NAUGATUCK — The borough celebrated the 100th anniversary of Connecticut’s arborist law Oct. 18 with a ceremonial planting of a white oak at the Tuttle house on Church Street.
Local officials and members of the Naugatuck Garden Club and Naugatuck Historical Society gathered in the field behind the Tuttle house for the ceremony.
The Connecticut Tree Protective Association, an educational association dedicated to advancing the care of trees in the state, donated white oaks to each town to mark the arborist law. The law requires people to have an arborist license to perform commercial tree work.
Evabeth Kloc, a member of the association as well as the garden club and historical society, accepted the tree from the association and coordinated with Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess to decide where to plant it. They decided on the field behind the Tuttle house because the house will soon be the Naugatuck History Museum, and because of the building’s historical ties.
The Tuttle family and Whittemore family, which owned land across from the Tuttle house, both played a large role in developing Naugatuck. They were also advocates for planting trees, Kloc said. Harris Whittemore, the son John H. Whittemore, is credited with planting nearly half a million trees in Naugatuck, Southbury and Woodbury.
