Watertown History Page by Charlie Crowell

10/02/2025

Le Cordon Blue was one of a string of restaurants to occupy the building at 1700 Watertown Avenue. The French restaurant opened sometime before 1965 and closed in 1982.

Going back to the 1930s, it was Bruneau's Tavern after which it was the Royal Windsor, then Angelo's Restaurant which dated back to at least 1948.

After Le Cordon Bleu closed, the building became home to the Sea Loft which operated until 1990.

In the 90s, The Willows Restaurant opened here.
More recently it was Gridley's. Then Vasi's Restaurant and Bar, then the River Hill Restaurant.

Vasi’s gained a great deal of attention when it was the subject of the reality TV show “Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back” where the celebrity chef visited struggling restaurants across the country in his state-of-the-art mobile kitchen and command center, Hell On Wheels.

Back when the location was Bruneau's Tavern, a murder took place there.

In the early morning hours of February 28, 1937, Harold "Cider" Maxwell, 37, savagely beat and kicked Harry B. Watts, 27, to death at the tavern.
Both men were from Watertown.

Maxwell had been drinking earlier at Daveluy's Tavern in Watertown before making his way to Bruneau's. He was charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Today, the old restaurant building has a brand new mission, offering job skills and supportive programs to intellectually disabled individuals under Easterseals of Greater Waterbury Inc.

Seen here is a vintage matchbook cover.

"Le cordon bleu" translates from French to English as "the blue ribbon". Historically, this referred to the blue ribbon worn by members of the Order of the Holy Spirit, the highest order of French knighthood. The name has become a symbol of excellence.

10/01/2025

Back in 1970, Carvel gave out these “Halloween costumes”. Basically a plastic bag, if you cut along the dotted line at the top, you could then slip it over a kid’s head and bingo, all set for a night of trick-or-treating.

Gotta love the Carvel bat

The Carvel in Watertown opened in 1959, a whopping 66 years ago.

09/29/2025

From my Waterbury page. The house in the background stands in Watertown today.

Here’s some state-of-the-art Waterbury firefighting equipment as seen in September of 1910. This was eight years after “The Great Waterbury Fire of 1902” when the city was caught woefully unprepared for large scale fires. Staying ahead of the firefighting curve, so to speak, was an ongoing challenge.

Built in 1816, this house in the background is seen facing the Waterbury Green. It was disassembled and transported to Watertown around 1923.

The house had to be moved to make way for the construction of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception Church located at 74 West Main Street facing the Green.

Today, the house stands at a high spot, 173
Middlebury Road in Watertown on the corner of Highland Avenue.

09/29/2025

This is one of those Shepherd's Heart knickknacks.

On the back is printed, "South School was built as four-room school during 1908-1909. Oakville's growth necessitated the addition of eight classrooms in 1917 plus another eight rooms in 1928. The school was renamed in 1981 to honor Principal Frances C. Griffin for fifty years of service."

09/27/2025

Here’s a random Watertown photo I took in 2013. School buses at St. John’s on Woodruff Avenue, the white Pythian Building (1893), the old brick Heminway factory (1912) in the distance along with the towering smokestack built by Princeton Knitting Mills.

The smokestack now serves as a cell tower.

A little slice of small-town Americana.

———————————————————

BTW, the Pizza Hut post from 3 days ago generated 147K views. What’s up with that?

09/26/2025

Here's a look at the Main Street bridge in the center of Oakville during some flooding that took place 50 years ago this month, September 1975.

Behind the men checking out the situation was the Town Tavern, a local watering hole and pizza joint. For years they gave out slices of pizza on Halloween night to trick-or-treaters. The much-loved tavern, which had a rather unflattering nickname, was demolished about 1989 when the intersection was completely reconfigured.

Also visible is the little bank on the corner of Main and Davis Streets. This bank was extensively remodeled later, taking on a somewhat modern-colonial look. It was later demolished and the site is now part of the CVS Pharmacy parking lot.

09/25/2025

Here are are couple views from Main Street in Oakville taken generations apart. This is the familiar scene as you round the corner just past the Old Pin Shop across from St. Mary Magdalene Church and the intersection of Buckingham Street.

The top view appeared on a postcard around 1906. There were no trolley tracks at the time. Those came in 1907.

