Close Family Tree

Native of Old Converse Farm Homestead Dies

The funeral of Shadrach Reynolds Close, Greenwich native and old school farmer who died at 88 after a yearÆs illness at the home of his daughter Mrs. Benjamin H. Raymond, Mansfield Avenue, Darien, CT will be held at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon at Franklin Hoyt parlors 184 Main Street, New Canaan, CT with interment in a receiving vault at Lakeview Cemetery, New Canaan.

Mr. Close was confined to his bed since January 1934, about twelve years after he left his farm on the Leman-Tripp property on the Armonk Road at North Castle, near Bedford and Armonk New York State to make his home with his daughter.

Before moving to New York State early in the present century, Mr. Close sold his Greenwich farm to Edmund C Converse the financier who made it part of the 1,400 acre estate which for many years bore his name until he sold it to a New York syndicate.

While president of the FarmerÆs Club of Greenwich, Mr. Close for years directed a seriesÆ of picnics which brought farming folk from miles around to the groves at Rockwood Lake now a part of the Greenwich Water Company supply system.

He was born on the farm on the former Converse Estate then known as the Close Homestead August 16, 1847 son of the late Samuel Odel and Sarah Jane (Reynolds) Close. As a boy and young man he engaged in farming an occupation he followed all of his life.

He was a member of the New Canaan Grange and besides his daughter he leaves a second daughter Mrs. Horace G Arnold of Tarpon Springs, Fla and a son Lucius A. Close of Prospect Avenue, Darien, Ct along with six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Uncle was murdered,

Mr. Close was a nephew of Shadrach Jackson Close, Stanwich postmaster and storekeeper who on May 22, 1899 was assaulted and robbed of the day's receipts. He died the following day of his injuries as the Greenwich authorities made efforts to solve the sensational murder.