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Happy Birthday, Martha Culver!

The Martha Culver House will open for a birthday celebration Sunday.

Devotees of the Victorian era may wish to button up their leather, high-top shoes this Sunday, as the presents the first of two birthday parties for a philanthropic woman from North Haven’s past.

Sue Iverson, a member of the society’s board of directors, termed Martha Culver, who will be honored at the family homestead she bequeathed to the town, “ahead of her time.”  

The daughter of a North Haven brickyard owner, Çulver (1864-1926) married a farmer.  In short order, she separated from him, traveling to far-flung parts of the country such as California and Georgia to tend to the poor.   She returned to her family’s two-story home built of bricks the dusky red color of North Haven’s clay.  When she died, she deeded the property at 290 Quinnipiac Ave. to the town, specifying that it serve as a library and recreational space.

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After its use as public library until the 1960s, the house re-opened for use by the North Haven Historical Society in the late 1970s, furnished with the heavy furniture upholstered in velvet—Victorian edging into Empire, Iverson said—of the time.  

Culver loved jazz.  According to Iverson, she played it at her family’s piano.  So Sunday’s commemoration will include recorded jazz music as well as recordings played on the home’s hand-cranked Victrola.   

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Key to the continuing research on Culver, Iverson said, is whether she ever finalized her divorce from her husband.  All indications say she did.  She filed her own tax returns, owned her own property and used her family’s name.  Iverson finds especially intriguing the fact that, when Culver traveled to California, divorce rates among the newcomers there were high, thus making the notion of divorce more palatable to a woman, like Culver, with East Coast roots.  Yet, the legal record of a divorce has never been found, even though a wedding photograph documents the union.

What remains certain is that house, whose property also includes the Montowese Volunteer Fire Department, brings together a number of strands from North Haven’s past—all of which will be on show this weekend.    

Unlike many brickyards that were situated on the Quinnipiac River, the clay for the Culver house came from Montowese’s own Muddy River, which is a tributary of the Quinnipiac.  It is the same color as the clay in the backyards of Montowese homes today.  

Also, farm artifacts that date back as far as the 18th century at the Culver House recall North Haven’s strong agricultural past.  Including a boundary stone, the artifacts come from the Brockett family, owners of a dairy farm. 

And as for the birthday cake—well, Iverson declined to comment on it other than to say that, most likely, it will be two-tier.

The commemorative events will take place July 22 and again Aug. 19 from noon to 3 p.m. at the Martha Culver House at 290 Quinnipiac Ave. Admission is free.

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