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Easter Egg Hunt

Cargill Council 64 Knights of Columbus then-Deputy Grand Knight (now Grand Knight) David G. Lamontagne Sr., right, gets the kids ready to start at the Knights’ annual Easter egg hunt in April at St. Mary Church of the Visitation in Putnam. Council 64 also held an Easter egg hunt at Most Holy Trinity Church in Pomfret. Photo by John D. Ryan.

 

 

PUTNAM — The year was 1892. Bicycle mechanics Wilbur and Orville Wright opened a repair shop in Dayton, Ohio. A modest little business named General Electric was founded. The first of about 12 million immigrants passed through a place called Ellis Island.

Meanwhile, on July 26, 20 local Catholic men met in Putnam and founded Cargill Council 64, Knights of Columbus.  A group of Knights from San Jose Council 14, in Willimantic, came up to Putnam on a train and held installation ceremonies that evening. The Knights then held a banquet at the former Chickering House, on the site of the current Chickering Tavern. By the way, San Jose Council 14 still exists.

This month, well over a century later, Cargill Council 64 began its programs for its 125th year of continuous operation.

“We’re looking forward to a great year. We’ve had great success in the past with our programs and I look forward to continuing that with them and also some new ideas,” said Grand Knight David G. Lamontagne Sr.

Building on decades of success, Council 64 will continue a program it started last year, leading a new statewide effort by the Knights of Columbus to support people with autism. 

Another highlight was Cargill’s year-round program for the 27 widows of the council’s deceased members. This includes Knights delivering poinsettias at Christmastime, as well as maintaining a dedicated fund to help the widows when requested. 

One of the best programs of its type in the state, for the last two years running this effort has won the Connecticut State Council’s Annual Family Service Award.

These two programs are just part of Council 64’s commitment to the community. 

Cargill’s Knights raised and donated over $16,000 in the last fraternal year, as part of conducting literally dozens of positive, local programs and events. 

This  included, among a number of programs, the council’s annual “Joe Bousquet Christmas Giving Appeal” for the needy in the area, the annual “Thanksgiving Day Turkey Dip” at Quaddick Pond in Thompson to raise funds for Camp Quinebaug, in Killingly, to help local people with intellectual disabilities, food drives for the local poor, providing free, new winter coats for needy local children, an annual council golf tournament, and continuing work to end abortion and assisted suicide and to otherwise support the Culture of Life.

All of these efforts, and more, will be repeated in the months to come.

Led by Grand Knight Lamontagne, he and the council’s other elected officers run Cargill Council. The organization does its own fund-raising, using all of the net proceeds to pay for its programs.

Cargill Council 64, Knights of Columbus, is made up of over 200 local Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Catholic men and their families. The council covers parts of Windham County, in the areas served by St. Mary Church of the Visitation Parish in Putnam, and Most Holy Trinity Parish in Pomfret. Cargill Council 64 was founded a decade after the international Knights of Columbus organization was begun in 1882. Officials at the K of C Supreme Council in New Haven said Council 64 is one of only 47 councils in existence today to have been in operation for at least 125 years.

Cargill Council’s first permanent home, which it moved into in 1901, was in the Bradley Theater downtown. The council later moved to a former private home on Maple Street, off the lower end of Church Street. The organization moved to its current location, at the former Putnam Polish Club building at 64 Providence St., in 1976.