The property of Great Hollow, which now sprawls across Sherman and New Fairfield, dates back to January 4, 1880, the birthdate of the well-known lawyer, Walter Gordon Merritt. His father, Charles Hart Merritt, was a prominent figure in the local Danbury industry. He started a small shoe factory, which was later transformed into a hat factory. The factory was operated under the name of C.H. Merritt and Son, where he worked with two of his six sons, Charles and George. Charles Hart Merritt was President of the Danbury and Bethel Gas and Electric Company and of the Clark Box Company. He was a charter member of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad and the Danbury Hospital. Walter Gordon Merritt attended Harvard Law School. He was a partner at the law firm of McLanahan, Merritt, and Ingraham located at 40 Wall Street in New York City. His interests were mainly in the operations of corporations and labor unions, particularly early on in the familiar hatting industry, and in the law and philosophy of labor relations.
In the 1900s, Merritt began his campaign in defense of the Loewe Company, where he argued that the Sherman Anti-Trust Law could be used against national organized labor and that organizing workers for higher wages was a restraint of free trade. When the Loewe Company wouldn't permit its factory to be organized by the United Hatters of North America, the Union organized a boycott. D.E. Loewe and Company sued the Union and claimed damages from the boycott by Union workers. The case reached all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the Loewe Company and Walter Merritt. The Supreme Court held that the union was subject to an injunction and liable for the payment of triple damages. This set precedence for federal court interference with labor activities. After the Danbury Hatter's Case was resolved, the worker's returned to the factories. They found themselves in a poor situation, with liens being placed against their homes. In the coming years, mercury poisoning in the hat making industry of Danbury gave rise to the expression the "Danbury shakes" or "Mad Hatter's disease" and the same workers who had returned to the factories after the Danbury Hatters' Case were stricken with illness.
On March 13, 1921, during the Open Shop Debate at Lexington Theater in New York City, a debate with opponent Andrew Furuseth, President of the International Seaman's Union, Merritt argued that instead of turning to closed shop unions, they should "make unions so good they want to join". He went on to say that his "opposition lies against any system of industry maintained by strikes or boycotts which involves exclusion from industry of any qualified group of workers" and that his "objection to closed shops is not an objection to union agreements or even a closed shop arrangement of individual factories, but it's an objection to a vast system which you are trying to impose upon the country through the changing of our laws until that system, like a great colossal reaper, shall mow down the rights of everybody else". He was Counsel to the League for Industrial Rights and during his career, wrote such works as "The Struggle for Industrial Liberty" and "Strikes and Public Utilities: A Remedy" and "History for the League of Industrial Nations".
Merritt married Isabel Kilbourne Hooker on July 26, 1920 at a ceremony in Hartford, CT. She was a descendant of Thomas W. Hooker, who led the settlement of Hartford and is commonly referred to as the "Father of Connecticut". They did not have any children.
In the late 1920s, Merritt began to buy parcels of farmland on the border of New York and Connecticut. The land was comprised of valleys and hillsides, bridle trails and forests. It was, and still is, a quality watershed on the Connecticut and New York borders in New Fairfield, Sherman and Patterson. Merritt had amassed over 1,000 acres of land and he named it Great Hollow. During his life in New Fairfield, he served, as Chairman of New Fairfield's Planning and Zoning Commission and was a key player in the efforts to preserve the rural nature of the town on Lake Candlewood. He was a member of the Century Association and the Bankers Club in New York City, the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. and was a Director of the Legal Aid Society.
Merritt's wife, Isabel, died in 1963 and later that year he married Mrs. Mary N. Shawah, a writer for The Bridgeport Sunday Post. On September 19, 1968, at 88 years old, Walter Gordon Merritt died at Danbury Hospital. Merritt and his wife, Isabel, had been busy establishing their legacy with their purchased parcels of land and he had wondered what would come of it upon his passing. Merritt often conversed with several neighbors as to what would happen to their adjacent property should he pass. He referred to their land as "our valley". He loved being outdoors, riding and enjoying the nature and when he decided to will the land to a university. His original wish was to will his property to a group who would prove to be responsible with its use. He wanted the vast amount of land to be available to the public. He had first contacted his alma mater Harvard University, who declined due to the restrictions put on the property to remain a wildlife sanctuary, and eventually decided to will the property to Wesleyan University under the stipulation that the property would be left to the Campus for a College of Ecology at Wesleyan. It is not known exactly why he chose ecology, but it could be presumed his interest in the study of organisms and their natural environment stemmed from his love of his life and land.
After Merritt passed away Wesleyan University was bequeathed his land, but it came with his specific restrictions of land use that bound all present and future titleholders. The permitted uses included, but were not limited to schools, colleges, educational or scientific facilities, programs, religious, and other charitable uses. The primary use and purpose of the land was to maintain it as a wildlife sanctuary for the benefit and enjoyment of the public and for scientific and educational purpose consistent with, the wild portions of the real property except approximately 200 acres of fields, pastures, orchards, and areas.
The property of Great Hollow has since passed from Wesleyan University to the Regional YMCA of Western Connecticut, who has put it up for sale after 15 years of use. It may be conveyed to another non-profit institution, agency or corporation, private or governmental, who will commit to maintaining the property as per the terms of the "Merritt Will". The property may also be conveyed to a private non-profit corporation that will make the required commitment to meet all restrictive terms of the Merritt Will. It may not be conveyed to a private individual or to a private corporation that will use the property for purposes that do not serve "the benefit and enjoyment of the public" as required by the will of Walter Gordon Merritt. Though he is no longer with us, buried beside his first wife Isabel in Gerow Cemetery, his legacy lives on through the land he left behind and through his carefully constructed will, which clearly gave indication to the pride he had in his home and the love he had of the surrounding nature.
Series' Originally Published in the New Fairfield and Sherman Citizen News, Photographs Courtesy of the New Fairfield Historical Society