221. New Haven’s Lt. Augusto Rodríguez, First Civil War Soldier from Puerto Rico
Release Date: 11/14/2025
230. Pursuing Happiness: New Horizons Village
Grating the Nutmeg
In 1955, a group of disabled young adults living at New Britain Memorial Hospital signed a letter declaring their intention to seek out "adventuresome living for the physically handicapped." They formed a nonprofit called New Horizons and set out on a thirty-year journey to raise money and navigate legal barriers in order to realize their most cherished dream: a housing complex for the disabled, run by the disabled. In 2026, New Horizons Village in Farmington turns 40. In this episode, Natalie Belanger of the gives you a capsule history of the New Horizons movement and speaks with...
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229. Irish Immigration in Art from the Fairfield Great Hunger Museum at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum
Grating the Nutmeg
Famine Irish, lace-curtain Irish, shanty Irish: the Irish Diaspora has shaped Connecticut’s European immigrant history from the 1840s. Traces of Irish history and culture in the state are not only found in archival and artifact collections but also through the historic buildings, neighborhoods, and cemeteries that stand across the state. Whether they were immigrants, expatriates, refugees, or indentured servants when they arrived from Ireland, 14 percent of Connecticut’s current residents claim Irish ancestry. In today’s episode, we take you to a new exhibition, curated by...
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228. Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut
Grating the Nutmeg
If you are driving in Bristol, Connecticut-maybe you’re going to Lake Compounce Amusement Park - and suddenly you spy a cluster of huge satellite dishes, you might wonder if space aliens had really landed. But what you’ve discovered is the home base of ESPN - originally entitled the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network - shortened to ESPN in 1985. Every year tens of millions of fans watch ESPN but 47 years ago, a 24-hour sports television cable network was considered a wild and impossible idea. Our guests on this episode are the authors of the new audiobook ...
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227. Pioneering Woman Sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Grating the Nutmeg
I’ve got a story about an artist that I’ve been obsessed with for years. In this episode, Patricia Hoerth Batchelder talks about her new biography of Evelyn Beatrice Longman, The Woman Who Sculpted Golden Boy, Thomas Edison, and Other Monuments. Poor, motherless at five, and uneducated after elementary school, Longman made the highly ambitious claim at nineteen that she could create monumental sculpture. The book tells the story of how she created beauty, moved into upper class society, and succeeded in a field of art that was overwhelmingly dominated by men. Ms. Batchelder has worked for...
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226. Abby (and Julia) Smith and Their Cows
Grating the Nutmeg
Last year, in Episode 217, listeners were introduced to Hannah Smith. Born in 1767, Hannah was the matriarch of the non-conformist Smith Family of Glastonbury. In the 2020s, her diaries inspired Leonard Raybon, a music professor at Tulane, to compose an original mini-musical based on her writings. You can view the debut performance of "Hannah and Her Daughters" . This episode focuses on the next generation of the Smith family. Hannah Hickock married Zephaniah Smith of Glastonbury in 1786, and their marriage produced five daughters. Two of the...
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CELEBRATING WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Grating the Nutmeg
March is Women’s History Month! Here's 5 Not to Be Missed Stories!
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225. On Trial: Alfred Marder and Catherine Roraback - A Communist’s Arrest in 1950’s McCarthy-era New Haven (10th Anniversary Encore Release)
Grating the Nutmeg
Grating the Nutmeg is 10 years old! In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered and re-edited edition of an episode we recorded in 2016 at the with Alfred Marder, Judge Andrew Roraback and his father Charles Roraback. This compelling first-person interview with Alfred Marder shares his experiences as a defendant in New Haven’s Smith trial. Mr. Marder died in 2023 at the age of 101. He was defended by civil rights attorney Catherine Roraback, an inductee in the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1954, 32-year-old Alfred Marder was arrested in New...
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224. Scholar, Activist, Trailblazer: The Enduring Legacy of Dr. Lorenzo Greene
Grating the Nutmeg
Connecticut is a small state that has had a huge national impact. In this episode, we celebrate someone that we are proud to say was born in Connecticut and went on to be a pioneering historian in Black history. Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene received his BA in from Howard University in 1924, his MA from Columbia University in 1926 and his Ph.D. in 1942. He was born in Ansonia, Connecticut. We can learn more about his family from the 1900 federal census record. His father Willie was born in 1858 in Virginia before the end of slavery, and his mother was born in West Virginia in 1870. Both came to...
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223. The ‘Great Temperance Times’ in Nineteenth-Century Black Connecticut
Grating the Nutmeg
At first glance, alcohol and racial equality might seem unrelated—but for Black activists, the temperance movement was a powerful vehicle for social change. In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum chats with Mackenzie Tor about her research into Black temperance activism in 1830s and 1840s Connecticut. Mackenzie talks about how people like Maria Stewart, James Pennington, and the Beman family used temperance as a strategy for civic inclusion. Through their words and organizing efforts, from newspaper columns to church halls,...
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TOP 10 MOST STREAMED of ALL TIME!
Grating the Nutmeg
The GOATs! Our most streamed episodes EVER! Don’t MISS these CT stories:
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More than twenty thousand Hispanic Americans served in the Civil War. When Cuban-born Loreta Velázquez’s husband would not allow her to join him on the battlefield, she assumed the role of First Lieutenant Harry T. Buford to be near him. Philip Bazaar, born in Chile, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his courageous exploits during the assault of Fort Fisher. The spying efforts of Floridian Maria Dolores Sánchez and her two sisters led to a Union defeat at the Battle of Horse Landing.
Delving into the lives of these individuals, historian A.J. Schenkman, author of Hispanic Americans of the Civil War, published by the History Press in 2025, uncovers this often-overlooked aspect of Civil War history. Hispanic soldiers came from different countries. Mexico had declared its independence from Spain in 1821 and later abolished slavery in 1837. Some soldiers and sailors traced their families to Cuba and Puerto Rico, which were still part of Spain. Or from Spain itself or its other colonies.
In this episode, Schenkman uncovers a bombshell story about New Haven’s Augusto Rodríguez, the first known Civil War soldier from Puerto Rico. When this story was published in the Summer 2025 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine, the phone started to ring off the hook. Television news channels and newspapers quickly picked up this remarkable story. Grating the Nutmeg has covered the courageous Puerto Rican men of the 65th regiment founded in 1899 when Puerto Rico became a United States territory in episode #184 but not someone this early in our military history.
A. J. Schenkman is a New York-based writer. He is a social studies teacher in Ulster County, New York, and a former municipal historian. Schenkman is also author of several books about local, regional, and national history. He currently writes for Litchfield and Dutchess Magazines, as well as the Shawangunk Journal.
To contact A.J. Schenkman, visit his website at https://www.ajschenkman.com/
To subscribe to Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history, visit https://simplecirc.com/subscribe/connecticut-explored
To watch Connecticut’s Hidden Gems on YouTube, visit https://www.ctpublic.org/watch/local-programming/connecticut-hidden-gems
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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com/ Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.
Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!