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Timothy Rees, Evening Mosey, Oil, 12 x 9” Cora Ogden, Afternoon Light, Oil, 20 x 30”
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Farms Ice Cream right next door! s S y 0-6 ind for u salemredhouse.com Visit G • Y GALLE R 22 Darling Road, Salem 860.608 Make a neighborly visit. We’d love to see you! upcoming classes and special event SSE CL A • S IF T yg 6526 Thurs-Fri Noon-5pm, Sat-Sun 1 g We’rre e right behi 8
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by Rona Mann
our nose begins to twitch a half-block away.
By the time you reach the generous parking lot, little droplets of drool are forming at the corners of your mouth in anticipation.
Your eyes take in the familiar name on the building, the beautiful flowers, and the legion of customers walking out carrying shopping bags, wearing smiles.
Theirs are not the only smiles you’ll see, for when you come through the front door at Pasta Vita the place is electric with smiles. Smiles from every person behind the counter, stocking
Lilly
shelves, wheeling out fresh meals to the cooler. But none brighter than the smile on the face of co-owner, Rich Cerosimo. These smiles are genuine. They are not something found in the “employee guidebook” for there is no guidebook telling people who really love their jobs how to look or act. Their customers are the cornerstone of each individual’s guidebook, so those smiles and that positive attitude just come naturally. It comes with the experience of being an integral part of the Pasta Vita adventure and experience. And yes indeed, Pasta Vita is both, just ask the customers who come back month after month, week after week, and some even every day.
Photos by Jeffery
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Yes, Pasta Vita is an adventure each time you visit because you always know what you’re going to get...and you never know what you’re going to get! You always know you’ll get those smiles and greetings the moment the door opens, you know it’s always going to smell tantalizing from the parking lot right into the shop, and you always know that anything you buy is fresh, made from scratch that day, and consistent in taste. If you loved that sauce a month ago, if your guests raved about the beef dish, the innovative pasta, those can’t-eat-just-one hors d’oeuvres last time they visited, and if you could just bake it right in the container which has been perfectly portioned for your use, then you’re in the right pace. Ah, but you never know what special concoctions Executive Chef, Luis Castanho has prepared for your enjoyment as there are specials every day, old favorites with new twists, and freshly prepared foods for every taste, diet, preference, and absolutely mouth-watering hankering.
Yes, this is Pasta Vita, the only gourmet to-go shop of its kind in the United States and born out of two men’s vision of making the finest, freshest, gourmet food for people who love to eat and entertain and do so at a fair price. Rich Cerosimo left the corporate world of IBM after 30 years, teaming up with Chef Lou Castanho, a graduate of the worldrenowned Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Together, they started small, preparing a few fresh meals each day and letting local people know they were available. Their efforts grew fast and so did word of mouth! Now, nearly 30 years later they have built a gastronomic empire in Old Saybrook drawing people who love to eat from throughout New England. “Even during the recession, even during the pandemic, we never had a down year,” Cerosimo says proudly, but he knows that didn’t just happen. It was the result of hard work and the pride every employee has in their job. “It’s paying attention to detail, it’s being open seven days a week, and above all, it’s never taking a bit of it for granted.”
Gourmet food does not have to be fancy, expensive, or pretentious. True gourmet food puts its emphasis on quality, craftsmanship, and creativity. It is a labor of love with professionals like Chef Lou now ably assisted by his son, Christian, and a staff of 40 (yes, 40 people at all times in the kitchen!) dedicated to perfecting their techniques and presentation. The Pasta Vita meals herald the fact that every meal can and should be a celebration of good taste and good people gathering together. In this age of mass production and
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Chef, Louis Castanho and Rich Cerosimo in the kitchen
grabbing fast food on the way home from work, the selection at Pasta Vita offers an opportunity to slow down, savor every bite, and appreciate the artistry. None of which has to be expensive. Just take any fully prepared meal from the case and divide the price by two or four (most dinners are made to serve this number). You’ll find you cannot buy it and prepare the dish yourself for a price this reasonable...and it certainly beats today’s restaurant prices.
