Connecticut River Museum

Connecticut River Museum History
by William Winterer, 1999

Vicky Winterer and I purchased the Griswold Inn in the spring of 1972 from the Lovell family, innkeepers for well over 100 years. Shortly thereafter, the property at the foot of Main Street known as "Steamboat Dock" was listed for sale by Pat Clarke of Southport, who had bought it from the Lovell family, under whose proprietor-ship it was operated as a fine restaurant called the Upper Deck.

The property included a wharf that was the site of the 1814 British raid during the War of 1812. The warehouse was built in 1878 to service the steamboat traffic and later served as a marina and store for pleasure boats. It had been available for sale for over a year when I approached Clarke and bid $225,000 against an asking price of $365,000. It was my plan to create shops on the ground floor and apartments on the second floor.

And then a very important thing happened. It was a Friday, and as was their usual custom, Tom and Amy Stevens came to lunch at the Griswold Inn. Tom loved the clam chowder and never missed a Friday lunch. I told Tom about our plans for developing the Steamboat Dock. He shook his head and said, "That is the most historic property on the Connecticut River and deserves something better than yet another commercialization." It had been everything from the original warehouse to an automobile repair garage to a boat retailer to a bar to a roller rink and finally to a restaurant. During these years, many inap-propriate additions had been made to the building. Tom pleaded that history cried for its return to a dignified use, and anything less would be sacrilegious.

Believing that Tom was right, I went to the New York Yacht Club and suggested they purchase the property for use as a shore station. (This was years before the club bought Harbor Court in Newport, Rhode Island.) The yacht club's board met and declined because of the existence of the Amtrak drawbridge across the mouth of the river at Old Lyme, not wanting a whole fleet of yachts tied up for a slow or stuck bridge.

Our first encouragement came during a meeting with Bob Wilkerson of Pequot Press, who at the time had been appointed chairman of the Essex Bicentennial Committee. Bob agreed that acquiring the property and starting a museum would make a great bicentennial project, one that would last long after the celebration had ended.

So, in the spring of 1974,I invited a group of active citizens for a shad luncheon at the Griswold Inn. There were exactly 64, because that is all the Steamboat Room could accommodate. Ellsworth Grant showed "The Long Tidal River," his magnificent film on the Connecticut River, which was narrated by his wife's sister, Katharine Hepburn. That did it! By acclamation it was decided that somehow we should purchase the property and create a cultural center for river-related activities and exhibits about the river. I was named chairman of a committee to pursue it. The following day, I drove to Southport and made a for-mal bid of $200,000 in cash, which Clarke accepted, giving a reasonable time period to draw up a contract and obtain the financing.
We formalized our efforts as the Connecticut River Foundation, organized in 1974 as a bicentennial project of several lower valley communities. Our stated aim was to preserve the historic landing, warehouse and chandlery located on the waterfront in Essex, and then to renovate the building.

Herb Clark, who played an important role in the founding of the museum, and I went to Bob Herbst at Essex Saving Bank for both money and advice. It ended up that Jim Preble of United Bank and Bob Herbst split up the loan, which was guaranteed by a small group of us. We then went to work raising the money. Finding $200,000 today does not seem that daunting a task. Believe me, in 1974 that was a ton of money — well over $3,000,000 on a present-value basis.

My first call was to Morton Tiley, then owner of Essex Machine Works. He listened to my presentation and asked how much I wanted. "Five thousand dollars," I replied. Morton sat down and wrote a check, and I thought, "Wow, this is easy." It became viscid after that! Over the next several years, people crossed the street if they saw me coining! We started a Founders' Society for all those who contributed $1,000 or more. People were quite generous. One has only to look at the Founders' Plaque on the stairway landing between the first and second floor of today's Connecticut River Museum to see the number of wonderful people who made the project possible.

