Principal Characters

In seeking understanding on how Candlewood Lake came to be, we quickly discovered that one needed to look no farther than J. Henry Roraback and his associate, C.L. Campbell.  

In researching Roraback and Campbell, we found that there were two key secondary sources. Coincidently, the creators of both these sources had connections to WestConn. 

In Dr. Truman Warner's senior research class at WestConn in 1967, Lynn Taborsak, then with the last name Fernandez, wrote "A History of Candlewood Lake."  Taborsak's history is as an exhaustive account that exists. The paper relies much on primary source research, including interviews with persons involved with the creation of the Lake.

At the same time that Taborsak was a student, a colleague of Warner's, Edwin Dahill was teaching Sociology at WestConn and was contemplating a dissertation on the life of J. Henry Roraback; an interest that was likely fueled by Dahill's possession of Roraback's personal papers. This Dissertation, Connecticut’s J. Henry Roraback published in 1971, is widely cited in scholarship on 1920s Connecticut.

Important also to the business of creating Candlewood Lake was the real estate development and land speculation that took place around the basin. In addition to Thomas Keating of Danbury, two local doctors, Pickett and Bronson, were particularly active in land acquisitions as soon as they heard that a large lake would be created by CL&P.