Walking Tours Tunnel Into Past
Weekend events promote national Heritage Corridor

By Claire Bessette & Robert Westervel
The Day published on 10/15/2002

Lisbon -- Floyd and Michelle Harrison traveled more than 50 miles from Millbury, Mass., to Lisbon Monday where they toured a 19th century home, an historic stagecoach bridge and a railroad tunnel built here in the early 1800s.

The Millburys were among the 50 people who traveled from across the region to take part in the tour, part of the region's Walking Weekend. The tour attracted just five visitors when it was first given a decade ago, reflective of the growth in popularity of the Walking Weekend.

"There was a variety of things we could have done this weekend, but we decided to wait for the weather to break so we could enjoy the fall foliage," said Floyd Harrison as he looked across a landscape splashed with hues of yellow, orange and red.

Organizers said the 12th annual Walking Weekend event, held to promote the Quinebaug-Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor, said the rain affected turnout on some of the 93 walks held Saturday through Monday. Walks were held in 29 towns in northeastern Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Some walks were canceled because of the rain, and some had few participants, but not all were dissuaded. Norwich Historian Dale Plummer said 79 people attended three walks he hosted during Sunday's steady drizzle, and the Heritage Corridor office in Putnam said some walks Saturday and Sunday drew as many as 73 walkers, while most ranged from 20 to 60 people. At a 7 a.m. birdwatching hike in Thompson Saturday, only four walkers showed up, but later that morning 42 people attended the "Through the Grapevine" tour of the Heritage Trail Vineyards in Lisbon.

Skies finally brightened Monday, the last day of the event, giving Sharon Gabiga, a member of the Lisbon Historical Society, an opportunity to take visitors on a guided tour of Lisbon's historic sites, beginning with the John Bishop House, an early 19th Century homestead.

Built by John Bishop in 1810, the 11-room, two-story house has seven fireplaces and a unique shaft way leading from the pantry to a dug well where water could be obtained without leaving the house.

The house was taken over by the town after town officials convinced owner George Bradlaw to move to a convalescent home in 1987. Bradlaw, an eccentric recluse, lived in the home with no running water and only one electric outlet, according to Carolyn Read-Burns, the historical society president. Burns, a local photographer, who took dozens of photos of area homes and sites, remembers seeing Bradlaw carrying buckets of water from his nearby well. Bradlaw died in 1996 at the age of 100.

The Historical Society and the town has spent nearly $150,000 renovating the home, including installing a new red cedar roof and repairing a kitchen and bake oven in 1989. The society hopes to convince local residents to spend about $40,000 to rebuild a wooden carriage shed that was built as an addition onto the historic home.

"There's something about old and historic things that attract New Englanders," Burns said. "They tell a story about who we once were."

Visitors also took a bus to the Mill Brook bridge, the oldest known free-standing stone arch bridge, located near the intersection of Blissville and Mill Brook roads. The stone bridge was built for a stagecoach mail route used between New York and Boston.

Late Harlow Chizen of Putnam, his wife Amy and their son Adam strolled through one of the first railroad tunnels ever built in the United States. The tunnel, built on the bank of the Quinebaug River in 1837, is 300-feet long, 23 feet wide and 18 feet high and was cut through solid rock with picks and shovels.

"Every single town has its own unique homestead and historic site and it's nice to learn about them," Chizen said.

In Norwich on Monday morning, Plummer asked more than 35 walkers strolling through downtown Norwich to imagine themselves walking these same grounds 100 or 200 years ago. Standing at the Thames Plaza, he directed their attention across Water Street to the Chelsea Landing Pub and Galley, built in 1741, the oldest commercial building still standing in downtown.

"If you had been here in the 1700s, you would either be standing on a wharf or in the water near the wharf," Plummer said, explaining that Water Street was the water's edge. The shoreline was a bustle of activity. At the Chelsea Landing building, workers rolled hog's head barrels — roughly 100 gallons — of molasses across the wharf to the rum distillery. Nearby, ship hands unloaded cargo into warehouses and commercial buildings that lined the waterfront.

Plummer peppered the tour with anecdotes about noted local authors, abolitionists, and presidents with Norwich roots.

Land there became so valuable in the 18th and 19th centuries that the city began to fill in the wharves and extend the waterfront. More than a century later, utility workers uncovered those wharves, preserved so well that they decided to run sewer pipes on top rather than destroy them. A cast iron swivel cannon also uncovered is now part of the Slater Museum collection.