People make history.  What about famous people in Lime Rock?

Glad you asked!  While the early iron families of Lime Rock left few stars in the firmament (other than Ethan Allen, and he was merely passing through), William H. Barnum, once president of Barnum Richardson (and P. T. Barnum's third cousin and political adversary), rose from a common school education and an iron founder's apprenticeship to not only run the company, but also be president of three railroads, a board member of many other industrial and transportation companies, and a United States Senator.  He was also the longest serving ever Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, and the only US President that served twice with an intervening President appeared for  Barnum's funeral at Lime Rock's Trinity Church -- Barnum's "company church," built and subsidized for years with company funds.

One of Barnum's sons, a Yale-educated lawyer, was a founding partner of a major Wall Street law firm (Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett, originally Simpson Thacher and BARNUM), and was personally responsible for creation of the American Locomotive Company, ALCO -- sometimes referred to today by business historians as the "Locomotive trust". 

A man named Ely Ensign, from Lime Rock, was a founder of the company that went on to join two other railroad car manufacturing companies that, in 1899, became American Car and Foundry (today known as ACF Industries).  It probably goes without saying that the Barnums and the Ensigns had close business relations.

In the area of religion, a Rector of Trinity Church, Lime Rock went on to found the Rectory School in Pomfret, CT.

Fast-forward past the artists who populated the area after Barnum Richardson, as recognition of their names today, such as Dard Hunter, the paper maker, is probably confined to students of the Arts and Crafts movement in America, and to the post-Hudson River School of landscape painters. 

Lime Rock Park has contributed many names well known to racing aficionados. Here's just one example:  John Fitch, the only American ever to drive for the Mercedes Benz factory team, and subsequently the inventor of the "Fitch Barrier" (familiar to everyone who has driven on a modern superhighway), considers Lime Rock Park his home course, lived right here in the village of Lime Rock and in his later years became a member of Trinity Lime Rock.  Actor Paul Newman considered Lime Rock Park as his home course too.  Most of the great race drivers of the second half of the 20th century raced at Lime Rock Park at one time or another. 

No, Lime Rock does not lack for famous people.

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