{"id":10038,"date":"2014-07-03T18:29:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T22:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/?p=10038"},"modified":"2017-01-12T16:31:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T21:31:24","slug":"the-entrance-to-beardsley-park-bridgeport-ct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/north-end\/the-entrance-to-beardsley-park-bridgeport-ct\/","title":{"rendered":"The Entrance to Beardsley Park, Bridgeport CT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Greeting visitors to Beardsley Park is a statue of the man who donated the land to the city of Bridgeport, James Walker Beardsley.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Legend has it that Beardsley decided to give the land to the city after seeing an irate farmer tell children to leave a meadow where they were playing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Trying to guarantee that future generations of Bridgeport children would have a place to play freely, Beardsley, also a farmer donated the land to the city in 1878.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fredrick Law Olmstead, landscape architect of Central Park in New York City as well as Seaside Park, designed Beardsley Park.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Beardsley, using his agricultural background, advised park officials on the planting of trees and other shrubs and designed bridges and special roads.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Beardsley and his sister lived in a house near Beardsley Park. On Christmas Eve in 1892, intruders broke into Beardsley\u2019s home and attacked the two, who were elderly.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">James Beardsley died on New Year\u2019s Day, 1893, at age 72, due to complications from the wounds inflicted by the thieves.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%;\"><span style=\"line-height: 150%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The bronze statue of James Beardsley was dedicated on June 19, 1909. The Bridgeport Board of Trade raised money for it by public subscription, appropriating $6,000. The statue was designed by Charles Henry Niehaus.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greeting visitors to Beardsley Park is a statue of the man who donated the land to the city of Bridgeport, James Walker Beardsley. Legend has it that Beardsley decided to give the land to the city after seeing an irate farmer tell children to leave a meadow where they were playing. Trying to guarantee that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[44,50],"tags":[75,76,86,134],"class_list":["post-10038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-end","category-parks","tag-beardsley","tag-beardsley-park","tag-bridgeport","tag-james-beardsley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12149,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10038\/revisions\/12149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}