Interview of Burnham Carter

Event: Telling Tales Out of School #1 Oral History Project Interviews Location: Old Lyme Town Senior Center Date: November 15, 2009 Interviewee: Burnham Carter Interviewer: Laurie Willis

Was there anything particular you wanted to talk about today? I don’t know why anyone would be interested in what I have to say, but since this is Old Lyme, I’d like to talk about how my family got started here. In 1928 to 1932 my father was a very minor person in the American Embassy in Havana and the summers were very hot. He wished to find a place in the Connecticut – New York area to send us all up for the summer. He would stay down there for three or four months and we would get all summer. He talked to (?) Griswold Lane, he was a resident here, he’s the man who owned the building that’s now part of the Old Lyme Beach Club. So he said, Try Old Lyme.” So like a lot of other families in the ‘30s, we came from another city. My wife came from Pittsburgh, the Twinings came from New York, so did the Coxes. We rented houses. I remember renting this particularly ratty old house but thought it was pretty fantastic. As a small boy I didn’t care about that. We rented our first house on the corner of Quarry Lane. You go up the next road past the Marina and it’s the first road on the left. Goes out to the Burt property. They have a big cliff there, a big quarry. It was a lovely place for a small boy because in back of the quarry was marsh and somebody had built a huge retaining wall for the marsh and you could always find snakes there. I didn’t like snakes but I was fascinated by them. And I’d go there, and there they would be, black, coiled, snakes along the wall that would slither off when a small boy got close to them. Just black snakes there. As a boy I did walk in the woods of Old Lyme and I remember meeting 3 or 4 copperheads, but they were not a problem.

But what we did was, these families, we came from mostly New York and Pittsburgh, and possibly New Haven, but that came later, we rented and then we liked it so much we bought or we built. My family had rented the Congdon house adjunct. Wanda Congdon lived on Sill Lane and her family house is just down the road from the end of Sill Lane and if you go over the rise there’s a little stream there and on the right they own a second house, the Cummings house. We loved that house. It has one of these typical New England soap boxes, you go right in the front door and immediately there is a very steep set of stairs up to the second floor, a central fire place and under the property a wood closet for the firewood, but at the back of that a secret door, another little hiding hole there. Of course, my father did well. He made all sorts of adventures.

Anyway we rented that for several years, but what really cemented our love of Old Lyme was my mother getting pregnant and not wanting to have a baby in Havana. So in 1932, we stayed in Old Lyme for the winter and we stayed at 31 Lyme Street in William Chadwick’s house, where my sister Allison was born. And I went to Center School. I had a great year. I was an outsider and I remember walking home for lunch and bunch of kids from my class would tease me, walking on the other side of the street and saying “Burnt ham, Burnt ham!” and I would ignore them because mother always said sticks and stones. But it did hurt.

Carter - 1 of 6 Event: Telling Tales Out of School #1 Oral History Project Interviews Location: Old Lyme Town Senior Center Date: November 15, 2009 Interviewee: Burnham Carter Interviewer: Laurie Willis

How many kids in your class? I don’t remember a thing about the school itself. I had gone to a German school in Havana for the first and second grade, and when I went to Center School, I’d been pushed so hard in the German School that third grade was absurd, and so after two weeks I was in the fourth grade and after a month I was in fifth grade. I did 3 grades in one year. Not because I was bright, but I was used to that Germanic work ethic. It made me young for my school for the rest of my life.

We liked Old Lyme and then we bought a house further up Sill Lane. I think it’s the Sherwood house, just up on the corner a big tall straight house for $8,000. It had a nice double lot and lots of woods for me and my brother and our Norwegian Elk Hound to explore. So off we’d go everyday during the summer to explore the Knotson Hill area; I know that area very well. So then of course, eventually, these families got to know each other, little by little. I met my wife at the age of 10. She came from Pittsburgh into town and I was rather shy and mother said “I’m worried about Burnham’s socialization. Suzie’s a very friendly girl. I’ll set them up to have lunch together and play tennis and play records.” It didn’t really work out. I didn’t care for her, but at the age of 21, I married her. But it was a very particular time for Old Lyme because the year round residents had little ordinary middle class jobs but were not necessary professional people. Judge Cox was in the superior court of appeals in New York. My father was leading head of public relations at the embassy. Steven Philbin (?) was a patent lawyer. There was an influx of a different group just for the summer. We got along perfectly well, but there was a little barrier between the two. We all used to go to the beach, White Sands Beach, mostly developed by Jas Day Smith (?)— little tiny houses that have plumbing problems to this day. We would rent a bath house from Ms. Chadwick for $15 a summer. We’d go down there and all there was a little outdoor shower, cold water, and we’d run up and down the beach. Some people built summer cottages there, the McClouds did and the Hoppers did (?). Neally Ross came from Nyack, New York and was a minister. And we were very lucky, I was with a group of about 20 or 22 twelve year olds who became sixteen year olds and every summer we got to know each other once again. Some of us married. My cousins and I did. But it was a bridge between Old Lyme a summer colony place, and now we have no summer colony. We’re here all year long. I think we’re part of a different era. And I think there are no distinctions between summer folk and year- round folk.

