Robert Tyng Bushnell was the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1941 until 1945, and he also enjoyed raising chickens. He first learned of the Four Mile Point section of southern Walton County in a land sale advertisement in a poultry magazine. He soon visited the area and fell in love with its beauty. In 1944, he purchased 2,000 acres in the name of his mother, Mary Tyng Bushnell, with the intention of developing the land.
Robert Bushnell had a reputation as a tough prosecutor. One of his biggest cases was the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston that killed 492 people. He also had a reputation for going after organized crime personalities and unethical police officials. At the time of his death, he was the defense attorney for Air Force Major General Bennett Meyer who was accused of persuading an associate to lie to a Senate committee. One night, after returning from a hearing in the Meyer case, Bushnell died of a heart attack in his residential suite at the Hotel Royalton in New York City. He was only 54 years old.
Robert Bushnell never lived in Walton County but, as you’ll read in the weeks to come, his land purchase had a positive effect on the area that endures to this day.
Burial: Cypress Cemetery, Old Saybrook, Connecticut