As two boys wearing next to nothing roamed the halls of the state Capitol one day in January 1923, wide-eyed lawmakers at first didn't know what to think.

The boys, ages 8 and 9, were patients at The Seaside, the new tuberculosis sanatorium in Niantic, and had on just shorts and sandals. That was the usual garb for heliotherapy, the year-round treatment of exposure to the sun that was Seaside's specialty.

In Hartford for an exhibit at the state fair, they cheerfully passed out pamphlets and answered questions. Then they and their nurse trudged through ice and snow back to the fair.

The startled lawmakers couldn't guess that these cherubic visitors heralded a bruising fight over Seaside that would play out for the rest of the decade. It would ensnare all three branches of state government and ultimately create a statewide emergency that would take years to resolve.

Three years after it opened, Seaside was thriving as the nation's first institution for children with bone and glandular tuberculosis. Its 60 beds were full, and it burnished Connecticut's growing reputation as a leader in the fight against the disease.

But Seaside had quickly become a victim of its own success. A survey estimated 4,500 bone and glandular cases in Connecticut. Only a tiny fraction could be accommodated in the old beachfront hotel that housed the institution. A waiting list grew, as did complaints about the delay.

Already, it was time for Seaside to expand.

* * *

Whoever broke into the summer home of the McCook family in Niantic was thorough. They opened every closet and drawer, ate all the food and left the kitchen a mess of broken glass. A caretaker said it looked like "boys work of pillaging."

In Hartford, the Rev. Dr. John J. McCook read the caretaker's letter and called those responsible "marauders." The burglary was an ugly violation of his property, but at that moment McCook was learning his second home faced a much bigger threat.

A bill had just been introduced in the state legislature to take the entire property by eminent domain.

The previous year, the State Tuberculosis Commission had approached the McCooks, who lived next to Seaside, about selling their land so a bigger hospital could be built along a wider beach. They said no and thought that ended the matter.

When McCook bought the bluff overlooking Niantic Bay around 1870, he planted trees that had since grown tall. He built a homestead where his family spent happy summers. They had come because one of the children was ill, and a doctor had recommended "shore breezes."

McCook was the last of the "Fighting McCooks," so named for their Civil War exploits. But for this fight he turned to a younger soldier, his son Capt. Anson T. McCook, a Harvard-trained lawyer and World War I veteran.

When he learned of the state's intentions, the younger McCook, 42, went to the tuberculosis commission in tears and vowed to take his case straight to Gov. Charles A. Templeton. In no time, the governor, who had initially supported the expansion, was whistling a different tune. He ordered the commission to drop all efforts to acquire the McCook property.

McCook had recently gotten a new job. He had been named the governor's executive secretary.

* * *

Dr. Stephen J. Maher, chairman of the tuberculosis commission, only wanted more children to get the treatment they needed. A waiting list, he wrote, "is a very serious problem for a state institution that offers to the public relief from pain and hope of cure, not available elsewhere."

His compassion did not extend to the McCooks, who spent most of the time away from the shore. Their beach was far larger than the tiny slice of waterfront where Seaside's children absorbed the sun's healing rays. To Maher, a beach could not be private property, enjoyed by the affluent for a few weeks a year. Instead it was "part of the precious patrimony of every child of Connecticut."

Under duress, the commission requested withdrawal of the eminent domain bill. But the legislature had taken an interest in the matter and refused. In response, according to Maher, the governor ordered him to propose that the commission would agree to no further efforts at condemnation in exchange for a strip of land 50 feet wide — far less than it needed.

Legislators, however, felt terms were being dictated to them and moved the eminent domain bill nearer to passage. Negotiations continued for months, with a desperate McCook offering more and more land, to no avail. He didn't understand why Seaside could not expand elsewhere.

"There is no magic in the sand, sun or water of Niantic Bay," he told lawmakers.

For Maher, the magic was that the institution had managed to open there at all. Indignant that Connecticut possessed a hundred miles of shoreline and had relinquished a sliver for its sick children only after years of resistance, he didn't see anywhere else to go.

Finally, a scaled-back bill was passed directing the commission to condemn a portion of the McCook property if no agreement could be reached.

By then the acrimony between Maher and Templeton had spurred rumors that the governor would not reappoint him. When the news hit the papers, glowing letters were written in praise of the doctor's good works.

But Templeton also heard from Austin I. Bush, the East Lyme probate judge who had led the effort to keep Seaside out of Crescent Beach four years earlier.  Bush recounted what he felt was Maher's duplicity in acquiring the hotel against the town's wishes.

"Events of that day subsequently indicate an intention to sequestrate the McCook property, which, in plain parlance, is a damned outrage," Bush wrote. "... I hope you will not reappoint him."

Maher managed to keep his job.

* * *

After delays and a further act from the legislature specifying the taking of 382 feet of the McCooks' beach, condemnation proceedings were held in 1926. The battle lines seemed to be drawn over the state's right to take what it needed, but the case went in a different direction.

The McCooks argued that the law authorizing the condemnation was invalid because the new governor, John H. Trumbull, had signed it 19 days after the legislature adjourned. The state constitution allowed him only three. The trial judge upheld the condemnation, noting that governors had been late signing bills for years.

Three years later the McCooks appealed to the state Supreme Court, which agreed with their argument unanimously. The decision was a stirring victory for the McCooks and a devastating setback for Seaside.

But it was much more than that. At a stroke, the status of 1,500 laws that had also been signed late, some as far back as the 1880s, was thrown into question. Connecticut found itself in a constitutional crisis.

The laws covered everything from aviation regulations to payments from the state treasury to jury provisions under which a well-known criminal had been tried for murder and hanged.

The legislature immediately held a special session and validated all of the laws. But the next year the state Supreme Court reaffirmed the McCook decision and declared the acts of the special session an unconstitutional attempt to usurp judicial authority.

It took an amendment to the state constitution, passed in 1934, to untangle the crisis. The provision gave governors more time to sign bills into law.

If the Seaside-McCook fight were fiction, the story would end there. But the tuberculosis commission, undaunted, pursued a different legal path to eminent domain for another two years. This resulted in a bill that gave Seaside 140 feet of the McCooks' beach, only half of what it needed.

With no cards left to play, the commission acknowledged the inevitable: Seaside would have to move.

Editor's note: This story is drawn from the reports of the State Tuberculosis Commission, the writings of Dr. Stephen J. Maher, the McCook family papers at Connecticut Landmarks, information from East Lyme Town Historian Elizabeth Kuchta and Crescent Beach historian Jan Pierson, the archives of The Day and the Connecticut State Library, and several online sources. Second of three parts.

j.ruddy@theday.com

Twitter: @jruddy64

State agencies still working on a master plan for Seaside

State agencies are planning a new state park at the site of the former Seaside Regional Center but have yet to present a master plan.

The most expensive option called for complete restoration of all buildings on site if possible, and conversion of a building into a lodge. Another option included the possibility of demolishing all buildings.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesman Dennis Schain has said that if any level of use is ultimately planned for any of the structures, the planning team will order more detailed structural analyses.