People make history. What about famous people in
Lime Rock?
Glad you asked! While the early iron families of
Lime Rock left few stars in the firmament (other than Ethan Allen, and he
was merely passing through), William H. Barnum, once president of Barnum
Richardson (and P. T. Barnum's third cousin and political adversary), rose
from a common school education and an iron founder's apprenticeship to not
only run the company, but also be president of three railroads, a board
member of many other industrial and transportation companies, and a United
States Senator. He was also Chairman of the National Democratic
Committee, and the only US President that served twice with an intervening
President appeared for Barnum's funeral at Lime Rock's
Trinity Church -- Barnum's
"company church," built and subsidized for years with company funds.
One of Barnum's sons, a Yale-educated lawyer, was
a founding partner of a major Wall Street law firm (Simpson,
Thacher and Bartlett, originally Simpson Thacher and BARNUM), and was personally responsible for creation of the American Locomotive Company,
ALCO -- sometimes
referred to today by business historians as the "Locomotive trust".
A man named Ensign, from Lime Rock, was a founder of
the company that went on to join two other railroad car manufacturing
companies that, in 1899, became
American Car and Foundry (today known as ACF
Industries). It probably goes without saying that the Barnums and the Ensigns
had close business relations.
In the area of religion, a Rector of
Trinity Church,
Lime Rock went on to found the
Rectory School in Pomfret, CT.
Fast-forward past the artists who populated the area
after Barnum Richardson, as recognition of their names today, such as Dard
Hunter, the paper maker, is probably confined to students of
the Arts and Crafts movement in America, and to the post-Hudson River School
of landscape painters.
Lime Rock Park has contributed many names well known to
racing aficionados. Here's just one example:
John Fitch, the only
American ever to drive for the
Mercedes Benz factory team, and subsequently
the inventor of the "Fitch Barrier" (familiar to everyone who has driven on
a modern superhighway), considers Lime Rock Park his home course. So
does actor Paul Newman. Many or most of the great race drivers of the
second half of the 20th century raced at Lime Rock Park at one time or
another.
No, Lime Rock does not lack for famous people.
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