SOMERS, N.Y. - Old Bet’s big little secret is finally out.
Rumors of a possible “time capsule” tucked inside the concrete-and-wood elephantine homage to Somers’ circus past had long tantalized local history buffs.
But as long as the landmarked statue remained atop its granite obelisk in front of The Elephant Hotel, there was no way of confirming whether those were true.
If it weren’t for a stroke of good – or maybe some would say bad – luck, the little treasure might never have seen the light of day again.
The original monument – topped by a gilded, carved wooden pachyderm -- was erected in 1827 by Hachaliah Bailey, a local farmer turned traveling menagerie owner. It was made in memory of his star attraction, an Indian elephant who’d been shot dead by an irate farmer while on tour in Maine.
How many times the statue had been replaced or restored over the ensuing years is hard to determine. But by the 1930s, the iconic beast was literally on its last legs.
Allegedly, it was a swarm of bees that had decided to camp out in the wooden statue -- on top of the cumulative effects of wind and rain -- that finally did it in.
In 1936 or thereabouts, bits and pieces were carefully packed up and sent off -- along with a photo of it in situ -- to Joseph P. Vaghi, a woodworker of Italian descent who had a cabinetry shop in Bethel, CT.
No one knows exactly why he was chosen for the task, but it could have had something to do with the fact that Bethel was the birthplace of America’s greatest showman, P.T. Barnum.
According to one account, Vaghi crew members were excited because they thought it would be much more fun to make an elephant than a bureau or a bed.
A new statue was constructed of galvanized chicken wire and concrete, a material that’d been around for millennium but whose technology had recently been improved to make it more waterproof.
Before the sculpture was sent back to Somers, a flowery narrative of Old Bet’s rebirth was composed by the workshop’s general manager, Nino Vaghi, and everyone proudly signed it to ensure the statue’s -- and their -- immortality.
It was written on letterhead boasting of the company’s ability to make everything from store fronts and fixtures to interior trimmings, parquet floors, and new or reproduction antique furniture.
Its motto? “If made of wood we make it.”
Dated April 30, 1938, the typed letter offered a clue to the project’s genesis.
It read, in part: “Mr. Wm. Bailey a great nephew of the original Bailey who brought Old Bat (sic) to town was respossible (sic) for our getting the job knowing of Joe’s ability to create and form. The cost mattered nothing in the historic occasion for which we all cherished and honored.”
Nino also noted that it took a bit to get going became in the beginning the Vaghis needed a model. They ran over to Danbury, but the mission failed due to the fact that it was “the home of the Donkey,” meaning that Democrats ruled the city.
Stalwart local Republicans eventually came through with “flying colors” by furnishing “Papa Vaghi” and crew with elephant tchotchkes for reference purposes.
While most of the pieces of the original statue had been spirited off by souvenir hunters and “scattered to the four corners of the Earth,” enough remained to tuck inside the new Old Bet’s belly.
“Here in Bethel, it created quite a ruffle, being the home of P.T.; for the simple reasons that in order to replace him Bethel gets the honor,” Nino wrote.
The letter was sealed inside a Smirnoff vodka bottle – natch, because the Russian company’s first distillery in the country had been located in the same Bethel building.
Included in those now faded signatures were that of two folks destined to become famous – one on the local level and the other on the world stage.
Vaghi Sr. and his wife, Battistina (Mazzuchelli), had 10 children.
Five or six of the Vaghi boys went off to fight in WWII, including Joseph Jr., who was 18 when part of the workshop crew.
After joining the Navy, he became a platoon commander in the Naval Amphibious Force.
At 23, Joseph was assigned as a “beach master” in the Normandy invasion, a job he later likened to being a “traffic cop in hell.”
Eyewitnesses said he was first off his landing craft and had charged Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, like a “football player running with the ball,” according to one account.
Vaghi was injured and his unit lost 23 men.
He earned the Bronze Star for heroism after pulling gasoline cans and hand grenades from a burning jeep, preventing further explosions and casualties.
In 1945, Vaghi served in the Pacific theater and participated in the Easter Sunday invasion of Okinawa, Japan.
He retired in 1959 with the rank of lieutenant commander.
In 1994, as the country prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Vaghi was invited to accompany President Bill Clinton to Normandy on the ship Queen Elizabeth II as the U.S. Navy representative at the commemoration ceremony.
His story was featured in the Ken Burns documentary, “The War.” National Geographic magazine wrote about him. Vaghi received the Legion of Honor Chevalier award from the French government.
He died in 2012 at age 92.
