Granby Drummer (https://granbydrummer.com/category/history/page/10/)
The coronavirus pandemic is affecting us all, our small town and across the entire nation. This was also true of the Spanish influenza from 1918 to 1919 when 675,000 Americans lost their lives. At that time, Granby was a small agricultural community but not immune to its effects as well. Six citizens lost their lives.
For many years, the only building on the main intersection in Granby was the Meeting House built in 1736 on the northwest corner hill, which once was much closer to the corner. The cemetery was established around the Meeting House.
The Granby Land Trust acquired the Wilcox property on Simsbury Road, owned by the late Steve Wilcox Hastings, in 2019. Since it does not have houses on its property, the Trust generously offered the late 18th century home to the Salmon Brook Historical Society if we agreed to preserve and maintain it.
If you missed the Salmon Brook Historical Society’s Stroll Through Granby History on Salmon Brook Street in the fall, or you did not make it to all the sites, you can see the same information on the society’s website.
“Remember the Maine, the Hell with Spain” was the cry from U.S. citizens after a United States Court of Inquiry determined that in the Spanish-held Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, an underwater mine had blown up the U.S. battleship, the Maine. After the court’s decision, President McKinley asked for 125,000 men to volunteer for two years to help fight Spain in support of Cuba’s fight for independence from Spain.
There have been black families living in Granby since pre-Revolutionary times. Since even the free blacks could not vote or hold public office, were not leaders in the church or government and rarely owned businesses, they are practically invisible in the history of a town.
Each time I drive by the house at 28 Copper Hill Road, I think of George Guay. Guay lived in that house while running his grocery store for nearly half a century.
The first Memphis public library opened in 1893. The benefactor was none other than Frederick H. Cossitt, the former Granby resident and philanthropist.
Where do spirits go when their home is destroyed? An early 19th century dwelling at 18 East Granby Road was torn down late in 1998.
Historian Dennis D. Picard reads Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart in North Granby’s Lee Cemetery.