As the elm trees lost their final leaves in the late autumn of 1924, passers-by could see the shades had been drawn and the large white house that had entertained so many guests and provided shelter for numerous folks less fortunate than its owner was by then without life. Aunt Julia wouldn’t be hosting Thanksgiving that year.
In 1819, Aaron Sanford Jr, and his wife Fanny began raising their eleven children in the elegant house behind the white picket fence that sat about a hundred yards south of Meeker Hill Road on the Black Rock Turnpike in Redding. Aaron’s father had been one of the founding members of the Redding Methodist Society. Sanford agreed to hold the first service in his own home on Cross Highway on June 24, 1789 – the minister that day was the great Jessie Lee, the circuit riding preacher who convinced the good people of Redding to establish what would be only the second Methodist Society in the United States.
Most of Aaron and Fanny’s children would grow up to be extremely successful in their chosen professions. Son Daniel would attend university and then become an educator. In 1858, he founded his own boarding school, the Redding Institute, located on the Ridge, about a half mile north of the family homestead. Henry Sanford would be one of the founders of the Adams Express Company in Bridgeport and then serve as its president for many years. Aaron Sanford III would be elected the High Sheriff of Fairfield County before serving as the president of the Newtown Savings Bank. Daughter Mary Elizabeth would marry Marshall Driggs, the president of the Williamsburg Fire Insurance Company in New York City, while her sister Fanny would wed Edward Shaw, an educator who taught at her brother’s institute prior to becoming its headmaster. And son Jessie Lee would become one of Redding’s most successful farmers on a tract of land that sat just north of Meeker Hill Road.
But it was youngest daughter Julia Hill Sanford who would remain on the family homestead and take over for her father when he could no longer manage the farm on his own. When her father passed in 1875, he willed life use of the house and farm to Julia.
By 1880, the federal non-population schedule showed Julia’s farm consisted of about forty acres of land. The remainder of the original farmstead lands had been divided among her siblings after her father had passed and his will had been probated. But despite the smaller footprint, Julia had greatly increased the number of livestock on the farm from the previous decennial schedule when her father had still been in charge. She then had half a dozen cows, about a dozen sheep, several pigs, and some twenty chickens. Her farm was capable of providing all the milk, butter, eggs, beef, mutton, and pork she would need, and she was selling several calves and lambs each year that would provide her with extra cash.
During those first ten years Julia ran the farm, she built another barn across the road and added a wing onto the north side of the house to accommodate the needs of her new housemate, Doctor Annie Reid, Redding’s first female physician. Annie’s stepmother was Julia’s aunt, and Annie’s father a prominent Methodist minister who later became the president of Genesee College (Syracuse University).
Annie had studied and interned under Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who in 1849 became the first woman in the United States to earn a certificate to practice medicine. She and her sister Emily established the New York Infirmary for Women & Children. Dr. Blackwell was an advocate for the poor and Annie embraced that philosophy.
After graduating from the Women’s Medical College in the late 1870’s and then receiving her medical license, Annie moved to Redding to take up residence with Julia and begin her practice of medicine, an absolutely unprecedented move in the 19th century. While Annie wasn’t the very first woman in Connecticut to become licensed to practice medicine, she was most certainly among the first half-dozen to earn that right. How shocked most of the locals would have been to meet a female physician is anyone’s guess.
There are no physicians listed in the 1900 U.S. Census residing in Easton. Articles in the Newtown Bee only mentioned doctors in nearby towns when it came to caring for Easton residents. This would have certainly been a short-lived situation but given that Easton’s population had declined to only about 900 at the turn of the century, it appeared to be a reality of the times.
While practicing medicine in Redding, Annie not only treated those who might not have had the ability to pay, but she and Julia often housed them while they were being cared for and recuperating. Taking care of the less fortunate was in their nature.
One of Easton’s indigent residents whom Annie treated was an African American man by the name of Hobart Purdy. Homer was known in town as Five Fingered Jack, perhaps a moniker he had picked up while serving a prison term for burglary in the 1880’s. Annie diagnosed his condition as pyemia, a type of blood poisoning. Unable to pay, he was treated free of charge.
The two women also provided care and a place to stay for one of Annie’s former classmates at the Women’s Medical College, Doctor Kate Parker. Doctor Parker had spent the major part of her career as the resident physician delivering babies to indigent women at the New York Infant Asylum on 10th Avenue in New York City. When Kate became too ill to continue her practice, she and her teenaged, adopted son were taken in and cared for by Annie and Julia. Diagnosed with an incurable disease, the pair cared for Kate for over two years until her death in 1895, and after that, Annie paid for the transportation of Kate’s body to New Jersey where she was buried in the family plot.