We were fortunate enough to have Rich Cerosimo take us on a tour of the kitchen area which is larger than the entire shop... and yes, there are indeed 40 people all hard at work, still each of them took the time to look up at the visitor, smile, nod, and say “Good Morning.” Rich points out, “Every person here has
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a specific job. It might be washing lettuce, then putting it in the spinner, chopping vegetables, filleting salmon (we do that right here the old-fashioned way), peeling our own potatoes.” Cerosimo pauses and says matter-of-factly, “We sell thousands of meals every day, and everyone here is a part of that. Many supermarkets with grab-and-go-meals prepare 10 salads at a time, we do 80, and they all sell that same day.”
This is not DoorDash or Grub Hub. You don’t order online and a third party brings it. You may call and order on the phone, and even if you have a conference room filled with 100 people, Pasta Vita can make lunch fresh, from scratch, and to order with proper notice. Rich and Chef Lou do a lot of listening. They listen to suggestions from their staff for new ideas and
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new recipes, and they really appreciate and listen to their customers. There is not a taste nor a diet that Pasta Vita can’t feed or satisfy. Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-Free, and for those who crave a little comfort food after a bad day at work, too much traffic, or a cold, there’s a comforting meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, shepherds pie, mac and cheese, chicken pot pie...comfort food all made from scratch and fresh daily.
There was no way we could list all the many choices, but if you go on the website: pastavita.com you’ll see a link for this week’s offerings, next week’s offerings, and the catering menu. All in all, hundreds of possibilities. But you really owe it to yourself to make the journey to this gastronomic adventure and see what the only gourmet-to-go that’s like it in the United States has waiting for you. Lunch, dinner, soups, salads, appetizers, party foods, desserts, and a legion of happy customers. Like Rick Cerosimo says, “We work every day to keep every customer happy. That’s why when you check out, there’s both a bagger and a ringer so there’s no waiting...ever. We want them back, and we want them happy.”
Make your mouth water by logging onto: pastavita.com Call and order at: (860) 395-1452 Just off Exit 67 South, 225 Elm Street, Old Saybrook; Northbound: I-95 North to Elm Street. 17
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This Daguerreotype photo of Emily Dickinson was taken in 1847 when she was about 16 years old.
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Photo courtesy of Amherst College Special Collection
By Jan Tormay
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Photos Courtesy of Emily Dickinson Museum
ystery swirls around famed writer Emily Dickinson who never married. Characterizations of her range from timid, isolated, imprisoned and vulnerable to witty, rebellious, powerful, ethereal and queer.
Since the Covid pandemic began, many people found in their isolation that Dickinson, the “queen of social distancing,” spoke more directly to them than ever before, said Brooke Steinhauser, senior program director of the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, during a telephone interview.
People are also discovering the poet through the Apple TV+ Show “Dickinson,” geared toward younger generations, which she said is “very exciting and wonderful.”
Describing the show (which first premiered in November 2019) as very anachronistic and funny, Steinhauser said each episode is based on one of Dickinson’s poems.
The poet was as complex as any person, energetic, vivacious, witty with a high opinion of herself, unusually skilled and had a revolutionary poetic voice, she said. “She saw the world very uniquely. She protected her creative voice. She held firm to her own identity; and those are all the things that make her remarkable.”
Dickinson’s highest poetic output (hundreds of poems annually) occurred from around 28 years of age to her early 30s, which is also when she comes into her own unique style, Steinhauser said.
“So she’s writing short lyric poems, and she sort of differs from the other poets of her day in that she’s really writing about thought. She’s not writing about things as much as experiences of emotion and feeling and thought and events going on at the time.”
Steinhauser said Dickinson was just a person who had to get up, make bread, weed the garden and had her moments of foibles and faux pas.
The poet’s views on the world were not always revolutionary, she added. “We still find great value in the way that she thinks about the world and the way she changes her mind over time and the way she finds inspiration in her daily life. So I hope that would be, I think, the main message: Dickinson found her creative source in daily life and you can too.”
“I haven’t found that there is a singular demographic for Dickinson admirers. As we moved into online programming in 2020, I was delighted to see that Dickinson’s reach is global. There is no one type of person who appreciates her work — Dickinson is for everybody,” said Patrick Fecher, museum associate director of communications, in an email.
Dickinson Bedroom 2, photo by Kaelan Burkett
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Desk Overhead, photo by Jon Crispin
He said he has the “great privilege” of reading the writer’s work and facilitating virtual conversations with their audience every day. “The breadth of interpretations and questions her verse stirs in people never ceases to amaze me. Her poetic voice is revolutionary, her life story is fascinating, and her influence continues to inspire beyond literary tradition.”
