3 men inducted into Derby Hall of Fame

DERBY - The city’s Greenway Committee has selected three new members for the Derby Hall of Fame, Mayor Anthony Staffieri announced today.

This year’s inductees are Edward J. Cotter Jr., Patrick Brett O’Sullivan and William Burr Wooster.

“We are proud of their legacy and wish to honor their lives and their dedication to public service by inducting them into Derby’s Hall of Fame,” Staffieri said. “Each one in their own inimitable way has shaped the course of our history.”

The Derby Hall of Fame is located on the Hall of Fame Plaza at the Division Street entrance to the Derby Greenway. Each of the inductees will have a special Hall of Fame brick placed on the Plaza surrounding the National Humane Alliance Fountain prior to Derby Day.

Edward J. Cotter Jr. just may be the ultimate firefighter and photojournalist in Derby history. He worked as a photographer for The Evening Sentinel, the Connecticut Post and the New Haven Register and covered virtually every newsworthy event that happened in the lower Naugatuck Valley over his 50 year career.

Cotter was the police photographer for the Derby Police Department, founding father of the Storm Engine Company Ambulance and Rescue Corps, Valley Emergency Medical Services, Valley Fire Chief’s Training School and a longtime volunteer firefighter, fire chief and fire commissioner. He is a member of the Connecticut Firefighters’ Association Hall of Fame and the Connecticut Journalism Hall of Fame.

Patrick Brett O’Sullivan was the son of Derby’s first mayor, who went on to distinguish himself as a lawyer, corporation counsel, naval veteran, state senator, U.S. Representative, professor, judge, and ultimately the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

William Burr Wooster was a direct descendant of Derby’s first permanent settler of European descent and is best remembered as Colonel of the 29th Regiment, C.V., Colored which distinguished itself in service during the Civil War. In his role as a leading citizen of Derby, he had a successful law practice, served in both the state House of Representatives and Senate and served on the boards of several of the leading businesses in the city. At the time of his death in 1900, the Hartford Courant called him “Derby’s First Citizen.”


The above is a press release from Staffieri’s office.