Putnam Park is in West Redding. It is the site of winter encampments in 1788-1789 by a force of Revolutionary War soldiers led by General Israel Putnam.
General Israel Putnam was from my old home town in Massachusetts. It always catches me off guard when I come across something memorializing Putnam.
The troops camped in Redding were used to protect the Long Island Sound, the Hudson Highlands and, especially, the military stores at the Army Supply Depot in Danbury. There is a field with a quarter mile of rock piles, which are the remains of the chimneys of 116 log huts that housed the soldiers.
The statue is by a noted female Connecticut sculptor, a wealthy woman who had an estate near here. Anna Hyatt Huntington donated it to the State of Connecticut in 1969, when she was 93.
Well worth preserving.
ReplyDeleteA most interesting bit of Revolutionary War history. That is a great statue of General Putnam. It makes him look like a wild man.
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