By Alice Fisher
The Greenwich Riding and Trails Association hosted an appreciation party at Sam Bridge Nursery on Thursday, April 19, as a special thank you to its generous landowners. The greenhouses provided the perfect backdrop for the event, organized by a dedicated GRTA committee.
Hosted by the GRTA Board of Directors, the gathering was attended by over thirty landowners and many GRTA members and friends. Guests entered the greenhouses, beautifully decorated with spring plants from Sam Bridge Nursery, to find a trail awaiting them with easels displaying the background of the GRTA.
In 1922, Sam Bridge, Sr., was hired as the first trail-man of the Greenwich Riding Association, as it was known before becoming a non-profit organization in 1953. In a 1925 report by grandfather Henry J. Fisher’s Bridle Path Committee, it states, “Since the 1st of April 1922, Samuel F. Bridge has been employed continuously at a salary of $125 per month. This includes the use of his Ford truck, and a horse when needed. Bridge is employed cutting out old paths, removing stones, repairing and building bridges, building and setting gates, opening new paths, setting signs and markers, etc. He has proved quite satisfactory.” Fisher goes on to say in the report that, “Sam is still on the job and now has a fine equipment of experience and knowledge of every foot of our Bridle Paths.”
In 1930, his son Sam Jr. went on to start Sam Bridge Nursery & Greenhouses when he planted some evergreen cuttings in his father’s cow pasture. Later that year, he built his first greenhouse to grow and store geranium cuttings for his mother and her friends. Today, Sam Jr.’s children, Sam III, Mary Jo and Ron, along with several of their children, follow in his footsteps.
To learn more about the organization, visit thegrta.org