An awful lot of summer people now are year round people. Yes, and you send your children to the Old Lyme schools which are very good. It’s a different era. That’s what I remember about— we had two tennis courts for the Old Lyme Country Club, they now have six, I think. And paddle tennis courts and you always had that dinky little golf course, but the club building was right there along the road right out of the tennis courts and a family could join for $60 a summer. There was no initiation fee, no bond, no nothing. They were very glad to take your $60 and you could play golf or tennis anytime you wanted.

When did they move the Country Club from the road up on the hill? Do you remember that? Yes I do, because we had a great party New Years Eve. I was about 15 or 16 and at about 4 o’clock in the morning, the building burned down. We’re not quite sure, but the insurance money was very useful for building a much better building up on top of the hill. So that has changed a great deal. The Old Lyme school system was not as strong as it is now, but the town had great loyalty to its own people. They had an Old Lyme Semi- professional baseball team— they played Higganum and Saybrook, Deep River. Mostly young professional people in Old Lyme, the plumbers, the carpenters. The pitcher, he is involved with the Historical Society, what was his name… he was very good.

What has their record? Were they very good? It didn’t matter, they played for the fun of it. And they were like a social club. I was told they were the Old Lyme Rickies because a lime rickie was a popular drink back then. I haven’t had one in years.

I can’t remember if a lime rickie is made with rum or gin. Gin I think. Maybe its been replaced with gin and tonic. We had them at one the last event of the Historical Society. Tim Griswold decided we should have them and looked up the recipe. They’re powerful but tasty. I hadn’t had one for fifty years.

So what happened was eventually I married the Pittsburg/Old Lyme girl and our two families each had a house within walking distance of each other on Meetinghouse Hill right above the golf course. The Platt house is off of Mile Creek where the Dangremonds live now and mother built the first house on what was called Bogey Hole Road then, now Meetinghouse Lane. But then I-95 came along and split Bogey Hole Road so they had to have two different names and they had a little meeting at the Town Hall of the 8 homeowners on Bogey Hole and asked what name we wanted to change it to. My wife said I don’t want to change it at all. And she was outvoted 7 to 1 and that’s how we got Meetinghouse Lane.

They picked that because of the old meetinghouse that is right there? Yes, and Victor Morrison and my wife were coming back from the meeting and they got to the top of the hill and turned on Meetinghouse Lane and she said “Stop Victor, you see that sign, Bogey Hole Road, I want that!” So he got up on the tailgate of his station wagon and unscrewed the sign and I can show it to you in my house today, stolen property from the town of Old Lyme. But I don’t think they want it. What happened then of course is what happens all along throughout life. We sent our children through Old Lyme Schools and then they grew up and you wonder if they’d come back or go to

Phoenix and Seattle and so forth. Would they become as fond of the place as we are? And mostly, they have. I have nine grandchildren and Christmas and other reunions are all at our house.

How many children did you have? I had 3. And Betsy Martin had 3, Sue’s sister. And her brother went off to Phoenix. We never saw him again. But the two houses had a patch of woods, 30 acres in between them. So I took the gravely of my father-in-law one day and just made a trail through the woods. I didn’t know where mother (?) somewhere in there, I knew it was okay— nobody cared about that land. And then my sister-in-law bought it. So I made a set of trails, now we had 3 miles of trails and we’d mow and clear and mow and clear and trim and now we have to plant baby cedars because the deer eat them and you have to fence them in until they get about 10 feet tall so we are developing the land in our funny little way. That’s the Carter.

