American History, and some family history

Today I traveled to Hartford area with my grandfather's cousin and got to learn about some important people/places in American history, and I got to learn a little bit more about my family history as well. 

The American history tour was centered on Wethersfield, Connecticut. Wethersfield was founded in 1663/4 and is known as "Ye most auncient towne in Connecticut". It was home to Silas Deane, the first American diplomat to France and an important player in the American Revolution. Its town symbol is the red onion, as they were cultivated here and became an important export crop, especially to slave colonies in the Caribbean. It's also the setting for the young adult fiction novel "Witch of Blackbird Pond". 

My take? Lots of really cool old houses, friendly people with tons of historical knowledge, and great antique stores. 

The picture below is one of the earliest built houses, and has been restored to look as closely as possible to its original form. 

This next picture is of the Webb House, which is part of the tour of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum. The tour, which is $10 per person and well worth it in my opinion, takes you through all three houses.

The Webb House is particularly famous for having housed George Washington for a few days as he planned the Yorktown campaign, which was integral in America winning the American Revolution. All of the houses have been refurbished to the best of the museum's knowledge and ability to their original forms.

This is another especially old house - built just a few decades after the town was founded. The style is traditional Georgian - very symmetrical. Notice the cool front door!

Here's a close up of the historical plaque. Keep in mind that this is not one of the museum's houses - this house is actively lived in. This house is older than our country, has been through several (I hope) plumbing updates, and still has people living in it some 300+ years later.

The rest of the trip focused on my own family history, and visiting some important family sites.

My dad's family is originally from the east coast - my dad was born in New Jersey before moving out to Michigan with the rest of his family at a relatively young age. However, my great-grandmother (my father's father's mother) lived in Connecticut for most of her life, as did many of my other ancestors, and there's lots of family history lying around if you look closely enough.

From a historical standpoint, most of my ancestors on this side of the family came over to America early on in its development, starting in the 1600's. There's some evidence of them being "founding" families, and there's a case to be made for a rather famous gardener, Amy Cogswell, being a (very) distant relative. My grandfather's cousin is a pretty good sleuth when it comes to this, so I look forward to learning more from him as he discovers more.

The house below is my great-grandmother's house. She lived here until she moved out to Michigan for the last few years of her life.

We also visited her grave. I was lucky enough to actually know and remember my great-grandmother - she died just before my 4th birthday. It's crazy for me to think about how much she lived through - the Great Depression, two world wars, the cold war, and more. She died just before her 90th birthday. I just remember her as this very nice, good smelling lady with soft, white hair, and that she had the coolest collection of crystal and porcelain animals.



She's buried in the family plot, which includes her husband, her parents, her uncle, and her grandparents. She is also buried in the same cemetery as Katherine Hepburn and Samuel Colt.

My great-great-grandparents lived in this next house, not for very long though. My grandfather's cousin said it was very, very small - the entire house consisted of a small living room, a single bathroom, the kitchen, and a single bedroom upstairs. 

And just to make the cycle complete, my great-great-GREAT-grandparents lived in this house! It's very rundown now and has been divided into several apartments, but it's still kind of cool to know that they lived here.

All in all, it was a very knowledgeable day.

Another sandal bites the dust...

I had originally planned on going into NYC today after work, but some severe thunderstorms put a damper on that plan.

Instead, I decided to check out Greenwich Avenue, which is supposed to be a very posh shopping district in Greenwich CT.

I unfortunately was not very impressed.

First of all, upon stepping out of my car, I broke a strap on my sandal. This means I am now down two pairs on this trip! This also made it very difficult walking around the avenue, which is situated on a long hill, until I bought a shoestring at the local CVS and jerry-rigged a strappy solution.

Second of all, it was their annual sidewalk sale, which made it very difficult to walk around. The sidewalk is already not very wide, and the little tents they had set up made me feel a bit claustrophobic. The prices of the few things I stopped to look at were not very good either.

It's also a very pricey district. Part of this is just my problem - I'm on a college girl budget, and I've inherited my mother's thrifty-ness. I'm just never going to be one to spend $500 on a purse. But there were some flagship stores that I've seen before (Lucky Brand, Ralph Lauren, etc), and there was a definite markup.

Everything closed down very early too - most stores were completely shut down by 6 pm on a Friday night. This doesn't exactly make it easy to do some real shopping when you get out of work at 5, but I guess a lot of the women who shop here don't really work a traditional 9-5 job.

I will say it was a very pretty area, and once I got my shoe fixed, it was fun walking around. I spied some fun yarn-bombing on a local statue.

Annnnd there were some really good looking guys walking around with cute dogs. So, I might try coming back here when I have a little more time and there's not as much sidewalk chaos.

Fireworks and a Stolen Sandal

Happy (belated) 4th of July!

I've been busy with my internship and spending most of my free time lounging by the pool. I don't off from work until 5, and by then I just want to change out of my work clothes and relax a bit, so I haven't really done much with my evenings.

I have been to some cute little restaurants in Greenwich though, and I'll be doing a write up on each of them. So far I've been very impressed with the people of this area - EXCEEDINGLY polite.

I also went and saw a movie on Wednesday that I had really been wanting to see: Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing". It's currently cycling through a limited release throughout the country, so if it's going to be at a theater near you, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, my 4th of July ended up being a little more eventful than I planned on it being!

I decided to see the Fairfield fireworks. I had originally planned on driving up to New Haven, but it was a much further drive and I was worried about the traffic coming back home. Fairfield, however, ended up being fun. I had kind of an adventure trying to find a place to park, but there was lots of room on the beach for little ol' me to spread down a towel and enjoy the show.

The fireworks were very good - I managed to get a couple of low quality fireworks with my phone.

A few people had brought their own Chinese Lanterns. It was entertaining because one of them had a slight rip in it, so it had some trouble lifting up. It eventually caught a bit of the breeze coming off the ocean, and everyone around me starting cheering. Pretty cool :)

What was NOT so much fun were the idiots who, halfway through the fireworks show, decided they needed to videotape and comment on the entire thing. There were probably 4 or 5 of them and very "Jersey Shore" in their demeanor. The one guy kept taking pictures with flash and the one girl was doing a selfie video (with light) and in general were just very rude.

I also had a bit of a scare on my way out. The beach had a bit of a bottleneck when you tried to leave - there were just a couple of narrow boardwalks to get back to the parking, so thousands of people were crammed together for a while. Being by myself and not towing kids/strollers/huge bags/etc, I was able to get through most of it fairly easily, but at one point I was stuck just like everyone else. I happened to feel a slight tug on my purse, and I whirled around only to find a hand reaching into my purse, and then the person running off through the crowd.

Naturally, I'm a bit pissed off!

However, when I started digging through my purse to see what my pick-pocket has stolen, I find that my wallet, keys, and cell phone are still safely zippered in the bottom of my purse.

However, my flip flop is missing.

I had taken off my sandals when I started walking on the beach, and had stuffed them into my purse. Stupid idiot either grabbed it or knocked it out of bag when he tried to take more important things.

I was glad nothing of import of was taken, but I sure was annoyed I had to walk back to my car barefoot!

Norwalk Aquarium

Today I spend some time in South Norwalk.

I originally just drove around, trying to find a little deli or something to get some lunch, but I ended up walking around a good portion of their downtown. I did indeed get some lunch, at Naked Greens, but I also went to the Norwalk Aquarium!

So cool! Anyway, tomorrow is my first day of my internship, so I should probably get some sleep. 'Night!