The Bridgewater Historical Society continually receives calls from Bridgewater families with family treasures to donate. We have acquired diaries, photos, a desk from the old Village Store and most recently, a school desk from the Bostwick family.

The desk originally resided at the Daniel Ruggles Home on Skyline Ridge and possibly the neighboring house of Benjamin Ruggles. Charles W. Bostwick and his wife Adeline Ruggles first owned the Daniel Ruggles home in 1887 and then Frank Emerson Bostwick and Fannie Tyrrell Bostwick owned it until Frank’s death in 1908. Fannie Bostwick then sold the home to Augusta and Emma Jacot from New York and she and her children moved to Bristol, CT with the desk. It was subsequently inherited by Fannie’s son, Roy Bostwick, and then passed on to her grandson, Emerson Bostwick, the father of Diane Bostwick McNulty a current Bridgewater resident.

 

The Bostwick family lived in Bristol for many years until Diane McNulty moved to Bridgewater in 1994. She inherited the desk from her father upon his death in 2010 and so the desk returned to Bridgewater. The children of the Tyrrell and Bostwick families used the school desk for many years to do their studies. It is a simple wood desk with a top cover that opens. There is an interesting inscription on the inside cover of the desk “H.T. 1746”. It is believed the initials belong to a Tyrrell ancestor in Fannie’s family. The investigation continues to determine whose initials these are.

 

The story of this desk is like many family heirlooms that travel from house to house, father to son. And sometimes these items find their home in a historical collection for many to see. The family wanted this desk to stay in Bridgewater and now it will.

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