THE TOWN GETS A NEW NAME
the road was made a Turnpike, he was obliged to watch all the trade pass him by and go to New Haven. The toll-gate was located in Orange, near the Maltby Lakes. For the first fifty years, the gate-keeper was Mrs. Mary Pardee,
TOLL-GATE AND HOUSE, DERBY TURNPIKE
Courtesy of Walter E. Malley
who was succeeded by Mrs. Mary Beardsley. The gate-keeper best known to the older residents of the town was Miss Fannie Beardsley, who lived in the house beside the toll-gate with her grandmother. Certain exemptions were allowed. "Persons traveling to and from public worship, funerals, or society, town or freeman's meetings, persons obliged to do military duty, traveling to and from training, persons going to and from grist mills with grists, and farmers who shall pass through the same to attend to their ordinary farming business shall not be liable to the payment of said toll." But the gate-keeper was somewhat skeptical when the young men claimed they were going to meeting, for she didn't believe that they held a prayer meeting every night in New Haven.
There was much opposition to selling the land for the right of way when the project was first started, and one Edward Alling challenged the would-be buyers at the point of his pitch-fork. Eventually he did sell, but only
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