The Oakville post office was located in one of those buildings at the time. Later it moved to one of the brick buildings to the right (not yet built when this top photo was taken), and still later, in 1940, it was moved to the "new" brick post office building further up Main Street on the corner of Hillside Avenue.

That was Charles Buckingham on the horse. His family lived in Watertown near the Green. I mentioned him a while ago as he had a close call while crossing the train trestle near the old Seymour Smith factory. He came very close to getting killed.

(Charles Benedict Buckingham 1878-1936)

The bottom view shows the same scene from 1970. My mother took that photo.

Today, another 55 years have passed and the view is largely unchanged from the 70s.

09/25/2025

The Seymour Smith & Sons Company was best known for making hedge trimmers, clippers and other such items used for yard maintenance, but they made many other items over the company’s long history.

Seen here is a Seymour Smith-made nose ring for a bull.

The original wooden Seymour Smith factory in Oakville was located on Main Street diagonally across from the present-day Ro’s Pizza.

When driving up the Main Street straightaway from Oakville, the factory was dead ahead and could be seen the entire distance.

It was replaced in 1928 by a new brick factory off to the right, the one still standing now known as Steele Brook Common and home to Steel Beach Gym among other businesses.

Right behind the old factory was Steele Brook which provided waterpower in early times.

Off to the left was the long railroad bridge that crossed Main Street and Steele Brook. Also to the left was the Seymour Smith Pond.

Both the railroad bridge and the pond are gone but there is still a dam there.

This area in town was known as Rockdale due to the rocky landscape. It even appeared on maps as such.

The Seymour Smith Company arrived in Oakville in 1856, taking over this factory when the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company moved out of the building and down to Bridgeport.

The company remained at this site until 1990 and was the oldest firm on town, having operated there for 134 years.

These bull rings come up for sale on eBay occasionally. This one is listed right now.

09/24/2025

Seen here, an early Packard truck participating in the 1976 Watertown Bicentennial Parade on July 4, 1976.

The truck was coming up from Oakville, rounding the curve by the Seymour Smith factory and Ro’s Pizza.

The parade was the largest in the town’s history. It was followed by fireworks at DeLand Field that night, now over 49 years ago.

Packard stopped building trucks in 1923. The last Packard automobiles were made in 1958.

——————————————————

Photo courtesy of Marcel Blanchet. From the collection of photos taken by Marcel's grandfather, Watertown Police Photographer/ Det. Sergeant Peter LaBoda.

09/24/2025

The Watertown Pizza Hut opened in 1979. This photo is from by 2010. The restaurant closed in 2014. The building was demolished on August 16, 2016.

Today a Taco Bell stands on the site.

09/22/2025

Here’s another stereoview card, presumably from around 1900.

This is thd old Watertown Library on DeForest Street. It was built in 1883 and served as a library until the new one was constructed on Main Street in 1958.

The structure has since seen many uses including that of a church. At one time it was being considered as a new home for the Watertown Historical Society but when offered for sale, it was too expensive.

In more recent years it was acquired by Taft School and renamed "Walker Hall". Today it is used for, among other things, lectures, and musical and dramatic performances.

A stereoview card consists of two nearly identical photographs or prints viewed side-by-side to create a single, three-dimensional image when viewed through a special device called a stereoscope. These cards were popular between the 1870s and 1920s.

09/22/2025

WATERTOWN MAN SELLS LOCAL HOUSE IN $1
SHARES - John A. Woodward of Watertown fought in the Civil War, was captured and spent two years in a rebel prison in Texas. After the war, back in Watertown, he came up with an imaginative way to sell his house.

Woodward sold shares in his house for one dollar each, issuing note as seen here. Then on October 27, 1880, he held a "grand entertainment" at the Warren House Hotel (where Taft School is today), "at which time the residence will be delivered to the shareholders to be disposed of as they may direct."

It is supposed the shareholders would then sell the house. Whether they made any money on the deal is unknown and would have depended on how many shares Woodward sold. It isn't clear how the whole thing played out.

Then again, maybe the "grand entertainment" alone was worth the $1 investment.

$1 in 1880 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $31.67 today.

The house still stands at 235 Main Street, on the corner of Cutler Street near the Old Town Hall. See the comments for a photo.

Woodward was born in 1826 and was a carpenter by trade. He died in 1885 at age 58.