By 1896, Annie Reid had adopted two daughters, Emma Shaw Reid born in 1885 and Ruth Chittenden Reid born in 1888. While details of those adoptions aren’t known, given her charitable nature, it is conceivable that Annie, like her mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and her dear friend Dr. Kate Parker, adopted her children when their unwed mothers couldn’t provide a home for them. The fact that Annie’s eldest child bore the name of one of Julia’s cousins would leave one to believe that Emma had been adopted as an infant.
In addition to Annie Reid, Julia’s nephew, Samuel Carter Shaw, the son of her late sister Fanny was living in the house in 1880. Samuel was enrolled in the Samuel Staples Academy in Easton and would later attend both Yale and Harvard, before passing the bar and first becoming a very successful attorney. He later became a well-respected judge and a member of the state legislature representing Redding.
Julia’s home was one of the first on the Ridge to having running water at both the house and the outbuildings. In 1892, she had a windmill, a water tower, and a large holding tank installed that would provide a steady flow of water to service all the needs of the farm.
Unconvinced that Redding’s public schools with its uncertified teachers would provide her girls with an adequate education, Annie and Julia hired a young graduate of the state’s Normal school to act as both a governess and teacher. Miss Bolande taught Annie’s daughters and four other children in the cottage that Julia owned across from the farm.
By the turn of the century, Julia’s large and prosperous out-of-town family had become regular visitors to her home on the Ridge. Her brother-in-law Marshall Driggs was a frequent visitor, often bringing along members of his side of the family from New York City to hunt pheasant and quail on the weekends. Marshall’s nephew, Fred, became particularly enthralled with the town and Julia soon made arrangements to acquire a tract of land in the Aspetuck Valley for the younger Driggs.
It wasn’t long before Julia was either representing or buying and selling land to all those who found Redding to be a mecca for wealthy business owners, writers, and artists. Author Jeanette Gilder took up residence just south of Julia on the Black Rock Turnpike, soon followed by children’s author Amy Ella Blanchard and her life partner illustrator Ida Waugh who purchased what is today’s Spinning Wheel Inn. Fred Drigg’s good friend, noted architect, builder, and magazine publisher Noble Foster Hoggson purchased the old Abel Morehouse homestead at the foot of Church Hill Road from Julia in 1902. Hoggson then persuaded several more friends to do the same, as together, they transformed the valley into an enclave of beautiful summer residences for wealthy New Yorkers.
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Julia’s home on the Ridge was constantly mentioned in the pages of the Newtown Bee and the Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. There was hardly a week that went by when Julia wasn’t entertaining at least one or more parties on an overnight basis. Some were her prominent relatives, but many more were simply friends that she had made over the years.
As the years passed, Julia needed more help around the farm. Julia’s nephew, attorney Samuel C. Shaw would often be awarded guardianship of some of the teenaged children involved in some of the legal cases he was handling. She and Annie had often taken these children in and given them a good home until the case was either adjudicated or until the child reached the age of majority.
In 1907, Sam Shaw was appointed as guardian for fourteen-year-old Curtis Hungerford. The teen then came to live with Julia. In 1911, Julia began paying Curtis salary of $12 per week plus room and board for his promise to work on her farm during the warmer months. She would continue to provide him with room and board during the winter, but without pay since his only tasks would be to bring in the wood and tend to the livestock.
Perhaps a more attentive Julia would have noticed the young farmhand’s rather expensive taste in clothing and jewelry. Besides his natty attire, the young man wore a gold watch, and possessed a diamond ring and diamond stick pin. He also owned a motor cycle. While most of the people he knew wondered how he could afford his lifestyle, Julia gave it little thought – at least until the day in April 1912, when she realized that the rather large amount of cash she kept in the house to pay her bills seemed woefully short.
As it turned out, Hungerford had been systematically stealing from Julia for well over a year. Police discovered he had over $1700 in a bank account, and they discovered another $300 in cash hidden in the barn.
Convicted in May 1912, Hungerford was sent to the George Jr. Republic in New York (an institution for wayward youth). The request for leniency was made by Attorney Shaw, no doubt at Julia’s request. While the judge granted the request, he noted Hungerford’s lack of contrition, stating that the defendant showed “not one redeeming quality.” Had it not been for Julia’s kindness, Hungerford would have likely been sentenced to prison.
In July, 1923, Annie Reid died as a result of injuries suffered in a fall at her home. Less than a year later, Julia suffered a stroke and passed away in late April.
Julia’s funeral was one of the largest the town of Redding had ever witnessed. Over 250 mourners came to the service and the state police in Ridgefield were summoned to handle the crowds. School was cancelled that day and the flag on the town green was flown at half-mast while the town hall was closed for the funeral. Annie Reid’s son-in-law, the Reverend Raymond Cunningham, presided over the service and Aunt Julia was laid to rest in the family plot on the Ridge. A remarkable woman whose hard work, hospitality, and kindness was long remembered. Her home was bequeathed to her nephew Samuel Shaw.