Dickinson also thought very deeply about religion, the Calvinist faith and the Second Great Awakening, which required people to stand up and proclaim that they were joining the church and affirming their faith, Steinhauser said. “That is never something Emily was able to do in spite of really intense pressure from members of her church community and her preceptors at her
school. And so her letters are really full of deep concern about this and feeling the pressure of it and feeling the conflict.”
During her lifetime, a small number of Dickinson’s poems were published anonymously and probably largely without her consent, said Steinhauser, explaining she sent them to friends and family. “She has a record of saying things like, ‘Publication is the auction of the mind of man.’”
If Dickinson had opted to publish, Steinhauser said she would have been forced to write in a certain way for a certain audience, which the writer said was “as foreign to her as firmament to fin.”
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Homestead, Photograph by Maria Popova of the Marginalian
Very social while young, the slender, red-haired school girl had many friends and was a member of the Shakespeare Club. Dickinson graduated from the co-ed Amherst Academy at 16 and “tested” into her second year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, which she attended in 1847. However, she did not return for her third year – a common practice for young women at the time.
Until recently, Dickinson was the myth of Amherst, Steinhauser said. Beginning in her late 20s or early 30s, it is believed she became more reclusive. People recall Dickinson wearing only white, never leaving her house – with occasional sightings in the garden.
Some reclusive behavior has been very clearly documented, such as “the flight from the doorbell,” when she doesn’t want to see whoever is calling, she said. One time, family friend Samuel Bowles who was editor-in-chief of the Springfield Republican newspaper, visited. “He comes to the bottom of the stairs and yells, ‘Emily, you damn rascal, get down here.’”
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 at the Homestead, where her family lived with her grandparents Samuel Fowler Dickinson (a lawyer) and Lucretia Gunn Dickinson. She was the middle child of Edward (a lawyer) and Emily Norcross Dickinson. She had a sister, Lavinia (Vinny) about three years younger and a brother, Austin, about two years older.
From left in this portrait is Emily Dickinson with her brother Austin and sister, Lavinia. Photo Courtesy Houghton Library, Harvard.
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Dickinson Bedroom, photo by Kaelan Burkett
Restoration South Parlor photo by Jon Crispin
Conservatory
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Photo by Patrick Fecher
During a troubling financial period, the Homestead was sold and Emily’s parents rented the home for seven years and then purchased a home on North Pleasant Street in Amherst in April 1840 (which is no longer standing). Then, in November 1855, they re-purchased the Homestead and moved back into it.
Later in life, Emily Dickinson endured the deaths and illnesses of many loved ones. Her father died suddenly after giving a speech in Boston; her mother had a stroke and was bedridden for about seven years and her nephew, Gilbert Dickinson, died of Typhoid Fever. Friends died of tuberculosis, scarlet fever and other illnesses. It is believed Dickinson herself was “delicate” throughout her life and developed a painful eye condition (probably iritis) in her 20s that made her sensitive to light. For about two years prior to her death, when she was diagnosed with Bright’s (liver) Disease, Emily was in poor health. It is now believed that the symptoms she described were more in keeping with hypertension and high blood pressure, probably leading to heart failure, Steinhauser said.
No one knows what Dickinson would think of her work being published today and thousands of people visiting her home annually, she said. “Dickinson writes a lot of poems about poetry and about creativity. In one of Steinhauser’s favorite Dickinson poems, “The Poets light but Lamps,” she said the writer “tends to allude to poetry as this light that will grow even after the source of the light is gone,” that poetry is for the future, which
Evergreens Parlor
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The Evergreens.
gives her “great hope that she would approve.”
Visitors’ reactions range from wanting to understand her more and her connection to the town and Amherst College, while others want to spend the day sitting in her garden and reading her poetry after the tour, Steinhauser said. Some diehard Dickinson fans are on a pilgrimage and are very moved by the experience. “It’s not uncommon to have visitors weep as they enter the poet’s bedroom, which is sort of her inner sanctum.”
“Amherst College, founded in 1821, developed out of the Academy and similarly relied on the efforts and support of the Dickinson family. Samuel Fowler Dickinson staked most of his fortune on this fledgling college,” according to emilydickinsonmuseum. org. “The poet’s father, Edward Dickinson, studied at Amherst College in its first year and her brother Austin graduated from the College in 1850. Both Edward and Austin served as Amherst College treasurers, and the intellectual and social life of the institution did much to shape both Dickinson households.”
