecessor of the FDIC.

Scofield was a prominent public official. In 1926 at the age of 21, he was first elected a justice of the peace, an office that then wielded some power in Connecticut. People who were arrested by constables, state police, or fish and game wardens were tried before a justice of the peace in the town hall. The arresting officers decided which justice to bring their case to, and some justices were more popular than others. Scofield was among the popular ones and got a good deal of the business, Nash reported.

When the state established the trial court system in 1941, Scofield was named a trial justice, presiding over Ridgefield’s court in town hall.  He held that post until 1961 when the local trial courts were merged into the circuit court system. However, he did quit briefly in 1960 when he became enraged over the fact that 10 boys who’d been “engaged in a gang fight at Lake Mamanasco” and two other boys caught stealing auto parts all got off in Town Court on legal technicalities. He called it a “circus-like treatment of justice,” but he soon returned to the job.

For 11 years, Scofield served on the Police Commission, including periods as its chairman. He was treasurer of the Connecticut Police Commissioners Association, a director of the Connecticut Public Expenditures Council and a member of Governor Thomas Meskill’s task force on housing.

Locally, he was a president of the Lions Club, secretary of the Ridgefield Library, treasurer of Ridgefield’s Salvation Army unit, an incorporator of the Boys Club, treasurer of the Fairfield County YMCA, and active in other organizations, including an antique car group. In 1930, he was a leader of one of Ridgefield’s first Boy Scout troops.

During the 1950s and 60s, he dabbled in real estate development in town. A bit of his name lives today in Scodon Drive, a road at the 57-lot Scodon development that he and savings bank lawyer Joseph H. Donnelly subdivided in 1958.

Banking was not only a business but a hobby. Scofield and his second wife, Irma, were widely known for their extensive collection of mechanical and cast-iron toy banks. By 1970, he had more than 250 mechanical models and 600 “still” banks — many were exhibited in the Ridgefield Savings Bank’s several offices. Some dated back to the 1700s.

Scofield died in 1983 at his retirement home in Florida. He was 78. 

Dr. Peter Yanity: 

Making Things Happen

Few people have been more involved in Ridgefield’s public life than Dr. Peter Yanity, who was a community leader for a half century. Today, the gym at the old high school — used both for  athletics and as a voting place — recalls his name and symbolizes his immense involvement in youth sports and local government. 

“We named Yanity Gym after him because of all the efforts and work that heʼs done with kids over the years,” said Parks and Recreation Director Paul Roche. “Pop Warner, Boys & Girls Club, Parks and Recreation, baseball, basketball. He really had the kids in mind throughout his whole life, and really was committed to making things happen for them.”

Peter Vincent Yanity was born in 1927 in Homer City, Pa., and grew up there and in Athens, Ohio. He entered Ohio University, but — still a teenager — dropped out in 1945 to join the Army Air Corps. He hoped to become a pilot, but the training program was full and the war was winding down. So instead, he volunteered to go overseas with the Manhattan Project, to work with the atomic bomb testing on Bikini Atoll. However, his athletic skills won him a different assignment: traveling throughout the Pacific Islands and Japan, playing baseball and football on Army teams.

“He was an outfielder and a pretty good hitter,” said daughter Kathleen Yanity Duffy. “In football he was a lineman.” 

Yanity was good enough that he was invited by the Cleveland Indians to try out for their farm team, but he opted instead for an education, returning to Ohio University, where he played varsity baseball and graduated in 1949.

While at Georgetown School of Dentistry, he met Elizabeth Scileppi from Long Island, a recent graduate of Trinity College in Washington. They were married 10 days after he finished dental school. After a year of his working for the U.S. Public Health Service, they came to Ridgefield in 1955, living at first on New Street. 

Richard E. Venus was one of five milk dealers in town back then.

“We followed the moving vans so that we could be first to their door to get their business,” said Venus recalled. “Little did I know he would turn out to be such a great milk customer.” Beth and Peter Yanity were to have seven children.

