Lewisboro history: tradition and trivia encased in stone

By MAUREEN KOEHL

The bits and pieces in this column are taken from items in the historian’s collection of more than 150 years of town history gathered from the 1927 unpublished manuscript of former pastor of the South Salem Presbyterian Church [1894-1899] turned real estate developer, Theodore Van Norden, notes from the Lewisboro Association founded in 1910, and the speech of Charles Neergaard at the dedication of the cornerstone of the new South Salem Central School (Lewisboro Elementary School) in June 1941. 

These vignettes were chosen for their timeliness to the season and the paths being taken in today’s world. First, excerpts from TVN’s Preface to his manuscript.

Items from the cornerstone of Lewisboro Elementary School.  MAUREEN L. KOEHL PHOTO

“As between history and tradition there is no doubt as to which is the more interesting … it is tradition that gives to history a light touch, which reveals the spirit of the people chronicled … Tradition is a very elusive thing and very easily lost … With the change of many farms into country places there have come into the countryside people, who have their own traditions and know not ours …”

Van Norden manuscript  

The manuscript tells of John Lewis’s $10,000 gift to South Salem, the interest of which to be used to support the common schools with the condition that the town be renamed in his honor. In a footnote, Van Norden states, 

“Town records do not mention this condition; I was told it 30 years ago by men who were active in the town’s affairs in 1840, and I think the statement cannot be questioned. The men who approved it at the time later regretted the change of name.”

Lewisboro Association

On June 18, 1910, Dr. George Shelton, a prominent West Lane citizen, and several of his civic-minded neighbors formed the Lewisboro Association — its purpose to promote and maintain the welfare of the neighborhood. It eventually expanded to include all of Lewisboro; the welfare of the citizens included better police protection, temperance, improved roads and illicit polling practices. It promoted the consolidation of the town’s six one-room schools into a central school to be located in South Salem. Early officers were Dr.  Shelton, president, and E.V.Z. Lane (Alice Poor’s father), vice president. Dr. Shelton was a Manhattan physician who retired at the age of 47. When he and his wife Ida moved to town in 1900, he was deeply involved in the American Institute of Homeopathy.

Wanna buy (or sell) a vote? Apparently, that was an oft-asked question in Lewisboro come election time 115 years ago. In October 1911, the Lewisboro Association offered a reward of $50 for evidence leading to the conviction of any man engaged in this nefarious occupation. Women were exempt because they hadn’t won the right to vote yet. Our town was predominantly a rural farming community. Farmers expected a day’s pay for coming out to vote and candidates seemed to endorse this custom. Dr. Shelton and his buddies, upstanding citizens that they were, decided an informed electorate was not necessarily a pay-as-you-go electorate. They must have been successful. We don’t see too many local ads for votes for sale nowadays. 

Acting for the Lewisboro Association, Charles Neergaard, a Waccabuc resident, and his wife, Alice, headed the committee for setting the cornerstone of the new South Salem School on Bouton Road on June 20, 1941. He referred to the vote-buying story with one of his own. 

“I am reminded of the story of the worker asked by a friend who he voted for. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘the Republican boss gave me $10; the Democratic boss gave me $7 so I voted the Democratic ticket.’ ‘Why did you do that?’  ‘Well, you see the Republican paid more and that showed they were more corrupt.’”

Returning to the reason for the crowd standing on the grounds of the new brick building, Mr. Neergaard explained what a cornerstone was. “It has long been the custom in public buildings that are built to stand for many years, to build into the cornerstone an age-resisting copper box in which are placed records of the times, so that when 100 years or more have passed and the building is demolished, the people then can know who erected the building and how they lived at the time it was built.” The contents are now in the historian’s office.

Has much changed over all these years? Are votes being sought with presidential promises of $5,000 to voters? Of fall being the season, not of magnificent forests and roadsides of crimson and gold, but of the landscape ablaze with candidate promises? Of the once proud brick school building on Bouton Road that brought together six far-flung one-room schoolhouses under one roof, what will be its future? What will the 21st century add to the tradition and trivia of Lewisboro history?