The years between 1901 and 1912 were difficult for Emilie Sill. Her marriage collapsed. She was victimized by a con man who feigned disabilities in order to gain her sympathy. She was robbed and her store was damaged by two suspicious fires. No wonder the sign in her shop window opined, “Life is one damned thing after another.” The saying may have been apropos of her luck, but Emilie didn’t let trouble crush her.

I first heard about Emilie back in August, when The Day reported that the State Historic Preservation Board was considering nominating Old Lyme’s Sound View beach community to the National Register of Historic Places. The article noted that Sound View is possibly the oldest public beach in the country, and that Emilie Sill built a collection of cottages there that became known as Sill Colony.

Always alert for road-related stories, I pulled up a map of Old Lyme and found Sill Lane; it’s not particularly near the beach so it seemed unlikely that it’s named for Emilie. Further research led me to more information about this thoroughly modern woman, and to her Puritan in-laws, the Sills.

Joseph Sill moved from Boston to Lyme in 1676 where he raised a large family. Some years later there were five Sill households on today’s Sill Lane, and their neighborhood was known as Silltown. The family held diverse occupations within the community as farmers, ministers, cabinet makers, ship carpenters and town administrators. They engaged in the West Indies trade and fought in the Revolutionary and King Philip’s wars. In 1880 Louis Sill, a Lyme business man, met and married Emilie Friebe; her energy and drive may have come as something of a surprise to Louis.

Emilie’s parents were Austrian immigrants who’d come to America to escape the European revolutions of 1848. They lived in New York City, and then moved to Hartford where Emilie’s father was a tailor and she was a milliner.

Apparently making hats wasn’t Emilie’s destiny because by her mid-30s she’d established a successful bookstore, with offerings that appealed to Hartford’s movers and shakers. Soon she expanded into a larger store and eventually took over her husband’s stationery shop, just around the corner from hers. She was well known, popular, and the subject of approving articles in the Hartford Courant. In keeping with her independence and forward-thinking, Emilie was one of the first women to get a driver’s license.

In 1892 a project undertaken by Harry Hilliard in Old Lyme caught Emilie’s attention. Hilliard, an interesting combination of banker and Socialist, wanted to develop an affordable seaside community for the enjoyment of the general public, for people of diverse ethnic origins and ordinary means, many of whom were prohibited from purchasing property at other waterfront locations. (Hilliard sounds very admirable, but his welcoming vision unfortunately didn’t extend to African Americans.)

The area was first known as Swan Beach (after a Mr. Swan who had a farm there), but was renamed Sound View. In 1893 Emilie became Hilliard’s first investor, building a cottage for her use as well as 12 others as rental property. Soon people were coming from Hartford, Springfield and New York City by train or new-fangled automobile to enjoy vacations by the sea.

After retirement Emilie continued to spend summers in Old Lyme at the beach she’d helped establish. A few years before her death the community honored her with the affectionate title, “Queen of the Beach.”

Sound View is historically significant because it symbolizes America’s changing society at the start of the 20th century: a rising, ethnically diverse middle class with increasing mobility and leisure time. It may be less historical but no less important to honor a beautiful place where for more than a century carefree people have had fun playing on the beach.

Carol Sommer of Waterford is a self-proclaimed history nut. She writes a monthly history column inspired by local street signs.