The means of transportation in early times furnished one of the most serious problems. The Housatonic Railroad was not completed till 1840. Before this, all transportation of produce and merchandise was by wagons to Bridgeport, and thence by sloop to New York. The mail also came in much the same way, being brought here from Bridgeport by a carrier on horseback. Our old friend, the late Colonel Wm. J. Starr, remembered the postman of his childhood days, who announced his arrival by shouting as he rode, “News! News! Some lies and some trues!”
We owe to Colonel Starr a vivid picture of the Main Street of the village nearly a century ago, as he recalled it. It is not an agreeable picture. Pigs were kept in the street, and before almost every house was a long trough, where twice a day they were fed. We can hardly wonder that fevers broke out mysteriously. Geese also roamed at will, and mischievous youths were known to play a practical joke on some unpopular man by penning all the geese in the village into his front porch during the night.
Many of the front yards were adorned with huge wood-piles. A part of the street was a swamp, through which ran a crooked water course that, after a shower, left pools of mud, in which pigs and cattle cooled themselves, for “The Green” was also a cattle pasture. The story is told of a dignified gentleman of the old school, who, dressed in immaculate white on a summer Sunday, was hastening across “The Green” to church, making his way among the puddles, when a large hog, frightened from a pool, ran violently against him. He had an unsought ride on its back across the street, and was deposited in a puddle, in full view of the waiting congregation gathered on the church steps.
In 1838 the open-paved watercourse through “The Green” was constructed and was regarded as a grand improvement.
The Village Improvement Society as organized in 1871,
and, a little later, under its auspices, “The Green” was put in its present attractive condition, a covered brick sewer being laid to replace the open-paved watercourse which previously ran through the center of the street. This was accomplished on the initiative, and largely though the instrumentality, of Mr. and Mrs. William D. Black, whose efforts and energies were always directed for the benefit of the village. A large and successful fair to raise money for this purpose was held in a tent on “The Green” in July, 1872, and the residents of Main Street accepted a voluntary assessment of a large amount to perfect the work.