Cornwall, CT

The Chronicle Hail!—and Hail its crews!
Please pardon us while we effuse
on how we work, report, amuse—
how well we’ve done (and do) the news!

So began Ken Keskinen’s celebratory poem in the 10th anniversary edition of the Cornwall Chronicle, published this past spring. Put out solely by volunteers, the monthly newspaper does much to reflect life in the northwest Connecticut town of Cornwall.

In the rural community of 1,500, boasting three separate villages in 46.3 square miles, the Chronicle exemplifies the independence of its citizens. Looking for strong local coverage, the late Margaret and Tom Bevans gathered a circle of friends in 1991 to aid in putting out a publication covering only Cornwall.

“The Chronicle is a great benefit to the town,” says Keskinen, one of its current editors. “It keeps everyone informed and, in turn, encourages them to participate.”

And participate they do. The gym at Cornwall Consolidated School is often packed for town meetings that may focus, by turns, on the need for affordable housing in a town where five-acre zoning abounds, or how, on a tight budget, to expand an outgrown library.

The Chronicle has been successful, in large part, because of Cornwall’s large representation from the art and literary worlds.

Barbara “Bobby” Klaw and her husband, Spencer, serve as its publishers. “It’s a cooperative effort. We’ve been blessed with a lot of talented and helpful people,” she says.

Talented people have long chosen Cornwall as home. Author and artist James Thurber and poet Mark Van Doren were well-known figures around town. Television news anchorman Tom Brokaw weekended at his Dibble Hill Road home for years, and now actor Sam Waterston takes an active role in the community.

Many have deep roots here. Some have gone elsewhere to follow careers but return in retirement to the serenity and natural beauty where Mohawk Mountain looms from the shores of the Housatonic River. Small shops, three post offices (Cornwall Plains, Cornwall Bridge, and West Cornwall), and two volunteer fire department stations are hubs of activity. The only bright lights in town cascade down the slopes of Mohawk Mountain Ski Area (the site of the world’s first snow-making operation) in winter, and the only crowds are those that come in summer to see the red-covered bridge spanning the Housatonic. Some also come to shop in the craft stores, such as Cornwall Bridge Pottery.

The name “Cornwall” was bestowed upon the northwest corner of Connecticut by Colonial officials in 1738. The land was subdivided and its plots were sold by auction. The town (it kept the name) was incorporated two years later with 13 families in residence.

The independence of its people surfaced early when church members expressed dissatisfaction that their minister wasn’t paying his share of taxes to help support the American Revolution. The dissension led to a group of parishioners leaving the church and founding their own.

“For the next 150 years, the two churches stood facing each other,” explains Michael Gannet, the town historian. “In 1826, the second church became the North Church, and for a while it prospered. But eventually it petered out and, at the end of the 1900s, the two merged.”

While they are an independent sort, Cornwallians are also proud of their town and its history. A statue of a hometown hero, Civil War Gen. John Sedgwick, stands near his gravesite. Residents are quick to tell you that students at Cornwall Consolidated have been recognized several times for ranking first in the state’s mastery test scores.

And they love to display their homegrown bounty at the annual agricultural fair the third Saturday in September, a reminder of the town’s strong farming heritage that exists on a lesser scale today. Indeed, when not in his office, First Selectman Gordon Ridgway may be found on his small family farm.

When the late Mary Swift “Polly” Calhoun completed her work for a bachelor’s degree in 1981, 50 years after leaving college, she wrote a sociological study of the town. She concluded that since its first inhabitants, Cornwall has exported “independent men and women.”

But they return, with their descendants, to visit, she wrote, “even if their lives do not allow them all to live in Cornwall. It’s the people that make the town, and who ensure its future.”

Ruth Epstein is a journalist in northwest Connecticut.

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