Carver middle school students recently visited Lockwood-Mathews Mansion in preparation for their participation in the 2021 Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum’s Young Writers’ Competition.

The Museum launched its eighth annual Young Writers’ Competition on February 1, 2021. The competition titled, A Scientist Visits the Mansion, will end on June 4, 2021, with an awards ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. The competition is open to all middle school students in the Tristate area.

Participants are tasked to write a story of a fictional event taking place at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion between 1868 and 1938. The cast of characters must include a doctor or scientist who became famous or infamous during the mid-to-late 19th century and members of the Lockwood or Mathews families.

The young writers will learn about the families’ history, read biographies of the doctors and scientists, and explore the rooms in the Mansion where the event described could have taken place. In addition to Carver students visiting, they can also use the Museum’s website as a reference.

Students will create a short story that will include at least one doctor or scientist weaved into this narrative, and can introduce fictional friends visiting the Mansion as well. 

Competition winners and their families will be Guests of Honor at the Awards Ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021, 2-4 p.m.

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is regarded as one of the earliest and most significant Second Empire Style country houses in the United States. Built by renowned financier and railroad tycoon LeGrand Lockwood from 1864-1868, the Mansion, with its unparalleled architecture and interiors, illustrates magnificently the beauty and splendor of the Victorian Era.

Lockwood’s financial reversal in 1869, and his untimely death in 1872, resulted in the loss of the estate then known as “Elm Park,” through foreclosure, in 1874.  In 1876, the property was sold to Charles D. Mathews and his wife Rebecca. Mathews, a prominent importer from New York, and his family, resided in the Mansion until 1938.

In 1941, the estate was sold to the City of Norwalk and designated a public park. When the building was threatened with demolition in the 1960s, concerned citizens galvanized to save the Mansion in one the most important and hard-fought preservation battles in Connecticut’s history. These local preservationists succeeded in saving the Mansion in 1965, and later formed the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum of Norwalk, Inc., a 501(c)(3), which was designated a National Historic Landmark, in 1971.