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Wolcott Historical Society News - October 2018
By Florence Goodman
This month I would like to revisit an old farm article that I wrote back in 2010 about the W.E. Tyrrell Farm that was found on Beach Road. Recently I received new information about the farm and the Tyrrell family from Lorraine Marti whose husband was a relative of that family and I want to share it with you.
In my original farm article I stated that the Tyrrell Dairy Farm was located on the corner of Beach Road and Ellen Avenue, but in light of this new information it was not. Lorraine stated that the farm was located at 209 Beach Road, which is only a short distance down the road. The Tyrrell's may have first lived at that location because it was Norton property and the Norton's were their relatives, but the farm was not there.
The historic cape cod style house that is found at 209 Beach Road was built for George G. Alcott circa 1830 and included a barn, a blacksmith shop on fifty acres of land. This was all part of the original acreage that was owned by John Alcott who settled on Spindle Hill in 1731. George Alcott sold the house and property on March 23,1857 to David H. Nichols. Later it was sold again because in 1868 a Wolcott map shows this property being owned by James L. Kenea. Some time in the early 1930s William Edward Tyrrell purchased this house and property and established his dairy farm there.
The Tyrrell family has a long history in Wolcott. The first Tyrrell (spelled Therrill) sailed from England in the 1600s to settle in the new world. Charles Whitemor Tyrrell was the first of his family to settle in Connecticut in the late 1800s. He and his wife, Mary Angeline (Norton) had thirteen children, ten of whom lived into adulthood; William was one of their children. He was born on January 2, 1880 in Waterbury, Connecticut. William married Mary Selena DeBisschop on June 21, 1905. Selena was born in Wolcott in 1884. They had two children, a son, Robert William born in 1906 in Waterbury and a daughter, Marion Celestine born in 1914 in Wolcott.
Sometime after 1910 William and Selena Tyrrell moved to Wolcott and by the 1930 Census the family was living in the George Alcott house on Beach Road and raising Guernsey and Holstein cows for the production of milk on the W.E. Tyrrell Dairy Farm, which was run by William until his death on August 14, 1947. After William's death Edwin H. Mearing managed the farm until 1951 when a fire destroyed the barn and the dairy closed. Selena died on March 26, 1955 and is buried next to William in Edgewood Cemetery in Wolcott.
In 1936 their daughter, Marion, also known as Polly married Paul Rudolph Marti Sr. and they had two children; a daughter, Janet Mae Marti born in 1937 and a son, Paul Rudolph Marti Jr. born in 1942. The 1961 local phone directory shows Marion (Polly) Marti living in the family home at 209 Beach Road. It is from her daughter, Janet and daughter-in-law Lorraine that I was able to get this farm and family information and the great pictures that are included with this article.
The first Tyrrell family reunion was held in 1929 at the Wolcott Fair grounds, which at that time was located at the intersection of Woodtick and Todd Roads behind Frisbie School. Over one hundred family members were in attendance.
Today the house and one half acre of land is listed in the land records as being owned by B.E. Hendrickson.
(Information for this article was taken from Ancestry.com, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 Census information, Wolcott land records and photos and information given to me from Lorraine Marti and Janet Marti Belanger Johnson)
The 1830 George Alcott House where the William Tyrrell family and later Marti families lived and located at 209 Beach Road.
The top of a 1932 calendar advertising the Tyrrell Dairy Farm on Beach Road in Wolcott, Connecticut.
This picture was taken in the 1930s on the stage of the Wolcott Grange Hall on Bound Line Road, Wolcott, Connecticut. This was Bob Tyrrell's band called "The Revelers". Bob Tyrrell was Marion Celestine Tyrrell Marti's brother.
Mary Angeline (Norton) Tyrrell - William Tyrrell's mother.
Janet and Paul (Chuck) Marti Jr. on the milk truck in front of Tyrrell's Dairy, Wolcott, Connecticut circa mid-1940s. Notice Chuck holding the milk in the wire carrier.
The William Tyrrell family posing in front of the barn at the Wolcott Fair Grounds at a family reunion.
To view past installments of the Historical Society News, click here.
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