As a Westport history buff — and chair of the town’s Longshore 50th committee — Scott Smith is a stickler for accuracy.
News of the Westport Historical Society’s Sept. 25 The British Are Coming! bus tour — commemorating our Revolutionary War claim to fame — brought to mind a pet peeve of his:
The lopsided, cluttered sign at the corner of Post Road East and South Compo.
As any bicyclist or jogger knows, Compo Beach is not “one mile south” of the street sign. The British might have wished it were so — they marched all the way north from there to Danbury where they demolished an ammunition depot; burned 19 houses, 22 stores and barns; destroyed food, clothing, medical equipment, tents, candles and a printing press, then trooped all the way back to their boats moored off Compo — but it is definitely more than a mile.
Which brings to mind an important question: If something as simple as that distance can be wrong, how accurate is everything else on all those historical markers?