The recent kerfuffle over the town’s $5.58 million repair of the Sherwood Mill Pond — and the related issue of whether, in return, taxpayers (and others) should have access to adjacent Compo Mill Cove, through now-locked gates — has shined a light on one of the most intriguing spots in Westport.
Which raises another related question: How did that patch of land, between Old Mill Beach and Sherwood Island State Park, come to be inhabited?
John Coleburn knew.
The son of one of 2 brothers who built the first homes on the property, he put his recollections on paper in 1982. Recently, Jim Gallagher — Coleburn’s son-in-law — sent them to “06880.”
More than 40 years ago, Coleburn prefaced his remembrances by sayng they came from family stories he heard during summers on the Cove.
“This narrative is certainly far from factual,” he wrote.
But it is fascinating.
Compo Mill Cove (right) is accessible via 2 pedestrian bridges; underneath them are Sherwood Mill Pond (top) tidal gates. Old Mill Beach and Old Mill houses are at left. (Drone photo/Brandon Malin)
Around 1900, Coleburn said, the Old Mill itself — today a private home on the water, closest to the 2 tidal gates and pedestrian bridges leading to Compo Cove — was occupied by an artist named Neil Mitchell.
A relative named Borden, who lived on Old Mill Beach, disputed the town of Westport’s claim that it owned that beach.
Lengthy litigation — along with fights among Old Mill residents, torn-down fences and burning of property, Coleburn said — eventually wound up at the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The lawsuits found that the Old Mill dated back to 1731, when a Westchester man asked the town of Fairfield (of which Westport was then part) for land, to establish a grist mill. He promised to grind corn and grain in perpetuity — and at no cost — for nearby farmers.
The original Sherwood Mill Pond grist mill.
Ida Coley — John Coleburn’s father — spent part of her childhood at her family’s homestead at the crest of Route 57 in Weston. (The Coley house is now part of the Weston History & Culture Center.)
She was a member of Norfield Congregational Church. The mill had closed by then. Each summer, the church rented it, for a youth camp.
Ida married jeweler Henry Coleburn in 1899. She told him stories about the area where she camped as a child. Henry and his brother Arthur, a doctor, looked at the land. They thought it would be ideal for vacation cottages.
Ownership of the Cove was difficult to trace. A man from as far away as St. Louis may once have had a deed to it.
The Coleburn brothers finally purchased the entire area. Old Mill residents were not pleased. They called them “damn squatters.”
One of the original Coleburn homes is being extensively renovated.
The Coleburns built a summer house around 1903. It was located on Long Island Sound, close to where #46 (the second house on the right) is now.
Another home was soon built next door. The original was moved to its present location: the only one on the left side of the Cove, just over the bridge. (It has since been enlarged.)
John Coleburn remembered it being relocated on skids, by a team of horses.
43 Compo Mill Cove was originally located across the pedestrian path.
There were no bridges. People walked to Compo Cove on the timbers on which the tidal gates were hinged.
Rowboats brought in heavy items like ice for preservation, and kerosene for cooking and lighting.
A Mr. Perry of Hillspoint Road used his horse and wagon to haul even heavier goods like furniture and trunks, crossing the sandbar at low tide.
The Coleburn brothers sold lots on the Cove to their friends “so a congenial group would result,” John Coleburn wrote. The price was $250 per lot.
Dr. Coleburn did not like trespassers. He confronted them with a .45 pistol. Once, he smashed dozens of glass bottles at a spot where “outsiders” sunbathed.
For decades, youngsters have swum near the pedestrian bridges leading to Compo Cove. “Outsiders” were not welcome further.
A psychiatrist named Dr. Diefendorf brought patients to live at his cottage. Believing in “work therapy for the disturbed,” he had them build “the most meticulously groomed tennis court in Westport.”
They also constructed beautiful flower and vegetable gardens, plus stone walks and terraces with rocks they collected on Cockenoe Island, and rowed back — with great difficulty — to the Cove.
John Coleburn’s history of Compo Cove includes information about many other original owners. One was the Raymond family, which came from Buffalo for summers in the early 1920s.
Allen Raymond’s family home has been torn down. (Photo courtesy of Westport Journal)
Their son Allen Raymond became the greatest contributor to Westport in every facet of life — educational, recreational, spiritual — than anyone since the Bedford family.
The most famous resident of Compo Mill Cove contributed unfathomable amounts of time, energy (and money) to the Green’s Farms Congregational Church, and the YMCA. He led the Westport Historical Society into the modern era, and Earthplace to sustainability.
Perhaps his greatest gift was his leadership in the town’s purchase of Longshore — a failing private country club a mile away from his boyhood summer home. He loved that house on the Cove immensely, and lived there with joy for 91 years.
Like generations of residents, he could thank John and Arthur Coleburn for their vision and persistence.
And, perhaps, “squatting” on land whose original ownership may never be known.
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In 1955, I was a little 5 year-old girl who lived (for over 30 years) at 158 Hillspoint Rd in what was once the Sherwood barn adjacent to the Sherwood house. Under the living room rug were hoofprints of horses, and into the low-beamed ceiling were two giant hand-made nails that saddles or ropes probably hung from. My father found buried under the front stone stoop, a very large-sized silver ring, that had probably once fallen from the hand of one of the brothers (reputed to be large exuberant red-haired adventurers) into which was inscribed the names of 3 continents . I still have the ring.
Starting at age 7, inspired by their example in stories I’d heard,
I would pile up my step building blocks and climb out my bedroom window on the ground floor to go “exploring”.
I liked to cross the street and walk down the winding hill at Edgewater Hillside, descending through cattails and rushes higher than I was, to go sit on the tiny rocky island that protruded beyond the overgrown tennis court at the edge of the Mill Pond. As a teenager, that island rock was secretly where Barbara Atkinson and I both (at the same time) received our first kiss from Rick!
Perhaps because at a young age, I was actually forbidden to cross the busy road, I liked to walk all the way down Hillspoint Rd to the Mill Pond beach (never crossing the street until I got there) and out across the foot bridge to the far beach and tiny houses there. The pond was one of my favorite meditative sanctuaries as a small child all the way to adulthood. As a child, I would buy Wonder Bread from Ken at the small grubby store across from the Old Mill beach and then become overjoyed as the geese and ducks and swans would all flock to me. I wrote my first poem ever, there, called “Feeding the Hungry”.
The Mill Pond fed us all.
Lovely!! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your article, I enjoyed it immensely.
Jeff Northrop
Thank you, Dan. What an amazing article. Wishing you the best always and thank you and the town thanks you for 06880💙💚🩷❤️💜
I consider John Colburn to be a mentor growing up next door to the family on the cove. Al Raymond was a remarkable asset to Westport that deserves recognition.