For information about upcoming programs at the Emily Dickinson Museum, go to emilydickinsonmuseum.org or call 413-542-8161. Admission to the museum between March and December includes guided and general-admission tours of the Homestead and The Evergreens next door that recently reopened (where Emily’s brother, Austin, sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, and their three children lived). Purchasing tickets online ahead of your visit is recommended. Fees are $16 for adults, $13 for seniors, $10 for teachers and students 18 and over, and free for youths 17 and under.
Brooke Steinhauser is senior program director at the Emily Dickinson Museum.
Photo courtesy of Emily Dickinson Museum
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Evergreens Front Hall
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IPA’s can be Bitter, but they do not have to be.
When it comes to the beer scene here in the United States, one would be remiss to not include India Pale Ale. The beer that began its journey on Trans-Atlantic jaunts during the eighteenth century has undergone, by beer standards, one of the most improbable evolutions on record. Popularized stateside during the late 90s with its own ‘East Coast/West Coast’ rivalry to boot, this is the beer that is most associated with the craft brewing explosion that has overtaken the macro-brewing heavyweights of light lager that had run the tables for the previous few centuries in America. India Pale Ale has morphed to fit the needs and characteristics of the communities and regions that sustain it. My first foray into this style was at the Willimantic Brewing Company, choosing a beer that honored my namesake in their Postmaster IPA. It was 6.9% ABV, bitter and brown, perfect with a large plate of nachos. At that moment, something clicked inside my brain: beer can taste like something. I wanted to explore beer like the men crowded aboard those ships that ultimately cracked into the hopped-up barrels of October ales and found the contents to their liking.
For this first IPA review, I chose ‘Double Agent’, by Tox Brewing Co. This is one that ‘beer nerds’ would call: a classic juice bomb. Basically, the idea is that the ale has been hopped with an emphasis on aroma versus bittering hops. The result is a pint that lacks the traditional IPA bitterne ss, presenting instead, juicy and soft fruit notes on the palate. This particular adult soda is all Citra, which is a hop that has dominated the hazy/East Coast IPA explosion for some time. When used correctly, it can maintain a structure to the beverage in question, while still delivering mouthwatering farm stand flavor. It is framed by, as one of the owners, Mike puts it,“a super light grain bill, consisting of barley and wheat.” It is a Double IPA, which just indicates the higher gravity to be aware of when partaking (this one clocks in at 8.2%, but tastes like it could be around 5%, to be honest)! It is heavily whirlpool and dry-hopped to get to that mark, something that speaks to the attention to detail at Tox. It is easy to make a Double IPA that will sell to the ‘higher the alcohol content, the better’ crowd. It is another thing entirely to make one that is balanced and clean, not heavy-handed and clunky. This particular offering is one of their ‘legacy’ beers, meaning that it was one of the homebrewing recipes that survived the transition to real tanks
and is still being produced today. Back then it was called ‘Orange Cap’ because their first brewmaster, Jon only had orange bottle caps to use for the initial packaging! The beer is exceedingly pleasing and can be paired perfectly with finishing up the last bit of yard work as easily as passed appetizers and small talk.
Tox Brewing is one of the most unique success stories I have ever come across: Mike and Dayne, two friends who met in preschool and despite differing professional ambitions, maintained a closeness that eventually included home brewing. Dayne has a background as a toxicologist, so many of the beer names are actually odes to substances that can cut you off from more than a bartender’s service. He and Mike eventually got involved with brewmaster Jon, and in 2019, started a production and tasting space sandwiched in a building that could easily fit inside most chain coffee joints. Despite the small size, they have become locally famous for churning out intriguing and challenging beers much to the delight of Southern New Englanders. They have taken it upon themselves to tie their future with the city of New London, recently breaking ground on a Bank Street location that, in addition to upping the square footage from 1,400 to 14,000 square feet, will become a center of regional beer tourism. Whether you are hopping off Interstate 95, Amtrak, or the ferry, you will be able to avail yourself of their fine ales as well as a pizza oven, coffee shop, and event space. At a time when New London is seeing increased interest from out-of-towners looking to buy up real estate, it is as refreshing as the potables they produce to see locals double down on the Whaling City.
