Patriots In Bell-bottoms

Notice anything odd about these Revolutionary-era soldiers? Yes, indeed, some are wearing bell-bottom slacks, all the rage in the mid-1970s, but not exactly what one would have expected from a Continental soldier in the 1770s. A few others are in chinos.

The date is April 27, 1975. Members of the Fifth Connecticut Regiment, a group  that had recently been founded to portray a regiment of local residents who fought in the Revolutionary War, are at the Titicus Cemetery off North Salem Road.

It’s the 198th anniversary of the Battle of Ridgefield on April 27, 1777, and the Fifth is saluting its long-dead commander.

The original Connecticut Fifth was established in 1775 but did not see local action until 1777, when it participated in the Battle of Ridgefield. It later fought at the Battles of Germantown and of Monmouth.

In 1975, the town, like the country, was preparing for the nation’s Bicentennial. A year earlier, several Ridgefielders decided it would be a fitting remembrance for the Bicentennial — as well as the Battle of Ridgefield’s 200th anniversary a year later — to have a local group to recreate a colonial regiment. They “resurrected” the Connecticut Fifth, raised money, obtained equipment and clothing, trained themselves, and began doing programs throughout the region, including appearing in many parades.

Among the founders of the Fifth were Dennis Ambruso, Eric Chandler, Otto DePeirne, Jim Freebairn, Rick Gillespie, Fred Glissman, John Passiglia, Tom Pearson, and James Purcell, Jr. 

In this picture, we see the “new” Connecticut Fifth at a ceremony honoring  Col. Philip Burr Bradley, a Ridgefielder who served as the regiment’s commander for many years. They are saluting his grave at the Titicus Cemetery.

At the extreme left are three people: The Rev. Clayton R. Lund of the First Congregational Church, who would participate in many Bicentennial events since many members of his congregation 200 years earlier had been among the revolutionaries.

Then there is Deborah Bradley Donnelly, a descendant of Philip Burr Bradley. Beyond her is Tom Pearson, who was commander of the “new” Fifth.

Fred Glissman, who is in this picture somewhere, reported later that Mrs. Donnelly been invited to the ceremony by Pearson. “Tom was very good on descendants,” Glissman said. “He could alway dig them up.”

However, at the time of this event, newly formed regiment couldn’t yet dig up the full and proper outfits for everyone. “The uniforms are incomplete,” Glissman noted as he examined the picture. Many of the members had gone to the store and bought bell-bottom slacks of a color that, as closely as was possible, matched the rest of their outfit. They later got the proper period breeches. Others had to settle for chinos.

Today, though no longer based in Ridgefield, the Connecticut Fifth is alive and well, and still reenacting the Revolution. For more information, see their website, http://www.5cr.org/  .

Clayton R. Lund:
Uncontainable Compassion

Only two pastors in the three-century history of Ridgefield’s oldest church have served longer than the Rev. Clayton R. Lund. One was his predecessor, the Rev. Hugh Shields, and the other was the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, from 1740 to 1778. 

The 17th minister of the First Congregational Church arrived in 1956 and retired just 30 years later. During Lund’s first 10 years here, the congregation tripled in size to 800 people, a church school was added, and an assistant minister was hired. 

A native of Providence, R.I., Clayton Reginald Lund was born in 1919 and graduated from Clark University and Andover-Newton Theological School.  He served congregations in Massachusetts and New York before coming to Ridgefield at the age of 37.

“A ministry is a life of service to other people,” Mr. Lund said in 1986 when he was retiring after 42 years of parish work. “My daily agenda is created by the needs of others. A minister has to be a teacher, preacher, pastor, administrator, and community leader.” 

Lund was all of those, often participating in community organizations and speaking up for people in need. 

He was also a strong leader. In 1978, just after extensive renovations were completed, a child playing with a candle ignited a fire that destroyed the Church House. Lund led the efforts to build a new church house, which was completed in 1980 and named Lund Hall in his honor. 

However, over his three decades in Ridgefield,  Lund was best known for comforting those in need. At his retirement, novelist and historian Kathryn Morgan Ryan, whose Roman Catholic husband, author Cornelius Ryan, was a close friend of the minister, called  Lund “a man of surging talent and uncontainable compassion. Very soon now…we in the town he loves will realize that, like others in our lives, we took him for granted, that we believed he would always be here for us — all of us, any of us, at any time. It is hard to let go of the security he represents.” 

He was so respected as a minister that in 1990, Andover-Newton, his alma mater, established a $20,000 Clayton R. Lund scholarship for ministerial students. 

Lund, who had moved to Danbury after his retirement, died there in 2000 at the age of 81.

“Clayton Lund brought a powerful blend of dignity, faith, wisdom, flair, and charm into the pulpit,” wrote the Rev. Dr. Charles Hambrick-Stowe in his 2011 church history, “We Gather Together.” “He was well-suited for leading the church through the rapid changes coming to the town of Ridgefield from the 1950s through the 1980s.”

Lund himself described those changes concisely in a 1987 church history, “Ridgefield … was on its way to becoming one of the East’s most desirable and expensive places to live. Ridgefielders watched with some apprehension as their beautiful town, in which they knew and greeted one another, was ‘invaded’ by newcomers. Change was rapid, construction was everywhere. Woods were cut down for new development; oddly named new roads ribboned the hills and valleys; personal service and shopping became a thing of the past.”