Lampos, Pearson Skillfully Bring The Lymes’ Revolutionary Role to Life in OL Library Talk

Last Tuesday evening local authors and historians Michaelle Pearson and Jim Lampos gave a captivating talk to a packed house gathered at the Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library that took the audience back in time to pivotal turning points in the Revolutionary War involving the Lymes.

Husband and wife Pearson and Lampos asked their audience to imagine they were standing at the bend of the “Three roads” as it was then called — McCurdy, Lyme St. and Ferry Road — and then expertly described the street during an ordinary day in bustling colonial times.  Such was their storytelling expertise that as they spoke, you could almost see the shipbuilding on the river, merchant deliveries being made by horse-drawn wagons and the ferry making its way across to Saybrook.

Only then did you realize how much our town has changed … but at the same time, how much it has not changed at all. 

It is not always a given that writers are also good oral story tellers, but when you can almost hear the gallop of Israel Bissell — one of the five riders dispatched with Paul Revere — thundering down Lyme  Street with his call to arms, you know that Pearson and Lampos are exemplary at both and moreover their love of history so strong, that you can’t help but feel it too.

The intricate parts played and the powerful plans made by these memorable figures whom you have heard about all your life are exciting stuff! To know that all this was going on here in this town, shaping not just individual futures but the country’s too, summons up a host emotions.

Lampos and Pearson delivered an extraordinary history lesson that brought Lyme street into a “new light.“  When you have the chance, take the time to hear this talk and you will have a new appreciation for our town greens and the inspirational independence the Lymes had before, during and after the Revolutionary War … and continue to exhibit to this day.