Our World Tuesday: Little People Village

From Little People Village

Geocaching has a way of uncovering history for the local yokels at the same time it gets us outside and roaming the landscape for tucked-away Tupperware. My daughter's geocaching adventures brought her to Little People Village in Middlebury a few weeks ago with her father.

From Little People Village

About a century ago, a trolley line ran from Waterbury to Middlebury, Connecticut, where merry makers could hop off to visit this village or go a little farther down the line to Quassy Amusement Park.  It was an ornamental garden called The Fairy Garden.

From Little People Village

There area is dotted with the ruins of little people houses with arches, verandas, balustrades, and thrones.  These have suffered from neglect, the elements, and vandalism so that imagining what it might have been like requires a fair amount of imagination.  Here in Connecticut, there is no shortage of that.  According to Damned Connecticut, "One of the many versions of the story goes that back about a century ago, a man and his wife (who may or may not have been a witch) were living peacefully in Middlebury when she started seeing small fairy folk in the woods around their home. To accommodate these pixie-like creatures, she demanded her husband build a tiny village. As the years passed and the village grew, the enchantment faded into madness. The abandoned smurf-scale town is all that’s left to mark the couple’s anguished demise."

From Little People Village

Mother Nature is reclaiming the remains of this quaint garden.  Pines tower over the gift shop in the first photo, and vines are shaking loose the foundations of these little concrete constructions.  There isn't much left of the road, either.  It runs parallel to Interstate 84, but you'd hardly know it if you were mucking around in these quiet woods.

Mother Nature's got a way of doing her thing.  Just ask the bittersweet.

From Little People Village

Our World Tuesday