From the Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

Another yearly event that brings forth many choice spirits is our Literary Dinner, at home, our dear friend Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the "Century," being the manager. His devices and quotations from the writings of the guest of the year, placed upon the cards of the guests, are so appropriate, as to cause much hilarity. Then the speeches of the novitiates give zest to the occasion. John Morley was the guest of honor when with us in 1895 and a quotation from his works was upon the card at each plate.
One year Gilder appeared early in the evening of the dinner as he wished to seat the guests. This had been done, but he came to me saying it was well he had looked them over. He had found John Burroughs and Ernest Thompson Seton were side by side, and as they were then engaged in a heated controversy upon the habits of beasts and birds, in which both had gone too far in their criticisms, they were at daggers' points. Gilder said it would never do to seat them together. He had separated them. I said nothing, but slipped into the dining room unobserved and replaced the cards as before. Gilder's surprise was great when he saw the men next each other, but the result was just as I had expected. A reconciliation took place and they parted good friends. Moral: If you wish to play peace-maker, seat adversaries next each other where they must begin by being civil.
Burroughs and Seton both enjoyed the trap I set for them. True it is, we only hate those whom we do not know. It certainly is often the way to peace to invite your adversary to dinner and even beseech him to come, taking no refusal. Most quarrels become acute from the parties not seeing and communicating with each other and hearing too much of their disagreement from others. They do not fully understand the other's point of view and all that can be said for it. Wise is he who offers the hand of reconciliation should a difference with a friend arise. Unhappy he to the end of his days who refuses it. No possible gain atones for the loss of one who has been a friend even if that friend has become somewhat less dear to you than before. He is still one with whom you have been intimate, and as age comes on friends pass rapidly away and leave you.

A little More on the Wyndygoul Property

Pair take in town's new property

By Hoa NguyenStaff WriterSeptember 11, 2007

Raindrops began falling yesterday as Eric Brower and Denise Savageau began walking the Tuchman property for the first time since the town officially closed on the sale of 31 acres.They made their way under the canopy of trees, passing the shag bark and through a maze of ground vegetation that included poison ivy vines. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swooped toward distant trees. Nearby was a field of waist-high golden rods with their pretty blooms of yellow flowers. In the distance was a sloping hillside of more meadows and oaks."It's beautiful," said Brower, a land-use consultant and head of the town's property committee who began working on the land deal more then seven years ago.According to Brower's estimates, he and Savageau, the town's conservation director, have visited the property on 200 prior occasions but yesterday was the first time they could finally say they were walking on town property.On Thursday, Greenwich ended seven years of delay by signing a final contract with Lucy Eisenberg and Jessica Mathews, descendants of two-time Pulitizer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman, to buy their share of their late mother's land for $8.7 million."Rather than selling to a developer at the appraised value of $18 (million) to $20 million, we sold it to the town," Eisenberg said yesterday. "Essentially, we're gifting it to the town."A third sister, Alma Tuchman, had initially agreed to the land sale, but eventually pulled out because she wanted to have greater control of the land on which she still lives. The other two have long since moved away. In 2004, a judge ruled Tuchman would retain 12.5 acres.The town now owns 200 acres of contiguous open space, which is bounded in the north by the 91-acre Montgomery Pinetum, on the west by the 75-acre Pomerance property and now on the east by the 31-acre Tuchman parcel.Eisenberg said she believes that at some point, her sister may sell the rest of the land to the town so that it could be added to the inventory."That would be my hope," Eisenberg said.Tuchman could not be reached for comment.The Pomerance and Tuchman properties once belonged to Boy Scouts of America founder Ernest Thompson Seton, who later sold it to banker Maurice Wertheim. Ownership later reverted to Barbara Tuchman, his daughter, who lived on 43 acres, and noted architect Ralph Pomerance, who was married to another daughter, Josephine Alma Wertheim, and owned 75 acres.Through the decades, the land has been popular with town residents, said Eisenberg, who remembered ice skaters taking to the man-made pond Seton had built by damming the Strickland Brook."Back in those old days, everyone would come and skate in the winter," Eisenberg said. "Many, many people know about it. It's a beautiful piece of property."The open space also serves as a sanctuary for native habitat that makes the property ecologically important, officials said."We have a nice diverse habitat," said Brower, who also serves on the town's Conservation Commission. "You've got an open meadow. You've got a wet meadow. You've got the steep slope and within the forest, a bunch of significant white oaks."Though the land is now publicly owned, a few other things must happen before the public can use it. One will be to delineate where the town's property ends and Alma Tuchman's begins so that signs can be placed to inform the public, officials said.Eisenberg's and Mathews' Greenwich lawyer, Michael Jones, also said that an environmental cleanup of flyash from the land is still outstanding. Flyash, once a popular substance used to build horse riding rinks, is considered a toxin and requires an environmental remediation."We're hoping to get the work started in the next month or so," Jones said.
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

Another new book

Seton: El joven Ernest

Read it all

Cuando comentamos el primer volumen de Seton, la magnífica serie de Yoshiharu Imaizumi y Jiro Taniguchi, ya adelantamos que la segunda entrega confirmaría a este manga como uno de los mejores de entre los que se publican actualmente en España. La aparición de este volumen, titulado "El joven y el lince", confirma nuestro vaticinio.



Continúan pues, de la mano de Ponent Mon, las aventuras de Ernest Thompson Seton, el caballero inglés de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, si bien a lo largo de este tomo se nos cuenta un crucial episodio de su formación como naturalista cuando contaba con tan solo quince años.

