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caption, page 1:
Progress
The Cady Copp Cottage stands in the background as contractors put in a driveway from Rt. 21 to the cottage. More photos on page 8. Linda Lemmon photo.
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Driveway Underway
Left: This is the view of the driveway so far after it has crossed the field on Rt. 21 and is heading into the woods toward the cottage. Above: The Cady Copp Cottage with its new driveway partly finished in front of it. Linda Lemmon photos.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
E. PUTNAM — This driveway will touch the past and the future. One 200-foot long ribbon of gravel will connect the historic Cady Copp Cottage to modern times.
A local contractor began work on a driveway from Rt. 21 to the 18th –century cottage about 10 days ago, according to Town Historian and Cady Copp Cottage Committee Chair Bill Pearsall.
The driveway will go all the way into the woods where the cottage, built in the late 1730s, sits. A parking lot that will accommodate perhaps up to 10 cars will be built between the first and second stone walls that are parallel to Rt. 21.
Aspinock Historical Society of Putnam President John Miller said: “We started that project up and we have funds available to put the driveway in. The outside of the cottage is basically done so then we can start working on the inside.”
The driveway/parking project will cost between $17,000 and $20,000, according to Pearsall. The driveway is being cleared right now. After that, topsoil will be put aside, then rocks will be removed and it will be leveled. Then gravel will be put in. Pearsall said at the rate the contractor is working he anticipates it will be finished within a month, weather permitting.
Miller said the project, on the wish list for many years, is funded with money accumulated from capital campaigns and annual appeals. Pearsall added that donations also helped.
Pearsall said the project will be a boost to a grant being pursued to then turn attention to revitalizing the inside of the cottage. The grant rules call for demonstrating that there is local money available for the grant to match. He added that if the grant matches the local $20,000 being used for the driveway, they should be able to complete interior renovations.
The top priority inside is the rare four-sided fireplace. According to the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office: “At the time of its nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, the Cady-Copp House had not been altered since the early 19th century, except for some weathering and damage. The house follows an altered form of the Cape style: the house is place for solar gain in winter, and it has fixed pane attic fenestration, in addition to summer beams and plank sheathing. However, the corner fireplaces are unique to this style. Four of the house’s main rooms are arranged around a chimney in the center of the house, which allows for a fireplace in each room connected to only one chimney and required less structural timber.”
While the upstairs room over the front door is an important part of the building’s history (Manassas Cutler was schooled there), funding to put the stairway to the second floor is probably not in the cards right now. Pearsall called stairs “questionable.” The second floor, he added, is not level. It bows “about 2 feet and we don’t know why.”
Miller said this will be Aspinock’s third museum that will be accessible to the public. “We needed the driveway to be able to refurbish.” After that the cottage will be available for access — tours and education.
Currently Aspinock has the Gertrude C. Warner Boxcar Children Museum, its Research and Display areas inside the Municipal Complex and soon, the Cady-Copp Cottage.
Manassas Cutler was schooled in the Cady Copp Cottage and then created the Northwest Ordinance which helped settle the West, without slavery.
Both the Cady Copp and the Boxcar speak to values from the past — for the future.
Miller said the values Warner wrote about in the Boxcar Children series, “in today’s world, those values resonate.”
Cutler, he added, was another Putnam-related person “whose values were written into a document that started the young U.S. thinking about things like slavery in a different way.”
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