A RIDE WITH MISS WHEELER

A century ago, it was possible to ride across the towns of Stonington and Groton, between the Pawcatuck River bridge and the Thames River, in about an hour and a half. The conveyance was the interurban trolley service operated by the Groton and Stonington Street Railway. This journey, over coves and estuaries of the Atlantic, up hills, past factories and historic sites, and through the woods, cost a nickel.

The Groton and Stonington line, having won a charter from the legislature in 1903, opened service to the public on December 19, 1904. As a promotion device, the line commissioned Grace Denison Wheeler, author of a popular book of 1903, Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, to describe the historical wonders of the route. Miss Wheeler wrote a narrative starting at the eastern terminus, with a detailed picture of the historic layers of activity there, from grist mills to thread mills. She noted frequently the speed of the trip, cautioning others to take the journey more than once to be able to pick out the sights.

The company distributed her booklet in 1907 as Historic Ground: A Trolley Ride From Westerly to Groton, adding the summer timetables for that year, a map and some pictures. Geo. H. Utter of Westerly published the 28-page booklet in a format 3 1/2 inches by 6 inches, with a green cover. When she was 90, Miss Wheeler incorporated this material into a 1948 book, Grace Wheeler's Memories, with some notations on changes. Historical Footnotes in 1977 carried excerpts from the Memorieschapter. The section here, covering the route from the Pawcatuck to the Mystic River, was taken from a copy of the original booklet in the Woolworth Library of the Historical Society. Bracketed material by the editor indicates a few contemporary landmarks. Names are italicized to indicate places now gone.

Retracing the trolley route with Miss Wheeler's vade mecum is a lesson about historic preservation. Even in an area as respectful of its history as the Town of Stonington, vestiges are wiped away by human hands as often as by forces of nature. Sometimes one seeks in vain for a modest marker to help us understand the ebbs and flows of human habitation before the twenty first century. Houses and trolley waiting rooms are enfolded by other structures and may only sometimes be recognized for what they are.

As for the Groton and Stonington Street Railway, it was given state permission to convert to buses in 1928, and to tear up its tracks. This was six years after the Norwich and Westerly Railway Company, also an interurban, ceased service [see Historical Footnotes, November 2005]. Sic transit transit.

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