The Press., 1896-04-16


 old Stafford News Letter.
 (From Hartford Weekly Courant.)
 Comparatively few persons know how much of quiet beauty, of charming varied outline, of genuine artistic grace, is now to be found among the hills and dales of Connecticut. We read of the beautiful lanes in English country, tho green hedges and the high cultivation-we read of Berkshire and it's scenery, because that is in Massachusetts, and the writers of the old Bay State have agreed to praise their own, like the sturdy Britishers- but how often do we find justice done in print, to the multitudious good points of our own honest Connecticut home region. Take the vicinity of Stafford Springs for instance; it has been known and noted as resort for pleasures seekers, and per in the summer, for nearly a hundred years. We find in the Connecticut Cour- ant for 1766, that it was then so noted through the country that the young
 
 on Bunker Hill, the first martyr of the Revolution,) with a view to the establish ment of fame as a physician, and an in cidental eye, no doubt, to the enrolment of that fame, resorted to Stafford Springs in the summer, and announced through our columns, his intention to study the medicinal character of the famous iron and sulphur springs, which still oozes as of yOre, from the base of the same gray ely hill, and prescribe for such patients as might desire his service. He brought recommendations from the most eminent of the Boston doctors, and was evidently an enterprising and go ahead, young son of Esculapius. This was 93 years ago !; and the fame of the spring was so we'll established, that wealthy people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- necticut resorted to it, in their private carriages, (they could not get there in any other way) and tavern as good for those days as the present hotel is for | these, had been erected to accommodate the customers. Some dozens of our Hartford people spend two or three days there in the course of every year, but there is no mania on the subject and mo- | body goes into raptures over the scenery | whereabouts. Yet the fact is that if there were no iron or sulphur in the spring and theless, there is quiet sufficient in the adjoining country to make few days res idence in that vicinity an agreeable inter- Jude to any lover of nature. The country is very broken, up hill and down dale you 1 are bound to ride if you wish to ride at all. The riverside drive that runs for miles by the side of the Willimantic river is beautiful drive. Here you can ride for hours on level road, shaded, cool and sequestered. There is a pleas ant drive from the Old Stafford Springs Hotel, around into Old Stafford St., which is broad avenue, mile long and some 300 or 400 feet broad, through which the actually travelled path meanders as riv- ulet. From this street eff street it may be called where the houses are scattered at wide intervals, having many acres of land for their door yards,) you look down upon charming valleys, and see a wonder ous diversified collection of peaks and hills. Nature is never monotonous and never repeats herself in these Connecti- cut crags Follow Roaring Brook and it's numerous mill pOnds or trace the windings of the Willimantic; or track the trout streams which abound in this vicinity to their sources, for few days and if you have an eye for the beautiful and the natural, and the fitness of things, you will recognize the unpretending rustic, primitive but genuine beauty that abounds in the scenery about Stafford. They have their ruins too. On the broad way we have described, stands a large white building with a high tower and spire, presenting on the outside the weather beaten and familiar look of a New England meeting house. A closer examination shows the window sashes dashed in, panes stoned out, doors ajar, clustering falling from the ceiling, and all indicative of rapid decay. This was once Universalist church. It is hand somely and thoroughly finished in it's wood work inside, but was never sullied by paint The wood of the pulpit is of it's natural color the carpenter was pro- fuse of mouldings, friezes, cornices; but there the outlay rested. For one we do not object to this, it looks honest and true, desiring things to seem no better than they are. We should worship with more sincerity in such a spot, than in some gaudy temple of fashion like Grace church in Broadway. But it is evident that every species of worship in this building has come to a dead stand, and the destructive country boys are revelling in their spoil. Stafford Springs is only 26 miles from Hartford, and is accessible by railroad or town road, yet compara lively few of the 32,OOO people who live in Hartford have threaded their pleasant foot paths or inhaled their tonic breezes There is a marked difference in the at mosphere of the two places and ont @~~~~~~~~~~~~