Sea Captains of Stratford by Lew Knapp

Long time former Town Historian, Lewis Knapp, discusses sea captains who lived in Stratford.  The recording is of a speech Lew gave May 24, 1974.  Much of the research Lew did for this speech was later recorded in his books "In Pursuit of Paradise" and "Stratford and the Sea".  Lew posits a theory in this speech as to how the first settlers traveled to Stratford.  By 1989, he'd greatly altered this theory when he wrote In Pursuit of Paradise.  This recording ends very suddenly at about 60 minutes when the cassette used to record Lew's speech was full.  Apparently, the person recording Lew's speech didn't have an additional blank cassette available.

Lewis Knapp was born in 1923 and passed away May 15, 2014 which, coincidentally, was the year of the town's 375th anniversary.  Lew was Town Historian for many years and was very actively involved in the Stratford Historical Society.  Mr. Knapp was Past President of the Stratford Historical Society; developed the Historic District Commission and established the Academy Hill Historic District.