History by Lewis has modern feel

FALLS VILLAGE — Chuck Lewis, with one book of genealogical research to his credit, was tracing his great-great-great-great grandfather, John Lewis, when he stumbled on to a story.

Looking through military enlistment records for a John Lewis who lived in eastern Connecticut during the mid-to-late 1700s, he found a mention of a John Lewis who “was reported among the 185 men missing in action from Colonel Jedediah Huntington’s 17th Continental (Connecticut) Regiment after the Battle of Long Island.â€

As he dug further, he got curious because “there was plenty of information in the many written histories of the battle about virtually every other American unit that fought in the Battle of Long Island, just not Huntington’s Regiment.â€

And after two years of research, the result is “Cut Off: Colonel Jedediah Huntington’s 17th Continental (Conn.) Regiment at the Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776,†published by Heritage Books.

The story of the battle and its aftermath — and the missing men — has a surprisingly contemporary tone. “It was some months after the events of Aug. 27, 1776, that word began to leak out of New York City that American prisoners of war were being kept in subhuman conditions and were dying by the hundreds.â€

And readers will meet, however briefly, a cast of characters with names colorful to modern ears — and familiar to Northwest Corner residents: Surgeon’s Mate Silas Holmes, Captain Ebenezer Bissell and his cousin, Ozias; Private Rufus Cone.

“Cut Off†is $29 and is available at amazon.com.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less