The Stamford Yacht Club was organized on Thursday, October 16, 1890. The incorporators were William A. Lottimer, James D. Smith, William W. Skiddy, Albert C. Hall, Walter M. Smith, W.L. Brooks, A.M. Hurlbutt, Schuyler Merritt, Archibald H. Smith, Henry K. McHarg, James I. Raymond, and Samuel Fessenden, all of Stamford.
The Club’s earliest members were active people living in interesting times. The Merritt Parkway is, indeed, named after our second Vice Commodore whose Commodore, Henry K. McHarg, built a railroad town in Texas that is still called Stamford.
Like hundreds of members who followed them, the founders preserved and enhanced the Club, both for their contemporaries and for generations to come. When we commemorate our fellow members of earlier generations, we not only express our gratitude, but we also gain a sense of our own responsibility as stewards between the Club’s last century and its next.
The Club Historian and other interested members are now collaborating in the creation of a web-based presentation on the history of the Stamford Yacht Club, which will be available to all visitors. Like the Club, itself, this will forever be a work in progress.