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05/29/2019 07:00 AMOn May 23, the town’s public school 2nd-graders stepped off their big yellow buses and traveled back in time during the annual, educational North Branford Day, taught by members of Totoket Historical Society (THS) with hosting help from North Branford Public Libraries.
They tried their hand at learning by window-light, elbow to elbow, on hard wooden benches in a tiny one-room school house. They delighted in the delicate handiwork of vintage greeting cards from this place, the former greeting card capital of the world. They even pummeled a soapy solution into their own version of the town’s world-famous Silly Putty. They also churned butter, turned out corn bread, sampled maple syrup, planted sunflower seeds, and took a spin through agricultural and industrial tools and products—including coconut shells—that were common sights in historic North Branford.
THS members Jean Groom and Joan Tutor took to the teacher’s desk in the society’s 1805 Little Red Schoolhouse on Old Post Road in Northford, which also went on to serve as the town’s first library, Tutor explained. Groom donned the famed dunce cap—and described the leather strap that would whack the back of an unruly student’s hand. She spoke about the tiny number of books in the school (students would have to bring their own). She also shared stories of students tasked with helping to keep the woodstove burning and filling the water bucket. Even the coconut shell dipper used to take a drink from the bucket came from North Branford, Groom explained.
“The Maltby company was in Northford on the Farm River, and Mr. Maltby would import, from the islands, coconuts. And he would wash them out and cut them to make dippers, but he didn’t know what to do with the insides. So he dumped them outside and made big piles!” Groom told the kids, adding, “and it would smell! Mrs. Maltby said, ‘There’s got to be a use for it.’ And she tried cooking [fresh coconut meat], and found out it tasted good! And so, a new business was discovered.”
As these 2nd graders learned, North Branford not only launched coconut into the confectionery world, but also became the first place in the country to develop greeting cards as an industry,
That bit of town history was shared with students visiting a hands-on display in the community room at the Edward Smith Library next door, staffed by THS Treasurer Brenda DeMaio and THS member Cappy Kopylec.
As they explained, thanks to dams in the Farm River powering water wheels, the two Maltby businesses as well as many other factories, including the Stevens Brothers ornamental and Christmas card business, flourished in 19th-century North Branford.
In fact, at the card business’ zenith in town, no fewer than 25 factories along the river were dedicated to manufacturing greeting cards.
In addition to trying their hand at creating their own greeting cards, the elementary schoolers were also hands-on at stations across town at the Atwater Library and the Gordon S. Miller Farm Museum.
The museum fills a beautifully crafted barn built in 2002 beside THS’s Reynolds-Beers House on the Awater campus on Route 80.
In the farm museum, THS members Ted Groom and Leo Black showed students dozens of rustic implements on display, such as tinware and flatware unearthed during an archaeological dig at the site of a former manufacturer. The students also tried to guess the uses of antique machines and caught a of glimpse of the town’s very early history, in the museum’s collection of arrowheads and other items used by the area’s indigenous native people.
Outside the museum, North Branford Sunflower projecteer and THS member and North Branford Land Conservation Trust member Bonnie Symansky, a retired teacher, helped students plant their own sunflowers in a pot to take home. Together with thousands of seeds distributed through the North Branford Economic Development project to be voluntarily planted around town this month, the sunflowers are anticipated to bloom in various forms in public, business, town, and residential locations in late summer, creating a town-wide sunny, agriculturally based greeting for visitors and community members.
Inside the Atwater, kids learned about making butter and cornbread and sampled different grades of maple syrup tapped and boiled from right here in town.
A hands-down favorite at the Atwater was a visit to the Silly Putty seminar in the community room, hosted by THS’s Suzanne Teixeira.
The stuff was developed by a New Haven scientist who answered FDR’s presidential call for a rubber substitute during World War II, after Japan blockaded rubber distribution from the Pacific islands. While the rubbery substance developed James Wright in 1943 did not have any practical use as a rubber substitute, it made its way to a New Haven toy store in 1949, and a star was born. Toy store owner Ruth Fallgatter enlisted a marketing consultant, Peter Hodgson, and sold it for $2 at a brisk pace by catalogue and in the shop, where it bested all other toys except the 50 cent box of Crayola crayons.
Sensing a hit, Hodgson then borrowed $147 to buy a batch, put it in egg-shaped containers, named it Silly Putty and sold it for $1, selling 250,000 eggs in three days. Silly Putty then moved to North Branford, where it was made in a factory on Totoket Road. Fast forward to 1968, when Silly Putty went into orbit on Apollo 8 and actually found a useful application: securing hand-held tools in zero gravity (of course, the astronauts also played with it, Teixeira reported).
In 1977, a year after Hodgson’s death, the rights to Silly Putty were sold to Crayola.
Teixeria helped all-volunteer THS establish annual North Branford Days about 10 years ago and the special day has now become a rite of passage for the town’s school kids, as part of their 2nd-grade experience.
This year’s event offered eight different stations, with students switching between the North Branford and Northford sides of town during two sessions taking place in the morning and afternoon on May 23.
“It’s very engaging for the kids. It’s very student-driven and hands on,” said teacher Lisa Douglas. “They’re learning about the history of their town today. It’s wonderful.”
See more photos from the day at www.zip06.com