Seton included in Exhibition of Cos Cob Artists

from the Greenwich Post

Sep 7, 2007
Historic site to feature Cos Cob artist illlustrations

This illustration is from 'Tora's Happy Day' by Florence Peltier Perry. It was illustrated by Genjiro Yeto in 1899

A new exhibition, "Once Upon a Page: Illustrations by Cos Cob Artists" will be on display at Bush-Holley Historic Site from Wednesday, Oct. 3 to Sunday, Jan. 6.

A public opening reception will take place on Thursday, October 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

The exhibit will feature more than 90 works, including illustrated books, original drawings and paintings. This is the first exhibition to bring together works by eight artist-illustrators who had an association with the Greenwich area and the Cos Cob art colony from 1890-1920: John Wolcott Adams, George Wharton Edwards, Childe Hassam, Rose Cecil O’Neill, Ernest Thompson Seton, E. Boyd Smith, Jean Webster and Genjiro Yeto.

The exhibition is guest curated by Marilyn Symmes, Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey.

American Impressionist John H. Twachtman settled in Greenwich in 1889 and by 1891 began teaching summer art classes at the Holley House, a boardinghouse in Cos Cob owned by Josephine and Edward Holley. Before long, a lively art colony developed around Mr. Twachtman. Known today as Bush-Holley House, the Holley House served as the artistic and intellectual hub for artists, journalists and authors who came to the area from New York and played a major role in the development of American Impressionist art. While this vibrant artist colony flourished, America was also enjoying a golden age of illustration. An unprecedented number of illustrated books and periodicals were produced. Advances in commercial printing and photography gave illustrators more options for replicating their images on the printed page.

The works of the authors and illustrators included in this exhibition cover a broad spectrum of topics from flights of fantasy to discovery of the real world and explorations into the past and present. They also provide insights into American society at the outset of the modern era.

"Once Upon a Page" features works from the William E. Finch Jr. Archives of The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich as well as loans from Susan G. and James T. Larkin, Robert Russell, the Boston Public Library, the Brandywine River Museum, The Bruce Museum, the Florence Griswold Museum, The New York Public Library, the Wilton Historical Society and Heritage Museum and an anonymous private collector.

The exhibition and catalogue are generously underwritten by The Host Committee of the 75th Anniversary of The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich and through additional underwriting gifts from Robert C. and Julie Graham, The Overbrook Foundation in honor of the 75th Anniversary and Charles M. and Deborah Royce.

The exhibition is open to the public Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 4. Admission to the gallery, visitor center and Bush-Holley House Museum is $6 adults, $4 seniors and students. Children under 6 are free. Admission is free every Tuesday. Call 869-6899, ext. 10, for more information or visit Hstg.org.

Seton's Wyndygoul Property Now Owned by the Town of Greenwich

from Greenwich Time

Town takes control of Tuchman property

By Hoa Nguyen
Staff Writer

September 7, 2007

Boy Scouts of America founder Ernest Thompson Seton once owned it and so did two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning author Barbara Tuchman.

Yesterday, the land officially became property of the town of Greenwich for $8.7 million, ending a years-old effort to purchase the 31 acres of pristine meadows, wetlands and forested hillside in Cos Cob.

The town has been eyeing the former Tuchman estate for decades, finally getting past the legal troubles and negotiation that has plagued the sale.

"It's been a long road, but all good things are worth waiting for," Conservation Director Denise Savageau said.

The Tuchman estate dates to the early 20th century when Seton sold the land as part of a larger estate to Tuchman's father, banker Maurice Wertheim, also the former owner of The Nation magazine. Tuchman inherited the property, living there until her death in 1989.

Though her two daughters, Lucy Eisenberg and Jessica Mathews, were willing to sell the land to the town, a third daughter, Alma Tuchman, resisted efforts to relinquish total control of the original 43.5 acres.

About three years ago, a judge ruled that Alma Tuchman would retain 12.5 acres, with the rest going to her two sisters. The town then moved to negotiate with Eisenberg and Mathews for the remaining 31 acres, but more delays ensued after fly ash was discovered in the soil. Though fly ash once was a common material used in the construction of horse riding rinks, it is now considered a toxic pollutant that requires an environmental clean-up.

After more months of negotiation, the town and the two Tuchman sisters finalized the sales agreement and yesterday, the papers transferring ownership of the land were signed, officials said.

First Selectman Jim Lash, who helped negotiate the final deal, is the third first selectman to work on the land purchase, which began during Lolly Prince's administration in 2000. He said his successor will have the job of helping the town determine what the land will be used for.

"I'm trying to leave a little work for the new first selectman," Lash said. "That's the thing that will need to be worked out in the next administration."

While passive recreation, such as hiking, will be one of the primary activities allowed on the land, officials said the town will likely consider other uses, such as for the construction of some affordable housing.

"They're talking about a very limited development and basically limiting the bulk of its use as open space," Savageau said, adding that one of the reasons the town bought the land was so that most of it could be preserved as open space.

"If it was sold commercially, for real estate, it would have been developed very intensively," Savageau said. "That was one of the selling points, to avoid the cost of that intensive residential development."

The Tuchman property is adjacent to other town-owned open space parcels, such as the 75-acre Pomerance property and the 91-acre Montgomery Pinetum.

"This Tuchman property was always this linchpin between the other properties," Savageau said. "There's a whole host of things that we're going to be looking at with this parcel."
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.