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In honor of our 150th Anniversary, Gault Energy& Stone launched “150 Years of Community” last Thursday. This year-long
series of community events and programs to commemorate the Gault family’s
storied history as a fifth-generation family business, as well as its
distinction as the oldest business in Westport, and the oldest family owned and
operated energy company in Fairfield County.
The Gault family kicked off its 150th Anniversary celebration last
Thursday at the one place that uniquely tells the Gault story from 1863 to
present: the Gault Barn. Otherwise known as the Gault Brothers Farmstead, the Gault
Barn is located on what is today called Compo Road South, in Westport. While
the company has many historical artifacts in its rich archives, this Barn is
considered one of the most compelling of the Gault family’s historic treasures.
Prized by historians and curators from the Connecticut Trust for Historic
Preservation and the Westport Historical Society as much for its architectural
bones as for its historical narrative, the barn has been painstakingly
preserved and offers a picturesque reminder of the community’s agrarian past
and the family’s humble beginnings.
At Thursday’s launch on behalf of the Connecticut Trust for
Historic Preservation, Barn Historian and Researcher, Charlotte Hitchcock
announced that the Gault Barn, which is actually three barns built in stages
from the 1890s to 1913, will be officially added to the State Register of
Historic Places in the company’s 150th anniversary year. “The Gault barns are significant not only to
the history of the family, but also to the Town of Westport and the State of
Connecticut,” says Hitchcock. “The structures’ timber frame construction
reflects the building traditions of American farming, but the Gault family
showed uncommon ingenuity by integrating a variety of materials from their
lines of business, including brick and stone masonry, into the barns to create
a truly unique barn complex.” Hitchcock says that the barns have endured
despite the changes in Westport’s built environment of the last century and a
half that transformed it from an agricultural community into the more built-up
landscape of today. “Many of Westport’s and, indeed, Connecticut’s
earliest barns have been lost to development. Fortunately, the Gault
family’s use of their barns evolved to support and take advantage of changes in
the community over time, from dairy farming to lumber and feed grain, to coal
and home heating oil delivery. That these historical barns are still in
productive use today is incredible, and rare.”
Look out for our next blog for more
information regarding Gault Energy & Stone’s Year Long 150th
Anniversary Celebration Unveiling! To
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