Now I’m the old grandfather going over the river and through the woods on Thanksgiving and I’m hoping that they will love the place as much as I have. But I didn’t live here ever all year round except for that one year when Alison was born, then I became an academic and there are no colleges or universities in Old Lyme. I wasn’t going to be a big enough academic for Yale or anything like that so I’ve gone all over the country but every summer we’d come back to Old Lyme, I mean every. We’ve had property in Old Lyme since 1928.

Now of all the places you’ve lived in Old Lyme, which was your favorite? Is it where you live now? Oh yeah, When the Leddingtons decided to plot the 60 or 70 acres up there mother was very good friends with them and told them I want the first choice of plot, and she got it for $5,000. Half a lot sold next to us a few years ago for $200,000. So mother got her 4- 1/2 or 5 acres, dirt road, no driveway and in those days no trees, the hillsides were almost barren. She built her house for $30,000. A simple retirement home, really. You could see the Connecticut River from Essex clear down to the two lighthouses in Saybrook. Not a tree interference. Now of course, you can’t see it at all. The trees are huge

Now do you still have a nice view from up there? Well, if you look to the north I can see just the trees. But I think we should all recognize, if you have a view, you’ll have it at the most for 50 years because things grow up, not just children.

When did you come back to Old Lyme full time, so that you were living here all the time?

Well, we lived in Boston for about 25 years. There were lots of colleges and universities there. My mother’s house, we had bought in 1975, then she died. Because we didn’t want it to be left out of her side of the family, I bought it for $30,000, it was evaluated for $45,000 and I owned a third automatically, so for $30,000 I got this four and half acre lot with one house on it. Sue’s family house is now, where the Dangremonds live, was bought out from her family by her two sisters, so we have these two adjoining houses with all these trails running in between. We still take care of those trails and anybody is welcome to walk on them.

Do you see a lot of people using those trials, especially with Open Space now? There’s a men’s walking group that uses them. The only thing I worry about are trail bikes. They ruin it. Old Lyme has done a spectacular job with land protection. The Fairfield track atop of Meetinghouse Lane— Old Lyme is doing better than most cities now in Connecticut with land management. I think that’s one of the reasons we still love it. It hasn’t changed topographically as much as its changed socialization. It’s why people live here. You build a house here and with the highway system we have in Connecticut you can have a job anywhere in Connecticut or New York. My contact Bill Gunther is in New York for the first three days of the week and back for the weekend to be with his wife. I do worry about the town a little bit. I think we need some light industry in the far reaches of the town. Otherwise, we’re locked into a town/school confrontation and we don’t want to have that. Non-profit property owners.

Now what are some of the changes you’ve seen in Old Lyme over the last 70 years? I think the biggest one is the mix of people living here. From summer folk, there’s a distinct difference between the two to an all around, every kind of people from Pfizer, people from Connecticut College, all sorts of activities –it’s a nice place to live, it is. And I’d have to say the change from farm land to forest land is extraordinary. As I boy I would canoe with my buddies up the Lieutenant River and out to the Connecticut and we’d go along the shore and we’d see, when we were tired we’d pull in and build a fire and set up our tent and we’d have great time. It was very easy. But you can’t do that anymore. Everything is private property now, and you can’t see the shore. It’s all wooded right down to the water. We used to see herds of sheep all the time. But I’d say on the whole, it’s a better place. It’s a good upscale, comfortable but not affluent community and it’s doing quite well. A nice humble little beach club, it may be hard to get in but it’s very simple once you do, nothing tough about it. And we like that, bring your own bottle. And the school system is good. And we have a kind of art colony. When I was growing up I had was aware of the Lyme Art Association, but it was no where near as famous as it is now and that’s probably to the good.

Did you have any paintings from the artists? We had (?) paintings and Henry Robertson sculptures. But the recent Lyme Art Academy is brand new and far more imposing than we were used to. So that’s the first

impressionists school, Charles Hasam, we were hardly aware of them, a lot of them came later. And the land usage rules now— they’ve kept up slowly but firmly. That’s a major change, too. I see a good future.

Now do you think these changes have been for the better as far as open space? Well, we have such good control. If you look out over the river at night from Old Lyme you see bright lights from the marinas all the way along the river. If you’re at the Dock and Dine and you look over at Old Lyme, you see darkness. We like that.

Thank you, that’s good spot that we will stop, we’ve just run out of time.

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