And so it was. In 1910 Gutzon announced that they would move to Stamford, Connecticut, where they would cultivate peace and associate with gentle, quiet people. Almost overnight he was making speeches for the common man and beating the drums for politics.
In Stamford he was promptly introduced to the famous Connecticut Town Meeting and was intensely interested because he had never heard of anything like it. He went home with staring eyes to write that he had just learned the part an individual could play, first in his home town, next in his state and finally in his native land. He rewrote a pair of sentiments from his diary: “A man’s first love is his mother; his second, his sweetheart; his third, art; his fourth, all.” And he underlined this warning: “No individual’s life is worth the immortality he seeks unless he articulates the voice of his tribe.”
You may take that as typical of Gutzon. He had been in Stamford one or two nights and he belonged to it as much as the oldest inhabitant.
The moving from the old duplex apartment in New York to the country was a momentous undertaking. The two horses, Smoke and Halool, were taken to New Rochelle for the night by the faithful Banks. The next day Gutzon and a friend, like knights of old, rode on horseback to the new domain. The feat wasn’t so startling to beholders as it might have been in New York. Horses in Stamford in 1910 were regularly in view and continuously in use. Gutzon himself became a familiar figure in the countryside as he drove Smoke back and forth between the railroad station and home. Wife and furniture arrived in Stamford on that first day by train and van.
Most of the stable equipment came from the old establishment of Colonel Whitman in Washington. Much of it accompanied the colonel, who arrived to spend the summer. The procession of visitors who came to luncheon, to dinner or to spend the week seems appalling from this distance of time, and emphasizes the contrast of that era when there was no difficulty about entertaining. Stamford grocery stores of the day were primitive. They made no delivery to the Borglum ménage six miles away; so hampers of foodstuffs were shipped by express twice a week from New York.
The old farmhouse was completely rebuilt, partitions pulled down and new rooms added. The house stood on a slope, and one large living room was dug out of the bank after the master bedroom, above, had been finished and was being lived in. The barn, which had been close to the house, was hauled a thousand feet and placed beside a brook. The brook was dammed to make a pond. Gutzon took an active part in all the digging, trimming of trees and laying out of roads.
Road building had always been one of Gutzon’s hobbies, and in later years he was to become associated with national highway-building projects. On his place in Stamford he built a road, cutting the arc on the Wire Mill Road, which until that time had passed close to the Marshall House, the new home. The town accepted the sculptor’s changed road and thirty-five years later it was still in use. After the passing of those years a local highway engineer located and unearthed an old drainpipe, placed there by Gutzon. “Well,” he said, “Borglum was known throughout the town as a good builder.”
Filled with the old Town Meeting spirit, the sculptor quickly organized the neighbors living along the main road leading into Stamford as an association to beautify and improve their grounds bordering on it. Next he managed to get lighting for the road from the town electric company and a similar gift for the Long Ridge Road, which was equally important.
By studying the town, county and state road-building and bonding regulations, he discovered that the town could borrow money against the stipulated return to it of the same amount from the state or county, thus securing funds for the building of improved roads at once. The matter was taken to the Town Meeting, of course, and it caused much debate. But eventually it passed, and both High Ridge and Long Ridge roads were benefited.
Then, presently, he had a new and interesting idea. He founded a bus company “so that,” as he said, “the farm women might have a chance to come to town when their husbands are using the horses in the fields.” He was very happy in the designing of bus bodies to be fitted onto Reo Truck chassis and in arranging a suitable pageant to celebrate the beginning of the service.