Norwich bulletin., 1913-11-27

trolley. writes Weedon J. Bradlee in Lne Boston Transcript. The beauti- Tul old village down in the corner where the river which gives Connect lcut Its name, flows out into Long Is- 1 land sound, with it's mooFs and its 1 meadows, it's tidal rivers and salt
 marshes, and the fine old houses and l as much else which is. with them, 1 painted into pictures that hang on walls far and wide, could not keep the plebian trolley off it's storied main street.
 l Truth to tell, there were persons
 who didn't desire to and the artists 1 colony never quite gets over it's long I fight against the desecration of Old Lyme street. Now there are the rails 1 and the unsightly poles made of for and the bulky, black food wires, and 1 every hour in cloud of dust a yellow 1 car goes changing by that notable Colo l n1al church the painters love.
 President Wilson on Petition. All this follows a fight of two years and more by some of the people of the town and by the painters and even President Wilson, who for years made 1 this his summer home before he was l elected president, to keep the trolley 1 out Of the centre of the town. They were willing it should come to Old l Lyme, but they did want to preserve l the distinctive beauty of Old Lyme l street and to that end have the troll 1 ley line built over a shorter and less 1 expensive route from near the head of 1 the street to the new Connecticut river l draw bridge, which drawbridge is the | reason of it's coming to Old Lyme at l all
 Inn Keeper Wanted Trolley. 1 The proprietor of the Old Lyme inn l wanted the trolley to pass his door l else there was no good in it's coming ! to the village at all and those farther l 1t be built the whole distance to the railroad station. there was no trouble in their joining forces. The line l wasn't built to the railroad station, l but this concerns the members or the artists colony not at all; what they tried to do was to keep it out of the street altogether. Old Lyme street to the Neck road, and the Neck road to l the Connecticut river bridge, form the { right angle of a t0angle of which the ! short cut through the river road is l the hypothenuse.
 Nothing could attract the Shore Line l Electric Railway Go. to use that route, 1 however, and finally it got legislative ! sanction for the other one, so that the l injunctions of this summer have hin come to naught except the saving of some old trees which would have been
 missed from the landscape indeed. Back to the Beginning.
 Old Lyme goes back to the very be- 1 ginning of things in the Connecticut 1 colony. About the time when those 1 hardy pioneers with the Rev. Thomas 1 Hooker had pushed through the wild 1 eFness from Massachusetts bay to 1 found the settlements at Hartford, i Windsor and Wethersfeld and Aga
 wam, now Springfield, shiploads of 1 colonists from England under the pa ] tronage of, Lord Say and Seal and 1 Baron Brooke came to the mouth of l the Connecticut river and settled Say l brook In 1885 this. was, and nine years later Saybrook. now grown from 1 a fort to a fiourishing settlement. join- 1 ed the Connecticut colony
 l In Other Days.
 The coIonists settled on both sides 1 of the river and in 1865 the lands on
 the east side were set off as a separate ] town named Lyme, from Lyme Regis l in Dorsetshire- Much later in Lyme,
 as in Saybrook across the river, the 1 township was divided into two towns
 and the northern part became Lyme
 and the southern part Old Lyme
 Here came seafaring men, masters and l owners of ships, to settle when they 1 left the sea; and, in the main, Old l Lyme's fortunes have depended on the l salt water
 l One of the retired sea captains was
 the father of Miss Florence Griswold, and when her father died he left her 1 the beautiful colonial mansion which l is the headQuarterS of the artists col ony. Her conception of a summer home for artists was probably unique,
 and perhaps nowhere is there just such
 another coterie of painters gathered 1 under her roof at first and later spread
 out into studios which she built for 1 them about her own grounds or into l homes in the picturesque village.
 Artists Who Game.
 Henry Ranger was the first to come, 1 and be charmed by Old L4ynne's scenic | beauties, and he kept coming year af- 1 ter year. Among those who followed | were William Metcalf Childe Hassam, 1 Louis Paul Dessar, Carleton Wigtns, l the animal painter, w H. Howe, paint 1 CT of cattle. c. H. Davis, Frank V. Du-
 Monde, Jules Turcas. Clarke Voorhees, 1 Harry L. Hoffman, Charles Bittinger, 1 Edward $. Rock, Will Howe Foote, 1 William Robinson, Everett l.. Warner, 1 Frank Bicknell and Henry Poor. 1 These artists and their families have never left the colony of which Miss 1 GrfswoId remains the central figure. 1 That much misHsed word culture"
 really belongs to her. She is, lingu-
 fSt of parts and has a rare sort of l knowledge of art Every year she manages the exhibition of the Lyme 1 painters in the Old Lyme public libra l ry in the summer, and in the winter 1 the exhibitions of different painters of i tue Ciu Lyme coiohy III lhe clI1eS.
 Halted at the Drawbridge. l Into the tranquility of this artistic l atmosphere in the odd corner which 1 had been all but passed by the jar l ring note of the twentieth century, the commereialistic trolley might not have l come for long time more, but for the l drawbridge, across the CcS-ecticut l river which the state built three or l four years ago. Since Capt John MaSon's day the only means of cross ] ing the Connecticut, below Hartford, i had been by ferries. The Boston post
 road, beloved by automobilists now,
 came to the river at Old Saybrook and 1 the only crossing to Old Lyme was 1 in an antiquated tub which braved des- l truction in the tidal currents at the
 mouth of the river each time it put