For the first two years, the founding trustees met fortnightly — the trustees meeting at our home and the executive committee meeting two weeks later at Gretchen Stubb's home. While it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun. A further dividend occurred in that Kelso Davis and Joanne Monzani met regularly at these meetings, fell in love and eventually married! Kelso became president at the time of our second major fund drive.

During this period, Tom Stevens and others developed a more long-range view of what we were creating and decided to rename the foundation the Connecticut River Museum. From that point on, the group worked to create a lasting museum dedicated to preserving the history, culture and environment of the river and the communities through which it flows. With an actual museum now existing in theory, the smaller chandlery building was renovated for actual exhibits and opened on weekends in 1975.

Two giants in the founding of the museum were Dick Schneller (Senator Richard) and Curtis Johnson. Dick opened doors for us, both in Washington and in Hartford. At one point, he and Tom Stevens flew a Piper Cub to Washington's National Airport to lay the groundwork for a grant. Dick said that the thing he remembers most about the trip was landing between two giant jets! Curtis was a great friend of Raymond Baldwin, whom he introduced to the museum and from whom we gained important public recognition. Curtis served as chairman and then as chairman emeritus until his death.

Governor Ella Grasso, our first paid member, adopted the museum and became our ex officio patron. She christened Turtle, a reproduction of David Bushnell's first submarine built by Fred Frese and Joe Leary, who later donated it to the museum where it still is on display. The flag which flew at half-mast over the state capitol upon FJla's death now flies over the museum.

A loan from the Wadsworth Atheneum of nautical paintings, models, navigation equipment and miscellaneous artifacts from the Connecticut River Valley formed the basis of the present collection. Academic and intellectual credentials were established by an early planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which furnished architects and museum consultants. Ed Quirin became president, and renovations of the museum building began. Brenda Milkofsky went from being a volunteer to our first professional director, and a membership organization developed. Grants were sought and funds raised for the restoration of the warehouse exterior and the creation of a modern museum inside that opened in May 1982.

Another important event was Tom Stevens's gift of his library. This gave the fledgling museum both stature and substance. Stevens, a former director of Mystic Seaport, had been collecting and researching Connecticut River maritime objects and documents for 50 years and wanted to share them with the public. Stevens's interest had been primarily maritime and thus focused on blue-water mariners, shipbuilding and area history as it related to life at sea. Upon his death in June 1982, the books, objects and documents were moved to the museum. Funds were quickly raised to renovate the chandlery to make a proper library for the collection. A vault was built and steel beams added to support the weight of the library, which was proudly named the Thomas A. Stevens Memorial Library.

In 1983, the trustees decided to broaden the scope of the museum to include river culture as well as maritime culture; that is, the trades, commerce, industry, agriculture and recreation that defined life along the Connecticut River. A review of the other collections held by historical societies and museums in the valley revealed that industries such as fish-eries, lumbering, flood-plain agriculture and water-recreation on the river were under-rep-resented in existing collections.
This new commitment to collecting resulted in the need for additional exhibition and storage space for a growing small-craft collection. In 1987, the trustees began raising funds for a new 800-square-foot boathouse in which to preserve small craft. This building was completed in 1989. The new steel bulkhead and decking needed to safeguard this invest-ment and make the buildings contiguous created outdoor space for school classes in good weather, for fishing and crabbing and for outdoor demonstrations.

Today there are over 125 trustees emeriti. Suffice it to say that the museum is alive and well 25 years after those first hard days. We have mounted over 75 exhibits; we have been accredited by the American Museum Association and have been re-accredited; we have assembled a world-class collection of river artifacts and art; we have documented the past history of the museum site with an archeological dig; we have had conceits, balls, games, on-water competitions; we have established a premier research library with the help of Tom Stevens's legacy; we have introduced the river to literally thousands of schoolchildren and we have shared with them the excitement of the river and the importance of treasuring it; we have husbanded a membership of over 1,200; and we have had a lot of fun doing all of the above. We now look forward to the next 25 years.