THE DAWN OF A NEW CENTURY
Weekly drills were held in the Assembly Hall of the Orange Center School, with a room used as an Armory. Each member of the Company was trained as an expert in military signaling. The Company was fully uniformed and equipped, and took part in many regimental parades. One summer encampment was held at Yale Field. The Company's activities continued until the Winter of 1919.
DIVISION OF THE TOWN
There always seemed to be arguments between the northern and southern parts of the Town. At the special Town Meeting held at William Woodruff's Tavern on May 22, 1848, when they voted to build a town hall on the Milford Turnpike, they also ''took into consideration the expediency of dividing said Town of Orange in two towns." This vote was passed unanimously in the affirmative, with the instruction that a petition to this effect be submitted to the next session of the General Assembly. Whether said petition was ever presented to the Legislature is not known, for no further reference is ever made to it in the Town Meeting Journal. On January 21, 1903, there was a special meeting to consider the division of the Town. A committee, composed of Charles F. Smith, John Brown, John F. Barnett, Wellington M. Andrew, and Stiles D. Woodruff, submitted an adverse report. The motion to present a petition to this effect to the General Assembly was lost.
However, a tentative charter, creating the City of Orange, was passed by the General Assembly in 1907. This was a very lengthy document setting forth the duties of every branch of a city's government, but holding the restriction that it would not become effective unless it was accepted by the voters of the Town at a special election, called for that purpose, September 5, 1907. The result of this referendum was that it was defeated in both voting districts.
The same subject came up again in 1910, and a committee of ten was appointed to consider the proposition. On October 16, 1916, a resolution was passed to establish a commission of twelve to draft a new charter for the
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