If you missed the Salmon Brook Historical Society’s award-winning Stroll through Granby History in October or you did not make it to all 32 sites, you are in luck—The Stroll is returning from Friday, May 28 to Friday, June 25.
Just as last time, the SBHS invites folks to learn about the people who lived in the 32 houses spread along both sides of Salmon Brook Street from just south of the historical society campus at 208 Salmon Brook Street to the north end of the town green. This is an opportunity to walk through history.
There will a temporary sign with a picture of the earlier house in each front yard. The signs will also include a QR code that provides a link to the stories for that house or site. The stories can always be found on the SBHS website: salmonbrookhistoricalsociety.com and go to Stroll Through Granby History.
What do you need before you begin the Stroll? If you do not have a QR Code Reader on your phone or tablet, you need to go to the App Store on your device and install the no-cost reader.
Some stories are humorous. There is the one about how the local sheriff, E. Harrison Hotchkiss, got his nickname “Two-gun Hotchkiss” after a run-in with a mob bootlegger. Some are scandalous. A prominent couple accused the local minister of inappropriate behavior with the wife. The minister did keep his job, but had to apologize publicly. And another story uncovered by Carol Laun, the SBHS archivist, tells of the local newspaper reporting that “hoodlums” gathered in apartments above the general store and threw “melon rinds and eggs at any one who happens in their way.”
Obviously, the town of Granby was not entirely peopled by upstanding citizens, as we often imagine life to have been in the “good old days.” The Stroll is an interactive way to learn a bit about the varied lives of our earlier citizens who moved through life struggling with debt and credit issues, health, threat of war, personal violence as well as opportunities to gather in celebration as a community.