Drive slowly along the headwaters of Ponus Ridge and you can see the last remnants of a once-thriving New Canaan community, most of which now exists inside the Laurel Reservoir.
Beyond the metal fence surrounding the lake, a myriad of stone walls crisscross between the trees, some of which disappear into the water.
It’s all that’s left of Dantown.
For Bob Tilden of Montour Falls, New York, the quest for Dantown began with a search for his ancestors. One of those ancestors, Francis Dan, came to what was then Stamford in the late 17th century and eventually settled on a net on the banks of the Rippowam River near the New State border. York. Dan and other citizens of the dominion established a mill on the river, but it was another industry that set Dantown aside and helped it grow.
“Oak-row baskets,” Tilden told NewCanaanite. com. Clams. “
So did the oyster farmers of Long Island Sound, and by the mid-19th century, Dantown basketry had gained regional fame. Nearly 80 families in the Dantown domain were involved in the industry at its peak. In fact, according to the Stamford Historical Society. , the baskets themselves can only be used as legal tender within a 50-square-mile radius of Dantown.
Dantown founded its own school and was also the site of the first Methodist Society church in New England, historians say, built in 1797. Although the church was razed in 1844, the Dantown cemetery, which once stood in the shadow from the church, it is still (barely) visible on a hill overlooking Lower Trinity Pass Road, just across the national border. Several names familiar to new Canaanites are etched on faded tombstones: Dan, Hoyt, Selleck and Pennoyer.
Unfortunately for Dantown, the end of the boom is approaching. A typhoid epidemic in 1902 caused swollen oysters, and the demand for Dantown baskets declined. In 1923, Stamford had to guarantee the city’s water supply, so a dam was built at Rippowam, which flooded the domain for the creation of the Laurel Reservoir. .
“All those old lines are buried, gone,” Tilden said after visiting the site. “When we were there, we may have seen the foundations of some of the old buildings that used to be along the shoreline, where the water would be. But the water was low.
And although it was 4. 5 hours from Montour Falls, New York to New Canaan, it was worth it for Tilden.
“It’s about being there, where our ancestors walked,” Tilden said. “There is nothing greater than the view from the ground. The stone walls that disappear into the lake, the paths that we see, but that have not had wheels for a long time.
Dantown is long gone, but it’s not forgotten. In 1948, what was then called Lockwood Road was renamed “Dan’s Highway” in honor of Dantown’s founders. And in the late 1960s, Lost District Drive was named after Dantown, New Canaan’s edition of the lost city of Atlantis.
[This article was originally published in March 2014. ]
It’s a little early for Halloween, but I think it will be a fun read given the previous topic ? https://www. facebook. com/notes/1282384105446573/
Chris Bednar and I used to sneak under the reservoir fence and check the old foundation when the water was low in the summer. We may only see ancient roads and it was a very nice feeling to swim over the remains of an ancient city. We had to hide from the government several times because they wouldn’t allow us to enter. But the fishing was fantastic!
Dexter and Wallace