New London is in many ways fighting for a chance to emerge from generations of mismanagement and poor planning. Excitement and optimism are creeping into conversations and city planning meetings, and I would be doing Ink Magazine a disservice by not mentioning that our very own publisher Jeffery Lilly, through his work with the“Infinite Possibilities Public Art Project,”sees the potential on the figurative and literal horizon. Zoning on Ocean Beach has just been attained, signaling that another exciting addition is coming to fruition. Root for the underdogs, support and consume local, and embrace the hope of the changing of seasons.
IPAs can be bitter, but they don’t have to be (and neither do you)!
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In 1845, when Henry David Thoreau was 27 years old, he left his parents’ home in Concord, Massachusetts and took to living for two years, two months, and two days on Walden Pond, a 62-acre body of water that partially sits in Concord and partially in Lincoln. He built a house on land owned by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson with the intent of spending his time there learning to live a simpler life, connect with nature, and exist in a blissful state of solitude carving out his own path.
In 1977, when Bruce Fellman was 27 years old, he packed up his family – a wife and two young children –and journeyed to an existing cabin on Long Pond in the woods of Perryville, Rhode Island to live for a year. Like Thoreau, he wanted to connect with nature. Unlike Thoreau, he had little money at that time in his life so his existence and that of his family was a very spare one filled with only the very basic necessities for living a rural life.
“We had no electricity, just kerosene and flashlights to light the house. We had no indoor plumbing, no phone, no radio, just a CB. We did have a generator, but when the mice chewed the wires, we had to pump water by hand.” The children were less than happy with the prospect of no TV, but little by little they adapted.
Fellman’s wife was a Natural Sciences major at the University of Rhode Island so living in an A-frame in the middle of the wilderness was not terribly off-putting to her. As for Bruce Fellman, he was in his glory. He could be at one with the trees, the birds, the animals, and the insects he had been reading about in his nature books and field guides since early childhood.
“I was born in Providence to parents who were very urban and not the least bit interested in nature,” he began. “They always thought that they had been given the wrong kid at the hospital!”
Fellman’s father was a serious amateur photographer, limiting his captures mostly to family photos. One day in 1954 when Bruce was four, his father allowed him to come into the darkroom where he provided
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him with a camera, a stool, and darkroom tongs to eliminate contact with harsh processing chemicals. “From that moment on, I was hooked, and I’ve been taking photographs for 70 years,” Fellman said, adding that he has a collection of some quarter of a million images to date!
But Bruce didn’t take pictures of relatives and family gatherings. All he cared about was everything in nature. He was intrigued by it and never wanted to stop learning. When he was six, his parents gave him a complete set of the Golden Guides to Nature, each a 160-page book that served as a field guide Each was dedicated to a different subject: birds, insects, trees, mammals, and the like. “I read every single one cover to cover and just wanted to be outside all the time where I could identify for myself everything I had read about.”
Asked if he was ridiculed by other kids his age, he quickly added, “Sure, but I didn’t care. I was a weird, shy kid who only wanted to be in the woods with my field guides, and when you’re there, you don’t have to be socially adept. The more fun they made of me, the deeper I went into the woods.”
Seventy years later, Fellman is still in the woods and on trails 7 days a week, 365 days a year unless the weather is prohibitive. He delights in the hottest summer temperatures, walks in rain and mud, ventures in waders up to his chest into swamps, tolerates the cold, and loves every moment of his existence. “I’m outside looking, listening, documenting, photographing every day of the year regardless of the weather. I don’t have to go very far either. I’m a naturalist close to home.”
Bruce will tell you that you don’t have to put yourself out in the elements if you don’t want to. “I frequently took the train
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to Yale, and from Westbrook to New Haven on Shoreline East it goes through beautiful marshland of all colors. The Thimble Islands in Long Island Sound you can see perfectly from your window on the train as it passes Stony Creek. There are species of birds I have identified, and when ospreys appear, it’s perfect. So, I can do what I do right from the train. A naturalist is always looking, listening, and recording information. You must keep a journal so you can write down notes, draw pictures, take photos. Just make sure your journals have dates.”
Although Fellman models much of his behavior and modus operandi after Thoreau whom he calls, “the greatest naturalist, he really knew his stuff,” he looks to him as his inspiration, not his idol. “I’m Jewish, we’re not supposed to worship idols,” he laughs.
Since February 2, 1978, Bruce Fellman has been a published naturalist with essays, articles, and ongoing columns appearing in everything from The Westerly Sun and its family of publications in both Connecticut and Rhode Island to the Smithsonian Magazine, National Wildlife Magazine, a wide variety of airline magazines, the Boston Globe, and hundreds of others.