Another of the letter’s signers was Joe Jr.’s brother Dante, a self-proclaimed UFO expert, who reported his first sighting – in Bethel – in 1950, according to his nephew, David Barzetti, who owns a welding and fabrication company there.
Dante claimed 15 encounters in all.
Barzetti was told that when his uncle was little he was “always looking up at the sky, pointing.”
Described fondly as a “wonderfully colorful character,” Dante always sported UFO jackets, jumpsuits, and hats of his own design. He made wooden replicas of the UFOs he had spotted and exhibited them on floats during parades. (When he signed the Old Bet letter, he wrote “airplane pilot” next to his name.)
In 1968, Dante won first prize for his float in the New Haven Columbus Day Parade. It commemorated the discovery of America and memorialized the astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 tragedy in 1967.
Space agency officials and President Ronald Reagan were reportedly among those to whom he sent custom-made UFO T-shirts.
Dante was happy to regale anyone and everyone with his stories. At Christmastime, he sent holiday greetings to his UFO “friends” via newspaper ads.
On the side of the Vaghi building he displayed signs that read: “Welcome all people from other planets to Bethel, Ct., USA” and “An Open Letter to the World. U.F.O.s do exist. History will soon prove me right.”
He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1941 to 1946, spent the rest of his working life in the family business, and died in 2011 at age 89.
Beatrice (Vaghi) Barzetti is the last remaining Vaghi sibling. She’s in her late-90s and lives in North Carolina.
The Vaghis’ blast from the past surfaced again in the early 1990s after their shop’s role was mentioned in the documentation that got Old Bet included in "Save Outdoor Sculpture!," a national survey.
The application was made by the late Adelaide Mosca of Somers, who had said her father-in-law, Mario Mosca, had been one of Vaghi’s employees.
“Strange destiny that a half century later his son Matthew (sic) would purchase a home but three miles from “Old Bet,” she wrote.
Their son, Matthew Mosca Jr., said his grandparents, Mario and Eliza Mosca, lived in Redding, Ct.
His dad was close to Joe Jr. and knew all the Vaghi brothers and sisters.
Matthew and his siblings used to spend a week every summer with their paternal grandparents and time in Manhattan with their maternal set.
“It was such an incredible and privileged childhood because we experienced the real country and real city, not the suburban sprawl,” he said.
Part of that time was spent in Grandpa Mario’s shop, where he got to know all the cabinetmakers.
For a young boy, being around all those tools and machines was heaven.
“It was a fascinating place, but frankly, it was mess,” recalled Mosca, who now lives in Baltimore and is a historic paint finishes consultant.
His mother “would be delighted to know that the elephant is getting some attention,” he said last week, adding that someday he hopes to tour old family haunts, including Somers.
The information gathered is now part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s online inventory, according to Grace Zimmermann of the Somers Historical Society, who in 2020 along with Town Historian Doris Jane Smith and other folks, began a fundraising initiative to replace Vaghi’s creation, which was by then badly deteriorated.
The Wittmann family got the ball rolling with a generous donation and the society commissioned local sculptor Luigi Badia – who is also of Italian ancestry – to create a new bronze behemoth.
Engineers were engaged to make sure the new version could safely sit atop its vintage iron scrollwork and – very importantly – retain its landmark status.
The new new Old Bet was unveiled to great fanfare in 2024 on World Circus Day.
It presides over the corner of Routes 100 and 202.
Old Bet's predecessor was stored at a secret location until a forever home could be found.
Local builder Vito Andriano, a friend of the Wittmanns, stepped up to construct a base – pro bono -- and refurbish old Old Bet so it could be displayed.
It now occupies pride of place in the Town Hall’s meeting room.
During the patching-up process, one of the elephant’s legs gave up the ghost.
Zimmermann and Smith asked if they could poke around inside.
That’s when the message in a bottle was finally unearthed. Alas, the wooden pieces from Old Bet’s previous iteration couldn’t be salvaged because they’d literally turned to sawdust.
The trunk from the 19th-century version was already in society’s collection. Another fragment's in the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas. How the latter wound up there is anyone’s guess.
The Vaghi letter is now part of the society’s archive. Once scanned, the public will be able to view it.
Zimmermann called the find “exciting for so many reasons and on so many levels.”
“You feel like you’ve touched the past. These men put this in there hoping that someone in the future would read it and remember what they’d done,” she said.
It highlights the fact that history is NOT finite.
“It’s very dynamic; you’re always discovering something new,” Zimmermann opined, asking: “Who knew that Old Bet was a time capsule?”
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