In 1960, Yanity moved to a Main Street house just north of Gilbert Street and set up his practice there. “He was a hard worker,” Ms. Duffy said. “Heʼd get in there at 8 in the morning and usually finish at 6. He worked half days on Saturdays for many years.”

There he and Beth raised their six girls and one boy. “He was strong and opinionated and preached that we all do the right thing, but he was also very kind and gentle,” Duffy said. “He was a sweet, gentle guy.

“He was probably the perfect father to be raising women in the 60s and 70s, when there was all the societal tumult and the roles of women were changing. Where some people from his generation might have resisted some of the opportunities that were opening up for women, he just always encouraged us to pursue careers.”

From his first years in town until his last, Yanity participated in countless community programs, an involvement his obituary called “legendary.”

He served 18 years on the Board of Selectmen, followed by 16 years on the Parks and Recreation Commission — 10 as its chairman. 

He was a past president of the Lions Club, a director and past president of the Boys and Girls Club, a director of the Chamber of Commerce, an incorporator and past president of the Community Center, and a pillar of the Republican Party. He belonged to the Friends of the Library, Keeler Tavern, and the Italian-American Mutual Aid Society — his grandfather came from a little town near Salerno, Italy. 

He was also an active member of St. Maryʼs Church for 53 years, serving on its parish council and many committees. He and Beth received the 1993 Fairfield Foundation Award for volunteerism to church and community, presented by Bishop Edward M. Egan on behalf of the Diocese of Bridgeport.

He received many other honors, including the Old Timers Club Civic Award in 1998 — Beth was so honored previously. He and Beth were also the only husband and wife ever independently named Rotary Citizen of the Year — he in 1988, she in 2000. He was the Chamber of Commerce’s Volunteer of the Year in 2006.

“He always instilled in us a great sense of civic responsibility and community service,” daughter Kathleen said. “You gave back to your community because it offered us a great place to live, and the only way a community was successful was when its citizens were engaged and involved — not just in the political arena but in serving the town.”

Of all his many interests, sports may have been closest to his heart.

In the late 1950s, Yanity was a founder of the Pop Warner Football program — the first one in Connecticut — which he then coached many years. He was also Connecticut’s representative to the national Pop Warner organization.

“I grew up with Doc Yanity as my coach,” said First Selectman Rudy Marconi. The Ridgefield team on which Marconi played under Yanity was so good, it went to Florida in 1958 to play in the Orange Bowl.

Decades later, Yanity and Marconi would serve together on the Board of Selectmen.

For many years he was an alumni recruiter for Ohio University, attending high school games throughout the state to look for talent. Legendary North Carolina Coach Dean Smith was interested in a couple of players that Yanity landed for Ohio University over the years, and Yanity long suspected that this had led Coach Smithʼs lobbying for an NCAA rule change excluding alumni recruiters.

While his allegiance was to Ohio University, Yanity was also focused on helping young players in general. “If he found a kid who maybe wasnʼt, talent-wise, able to play Division I basketball, he had friends from his high school days or Ohio contacts who were coaches at other schools,”  Kathleen Duffy said. “There are several Connecticut schoolboy players who went out on full

scholarships to Ohio colleges. I think he was quite proud of the fact that there were kids who maybe never thought about going to college and were able to go to college on full scholarship.”

Yanity was also an accomplished golfer and a founding member of the Salem Golf Club in North Salem, N.Y.

He retired from his dental practice in 2005 and from service in town government a year later, but continued to be active in the Chamber of Commerce, the Boys and Girls Club (he was a member of its board for more than 40 years), and the Lions Club.

He died in 2008 at the age of 81. 

If there was one activity Yanity may have loved as much as sports, it was dancing. 

Longtime friend Maureen Kiernan, former town treasurer, said some of her fondest memories of Peter Yanity were of watching him dance with Beth.

“They were such a great couple,” she said. “I loved to see them dance. Oh, Lord, did they love to dance together — never got off the dance floor,” she said.

“He was just such a dear man,” she added. “He was such a gentleman in everything he did.”