His greatest thrill now is in teaching, not in any four-walled institution of learning, but in the outdoors. The woods and trails and lakes and swamps and flora and fauna and insects and animals serve as his classroom,
and his message, whether to sixth graders (“my favorite age group”), a group of Rotarians, or land trust members is always, “I am a naturalist, and you can be one too.”
That’s not just a clever opener for his talk, but something Fellman passionately believes. He will quickly tell any individual, any group, that you don’t have to read volumes of nature guides, you only have to have curiosity and a notebook. “The journal is the foundation of the naturalist,” he adds.
Fellman is much in demand by nature centers, land conservancies, (“I’ve been with Avalonia Land Conservancy in Mystic
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for 15 years and do upwards of a dozen walks for them each year”), groups promoting sound mental health, and schools. He regularly speaks with worldwide experts to glean information on things he doesn’t know and has a desire to embrace. “I’m interested in everything. I wanted to know more about flower flies, they look like bees. I finally found the world authority on them in Canada, and now I have information I can give others. “There are 900 species, so Fellman will be busy for a long time!
One of his recent newspaper columns (“The Naturalists’ Journal”) begins, “Whenever I’m on the trail, whether I’m in the lead or I’m being led by nature, I always try to do one thing: avoid a hard-and-fast-agenda. To be sure, I often have a search image in mind for a particular area at a particular time, but I also make sure that I open my senses to any other gift that the natural world chooses to present.”
One would assume that a man this dedicated to nature would never harm one of its creatures; yet when asked if he ever killed a mosquito about to bite, he had no trouble recounting with, “Oh yes, I don’t like them. I kill them; however, I try not to squish it too much so I can then try to identify it. If it’s going to ‘go,’ it’s going to serve a purpose.”
Want to connect with Bruce Fellman, ask a question, or take a hike with this naturalist? You may reach him at: fellnature@sbcglobal.net
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hat if New London’s moniker was not The Whaling City? Could it be The Toothpaste City or Tube City, as the first true toothpaste and the toothpaste tube were both developed in New London?
Of course, teeth were cared for long before these inventions of the 1800s. Ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, cleaned their teeth and freshened their breath.
Not exactly as we know it today, but toothpaste has been around at least 7,000 years when the Egyptians made a scrub of pumice, powdered eggshells, and ashes from ox hooves. Not much more appealing but the highly abrasive concoction used by ancient Greeks and Romans consisted of oyster shells and crushed bones.
Toothpaste remained pretty much the same until the 1800s, when a combination of chalk, soap, and sometimes charcoal was used. Like ancient toothpaste, these products were generally in powdered form and became paste-like by adding water.
But the first true toothpaste, as is sold today, was developed in New London by dental surgeon Washington Wentworth Sheffield.
In the 1870s, Dr. Sheffield, who was also the inventor of crown and bridge work, triumphs of modern dentistry, created a ready-made tooth crème for use on his patients. He included mint extracts for flavor. The crème had a pleasant aftertaste, certainly an improvement over hooves and burnt eggshells.
As the story goes, Dr. Sheffield’s patients requested samples so often that he and his only child Dr. Lucius Tracy Sheffield noticed something – how people used toothpaste was, well, gross. Up until this point in toothpaste history, all toothpastes on the market, including the Sheffields’, were sold in jars. Each family member would dip their toothbrush in the same jar of antiseptics and powders. Unsanitary is an understatement.
Lucius traveled to Paris to study dental surgery. One day, he was watching artists paint. He realized the collapsible metal tubes they used to squeeze paint onto palettes could be used to squeeze toothpaste, making it simpler and more sanitary. Lucius told his father about the idea and, soon thereafter, the first toothpaste in a tube was born.
This may well be the best example of “Life imitates art,” as asserted Oscar Wilde in 1889.
There was such a strong demand for the tooth crème by the early 1880s that the father and son established a manufacturing company in New London for a mouthwash called “Sheffield’s
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Elixir Balm” and their toothpaste, “Dr. Sheffield’s Crème Angelique Dentifrice.” According to its label, the product was for “cleansing the teeth and perfuming the breath,” as well as for “preventing deposits of tartar on the teeth.”
