Amazing Tales from Off the Beaten Path

Building Connecticut -- one earthen road at a time

When Colonial settlers first arrived in Connecticut, there were only Native American hiking paths. No highways, trains, post offices, hotels or maps. It took more than 6 days to ride a horse from New York to Boston. Early earthen roads were neither pleasant nor efficient for travel. Who made up the initial highway crews, who had to work with the land that the last Ice Age left them? How did settlers communicate with one another over long distances prior to the telegraph? Why did we measure distance in miles instead of kilometers? The 400 years between the Pilgrims landing until now has so much incredible information that we've split it into two episodes, featuring the foremost expert on Connecticut development – Richard DeLuca, of Cheshire.

Fighting Hitler in Southbury

In the 1930s, bigotry was alive and well in the United States – a perfect setting for supporters of the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany to establish a U.S.-based support system. As part of that effort, Hitler’s German-American supporters bought land in various strategic locations around the country, including in New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey – and Southbury, Connecticut (on land now known as the Fox Hollow Preserve, off Sleepy Hill Road). At these sites, they developed camps – for adults and youth – to raise the flag of the swastika and to march and sing the songs of the Third Reich. Listen as Southbury Town Historian John Dwyer recounts the fight between the 2,500-strong community (in those days) and the Bund as the organization was called.

Mark Twain‘s Final Years in Redding

 

He started in Missouri, then went to San Francisco, Elmira, NY, Hartford, CT, Europe and New York City. But at the end, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) came back to Connecticut to live out his final years in the town of Redding. A lot happened in those two years – some good and some sad. Hear from Beth Dominiani, who retired in 2021 as Director of the Mark Twain Library in Redding -- located just half-a-mile from Twain's famous mansion, Stormfield. Twain financed the library himself, making him one of the few (Beth believes he's the only) famous American author to ever start a public library in the U.S. We’ll have some great stories about Twain, including the burglary at his house (while he was home), his penchant to change other author's words if he didn't like the original text and the untimely death of his daughter inside Stormfield.