Waiting for the hands to reach 10 o’clock on those crisp Thanksgiving mornings was a thrilling experience for members of the Fairfield County Hounds. They would gather on the Green across from the Congregational Church on Greenfield Hill in preparation for a day of fox hunting. Crowds arrived from all over the area to watch the start of the Hunt.

The Annual Thanksgiving Hunt began in 1924 by the Fairfield County Hounds, a name they still use today. They would release a live fox and at the sound of the Huntsman’s horn the hounds would take off. Gigi Haber, a former Master, said it is the hounds who hunt and track the fox. They are trained to pick up a scent and then “give tongue.” A hound never barks, he “opens,” “gives tongue,” or “speaks.” The particular yelp also tells the quality of the scent. The Huntsman then blows his horn to alert the other hounds and the riders.

Once the rest of hounds have arrived and picked up the scent, the chase is underway. It is then the hounds are excited, at their best and in full cry which is called “music.” They weave in and out of thickets, over meadows, cutting back, and sometimes losing the scent completely. When the scent is picked up anew the hounds are off until the fox “goes to ground,” meaning he has reached his hole or scurried up a tree.

The Masters of Foxhounds Association of America compares it to a “theatrical production with mother nature the conductor and the hounds in full cry, accompanied by the hunting horn, the orchestra. Man is the audience privileged to watch, as hounds and fox or coyote, the actors, unveil the plot with never ever the same act repeated twice.”

By the mid 1930’s the Merritt Parkway was built, ending live fox hunting in Fairfield. The parkway had divided Greenfield Hill in half making it impossible for hounds or riders to have a large enough unpopulated area for a good chase. From then on the Thanksgiving Day Hunt was a “drag hunt,” with a scent laid by a person over a pre-determined route. Finally, toward the end of the 1970’s, the Fairfield County Hounds decided to discontinue the tradition due to the possibility of an accident, particularly to a child by a horse or one of the hounds. So ended the Annual Thanksgiving Day Hunt in Fairfield.

The Hunt moved to Newtown, and has moved northward into less built up areas and to places where landowners allow it to cross their large parcels. Today, the Fairfield County Hounds is in Bridgewater. The fox is only chased until he goes to ground. The fox is never killed. And the fox sometimes outfoxes the hounds. About a year after the formation of the Fairfield County Hounds, the Fairfield Country Hunt Club was founded as a separate organization by those who hunted.