Lucius registered the trademark of the first toothpaste in 1881. The Sheffield Dentifrice Company promoted their toothpaste as “the aristocratic dental cream” and a product “which arrests decay, checks infection and keeps the oral cavity sweet and pure.”
Dr. Sheffield controlled the manufacturing from the moment he began producing tin tubes. There were facilities for printing the tubes and embossing, and even manufacturing the boxes for shipping.
In 1911, Sheffield’s two grandsons formed the New England Collapsible Tube Company which became the largest producer of collapsible tubes in the US.
Dr. Washington Wentworth Sheffield was born in North Stonington in 1827. He received his early education in North Stonington schools. According to A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut (1922), “after his professional studies he entered one of the leading dental colleges of the day, and after his graduation, supplemented that ‘training by
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practical experience in the office of Dr. J. A. G. Comstock, of New London, a successful practitioner of that day. Later, for a considerable time, he was under the expert tuition of Dr. Potter, of New York City, and through this bread’th of learning and experience, Dr. Sheffield became one of the best authorities of his time on dental topics. He returned to New London in April, 1852, and continued practice here for several years before his brilliant career was ended by death.”
Further, its popularity and the universal demand for it led him to erect a laboratory for its production on a commercial scale. The business grew steadily, and gave Sheffield’s Dentifrice national reputation. Dr. Sheffield’s two grandsons, Washington Kyle and Lucius Tracy Sheffield, are today manufacturing on a large scale not only the original formula, but many others for the leading pharmaceutical concerns in the United States and foreign countries. The industry is still carried on under the name of the Sheffi Dentifrice Company.”
Other toothpaste companies, including Colgate, followed the path blazed by the Sheffields. Colgate introduced its first toothpaste in a tube in 1896. The product mimicked Sheffield’s ready-made toothpaste and was also sold in collapsible tubes.
As the song goes, everything old is new again.
In 2015, Dr. Sheffield’s original recipe book was found.
“It was just by virtue of us going through some old records in our office building which used to be Dr. Sheffi primary residence and where he had his first dental practice,” explains Matt Royer, Sheffield Pharmaceuticals Marketing & Product Development Manager, adding, “just flipping through paperwork one day and, voila, we had a discovery of a treasure trove of lost items in the attic.”
Just an old New England home attic, with Sheffield’s ledgers and recipes.
The lightbulb went off in managements’ heads and Sheffield’s R & D department set out to design a new natural toothpaste inspired by his work.
In 2017, Sheffield Pharmaceuticals announced Dr. Sheffield’s Premium Natural Toothpaste, using the same natural recipes Dr. Sheffield invented in 1850. There are no artificial foaming agents, synthetic detergents, colors, flavors, sweeteners, or animal byproducts. The toothpaste is 100 percent made in Connecticut. There is also no fluoride in the products as “we wanted to stay with a more natural formula and also wanted to give people the choice to decide because there’s a lot of sources of fluoride in your daily diet,” explains Royer.
The company also offers creams, anti-itch and anti-fungal ointments, other first aid and health and beauty products.
The Sheffield Dentifrice Co. is now Sheffield Pharmaceuticals, headquartered on Broad Street in New London on the site
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where toothpaste was invented and put in a tube. “The company has been in continuous operation in one way or another in the same location in New London and now we’re marketing the same toothpaste,” says Royer.
The company’s offices are in the home where Sheffield lived, practiced from, and invented toothpaste but “today we have a nice big factory behind us.”
That “big factory” is a 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility. There is also a 136,000 square foot fulfillment and warehouse center in Norwich. The company employs 175.
Reads A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut: “The death of Dr. Washington W. Sheffield, which took place at his home on Broad street, removes from New London one of its most respected citizens. As a citizen and a professional man, he had for fifty years occupied a conspicuous place in the city. Of striking appearance, affable manners, and ready sympathy, he won the respect of all classes.”
This brilliant New London dentist’s toothpaste has made our lives tastier, cleaner and easier. The invention has come a long way since the days of shells and bones in jars.
Dr. Sheffield’s app brings 19th-century dental pioneer Dr. Sheffield to life through animated reality; with humor, storytelling, and wit, the original inventor of modern-day toothpaste shares his time-tested secrets for historically natural oral care. To experience the convenience of Dr. Sheffield’s AR app, simply download it and let the expert guide you through our All-Natural toothpaste. Just point it at the box on this page above, and Dr. Sheffield will share his insights.
* Please note that this may not be compatible with certain types of phones.
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